Suppose they gave a war, and nobody came? Answers on a postcard or at the bottom of this page. It certainly felt today that if anyone wanted a war nobody would bother signing up for it. Not least because everyone was having so much fun singing, dancing, eating, and chatting with people from 1,000s of miles away yet neighbours. Not global neighbours, but local neighbours here in Bridgwater. That’s what Bridgwater Together is all about. It’s a festival of diversity and togetherness where Brits, Czechs, Poles, Indians, Timorese, Portuguese, well, pick a nationality, all turn up and just basically get on with each other.

Continue reading “Bridgwater Togetherness”

They call them Blue Remembered Hills. Those halcyon days of childhood and the memories you remember …whether they actually happened or not. I moved to Bridgwater twice. First in the early 60s and then in the 70s. In fact each time they built a power station.  When youre adopted you spend a lot of time trying to find yourself. I found myself one day. In a thicket of trees up by Grange Drive on the co-op estate with a Kellogs Variety Pack. But once I’d finished that i went home. No-one had noticed I was missing. They didn’t in them days. Continue reading “Who Let the Docks Out!?”

Sometimes so much happens to you in the space of a few days that you wake up and think ‘hang about that didn’t actually happen’….or did it. Last week started with a budget that said ‘we’re not going back to austerity’ and ended up with laser shows in the docks and fireworks and dancing in the High street that showed it had caught the mood of the people. We don’t care, we’re having a party. I was sat in King Square reading my copy of the Bridgwater Mercury thinking ‘hmm only 4 pictures of Ashley Fox in it this week, he’s slacking’, when I looked up and a slow moving throng of purple faced aliens drifted across the far side of the square. I went back to my paper ‘Cow falls in ditch’ ah, the big news stories! Then thought a bit, looked up again..nothing..they’d gone. Like that scene in Shaun of the Dead when there’s a hint of ‘something funny’ going on.

Continue reading “Everyone’s a Winner”

I’m not one for conspiracy theories. So when a few years back the County Tories made the case for a new ‘unitary’ authority saying it would be more cost effective, more efficient and, well, better for us, then it happened, and then the Tories lost control and then the Lib Dems took control, and the county became less cost effective, less efficient and basically one large car boot sale of everything we held dear, I’m not saying the Tories planned that….

Continue reading “The Unitary Experiment- Not really working out is it….”

It didn’t occur to me that a giant balloon that looked like the moon would be taken to heart and soon become part of the Bridgwater Community. Ha, Lunacy!

But it did.

Luke Jerram devised a giant inflatable moon. Exact and precise. And he got Camerons balloons (who he lived next door to) to make it for him. Then he put it in Bridgwater docks. And people loved it. In fact, 7,000 people turned up on the Thursday night alone to see its nightglow and attached markets.

What it shows to me is that Bridgwater is far from the cultural wilderness of legend and  in fact appreciates stuff.

Continue reading “The Balloon’s a Moon”