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.
So I took to travelling at an early age. Exploring Bridgwater on foot or on bike. My favourite time was when I wandered down what we Leeds people called a ”Ginnel’. A little lane connecting 2 roads. This one opened up on the Newtown estate.This wonderland of brick and ginnels was a timewarp for me as it felt like I’d suddenly been transported back to a Northern council estate. Like the ones all my relatives lived on .
But even better one day I stumbled on the docks.
I’d seen docks back in Goole where my grandad in fact had been harbour master. And these were working. Ships used them. People made a living on them. I liked them.
Then I moved away while my dad built power stations in Sizewell, Dungeness and Wylfa. Each of those had coasts, beaches and at one of them you could actually see Pirate Radio station Radio Caroline moored off the coast.
Then they built another power station in Bridgwater so we came back.
I went to see the docks.
Like the town they were in decline.
I remember that ships would come up the Parrett because you could take the 201 to Burnham and look off the Bristol Road and see them looking like they were stuck in the middle of a field.
When I wanted some grim landscape of industrial decline for some publicity pictures for my band we headed for the docks.
When we made a film about a Fascist takeover of Britain and a devastating civil war we shot it in the abandoned brick yards along the river by Castlefields.
Bridgwater was good for desolation in the 80s.
One thing myself and a lot of Bridgwater people want to see is those docks back in action. And the time and opportunity are very close. We have a substantial sum to devote to the docks as a project provided by government money. The ‘town deal” fund. And we have a promise from the County Council that they’ll hand it on to the Town Council to run ‘very soon’.
There’s people out there who’ve been looking after our docks and our canal in this lengthy period of uncertainty. That’s the Inland Waterways Association Volunteers. You’ll see them there in their hi-viz. Soon their efforts , patience and dedication will have paid off and Bridgwater Docks will be back in the hands of the people, fixed up, tidied up, spruced up, and yes, with boats back in them.
And about time too!