Havoc of freeze and thaw
THIS January week in 1985 saw a huge operation started to get a snow-blitzed Bristol, and indeed West Country, back on the move.
During the previous week, which had seen temperatures dipping below freezing night after night, many roads had become impassable, with some outlying villages cut off completely.
But now a thaw and heavy rain, with its attendant flooding, was on the way.
In Bristol, a burst pipe caused serious flooding to a block of shops and offices in Park Street, disrupting rush-hour traffic.
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In other news, a shock council report labelled 11,000 Bristol homes as slums.
It also revealed that a quarter of the 157,000 homes in the city were sub-standard and lacking in basic amenities.
The city's housing director, John Tanner, said that government cuts in improvement grants would only make the problem worse.
He said that cuts, which began in 1979, had reduced the city's spending on housing to half of that needed to put the problem right.
Still in Bristol, consultants had been called in by the council to try and determine the best way to preserve the 156-year-old observatory, and its camera obscura, situated on the Downs above the suspension bridge.
The council was racing against time, said the Post, because, with no roof, the walls were in danger of imminent collapse.
The council would also have to decide whether to take action to force the observatory's owner, Peter Michallat, to make good the necessary repairs.
Originally erected as a windmill for grinding corn in 1766, the building was later converted into a snuff mill.
In 1777, when the sails were left turning during a gale, the place caught fire and burnt down.
In 1828, William West, a local artist, decided to rent the mill and create access to the cave beneath.
He also installed telescopes and a camera obscura, which still operates today.
Out in North Somerset, anti-closure campaigners were rejoicing because Ham Green Hospital had been granted a stay of execution.
Southmead District Health Authority, which was responsible for running the 355-bed hospital, had decided to take a look at other possible medical uses for the site.
By the year 1990 it was again threatened with closure and eventually shut in 1992. Houses now cover much of the site.
Finally, yet another scheme, this time from the London-based company which had built the Thames barrier, was submitted to the Department of Energy for a barrage across the River Severn.
Their plan, very similar to many others, was to link Lavernock Point, near Cardiff, with Brean Down by a nine-mile chain of embankments containing 160 turbines and 150 sluices. The barrage, which would take seven years to build, would have the largest locks, and lock gates, in the UK.
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