The Week that Was - November 1969
The big news in the Post this week was a rumbling national pay dispute – which later developed into a walk out – by the workers at Portishead power station.
But so far, said the Post, there had been no domestic power “black outs.”
Two other front pages involved dramatic rescues; one of cavers from Swildon’s Hole, a deep Mendip cavern near Priddy, and the other of a duck shooter stuck in tidal mud at Portbury.
But most Bristolians were probably more interested in plans to develop the 840 acre Ashton Court estate as a city wide sports centre.
Various sports organisations were keen on the idea but the Corporation less so.
They wanted, the Post said, to keep the estate in as natural state as possible for the benefit of the public as a whole.
But a sports stadium at Netham, they added, was still very much on the cards, as was a small, indoor multi sports centre at Kingsdown.
The Corporation, however, were more than happy to spend over £8,000 on improvements – redecoration, new furnishings and the like – at the Mansion House, then the Lord Mayor’s official home.
Bristol Polytechnic, now the University of the West of England, received its official scroll in 1969, presented by no less a VIP than Gerald Fowler, the Education Minister.
“There has been an explosive growth in education and particularly further education” said the Minister.
“The education of our future work force, and future citizens, has been accorded the highest national priority.
Bristol Polytechnic, he said “would be a showpiece of the South West.”
But the fledgling Poly – it didn’t gained university status until 1992 – was still very short of funds and students from Bower Ashton art college called for a boycott of the ceremony.
“We have not got enough money to allocate to the library – let alone give sherry to ministers” said a 20 year old student governor.
The 1960s encapsulated a brave new world (until the money ran out) and this included motorways and skyscrapers.
The Post learned that a £10 million contract with John Laing Construction had been agreed for nine miles of the planned M5 between Portishead and Weston-super-Mare.
This massive project included breaching the wooded Failand hillside fronting the beautiful Gordano valley.
In the Clevedon area 100 foot deep excavations would mean the removal of two million cubic yards of rock.
Transport minister Fred Mulley said that 112 miles of the M5 – from Birmingham to Brent Knoll - would be finished by 1972.
In Bristol approval was given for three linked concrete skyscrapers in the Rupert Street/Lewin’s Mead junction.
In the plan pedestrians and vehicles were to be segregated by high level walkways.
The walkways might have been abandoned but the concrete eyesores are, unfortunately, still with us today.
In other news Bristol University had somehow managed to get some moon dust from the recent historic landing and 13,000 people queued to see it.
And Madeline Stevens, a 22 year old Fishponds girl, got her face on the front page after winning the Miss Western Daily Press competition at a Teenage Ball at the New Bristol Centre on Frogmore Street.
In Weston 500 people asked for their money back after John Sebastian’s band the Lovin’ Spoonful failed to turn up for a gig at the Glengarry night club.
Manager Alan Wells told the Post that he had not been informed that the band had flown home to the States after a road accident.
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