Weston-Super-Mare

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The British seaside is a national institution: home of fish and chips, & buckets and spades & Amusement arcades.

On a hot summer day we went to the seaside with Ian and his sister Emma.

The town's name is thought to derive from a mixture of Saxon and Latin words. Weston probably started out as 'west tun', meaning 'the west settlement'. The words 'super' and 'mare' come from the Latin for 'on the sea'.

Ian is a great story teller and so full of information which he delivered brilliantly as we walked along the causeway, the promenade and then onto the Grand Pier.

The pier was rebuilt in 2010 following a fire, which could have been more disastrous had it not been for an employee’s quick thinking to remove gas cylinders from a restaurant.

“Oh we do like to be beside the seaside”

The long stretch of beach was busy with people enjoying the lovely sunshine on a Sunday afternoon. With overseas travelling restrictions still not fully eased due to the pandemic many British people are having staycations this year, which can only mean a boost for the British seaside economy especially like today when the sun is shining.

https://www.heygo.com/ian

Weston-super-Mare may be best known as holiday resort but it has also been home to a number of famous people and here are just a few of them. It is also the town where the bouncing bomb, used in the Dambusters raids, was developed and it has been the venue for some landmark historical events.

John Cleese Born 1939

It’s perhaps befitting that Mr Fawlty Towers himself should have grown up in a town with so many guest houses and bed and breakfast establishments! Basil Fawlty, as John is perhaps most affectionately known, was born in Weston and grew up there.

In an interview, published in Somerset Life, he once said: “I owe much to the fact that I was born in a seaside town where entertainment is so important. The pier, the crazy golf, the donkeys and all the great attractions are not just for the visitors. Us locals have loved them too. “You never forget your roots and I have never forgotten Weston-super-Mare. I have joked about it a few times but it was never meant. I have great affection for the place.” However, he might have been named Cheese instead of Cleese. His father Reg was born Reginald Cheese but changed his name to Cleese upon joining the army in 1915.

Roald Dahl 1916 -1990

There must be something in the water at St Peter’s School in Weston-super-Mare because both children’s author Roald Dahl and actor John Cleese both attended it, although with a few years in between.

Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence 1867 -1954

Emmeline was one of the key players in the women’s suffragette movement and was sent to prison several times for her beliefs. She was first arrested and jailed for trying to make a speech in the lobby of the House of Commons. But she stuck to her beliefs and helped transform the Women’s Social and Political Union. She set up weekly meetings and provided lunches for women who had been released from prison. She also chose the union’s white green and purple colours to symbolise purity, hope and dignity and was a key player in the fight to give women the vote.

Lord Jeffrey Archer Born 1940

The Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare is the official title of the former Conservative MP turned novelist who became a life peer in 1992. However, before he became a best-selling author with books published in around 100 countries, his early jobs included renting out deckchairs on the seafront and selling ice creams on the Grand Pier.

Above taken from https://www.visit-westonsupermare.com/visitor-info/famous-people

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