This is Clevedon Pier, because I took a picture of it and I have never knowingly taken a picture of Weston Super Mare's pier.The pier at Weston Super Mare went up in flames this morning, and there is much agog-ness in the West Country's media. So, goading myself into a frenzy of inconsequence, I wrote a poem for the occasion. No, please, it was the least I could do.
Though my trips have been quite rare
To Weston Super Mare
Because I think it's drear,
I wouldn't diss a pier.
Oh dear, poor pier.
ReplyDeleteWe used to go to Weston on Sunday school outings. The pier had lots of really old clockwork fortune tellers and things - I wonder if they were still there?
My step-granny always took my grandad on holiday there because they had excellent facilities for wheelchairs etc., even in the late 70s.
This bit made me smile: "The novelist Lord Archer, who once worked as a cleaner on the pier when he was growing up in the town..."
Very witty, Dru!
ReplyDeleteAnji, don't forget that other famous son of Weston-Super-Mare: John Cleese.
Bill Bryson wrote about a somewhat unhappy visit to Weston in "Notes from a Small Island", and recalled a story about these two celebrities meeting as boys, applying typical Bryson humour.
Well we all have our memories of Weston Super Mud...but (sigh) a pier is a pier. An odd thing really, this half bridge sticking out into the sea, weirdly exciting to walk along - you can't help looking down going "Wooo, I'm above the sea!!" Which for some reason has to comprise of scruffy dodgems rides, endless fruit machines, and shacks with peeling paint selling unbelievably greasy food. And all staffed by scary, stocky, unshaven folk with bad teeth, tattoos and a string of minor offences (and that's just the women!).
ReplyDeleteAnd yet I spent many happy hours on many a pier in my youth, wasting my dad's money on machines where you could never quite pick up the furry pink rabbit with that grabber thing, or no matter how many coins you poured into the shove ha'penny machine...the money would just never quite cascade out (impossibly...did they glue the damned coins down?!)
RIP Weston Pier.
Fantastic photo, Dru!
ReplyDeleteBeing that I read your poetic lines first thing in the morning (the coffee not yet kicking in) I have to admit to some Eye-Trickery, and misreading the last line.
Through the haze of the morning, the letters 'd' and 'p' had switched places on me - leaving me to wonder what a deer had to do with Weston-Super-Mare!
That's a gorgeous photo!
ReplyDeleteI went to college in Weston, so I hung out and spent some of my misspent youth on that pier. I was very sad..