Iconic is an over-used word but for older Bristolians, this photo probably is.
It was taken by Barry Feinstein on 11th May 1966, and shows a 25-year-old Bob Dylan at the Old Passage ferry terminal, Aust, following his gig at the Colston Hall the previous evening. He's en route for Cardiff, which just happens to be where we saw him perform some 50 years later.
And this is the same spot, more or less, today. The reason for the falling-into-disuse you can see is (just) visible in the background of both photos - the now old, but then very very new Severn Bridge, which was to open in September 1966.
It's hard to know exactly where the photo was taken. For a start, you aren't supposed to go in (but the fence has been broken down).
Inside it's very overgrown ...
... and the wooden buildings you can see in the photo of Dylan have almost completely rotted away.
The concrete toilet block is still standing.
... and did Bob Himself pass through this turnstile on his way to the Gents?
In the older photo, you can see a couple of mooring pins behind Bob, and there's one still visible here now ...
... but it's in the wrong place for it to be THE pin, just behind His Greatness. A photo taken here would show the toilet block.
So it must have been taken further down, but it's hard to tell where exactly because of all the foliage.
We decided to walk out as far as we could to the end of the necessarily very long jetty.
It was icy and muddy and four years plus one day since I fell and broke my leg, so I was taking it steady.
This far out you can appreciate the aquatic nature of the warth, which is covered twice a day by the third fastest- and highest-rising tide in the world.
We squelched our way back up to the causeway under the cliff ...
... then wandered down towards the landmark stripy section*, which was looking beautiful in January sunlight.
*technical term
The rocks tell us that all this area was once desert but then became sea 210 million years ago. They're backed up by an information board claiming the same.
There are fossils in the upper levels that drop down onto the beach from time to time. As a result, fossils hunters proliferate here. We found an abandoned hammer. (No traces of blood.)
It was the old bridge that was attracting most of my attention, though.
It's like Concorde to the newer bridge's Airbus.
Talking of which, looking south in its direction, we could see it was time to leave.
What's more, the back of the ferry buildings were starting to look like they might be haunted by something more sinister than a young singer-songwriter from Duluth, Minnesota.
Spoils
The most diverting gifts aren't always presented in wrapping paper. I arrived in work on the first Monday after the holiday to find an old cigarette tin on my desk ...
... and the instruction that the contents could be kept if of interest, or given to anyone else who wants them, or otherwise taken to a charity shop.
My colleague knows me well. The contents are very interesting indeed.
At home I dug out my magnifying glass and spent the evening squinting and googling. It was a couple of days before I had the chance to examine them in daylight.
There were a handful of coins that are still in circulation - US nickels, dimes and quarters and some Scandinavian coins - but most are now fairly low grade collector's items or interesting bits of history.
Or just beautiful things to behold, like these coins from Eire ...
... and Greece.
Oh, and this lovely 5 centimes piece from 1916.
I think this is a French coin too, but it's way too worn - and I am way too ignorant - to be certain.
I remember Schillinge from when my cousins went on holiday to Austria in 1970. How much more appealing these later coins are than their 1940s counterparts.
Likewise these Belgian coins.
This subcollection takes us on a journey through 19th and 20th century German history, from pre-unification to the similarly cheap and ugly coinage of Third Reich.
The swastikas made me shiver a bit.
There are some older, more interesting American coins also. Flying Eagle pennies and a worn silver three cent piece from 1852.
As for our own coins, I was nine on 15th February 1971, aka Decimal Day, and can't feel that nostalgic about obsolete decimal halfpennies and five pence pieces.
But show me some £sd and I'm right back there.
The older the better.
Though not this far back ... look, a Charles II halfpenny from (I think) 1675.
In this year construction commenced on both the current St Paul's Cathedral and the Royal Observatory. John Ogilby published his Britannia Atlas. Four
ships left Bristol to trade in slaves.
And then what? Where has it been for the last 344 years, to end up in an old Wills cigarette tin on a desk in a school in Bristol?
Border collies are intelligent dogs. Ted's area of special interest is the English Civil Wars, so as we were once more in the Stapleton area of Bristol, we decided to put the Brexit omnishambles behind us and visit nearby Wickham Court, which has a connection with Old Ironsides himself, Oliver Cromwell.
Walking down Wickham Glen is like entering into Narnia, which, at the start of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, was enduring its own civil war.
Ted has a lamentable lack of respect for literature.
We crossed Wickham Bridge again ...
... but this time climbed the lane that led away from the river and behind the allotments.
It felt dark today, like the light had gone out.
Wickham Court is not the ancestral home of Heydon and Boleyn families since the 15th century, and definitely wasn't the backdrop to King Henry VIII's courtship of the enchanting Anne Boleyn, oh no; that's another Wickham Court in Kent.
This Wickham Court is reputedly where Oliver Cromwell held a council of war with General Sir Thomas Fairfax in 1645, on the eve of the 11th September attack on Bristol, which resulted in weeks of fighting, hundreds of dead and the end of one of the longest sieges of the Civil Wars.
The house itself does a nice line in curly-handled window catches.
Hang on, I thought Cromwell cancelled Christmas?
(Or was that Alan Rickman?)
We climbed onto the hill behind the Court. On the skyline, the Church of the Holy Trinity ...
... and, higher and farther away, the mast on Purdown.
As we descended to the river through the woods, my thoughts returned to another civil war, and the country being driven off a cliff by the Tories.
The lack of certainty is unsettling. It felt like even the trees were watching and waiting.
Poets might not like have their photos taken but they are quite good at communing (in an earnest sort of way). Here's (some of the) members of the Friday morning poetry group last Friday at the Folk House.
Much more suited to camera-shy poets was Saturday night's do at the Greenbank in Easton: a celebration of the achievements of Poetry Can and the Northerner who most recently ran it.
As you can see, it was quite dark. Yes, the poets breathe, that's better.
So I'll only post a couple of photos.
The centrepiece of the evening was this beautiful book of poems, photos and reminiscences by poets who had benefited from Poetry Can poetry surgeries and the Northerner's insights into their work.
Or who'd been put in touch with community groups who needed poets for projects through Poetry Can.
Or who'd come to or read at the festivals, or participated in slams.
Not forgetting the poetry groups and workshops.
It was a beautiful evening, full of generosity, with this wonderful souvenir/archive included.
My cousin asked me the other day what the collective noun for a group of poets is. I wasn't entirely sure, but now I rather think it must be 'a kindness'.
