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Birmingham on Sea

"Pier Square" reading from the top down? But why? ......

Hello there, Lloyd, do you think there may be some connection with the demise of the most famous maritime radio station in the world at Portishead? The original station was on Portishead Down, just 11 miles away. The more recent station closed in April 2000 but was certainly the world’s best-known long range maritime radio communications centre and the lampposts could have been designed in recognition of its service between 1928 and the year 2000. I imagine that, at first, Morse code was still very much in use simply because it carries so much further that a voice connection.
Just a hypothesis …… but I can’t think of anything else.
Stay well,
David
 

Lloyd, I think this may hold the explanation to this mystery:

“Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of wireless telegraphy, successfully transmitted radio signals across the Bristol Channel in the spring of 1897, from Penarth (near Cardiff) to Brean Down (just south west of Weston, on the other side of the River Axe).”

“Wireless telegraphy rapidly came to mean Morse code transmitted with Hertzian waves (electromagnetic waves) …… ”


With thanks to Wikipedia.
David
 
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Sorry guys, I should have added an up-date I found out the reason was as David suggests, Marconi's experiments, but how they expect more that 1% of the population to read Morse or even be bothered to look it up beats me.


Colin
 
Thanks for posting the pictures Dave M, (I vaguely )remember the lifeboat going down that ramp.
We went to the end of Brean Down (in our more mobile days.) There were some disused military buildings, what a view!!
rosie.
 
Two pics from the 16th Jan
 

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HI
Not quite Weston but a bit further down the road at Burnham On SEA. The old 9 legged lighthouse built in 1832 and still working.
KEN8857105774_44a9b21f40_c.jpg
 
I remember that from my childhood holidays (late 1940s), and watching men fishing for tench and perch in a pool on a caravan site near there. Happy days.

Maurice
 
A long time ago now, Ken, and after 60 years I doubt if I would recognise it if someone took me there. I know that we went on the train from Snow Hill I believe and changed at Highbridge, but from there it is a dim memory. In those days we always stayed in caravans - generally somewhere close to a sandy beach like Burnham or Prestatyn. Nowadays I can't stand sandy beaches and avoid them like the plague! However, I have two teenage grandchildren coming over here in the school holidays, so I'd better get used to it!

Maurice
 
Hi Sue,

Well it should be an interesting experience, though it does get into the 40Cs in July & August and we much prefer to go up in the mountains where it is much cooler and we don't have to contend with the tourists and difficulty in parking! We'll see how they get on and it they don't suffer from travel sickness we'll head for the much quieter beaches on the south coast

Maurice
 
My Grandfather retired down to Brean and ran a caravan site called the Mendip View, more or less opposite Pontin's. This was in the 50's and early 60's. Does anyone have any memories (or photos) of the site at that time?
 
Rushburn,

This could well be the one that I stayed at though it was just a caravan site to me and I'm sure that Pontins wasn't even built in the late 1940s. As I say, I can only remember that it had a smallish fishing pool with tench and perch.

Maurice
 
Hello Maurice,
Probably not. Mendip View didn't have a fishing pool. It was too small for that. Although the site was long and went up to the dunes, it was only about 100 feet wide.
Patrick
 
Well this was a pool, certainly not a lake and probably at most was 10 yards across. Thanks anyway Patrick.

Maurice
 
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