Child mannequin found on train with can of cider

BBC News wins our Headline of the Day award with the tale from the West Somerset Railway.

The judges have declined to sign petitions calling for the banning of cider and trains.

The Somerset & Dorset Railway branch to Burnham-on-Sea

The YouTube blurb for this video says:

The Friendly Line to Burnham was one of a series of delightful programmes in 1980 under the general title of The Seaside Trains. The Somerset & Dorset Burnham branch, which was a casualty of Beeching, typifies many such lines throughout the country. Today, part of the old trackbed across the Somerset Levels is a cycleway and footpath, whilst other sections have more or less vanished from the map completely. 

A feature of this little line was the number of level crossings, some 14 in total, some of which were manned by (chiefly lady) crossing keepers living in an adjacent little properties, some so far out on a limb that they were dependant on the railway to bring in their water supplies.

The branch ran from Highbridge to Burnham-on-Sea. It was closed to regular passenger services, long before the Beeching Report, on 28 October 1951. Excursion traffic continued until 1962 and the goods depot remained open until 1963.

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Richard Reich argues that employers will not share the gains from AI unless they are made to: "If the five-day workweek with five days of pay shrinks to four days with four days of pay, and then to three, and to two, and perhaps one, AI will supplant most people’s work and drive down our take-home pay. We may see a dazzling array of products and services spawned by AI, but few of us will be able to buy them."

"In opposing these children’s homes, neighbours resort to language about children in care that they would not use for other groups of people, such as same-sex couples or people who are not white. Children in care are trouble makers, they complain; they bring down house prices, they are not from our community, they make too much noise." Martin Borrow asks why proposals to open new homes, which often for only two or three children, are met with such hostility.

"This part of south-west England, much of which is currently under water, used to be known as the 'land of the summer people'. Historically, frequent flooding was the main reason for purely seasonal occupation in this area bordered by the Bristol Channel and the Mendip, Quantock and Blackdown Hills." Jess Neumann sets out the threat that climate change poses to Somerset.

Lottie Wood explores gender fluidity, rural landscapes and the Women’s Land Army, introducing us to E.M. Barraud's memoir Set My Hand Upon the Plough.

"It is deeply troubling that the drive of Brontë’s Isabella, a survivor of domestic abuse, has been reread to dramatically absolve her abuser. The girl sobbing behind me as the credits rolled attests to the success of this exoneration. Really, she should be crying over the scripting of violent abuse as consensual play." Anna Drury is concerned by Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights.

Richard Elliott celebrates a new box set that brings together live and studio recordings of the Scottish folk singer, guitarist and songwriter Dick Gaughan.

An Observer podcast series on The Real Salt Path

If you were hooked by Chloe Hadjimatheou's reporting of the questionable veracity of The Salt Path, you may be interested to know that the Observer has now produced a series of podcasts telling the story of this exposé, The Walkers: The real Salt Path.

I walked The Salt Path myself – we called it the South Coastal Path in those days – from Minehead to Weymouth, over four summer holidays, in the Eighties and Nineties. 

Don't tell Jennie, but I left out the stretch through Torbay (my guidebook said it was allowed) because it was so built up.

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"At present the Tories are making the same mistakes as their continental cousins – aping the rhetoric and policies of the further right upstart party that is destroying them from the flank. As long as this happens the Blue Wall of small towns and rural hinterland across the South beyond London will disappear altogether with large swathes of the country turning into a Lib Dem/Reform battle (council by election results show this is already happening)." Matthew Pennell asks if centre-right parties are finished across Europe.

AI chatbots are gossiping about us behind our backs. Ashley Fike summarises a paper by the philosophers Joel Krueger and Lucy Osler.

Fiona Sturges says podcasts are being ruined by their rush to video: "Much of the drive behind video content comes from its potential as a marketing tool for the show. Footage can easily be clipped up and shared on social media to help drive audience engagement and, where possible, generate news lines."

Tom Yarrow has been studying heritage railway volunteers to learn about male friendship: "Rather than dismiss their approach as 'repression', I argue in a forthcoming paper that we need to appreciate how people can develop intimate and caring relationships, without naming emotions."

"With a preference for pastel pink powdered wigs and lavender floral suits, Mozart is depicted as a punk rocker before there was punk rock, which worked in the film’s favor in 1984 as a reflection of ‘80s fashion and still works today." Michelle Swope welcomes the appearance of a restored version of Amadeus.

Sam Dalling offers an appreciation of Somerset County Cricket Club's Rew brothers: "There is a danger of getting too hyped up, of heaping too much pressure on young shoulders, but the sense is that both can cope. There is a humility to the pair and an apparent ability to block it all out. They still live at home with their parents and are just enjoying life with their mates."

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"The Cabinet Office, Lord Gove and Ciga Healthcare were approached for comment but did not respond by time of publication." Byline Times has news of another alleged scandal in government procurement during the Covid pandemic.

Max Sullivan on his experiences of introducing on-street bicycle hangars in the London Borough of Westminster: "Make decisions on merit. Objections that don't have merit can be listened to, but not indulged, if you want to move faster. Officers need to have the confidence in the need for the scheme (lack of space to park a bike is a major barrier to cycling) to give their politicians good advice. Politicians must be prepared to respectfully disagree with their residents, to deliver for their other residents. Who are many in number, waiting for somewhere safe to keep a bike."

"A spooky convergence is happening in media. Everything that is not already television is turning into television." Derek Thompson explains his theory.

James Coverley draws an important lesson from the death of the Roman Emperor Domitian: "Caesar, of course, was betrayed by someone close to him. Mussolini ended up hanging from a streetlamp. You can only bully people into liking you for so long until someone, one day, realises that you’re the problem and that your grip on power is, actually, paper-thin and depends on the illusion of fear."

Koraljka Suton takes us deep into David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001): "Some of these narrative threads appear superfluous at first glance because we seemingly never get back to them. Others take us down rabbit holes that leave us feeling dazed, confused and disoriented. But all of them have their rightful place in Lynch’s surrealist picture that stubbornly defies genre categorization."

"A few clubs have boreholes, able to provide clean water on their wickets which then filters back into the aquifer in a virtuous circle. This was interesting and unexpected, revealing how certain clubs can benefit from their local geology, whereas others rely on ageing infrastructure and water companies." Dan Looney recently walked the Kennet & Avon Canal from Reading to Bath, then onwards via the River Avon to Bristol, visiting 11 cricket grounds along the way to see how they are adapting to climate change.

The West of England has a Lib Dem deputy mayor

Kevin Guy, the Liberal Democrat leader of Bath and North East Somerset Council, will serve as deputy mayor of the West of England for the next year.

The appointment was made by the Labour mayor Helen Godwin, who was elected last week. The West of England is the vainglorious name for the area covered by three local authorities - Bristol, South Gloucestershire, and Bath and North East Somerset - and the deputy mayor post will rotate between their leaders.

Helen Goodwin told Somerset Live:

"I meant what I said during the election campaign. To get the best for all of us in the West Country, politicians must put politics to one side. That’s how we’ll lay the Bristol to Portishead Line, build new affordable homes, and help create the jobs of the future."

I'm surprised and pleased to see a Labour politician with such a sensible attitude. One reason I distrust the idea of elected mayors, particularly for counties rather than cities, is its Blairite enthusiasm for "someone who will knock people's heads together and get things done".

To me, the best traditions of local government are collegiate and are about reconciling different interests rather than macho management.

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"Years of historic underinvestment in favour of profit has run the business into the ground. It now finds itself on the brink of collapse despite a financial lifeline that it ought not to have been awarded, when a court last month allowed the company to take on another three billion pounds of debt." Thames Water is failing, Ofwat is toothless and the public is paying the price, says Luke Taylor.

Tim Bale explores the motives that led David Cameron to call the EU referendum and the subsequent impact Brexit has had on the Conservative Party.

Laura Laker asks why the BBC published 22 negative articles on a 300m bike lane in Somerset.

"Following the Second World War, considering where and how children could play was an intrinsic part of the narrative of rebuilding the country. 'Attitudes towards play fitted within the political and social context at the time,' she writes, 'representing the freedom societies had fought for and optimism for the future'." Julia Thrift reviews All to Play for by Dinah Bornat, which makes the case that child-friendly design creates housing that benefits everyone.

Philippe Auclair on the Premier League's closed circle of promotion and relegation and the illusion of competitiveness - it's in French, but your browser will translate if for you: "Ipswich est toujours assis dans l'antichambre, mais son entrée est imminente. Il suffira pour cela que les Tractor Boys perdent à Newcastle ce weekend, ce qui n'étonnerait pas grand monde, ou que West Ham ramène un point de Brighton."

"In Brazil there is no plot against Sam. On the contrary, he’s a well-connected man from a wealthy family; people in authority go out of their way to help him. The regime ends up targeting him because of a series of completely random mix-ups, starting with a fly getting caught in a typewriter and changing the subject of an arrest warrant from a 'Mr Tuttle' to a 'Mr Buttle'. Buttle gets tortured to death, Sam has to take his widow a check as an apology, at which point he runs into Jill - and things spiral from there." Noah Berlatsky argues that Terry Gilliam was more prescient than George Orwell.

"Naked boys as pit-ponies": Conditions in the Somerset coalfield

Back to the Somerset coalfield and a story that caught my eye in the splendidly populist and scandal-seeking John Bull magazine.

Well, it would. The headline was:

Naked boys as pit-ponies!

Unusually for the British Newspaper Archive, the scan of the story below is difficult to read in places, so let's go over to the House of Commons on 29 June 1926, where Ellen Wilkinson, the Labour MP for Middlesbrough East, has raised the same story:

My purpose in rising, although I realise that there are many on these benches much more qualified than I am to speak about the conditions of the miners' work, is to crave the indulgence of the Chair in order to reply to an attack made by the hon. Member for Frome (Mr. G. Peto) upon an article which I wrote in a Labour paper known as "Lansbury's Labour Weekly." ...

I wrote in that article of men working in Somersetshire mines dragging tubs of coal along narrow roads, which were too narrow for horses or pit ponies to work in, and that these tubs were attached to the men by means of ropes passed round their waists and fastened through their legs by means of a chain which is hitched on to the tub. 

I also wrote that these men were naked. The point I was insisting upon was not the actual nakedness of the men, or otherwise, but the fact that in many cases, I do not say in all, the rope was rubbing the naked flesh of the men. 

Since that article appeared, I have received a very large number of letters, both from men who are working under these conditions and from men who deny that these conditions exist. For the information of the House, I have brought with me one of these ropes. I am sorry to intrude into the polite environs of this House a thing of this kind. [The hon. Member produced a rope with chain and attachment.] 

This is what is worn by the men. This is the rope that goes round the man's waist; this is the chain that passes between his legs, and this is the crook that is hitched on to the tub. This was worn, not 60 years ago, as stated by certain coal-owners, but on 30th April of this year by a miner.

And later she says:

A hundred years ago women were working like that and people said that should not he, and it was prohibited by law. The degradation of the human body is the same whether it is a man or a woman. It appeals to peoples' hearts more if it is a woman than if it is a man, but the mothers who have to wash the bodies of their boys when they come home from the pits are as hot and indignant about it as if it was their daughters. 

When you consider that people are working under these conditions surely, in God's name, seven hours is enough. You are adding on another hour in order that more profits may be made, because it will not mean more wages. We know only too well that whatever the wages are, the rates are cut and cut until the minimum only is paid, and I feel that if these conditions are to go on in the name of profit, at least seven hours is enough.

Ellen Wilkinson's final comment reminds us that the bill she was speaking on aimed to increase the hours miners worked while reducing their pay. The General Strike had been called earlier in the year on just this issue. 

The miners held out until November of 1926, but were eventually forced back to work on these inferior terms by hunger and poverty.

Steam power and an incline in the Somerset coalfield, 1971

At the turn of the 20th century, there were 79 collieries at work in the Somerset Coalfield. The last two closed in 1973, when the nearby Portishead power station was converted from coal to burning oil.

And you do get the impression from this film of one of the two, Kildersdon Colliery near Radstock, that the end is nigh. The technology is Victorian: a steam locomotive and a self-acting incline - the weight of a filled coal wagon descending the incline was used to pull an empty back to the top.

You can read more about the operation of the incline in an article from the Industrial Railway Record.

Conservationists say beaver bombing is the fault of government

Why are there now so many beavers living on rivers across the south of England? Patrick Barkham will tell you:

"Beaver bombing", covertly releasing beavers into the countryside, is increasing in England because successive governments have not fulfilled promises to permit some planned wild releases, conservationists are warning.

Beavers now live freely on river systems across swaths of southern England, and conservationists are calling on Labour to allow official releases of free-living beavers and produce a national strategy to maximise the biodiversity and flood alleviation benefits delivered by the industrious mammals.

Eva Bishop, of the Beaver Trust, said: "Beavers are a native species with lots to offer in terms of landscape resilience, boosting biodiversity and climate change adaptation and mitigation. It would be crazy not to look at wild release as a key tool for the government."

When, a couple of weeks ago, I discovered there are hundreds of beavers living wild on the rivers of Kent, I was astounded. But Patrick Barkham confirms those reports here:

An established population has been living freely and largely unnoticed in lowland Kent for years and now numbers 51 territories – more than 200 animals.

And, he says, beavers have turned up on river systems across Devon and spread through Somerset to Wiltshire and Gloucestershire.

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"The middle-income professionals in the seats we have just won will take a lot of persuading to pay more for better prisons, probation officers and children’s services, even if told that alienated teenagers turn into rioters, and criminals without rehabilitation reoffend. Those saving to send their children to private schools will be reluctant to pay more tax for the state sector. Getting comfortably-off taxpayers in the home counties to contribute to regeneration of the north will be very difficult." William Wallace says the Liberal Democrats need to have a clear position on public spending.

Alex Krasodomski argues that the UK riots have forced Western democracies to confront their reliance on technology giants.

"The Peak District and Exmoor were found to have concentrations of antibiotics at a level that could be of concern for human health as they were beyond the threshold that can contribute to antimicrobial resistance. This could affect anyone entering the water for swimming or water sports, the researchers said." Lucie Heath on new research into pharmaceutical pollution of English rivers.

Charlotte Llewellyn celebrates the very English anarchist Colin Ward, who "put people, especially those most marginalised by society, at the centre of his work. He recognised the creativity, knowledge, and talent of ordinary people and their ability to make change happen, as well as emphasising the importance of working co-operatively towards a better future."

Ingrid Skeels explores the history and benefits of 'playing out', where children enjoy informal sport for free in the community where they live, and She how 'play streets' are revitalising communities across the UK and further afield. And she does it on the England and Wales Cricket Board site too.

"We could ask if Yoda's Theme would be Yoda’s Theme without Yoda. Or, does Jaws' theme need a shark to be frightening? Do we need to see E.T. fly across the moon in order to be moved by the film’s soaring theme? Does the Close Encounter’s five-note motif only work if we see Richard Dreyfus playing with mashed potatoes?" Edwardo Pérez discusses the film music of John Williams.

Jane Ashdown: "I can't wipe the grin off my face"

Jane Ashdown, the widow of the former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown, has been talking to Somerset Live about her delight at the general election result:

"I can't wipe the grin off my face - it means everything. I just wish Paddy was here to see it and to celebrate. 

"He would have been especially thrilled to see two Lib Dems elected locally, Adam [Dance] in Yeovil and Sarah [Dyke] in Glastonbury and Somerton. But his interest was in the whole party. He would be gobsmacked at the national result - just speechless, which didn't happen very often.

"Paddy would have been so proud of Ed (Davey) who was part of his original office team in the 1990s. He would have greatly admired the energy Ed has put into the campaign and the attention to the issues he has received by doing all those incredible things on the campaign trail. 

"Paddy used to say that if you want someone to listen to you, you've got to make sure that they know that you are listening to them. Ed has done that through the campaign and has carried the party and voters with him."

Ed Davey: Tomorrow's election is a once-in-a-generation chance to put an end to years of Conservative chaos

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In an article posted on the Guardian's website this afternoon, Ed Davey describes tomorrow's election as "a once-in-a-generation chance to put an end to years of Conservative chaos":

It is tempting to look at the opinion polls and the shambles of a Conservative party election campaign and think that history is assured. But absolutely nothing has been decided yet. 

There are seats in former Conservative heartlands across the country – such as Bicester and Woodstock, Frome and East Somerset, and Mid Sussex – where seats are on a knife-edge between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. A handful of votes could be the difference between beating the Conservatives and them clinging on.

This historic chance for change is dependent on some people voting tactically for the party best placed to beat the Conservatives in their area. In many areas of the country, among them parts of the home counties and the West Country, Labour cannot and will not win. 

Only the Liberal Democrats are capable of bringing change. In many constituencies – such as Didcot and Wantage, St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire, and Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe – the only way to beat the Conservatives tomorrow is to vote for the Liberal Democrats.

Ed says he is grateful to Labour voters who are voting Liberal Democrat this time. He adds that he's encouraged by how many are doing so "not just tactically but enthusiastically, because of our progressive plans for the country".

Labour is diverting its activists away from Lib Dem target seats

Conservative fears of an electoral wipe out next Thursday will be deepened by analysis in the Financial Times suggesting that Labour is diverting its activists from Liberal Democrat targets in the South of England:

In the Lib Dems’ traditional west country heartland, Labour activists in Bridgwater, north Somerset, are being sent to Plymouth, an 83-mile journey that means passing at least four other constituencies.

Labour is also asking activists from nine seats across Surrey and Hampshire to campaign in the strong Tory seat of Aldershot. If the army town in Hampshire had the same boundaries back in 2019, the Conservatives would have won 57 per cent of the vote to Labour’s 22 per cent. The seat is not on the Lib Dem target list.

As the article says, there is no need for a formal pact between Labour and the Lib Dems, because there are so few seats where they are competing with one another.

Enlightened self-interest has been enough to ensure that anti-Tory votes are distributed as efficiently as possible.

Lib Dems will get their kicks on the A30

George Parker and Anna Gross have been to Yeovil for the Financial Times, and who should they meet there but the leader of the Liberal Democrats?

Sir Ed Davey, Liberal Democrat leader, has claimed his party could unexpectedly win back a host of Conservative seats in its former South West heartlands, announcing a last-minute “Project A30” election offensive.

Davey told the Financial Times in an interview that some of the seats had previously been seen as “out of reach” but were now in range if the party managed to raise more money from donors for last-minute campaigning.

On a visit to Yeovil in Somerset, he declared: “The Liberal Democrats are back in the West Country.” The town lies on the A30 trunk road, linking London to Land’s End, with a host of Lib Dem targets on either side.

The seats Parker and Gross quote Ed Davey as mentioning are St Ives, North Cornwall, Honiton, Torbay, South Devon and West Dorset.

In Somerset, where Ed says we are "spoilt for choice", they list Yeovil and Taunton.

I suspect St Ives has always been seen as a good prospect, but it's good to see the party looking beyond the Home Counties now the campaign has passed the halfway point.

Ed Davey bets a pint of cider that one of his Somerset candidates will win a larger majority than him

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This just in from The Midsomer Norton, Radstock & District Journal with the Chew Valley & Wrington Vale Gazette:

Ms Dyke triumphed in the Somerton and Frome by-election almost a year ago, ending up with a larger parliamentary majority than her party leader.

The two made a light-hearted bet during the visit, with whoever ends up with the larger majority buying the other “a good pint of Somerset cider” once the dust has settled.

Mr Davey retained his seat at the 2019 general election with a majority of 10,489 – while Ms Dyke achieved a 29 per cent in the by-election to win David Warburton’s former seat by 11,008 votes.

When asked whether she could end up with a larger majority than Mr Davey this time around, Ms Dyke responded jovially: “I’m going to him give him a good run for his money.”

Mr Davey replied: “That’s a great competition – shall we shake on that? Whoever wins buys the other a good pint of Somerset cider.”

I'm not sure that the newspaper's headline, which I have sort of borrowed, has understood their wager correctly, but I'm not going to type out that title again.

Midsomer Norton and Radstock, it seems strange to report now, where once centres of coal mining.

And even living in an idyllic village in Somerset in the 1950s, my mother would see a bus draw up in the late afternoon and men with coal-blackened faces emerge, coming home from a shift down the mine. Coal mining went on in the county until 1973.

Ed Davey: The Liberal Democrats are back in the West Country

A new Guardian article suggests the Liberal Democrats' strong performance in the local elections means its strategy of concentrating campaigning on key seats may deliver gains from the Conservatives at the coming general election.

It quotes the party's leader, Ed Davey, on a visit to Dorset, where we took control of the council after gaining 13 wards from the Tories:

"This victory in Dorset is an historic and stunning result for the Liberal Democrats,” he said. “People here in Dorset and right across the country are fed up with this chaotic and out-of-touch Conservative government and they’re voting for change with the Liberal Democrats. ...

"After our victory in Somerset two years ago and our stunning successes in Devon last year, this win in Dorset confirms that the Liberal Democrats are back in the West Country and will be the main challengers to Conservative MPs here whenever the general election is called."

Lord Bonkers' Diary: They could most fairly be described as "repentant headhunters"

The Look at Life film really exists and is online - the young Paddy Ashdown appears at about 6.35 and the comment on the Dayaks at 8.20.

Gentle humour at the expense of foreigners again? I prefer to think of it as gentle humour at the expense of the 1964 commentary. To be honest, I'm more concerned about my recurring assumption that Liberal and Liberal Democrat victories come as the result of armed violence.

Tuesday

I was watching a Look at Life short about the Malayan Emergency on Talking Pictures TV when who should pop up as the Lieutenant in charge of a jungle patrol in Sarawak but a Jeremy Ashdown from Somerset? That’s right, our own Paddy Ashplant – the finest leader the Liberal Democrats ever had. 

The film mentioned the splendid Dayaks, who only a few years before had been "unrepentant headhunters" but now supplied officers to the Sarawak Rangers – not a football team, but a feared regiment of the British Army. I met some of these fellows after Ashplant brought them back to Somerset following his adoption as PPC for Yeovil. By then, they could most fairly be described as “repentant headhunters”: they still lopped fellows’ heads off but were Terribly Sorry about it afterwards. 

I never did find out how Ashplant won some of those early South Somerset District Council by-elections, and I’m inclined to think that is just as well.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Earlier this week in Lord Bonkers' Diary...

The board of Thames Water, Mauricio Pochettino and Nigella Lawson

PC Bodger's finest hour: The opening of Chew Valley Lake

Writing about my mother's stories of the Somerset Constabulary in the 1950s, and of one PC Bodger in particular, the other day, I said:

And there was his finest hour: the opening of the Chew Valley Reservoir. 

The stories of his controlling the crowds with a megaphone - "Make way for Her Majesty the Queen" and "You boys! Stop playing with your balls there in the street" - went round the force.

And here, wonderfully, is a film incorporating extensive colour footage of that day, 17 April 1956. Click on the still above to go to YouTube and play the whole thing.

There are plenty of policemen in the background, though I can't claim to have spotted Bodger and his megaphone.

You can see Jacob Rees-Mogg's granny being presented to the Queen, however.

It seems the reservoir was called Chew Valley Lake right from the start, so that's what I have called it here.