Separate multiple addresses with commas.

Enter your email address:


Enter an optional comment:




Enter the code you see in the image above (case sensitive). Click on the image to refresh it.

I've been reflecting on rubbish recently. There seems to be so much of it in Twerton, littering our streets.

The other day, I was walking with my kids in the High Street and we were walking behind another family. The dad threw his cigarette packet wrapper on the floor and one of his kids dropped a sweet wrapper. I picked up their rubbish and put it in a bin for them - and, with a smile, I politely asked them not to do it.

I've been involved in two organized Litter Picks recently, one at the City Farm, and another at Redland/Pennyquick Park. Every day, as I walk my kids to school, I try and pick up some of the litter on the pavement. But the answer isn't more bins (although we could do with some) or more organized litter picks. The answer is for a community to change its attitude - to be transformed.

Today is Good Friday. I reckon that if Jesus was here, he'd be picking up other people's rubbish. Isn't that what the cross is all about?

One man in his 70s saw me picking up rubbish in Fairview Road. We had a good chat about our community. He shook his head and told me that people won't change. However, I'm unashamedly more optimistic! I believe people can change for the better. Why? Because I've changed. I have been transformed.

Together, we can work towards a better Twerton.

I recently visited a well-known DIY warehouse to purchase new kitchen cupboards. The kitchen department had a sale on, and if I spent over £300, I would be eligible for a 20% discount. I made my selections, paid the money and received my discount. However, when I got home, I discovered that I had mistakenly purchased products from two different kitchen ranges. Apparently there was a difference between Maple Contemporary and Maple Modern!

The next day I returned to the store to exchange one style for another, but I wasn't allowed to do a straight swap. I had to first get a refund, and then purchase the new bits. The total amount was about £100. When I went to pay for the exchanged products I asked for my 20% discount, explaining that I had purchased £300 worth of kitchen products the previous day but needed to exchange some of them. However, the sales assistant explained that this would not be possible because the discount only applied to transactions worth over £300. This new transaction was only £100 and therefore not eligible for the discount. I politely asked to see the manager of the kitchen department.

The manager was a very pleasant lady and she informed me that had I made an account with the kitchen department, it would not have been a problem because they would have had a list of my purchases and therefore I would be eligible for the 20% discount. I produced my receipt that clearly listed all the items that I had purchased the previous day. She explained that a till receipt was not acceptable.

Now, I wanted to get to the bottom of this so I asked if she could look at my receipt and use her managerial powers to apply the 20% discount that I was owed. Although she empathised with my situation and agreed that I was owed the discount, she shrugged her shoulders and explained that it was out of her hands, saying, "I'm sorry, but the machine won't let me do it."

Southside News, January 2008



On this thread you can discuss some of the news items in the newsletters that are emailed by the elected councillors for Twerton, Whiteway and Southdown, summarised here: www.proudoftwerton.com/news.html.

So Twerton is to have it's first PACT (Partners and Communities Together) meeting soon. What are the most important issues for Twerton that should be raised at the meeting?

Don't just read this post - add your view!

The origins of place names around Twerton are not always as straightforward as they might seem, especially when there is more than one possibility. For example, is Newton Road named after Gilbert Newton, who was vicar of Twerton between 1529 and 1560, or is it so called because it was the road you would follow to get to the village of Newton St Loe? My money would be on the latter explanation. (In fact, the footpath which cuts across the camp site at Twerton and out to Newton St Loe, seems to survive as a relic of the greater contact that the two villages once had with each other.)

Pennyquick, at the far end of Newton Road, presents a similar problem. According to the local researcher Peter Little, the name is derived from the Saxon term: Penna-cu-wick - meaning "the dairy farm belonging to Penna". While it is true that "wick" in a place name does often record a dairy farm that once existed, local recollections and traditions in Twerton offer a different explanation.

It is said by some of the older generations, that a pub once existed on the corner of Newton Road, near when the old Twerton mine used to be. After work, the miners found it convenient to spend a quick penny on a pint of beer in there, before returning home. The pub and its location became known as Pennyquick for this reason. I have also heard it said that the pub was demolished by a steam roller which ran down the hill and crashed into it.

Anyone got the answer to that one?



Part of Pennyquick View in the evening

EDITED TO ADD

Actually, the pub explanation does seem a bit of a long shot. I've just seen a map of Twerton in 1807 and Pennyquick already occurs as a field-name back then, before the Pennyquick mine came into existence.