Essay Competition Winners
Three winners of the Castle School essay competition present their work at the November 2022 meeting. Report by Stephen Griffiths.
The Society has held an essay competition for pupils from Castle School and at our November meeting we were pleased to welcome three of them to present their histories.
First up was Ben Mallett on the battle of Tewkesbury. With plot twists, side switching treachery, and far too many Edwards, the backstory is much too complex for the simple folk of Tewkesbury but, in 1471, when the Wars of the Roses is coming to a field near you then it has to be the hottest ticket in town.
The Lancastrian army, having marched through Thornbury, and hoping to gain support from the people of Gloucester, were in fact repulsed by that town (I know the feeling), so on they trudged northwards. The Yorkist army caught up with them near Tewkesbury, and with around 6,000 a side, cannons, handguns and longbows it must have been quite a show. Edward Prince of Wales was defeated and Edward lV was victorious. Was this finally the end for the Lancastrians? Well, yes it was. Henry VI died rather conveniently soon after, and Henry VII (loosely connected) managed to set up his very own dynasty anyway. Enter the Tudors. Ben gave us lots of bloody details of the battle, so many thanks for his research.
Next, Amy Lyons gave a talk on Bristol Zoo. Some moments transport you back in time, and the photographs of Johnny Morris with Animal Magic did it for us. The zoo was started long before, in 1836, by the local zoological society and shareholders that included a certain I K Brunel, for the education and recreation of visitors. Expansion over the next 100 years saw the introduction of lions in 1900 and Polar Bears in 1935. The show was stolen, however, by the arrival in 1930 of a young gorilla named Alfred who was in the habit of perambulating the zoo on a lead (those were the days). During the war, Alfred became a symbol of national resilience and survival (he did bear a striking resemblance to Winston Churchill), thriving on a diet of vegetables grown in the zoo’s former flower gardens (Winston preferred Champagne).
From the 1960s the focus was on conservation and involvement in dozens of wildlife projects worldwide. Also, of course, there was Wendy the elephant and Animal Magic. There can be few local people of a certain age who don’t have direct memories of the zoo in that period. Amy herself has fond memories of being taken there by her parents, and we thank her for the reminder of a place loved by many and now sadly lost.
Last, but not least, Faith Holley reminded us that history can be cool. In the early 1980s I was recently married, and not allowed out after 7pm, but if I had somehow strayed one evening into Park Row in central Bristol I might have found myself in the friendly, inclusive, multi-cultural melting pot that was the Dugout Club. An innovative and progressive music club, it became popular with leading bands of the period such as Massive Attack and the Clash, and it installed cutting-edge features like one of the first video bars in the country. The club accepted everyone. There was no dress code and if you wanted to fit in then you fitted in, no matter who you were.
The owners, however, suspecting prejudice from the press, decided to exclude them, and this led to a campaign of sensationalist stories in 1986 with the club being unfairly labelled as the ‘Hades of Hedonism’. Some of the mud stuck and the Dugout Club was forced to close. Thanks to Faith for this salutary lesson in history, which for some of us seems like only yesterday.
Thanks to the pupils and to Philip Ashford for organizing.