Totterdown Rising - Kate Pollard

TOTTERDOWN RISING - KATE POLLARD

When approaching Bristol by train there are two sights to look out for that tell you you're there. The first is the Clifton Suspension Bridge in the distance on the left, spanning the Avon Gorge like a veritable Eighth Wonder of the World. The second, on the right, is a row of differently-coloured houses sitting at the top of the hill just before you get to Temple Meads Station. Those multi-coloured houses are in Totterdown, and in their not so subtle way are near-iconic. A recognizable yet unspoken feature of the landscape depicting Bristol in all its off-centre, polymorphic peculiarity. Unlike the Clifton Suspension Bridge which is a tourist go-to, far more people have seen Totterdown or at least a part of it if only from a distance than have actually been there. Moreover, far fewer people know much if anything about Totterdown's history and that includes a good many Bristolians themselves which is why Kate Pollard's book, Totterdown Rising, is an important  one.

Published by Totterdown Press, an imprint of Bristol's ever impressive Tangent Books, Totterdown Rising is the story of a depressingly shameful episode from Bristol's more recent past when a community was needlessly bulldozed to make way for what city planners saw at the time as the future. That future being to all intent and purpose the motor car.

During the post-war period of the 1950s, car ownership was being viewed as intrinsic to economic growth and by the 1960s car production figures had become a prime index for measuring that growth. Encouraged by car manufacturers, car ownership was presented as a symbol of affluence, convenience and freedom with urban renewal being shaped around that ownership. Public transport and environmental impact came a poor second whilst the impact upon communities wasn't even a consideration. Subsequently, when plans for a £30 million Outer Circuit Road for Bristol was devised in 1966, the fact that large parts of the Easton and Totterdown areas of the city would need to be demolished was an inconvenient but unavoidable necessity. The required displacement of local communities mere collateral damage.

Like homes and businesses built from bricks and mortar, bold visions come with a price but what price the lives, the love, the memories, hopes and dreams of people? Under compulsory purchase orders the properties of Totterdown standing in the way of progress were bought up and the occupants uprooted and moved away in what can only be described as an exercise in mismanagement. Chaotic, shambolic and ill-conceived mismanagement.

With bold visions, however, come caveats and the bolder the vision the larger the caveat. Unfortunately, no-one mentioned this to the residents of Totterdown, in particular the caveat that said 'we will uproot your families and destroy your community but to no actual avail if the road in the end isn't built'. And that's exactly what happened. The money ran out, the vision faltered, and the enthusiasm waned, resulting in the road in the end not actually being built and leaving Totterdown bereft. One of the oldest communities in Bristol had been vandalised, devastated, ripped apart and near-destroyed for no reason at all.

It's all water under the bridge now, of course, so let bygones be bygones and let's all just move on, some might say? And that's fine because things have moved on but it's still important to ask what lessons have been learned because some might also say 'those who fail to remember the past are condemned to repeat it'.

There was a time when Bristol's city planners thought it might be a good idea to fill in the city docks, concrete it all over and sell it all off to the right bidder as highly desirable real estate. There was a time when the Council had actually sold the iconic industrial cranes down at the city docks for scrap, before being saved by local people incensed at the very idea. There was a time when it was thought to be a good idea to demolish Eastville Stadium, the former home to Bristol Rovers, to make way for the building of a huge, blue Ikea store in the middle of the housing estate there. There was a time when it was thought to be a good idea to turn buildings in the centre of Bristol over to developers to be turned into student-only accommodation. There was a time when the gentrification of Bristol was thought to be a good thing even when it meant the pricing out of locals from ever being able to afford a home there. There was a time when it was deemed the right thing that the statue of slave trader Edward Colston remain in place because apparently removing it would be 'denying our history'.

There was a time that in order to save Bristol it was thought it necessary to destroy Bristol. Totterdown being a case in point.

John Serpico