Tag: https://visitbristol.co.uk/

Countries, Food & Wine, UK

Absolutely Quakers for the history of Easter Eggs

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Yes we know they’re past their shell-life but indulge our wordplay this weekend as we go absolutely Quakers for the history of Easter Eggs.

Because while the Christian movement might have failed to persuade most of us to join them they have converted the world to Easter Eggs.

Although there were already devotees aplenty in Aztec civilisations to the spiritual qualities of the bean.

Not that anyone cracking their Easter Eggs today will give a second thought either to Fry’s or even know who Joseph Fry was.

My Dear Old Mum certainly did, and it was a bit of a tradition in our household that I would gift her a bar of Fry’s Chocolate Cream a penance.

For something I’d done wrong which I recollect would be most weeks.

Thank Fryday

You need layers: Fry’s Chocolate Cream

Now the gooey white-filled Fry’s Chocolate Cream is the oldest brand of chocolate in the world, dating back to 1847 which, of course, I don’t have to tell you.

Or that hollow chocolate Easter Eggs, rather than the previous Medieval custom of filling actual hollow eggs with chocolate, were first sold out of Fry’s from 1873.

Apothecary Joseph Fry had set the family on the way back in 1728 selling to Bristolians as a cocoa health kick from 1728.

Mum’s the word: My mum’s favourite

Alas Fry’s Somerdale Factory in Bristol closed in 2011 and the company long since joined up with fellow Quakers Cadbury in Birmingham.

That Fry, Cadbury and another not-so-ordinary Joe, Joseph Rowntree, of York ventured into chocolate was no mistake.

With their Quaker faith central to the venture and the mission to steer the public away from alcohol.

Choc it up to Cadbury

And of course the Cadburys built a new brave world in Bourneville where the workers’ rights, health and leisure, in and out of the factory were valued.

All of which you can enjoy with samples of the famous chocolate to leave with at the end of the tour.

And channel your inner Willy Wonka at the factory where one-time worker Roald Dahl was inspired to build a land of pure imagination.

Roots of Rowntree

Sweet thing: Rowntree’s

Joseph Rowntree for his part was putting his chocolate footprint on York and bettering his fellow Tykes’ life.

All of which you can learn at York’s Chocolate Story.

The Rowntrees founded the village of New Earswick for low income families in 1902.

And education was provided for both children and adults.

Of course the Rowntrees continue to change the world, with their the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Where ‘they work to speed up and support the transition to a future free from poverty’

Worth remembering as we scoff ourselves silly this weekend.

And go absolutely Quakers for the history of Easter Eggs.

 

Countries, UK

Give it Welly in Banksy’s town

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It’s one of life’s great mysteries alongside where does the other sock go but let’s park that to give it Welly in Banksy’s town.

My own wee city Glasgow is just emerging, blinking into the light, from a summer of Banksy at its Gallery of Modern Art.

And Glaswegians reckon Banksy made his own mark when the exhibition wrapped up.

By putting a propeller on the traffic cone on the head of the Duke of Wellington statue outside the GOMA front door.

And another cone under the Chooky’s arm.

Now if it was a Banksy stunt, and he is said to have revealed that the Chooky and the traffic cone is his favourite statue anywhere.

Duke and Duchess: In front of the statue with my Dear Old Mum

Then he is of course merely channeling the high jinx of Glasgow University student freshers.

Who first put a cone on Chooky’s heid back in the day.

Of course, the council couldn’t remove the cone at the rate the students were putting it back on.

And eventually they relented and turned a defeat into a victory.

And branded the Duke and his Cone as a symbol of The Dear Green Place.

Bristol fashion

We heart Banksy: His famous graffiti

Banksy first came to my notice on the walls of New York, a hard concrete jungle to make a mark, with his rats graffiti poking fun at Wall Street.

The artist though is believed to have been refining his skills since the Nineties.

Thousands of miles away in Bristol in the west of England.

And it is there where we are taking to you today by flagging up the Banksy Walking Tour…

Well, if he was a citizen of my town I would, wouldn’t you.

Bristolians, who have a lot in common with my own Glaswegians.

Spray it again

Vermeer for the Banksy: The artist’s take

Port city, musical heritage and heritage, built on the Slave Trade (eek), and a love of graffiti and street art.

And long before Glasgow went Banksy mad the spray-paint genius was going mad around Bristol.

Daubing among other masterpieces The Girl With The Pierced Eardrum, Grim Reaper, Well-Hung Lover and The Canteen, Mild, Mild West.

And, of course, the world can only be grateful to Banksy for making graffiti, which has been around since the days of Pompeii and before, cool again.

Dare to bear: Taking on the establishment

While we also fully applaud the Bristolians for pulling down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston and throwing him in the River Avon.

And while we acknowledge that pulling down the 14ft Dundas statue in Edinburgh and hauling it to the Forth is a bit of an ask can we not put a big disclaimer on a stand in front of him?

Though height is no guarantee of permanence as evidenced when poor old Admiral Nelson too-ra-loo was blown from his plinth in Dublin back in the day.

Nelly, the symbol of Britannia ruling the ways, got the goat of others around their former empire too with the Bajans removing Irish-born Arthur Wellesley and putting them in the Barbados Museum.