13/02/2012 Inside Out West

Hello from Frogmore Street in the centre of Bristol. Tonight we're

reporting on the campaign to save the city's ice rink from closure.

As the protests continued, we will hear from three Olympic champions

who say Bristol should not be left without an ice rink. If there was

not a local ice rink where we love, we would not be sedating today. --

skating. Bristol is a move that and a shake-up city and it needs an ice

rink. Also, how can sort spending cuts are threatening support for

Young Carers in Somerset. If we take the service away, whereas

their voice to speak? We need to stick up for the services and we

need to stop making cuts. Stranger on the shore, 50 years on

from Acker Bilk's hit, he admits he is tired of hearing it. It is OK.

You do get fed up with it. With surprising stories from close

Let's be honest, it is not the most attractive -- building in Bristol,

before many people this is the centre of their world. There are

plans to turn it into student flats, closing an ice rink where an

Olympic champion learned to skate. It is just before 6:00am and while

many of us are still asleep, a dedicated band of figure skaters

are getting ready to head on to the ice. I'm hazel and I live in Bath.

I r I skate in Bristol. When I first started skating I was a five.

Since then, I come on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays before

school at 6:00am. I get up at 4:45am. My dream was to go to the

Winter Olympics. I might get there in 2018. That would be my dream.

Dreams like hers have flourished here for almost 50 years, but not

much longer. With the closure of the rink, she will have no word to

realise them. The new Silver Blades brink, the pride of Bristol was

opened in April 1966. It was proclaimed the largest

entertainment centre in Europe. It has been provided, said Bristol's

lord mayor, now it is up to the citizens to use it, and use it they

did, buying their ticket to glide in their hundreds and thousands.

One regular skater was a nine-year- old Bristol boy called Robin

Cousins. Jennifer, you are glamourous and elegant. You always

hit the perfect position in the hips. He is now head judge on

Dancing On Ice. I put my first pair her skates on at a rink in

Bournemouth only to find out that there was one being built in

Bristol. The room and my father told me was that the only way I

would go to cut my hair on Saturday mornings was if we went by the ice

rink on the way home. On the ice by it 6:00am before school, go to

school, back in the evening occasionally, or if I was lucky, I

would come back in on a sports afternoon and do more. Legwork that

propelled Robin Cousins from his local rink to Olympic gold. As was

the case with his Dancing On Ice co-stars. To have a facility where

you can begin to skate at a grassroots level is really

important. If there wasn't a local ice rink where we live, we would

not be skating. We would have been doing something else. Jayne would

have been an insurance clerk and I would have been that -- a retired!

We were lucky that we had a local rink. As these girls have for now.

You need to be very dedicated, make sure you were up early, get lots of

practice in, make sure that when you fall you get back up. When I

was young, I did rollerblading and got into this by watching it on TV.

I tried it when I was 10 and I really enjoyed it. I took it up

professionally after that. I do lots of different jumps and

spins because I need to practise them and then I practise tonight

programme. All of the jumps and spins get put into that with the

steps. It is not just those with Olympic dreams who use the brink.

The range of people of massive -- is massive. There are people from

the age of two right the way through to people in their early

90s and darts Phil skating now. We have a success for ice hockey group

here. They are doing well in the British championships. There are

about 200,000 people who use it every year. It is well used and a

feasible business. So why is it closing's released the building, we

do not own it. We have attempted to get a five-year lease when the last

lease expired. Unfortunately the landlords would not agree. The

business will have to close on 31st October and there is no discussion

about that. We have tried and it has not happened. Unite, a company

that made its name a turning empty office blocks into student flats,

bought the ice rink 10 years ago. We bought it as an investment,

subject to a couple of leases. It would always have been our

aspiration to develop it at some point in the future. Like they have

with the building next door. plans are for the existing building

to be demolished and then the new billing -- building to be developed

including leisure and then that the student flats above. It would house

between 405 hundred students. We will spend in excess of �20 billion

here. We have to hunt -- to successful universities here. We

are accommodating people that need housing. Needing one need creates

another. Come the end of October, the nearest rink for Bristol

skaters will be Swindon or Cardiff. Campaigners say that a round trip

of 50 miles is impractical on a regular basis and for a city the

size of Bristol, it needs its own rink.

At the forefront of the campaign to keep the rink opened are the

Bristol pair balls ice hockey team. -- pit-bulls. It is an all drink

and it is like a second home to us. They want to build flats, that is

what they specialise in it. This is what we do. One of us is going to

lose out. One glimmer of hope is that each Unite are considering the

possibility of including a smaller ice rink in their new development.

But the campaigners say it would be a poor substitute for the current

facilities. An ice rink for training would need to be of a

regulation that size. A4 sized rink is important because when you get

to a certain level, you need that. Having said that, it means more

public skaters can get on it. space provided will not be of any

interest to us. You can see how many players are on the ice at the

moment. We will not be able to agree accommodate them. Time to

talk to the council. Is there anything they can do to ensure

Bristol is not left without an ice rink? In terms of a new ice rink

being belt, it we want to help as much as possible, but we cannot

provide land, capital or running costs. But we will do, and are

doing, everything we can to try and get a private operator to come in

and build a new Ice Rink somewhere else. That is a very difficult

thing to do within the time space that Unite have left us. Would

Unite delay closer to give time for an alternative rink to be built?

have not had any discussions around other of the and -- alternatives.

The dialogue is one that we would be happy to have. It would need to

include an operator within that. We do not operate ice rinks. It would

need a commercial operator in order to be part of that, but I would not

dismiss it. Perhaps all is not lost for the skaters of Bristol. They

certainly have some high-profile supporters. Any time an ice rink is

closing, it is a sad thing for the people who have established

themselves and that rink. The community is losing something.

Every time we hear of one, we do our best to lend our names do it to

try and keep it open. This is a great opportunity for the City to

say, we need to let that rink go, keep hold of his legacy and let's

find the right place in Bristol where we continue to have this be a

centre of excellence for the south- west. But the final word goes to

the current generation of Bristol skaters. The impact it will have on

me is that I will not be able to skate and I will be really upset

because it is a blessing in my life If you have got a view on the close

of the ice rink, why not let us know by a Facebook or Twitter?

Later, 83 and still performing. I am meeting Acker Bilk at his home

From libraries to policing, housing benefit to road repairs, it seems

spending cuts are being felt everywhere in society. The battle-

lines are being drawn in Somerset to protect support services for a

group of youngsters with more responsibilities than most.

6:30am in Bridgwater. Kelson Searle is up, dressed for school and ready

to help his dad get downstairs. Not every nine year-old would be this

organised, especially this morning. But Kelson knows his dad can't

manage without him. 12-year-old Jasmin is sorting out the family's

breakfast. Mark Searle is disabled with arthritis. It affects his

bones and skin. Many normal household activities are painful or

impossible for him to manage. Mark gets help from an adult carer but

he would not be able to manage at home without his children helping

to. They are responsible on days when I cannot do anything. Even

personal things, helping me with personal hygiene, bathing and

washing and applying cream. They have to be responsible for food,

feeding themselves sometimes. Anything we would normally be

responsible for as a parent, the in person takes that on. It must be a

nightmare for them. To think about doing these extra things every

single day and not being a normal child. Sometimes it gets annoying

when I have just sat down but I don't mind because I know it helps

my dad and that's all that matters. Sometimes I am cleaning up and it

is fun. But when dad like gets her that it is not so nice. Kelson and

Jasmin are among 350 children in Somerset registered as young carers.

All provide support for someone in their family with physical or

mental disabilities. A young carers service is provided by Somerset

County Council. Specialist workers assess the needs at home and

continue to offer one-to-one counselling to them organising

group meetings and activities to give the children a break. It is

really good because everyone knows what you're going through and it

might not be about the dad, it might be the mother or sister or

brother. It is good to know it is not just me who looks after someone.

It made her more confident telling people her worries. And she was

much more confident. Somerset County Council has faced cuts of

more than �30 million across a range services. Now even the tiny

budget of �140,000 the young carers is in the firing line. There are

proposals to cut spending by half. They would lose some of the full-

time trained specialists, assessing children's needs would be split

between different council departments and volunteers would be

expected to take on the role of councillors. What we want is to

free up the resources from the assessment sites which we believe

can be done from other areas within the county council. We have a

successful children's social care and we want to use lies that

resource. They forget the social work teams are already under

pressure but they have to look at the children on the register in

care and they will not have time to look at other children on top of

what they do. The young carers and parents were given 11 days to argue

a case against the cuts. Abigail Carpenter and her mum are preparing

to speak to the cancer. How will you speak to them? I should tell

them that I am 16 and I have an autistic sister. I have been a

young carer for long time. I am upset about the cuts because I know

the budget helps so many young children and it helps them get away

from it, the one-on-one care when they get helps him. The council

says it wants to extricate young carers from their duties by getting

the at all social care department to take on some of the work that

children do now. That's left some children concerned about their

future within their families. would not like to leave my parents

with my sister because we are a team to help her be happy and build

her up to be as normal as she could be. These children live in these

families, it is their world. You cannot lift them out of it. You

need to enable them to manage, give them support, give them a break.

Some of the kids are proud of what they do. I want to relieve the

burden from them, if I can do that by working with adults social

services, we have a duty to assess the family and have conversations

with adult social services, we want them to cunning, help the young

people, help the adults provide proper care for the adult is so

young people have more free time to excel in other parts of their lives.

Abigail and her mum have been allowed to make two minutes

admissions to persuade the cancer to change the proposals. The man

who will make the decision is Councillor John Osman, the Member

for children and young people. Abigail Carpenter, welcome.

council wants to replace our work, it is not appropriate. One big

issue concerning Abigail and other carers is the suggestion the

volunteer workers who can only help out at the group meetings and

activities, take on a bigger role. If the council got rid of the one

to work support there would be no one for us to confide in. We have

grown up speaking to the supporters. The staff are were experienced with

working with young people. -- well experienced. If the children did

not get the continuity they would not have the confidence to confide,

the trust issues would be there. Abigail's speech and those made by

the other campaigners has won a reprieve. The good news today is I

have taken on board what I have heard in relation to the

consultation period and I will extend it until 6th March. It is

fantastic Abigail is here today but there are many other young people,

I have not spoken to all of them, I am grateful for your help to speak

to more. So, the council is line more time for consultation and its

prepared to consider other proposals.

I think the meeting went pretty well. I hope what we said went in

and they will promise to do something. Tonight, good news. The

council has announced it will defer any decision on cuts to the young

Fifty years ago an unassuming clarinet player from Somerset

became the first British artist to top the Billboard Charts in America.

His song went on to become the You may not know the name of this

song, but you'll almost certainly recognise the melody. Written by a

man from Pensford near Bristol, this is of course Acker Bilk's

Whilst I might not have done it absolute justice there, the record

sold over a million copies, and has featured in films, on television

programmes and radio shows around the world. A song that was written

for his daughter and originally named "Jenny", it was even taken

into space on NASA's Apollo 10 The early 1960s, a period of great

social change, a time when John F Kennedy was plotting to overthrow

Fidel Castro, and the first Transatlantic television feed was

launched via the Telstar satellite. Elvis Presley had already had 13

number 1 singles in America, and rock'n'roll was firmly entrenched

in youth culture, so what was it about this simple jazz song that so

captured the hearts of the American We will pay tribute to a local hero.

Acker Bilk on the occasion of his 50th anniversary of strange on the

shore becoming number one in this You have to tie it to the TV

programme that it was used for, about this young French girl who

was over here on an exchange visit, she was lonely, and the opening

titles were her walking along a shoreline, with the sea lapping at

her feet, and this beautiful, sort of poignant tune "Stranger On The

Shore" playing over the !top of the pictures. And I think a lot of

people just bought it because it invoked that feeling of nostalgia

and melancholy that we all like a little bit of from time to time.

Most musicians say they know the exact moment when they've written

something special. But I wonder if Acker Bilk knew when he wrote

"Stranger On The Shore" that he'd written such a big hit, and one

that he'd still be playing 50 years later. I've come to visit him at

his home near Bristol to find out. Hello. Lovely to meet you. Can I

come in? Yes, come in. You're sitting there at the piano, you're

playing around, you're coming up with lots of ideas, then "Stranger

On The Shore" comes out. Did you immediately think: "that's

special"? No, not really. I didn't think it was much different from

any of the rest of it. It was just a thing that come out of my head. I

didn't sort of work on it or do much at all with it. There was

about half a dozen things I sort of whipped down but this was the lucky

one I suppose. Is it your favourite song of all the songs that you've

written? No, I'm fed up with playing it.

That's why you call it "Strangler On The Floor"? Yeah, that's right.

Nah, it's alright, but you do get fed up with it after a bit. After

about thirty, forty, fifty years is it? At the time of writing the song,

Acker can hardly have imagined the huge global success it would

achieve. Tell me about how you felt when it started to really hit the

heights in the States. Well, it didn't bother me that much cos we

were working a lot in them days, playing every night. I didn't have

much time to think about much. And they said it's gone, I don't know

what number it was, quite high up in America, and I said well that's

good, good. Keep 'em going. then you got the news that it had

got to number one in America. I think it did yeah, get to number

one. That must have been a pretty big deal. Yeah, that... I didn't...

I wouldn't go over the moon about it but that was alright you know.

And then I had to...on the strength of that I went and done a Ed

Sullivan Show. Had to fly over there. There was a dance troupe

there and I had to learn some dance steps, and they didn't record

"Stranger", it was another tune from the album, it wasn't

"Stranger". It didn't seem to go with their dancing. I never

understood that to this day. Tens of millions of people watching you

on television. I had never heard of him before I went out there.

were not that taken with the fame. Not really. We were playing every

night. I went on playing. I was a clarinet player. I wasn't too

worried about the rest of it. modestly downplays what was in fact

a landmark moment in his career, a period in which he met pop royalty,

and also some real royalty, and surely selling millions of records

across the world must have impressed his bank manager too?

"Stranger On The Shore" sold more than a million over here, it sold

more than a million in America. It should have made you a very wealthy

man. Well, I'm not too bad. I'm not wealthy but it's good enough. There

was a lot of people dipping their fingers in the purse in them days.

I had people supposed to be looking after me, but I don't think they

did much. That's the way it goes. If I'd have been a businessman I

probably wouldn't have played like I do. But I've got no regrets,

that's alright. I've enjoyed myself. Still do. At 83 years old and

having survived throat cancer, Acker still plays two or three gigs

a week, testament to his continued love of performance, but for how

long does he think he can carry on playing? I don't want to be rude,

you're not a young man. No. Quite a lot of people would have their feet

up. You just seem to keep going. Is it because you're just doing a job

you love so much? I'm not as good as I was, obviously I can't...I

haven't got the same power. Breath. But I can get away with it, and I

enjoy listening to the band as well, playing with the band. Are you

surprised that so many people still come out to listen to you play?

am surprised yeah. But they've got good taste I suppose. And while

they keep turning up, you'll keep turning up. Yeah, sure. I'm not

surprised that Acker is still out on the road, because I think he's a

jazz musician, and jazz players and blues players, they tend to go on

until they drop, and until he can no longer physically get onto the

stage I imagine he'll go on performing.

Well, that's been an enormous pleasure, meeting Acker Bilk. I

must say I'm slightly taken aback at how humble he is, he's obviously

had this massive career, and then there's "Stranger On The Shore"

which seems to be sort of a double edged sword for him. Obviously it's

brought him the most fantastic success, but maybe he gets a little

We have enjoyed ourselves and hope you have to. Once again, there was

one thing left, cheerio, my dear Thank you very much, thank you!

And if that's wetted your appetite to go and see Acker in concert,

he's performing in Frome on the 25th of February and in Taunton on

the 3rd of March. Well that's it for this week but in

next week's programme a last ditch attempt to stop the demolition of

the Tropicana swimming pool in Weston Super Mare. And we'll be

reporting on the row over a new housing development in the Somerset