:00:26. > :00:30.West. Our headlines tonight. The boat owner who went to the rescue of
:00:30. > :00:33.a blind man after he fell into Bristol's docks. At the centre of a
:00:33. > :00:41.political storm - a nurse who donated a third of a million pounds
:00:41. > :00:45.to the Government in her will. tonight, remember this?
:00:45. > :00:50.futuristic hovercraft which operated between Weston-super-Mare and Wales.
:00:50. > :00:56.And we were meeting some of the people helping to conserve plants
:00:56. > :01:06.that grow right here in the West -- that is plants that grow only here
:01:06. > :01:08.
:01:08. > :01:10.in the West. Good evening. A boat owner helped to save a blind man's
:01:10. > :01:14.life last night after he fell into the water in the Bristol docks.
:01:14. > :01:17.Jenni Britton was woken in the early hours of this morning by screams for
:01:17. > :01:20.help. While the police and fire services watched from the dockside,
:01:20. > :01:30.she went to his rescue using a kayak. Charlotte Callen has the
:01:30. > :01:33.
:01:33. > :01:36.story. This is one of the quietest areas of the Bristol Docks.
:01:36. > :01:43.Woman-macro heard shouting and saw a man clinging to the side of the
:01:43. > :01:52.dock. Her quick thinking helped save the life of 48-year-old Robert
:01:53. > :02:02.Jarvis. He was partially sighted. I decided to pop my kayak in the
:02:02. > :02:05.water. And I got Robert to hang onto the front of the kayak. The Avon
:02:05. > :02:08.Fire and Rescue boat did finally arrive and pull 48-year-old Robert
:02:08. > :02:12.Jarvis to safety. He was taken to hospital and allowed home this
:02:12. > :02:17.afternoon. It does take a few minutes to get here and to get the
:02:17. > :02:20.equipment sorted out. Thankfully these incidents are pretty rare, but
:02:20. > :02:25.when they do happen, questions are often raised about safety on the
:02:25. > :02:35.docks. There are railings surrounding most of the water down
:02:35. > :02:35.
:02:35. > :02:44.here. It is a case of being careful by the water. We can go round
:02:44. > :02:47.putting in access for people to fall in and get out of. In the meantime,
:02:47. > :02:50.Jenni Britton and her fellow residents down here in the Bathurst
:02:50. > :02:54.Basin are hoping for a quieter night down on the water tonight. A Bristol
:02:54. > :02:57.pensioner who died last year has become the focus of an extraordinary
:02:57. > :03:01.political row today. Joan Edwards left hundreds of thousands of pounds
:03:01. > :03:04.in her will to "whichever government is in office." The money went to the
:03:04. > :03:07.Conservative and Lib Dem parties - but after a day of mounting
:03:07. > :03:11.pressure, they've now agreed not to keep the money for themselves, but
:03:11. > :03:14.instead have passed it to the Treasury. Dickon Hooper has spent
:03:14. > :03:22.much of the day in the fish ponds area of Bristol where Mrs Edwards
:03:22. > :03:27.lived, and joins me now. Good evening. This is St John's Church,
:03:27. > :03:33.where Joan Edwards was a regular right up until she died. She was
:03:33. > :03:36.quiet and unassuming and she always sat at the back. Around the corner,
:03:36. > :03:43.is her modest three-bedroom council house, described to me as a time
:03:43. > :03:46.warp back to the 1920s. She was such a quiet, private person, friends and
:03:46. > :03:56.neighbours say that they are surprised at the attention that the
:03:56. > :03:59.
:03:59. > :04:03.story has got today in the national media. Joan Edwards stayed local all
:04:03. > :04:08.her life. She'd lived here since she was a child. And worked nearby as a
:04:08. > :04:13.children's nurse and midwife. But she kept herself to herself. Nobody
:04:13. > :04:23.could no Joan Edwards well. She was a very private person. Today the
:04:23. > :04:26.
:04:26. > :04:29.private became very public and very political. She had left hundreds of
:04:29. > :04:33.thousands of pounds in her will to "whichever government is in office
:04:33. > :04:36.at the date of her death" for them use as they may think fit. This
:04:37. > :04:40.sparked fierce media interest - and a political row - after the money
:04:40. > :04:43.went not to the Government but to the Conservative and Lib Dem
:04:43. > :04:49.parties. It's money neighbours say they had no idea about. It surprised
:04:49. > :04:57.me. How she used to live over there. Just on an old age pension like
:04:57. > :05:03.that. But she did better than that. Quite rightly, if you knew Joan
:05:03. > :05:06.Edwards, and you saw her, he would not think that. The Government
:05:07. > :05:13.parties have handed the cash to the Treasury, but the local MP would
:05:13. > :05:17.prefer the money was spent, well, locally. It would be a nice gesture
:05:17. > :05:25.if it was spent on something specifically related to the lifetime
:05:25. > :05:28.of public service in the NHS. We've got Cosham Hospital brill new birth
:05:28. > :05:31.centre - University of Western England training people - very close
:05:31. > :05:35.by - rather than just being swallowed up and paying interest.
:05:35. > :05:38.That would be a nice gesture and close to her heart. What was close
:05:38. > :05:41.to her heart was privacy, and neighbours say she'd be appalled by
:05:41. > :05:46.the attention her life and her death have received. No-one knows which
:05:46. > :05:50.way she voted. People here are quite upset about what has been going on
:05:50. > :05:54.today. She was such a private person. Nobody knew who she voted
:05:54. > :05:58.for or what the political allegiance was but if there is a silver lining
:05:58. > :06:03.to the story it is that party politics has been taken out of it.
:06:03. > :06:06.The money will go back to the Treasury which, of course, paid
:06:06. > :06:11.their wages of Joan Edwards for all of those decades. She was a lifelong
:06:11. > :06:21.public servant, and perhaps that is the best legacy that she can now
:06:21. > :06:21.
:06:21. > :06:25.have. Now, the West may be known for its prowess in the aerospace
:06:25. > :06:28.industry, but did you know it played a key role in the development of the
:06:28. > :06:30.hovercraft? 50 years ago, a hovercraft service ran between
:06:30. > :06:34.Weston-super-Mare and Penarth in south Wales. The model was an
:06:34. > :06:37.experimental one and it ran for just one summer. Afterwards, the craft
:06:37. > :06:45.was broken up so engineers could learn from it. Clinton Rogers has
:06:45. > :06:48.been looking back through the archives. Points West pictures from
:06:48. > :06:58.50 years ago. Yet the flying machine hitting the Weston beach looks
:06:58. > :07:01.
:07:01. > :07:03.strangely futuristic. At the time it was was the world's largest
:07:04. > :07:08.passenger-carrying hovercraft, and it was built by Somerset based
:07:08. > :07:13.Westlands. 70 people on board crossing a ten mile stretch of water
:07:13. > :07:21.from Penarth to North Somerset in ten minutes. And it certainly drew
:07:21. > :07:24.the crowds at Weston. Getting, it seems, almost dangerously close.
:07:24. > :07:28.John Crockford-Hawley remembers it well. He was just 16 when he saw the
:07:28. > :07:33.revolutionary hovercraft for the first time. In she came, with sand
:07:33. > :07:43.blowing everywhere. It just arrived. And the only safety precautions
:07:43. > :07:44.
:07:44. > :07:47.between the craft and us kids was a chestnut paling fence. It was a
:07:47. > :07:50.prototype, part sponsored by the oil giants Castrol, but commercially it
:07:51. > :07:58.didn't take off and after its six-week trial it never returned to
:07:58. > :08:08.Weston. The white heat of technology, that was. It was very
:08:08. > :08:08.
:08:08. > :08:11.expensive to run, which is probably why Castrol had to sponsor it.
:08:11. > :08:15.unquestionably, lessons learned from that design spawned the hovercraft
:08:15. > :08:19.of today - like the one used by Avon Fire and Rescue - though some things
:08:19. > :08:22.don't change. It is still the same thing it was 50 years ago. There are
:08:23. > :08:32.no breaks, it is hardest year and there was no reverse. Essentially,
:08:33. > :08:40.
:08:40. > :08:44.it is one large and to slow you down and one to propel you forward.
:08:44. > :08:47.it works - as a rescue vehicle anyway. But 50 years on from this,
:08:47. > :08:49.there is still no sign of a cross channel commercial service. Thank
:08:49. > :08:59.you to everybody who contacted us with their memories of the
:08:59. > :09:02.hovercraft. This is BBC Points West, your regional news, with Alex and
:09:02. > :09:06.Sabet. And we've much more still to come this evening, including: Could
:09:06. > :09:09.this be the super-fast travel system of the future, that was actually
:09:09. > :09:12.first imagined many years ago, here in the west? And the real-life comic
:09:12. > :09:19.character. We meet the schoolboy from Bristol who has found fame on
:09:19. > :09:23.the front page of the Beano. The unemployment figures came out today,
:09:23. > :09:28.and for the fifth month in a row, they've fallen in the West. Our
:09:28. > :09:31.Business Correspondent Dave Harvey has been crunching the numbers.
:09:31. > :09:35.a number eagerly awaited by employers, policy makers and those
:09:36. > :09:39.looking for work - and here it is: Nearly 43,000 people in the West
:09:39. > :09:47.Country were out of work and claiming benefit in July. It's down
:09:47. > :09:50.- and not for the first time. As you said, for most of this year
:09:50. > :10:00.unemployment has been on the way down - five months in a row, lower
:10:00. > :10:02.
:10:02. > :10:05.now than since 2008. But let's look at the bigger picture. You can see
:10:05. > :10:07.that the numbers have been going up and down throughout the downturn -
:10:07. > :10:11.but always higher than the pre-recession levels. Unemployment
:10:11. > :10:15.doubled in 2008, and it's hasn't come back down yet. Still, things
:10:15. > :10:18.are going in the right direction, and that may be partly because of an
:10:19. > :10:28.army of home workers. People who have decided to set up shop at home.
:10:28. > :10:33.Chris Brierley's been to meet one of them. Following my redundancy this
:10:33. > :10:38.is when I started the business, and it is nice to be able to do what I
:10:38. > :10:43.want to do. Louise is one of many people in the West ditching the
:10:43. > :10:46.daily commute for an office based in her own home. The lease on my
:10:46. > :10:50.shopping Cirencester was coming to an end that it seemed like the ideal
:10:50. > :10:54.opportunity to enjoy the first year of my married life and have a little
:10:54. > :10:57.bit more time at home with my new husband. When I was at the shop it
:10:57. > :11:02.was very long days with lots of things to do when I get home, and
:11:02. > :11:06.now being at home I can be more flexible with my time, and have a
:11:06. > :11:13.little bit more time for myself, and the overheads are greatly reduced,
:11:13. > :11:18.and I can still do the same as I was doing before. There are 2.5 million
:11:18. > :11:24.home-based businesses across the UK. People like Louise. That
:11:24. > :11:31.accounts for one in 12 of us. In the points West region that number
:11:31. > :11:36.increases to around one in six. That is 210,000 people. Then you come to
:11:36. > :11:41.the Cotswolds. And it goes up even further. It goes to one in four of
:11:41. > :11:43.the people in this area, who have home-based business. Terry left the
:11:43. > :11:50.City lifestyle for rural Gloucestershire 15 years ago, and
:11:50. > :11:54.believes the trend will only increase. It is now much more
:11:54. > :11:57.feasible for people in my situation to run a business, because we have
:11:57. > :12:02.got e-mail, we have got Internet, we have got everything making it
:12:02. > :12:05.possible for us. When it comes to funding home-based businesses, some
:12:05. > :12:11.rely on their savings to get them started while others head to the
:12:11. > :12:17.banks. 112,000 start-up business accounts, the highest number we have
:12:18. > :12:22.opened since wrappings began. -- records began. There are even
:12:22. > :12:26.college courses now being designed to cater for the market. This is a
:12:26. > :12:31.new course that we have developed this year for business start-ups.
:12:31. > :12:34.Business and finance, communications and planning. With the figures
:12:34. > :12:44.showing a constant rising of cottage industries, it's a trend likely to
:12:44. > :12:47.
:12:47. > :12:54.continue for the foreseeable future. 200,000 people then, working from
:12:54. > :13:02.home. Obviously not all making cakes. We have landscape gardeners,
:13:02. > :13:09.stonemasons, people who are good at their white, and recovered that
:13:09. > :13:15.Honda story when 600 people had to take redundancy from the big Swindon
:13:15. > :13:20.car factory, and many of them were taking to fitting kitchens and
:13:20. > :13:26.bathrooms. I would love to hear from people at home, if they are busy
:13:26. > :13:31.working while they are watching points West. Tomorrow, A-level
:13:31. > :13:35.students get their results. Those living University, what are their
:13:35. > :13:39.job prospects? Things are better than last year, but it has been a
:13:39. > :13:46.very difficult few years. Overall, youth unemployment has gone up
:13:46. > :13:51.across the country. But in the West Country it is about 5% of under
:13:51. > :13:57.24-year-olds who are looking for work, so that means that 95% of them
:13:57. > :14:01.have got work, and when I spoke to a Bristol recruitment consultants this
:14:01. > :14:06.morning they told me that the sun is coming out now. It is slightly
:14:06. > :14:12.better. There are more jobs around and this time last year, but more
:14:12. > :14:15.students coming straight from school with no experience, they have to get
:14:15. > :14:20.their face out there, they have to be willing to accept jobs that are
:14:20. > :14:29.perhaps not what they want to do long-term, and be flexible, and
:14:29. > :14:35.accept anything they can't, just to get the right skills. --anything
:14:35. > :14:38.they can. Police are appealing for witnesses after an accident on the
:14:38. > :14:42.Portway in Bristol in which a motorcyclist was killed. The
:14:42. > :14:44.21-year-old man died at the scene last night. A bus, two cars and a
:14:44. > :14:47.cyclist were also involved, and the cyclist was taken to Frenchay
:14:47. > :14:51.Hospital. Over the years, modern architecture has raised more than a
:14:51. > :14:55.few eyebrows - and the Georgian city of Bath is no exception. Now an
:14:55. > :14:58.exhibition running at one of the city's museums is trying to show us
:14:58. > :15:08.why we should learn to love the buildings we loathe! Here's Ali
:15:08. > :15:09.
:15:09. > :15:14.Vowles. Be honest, this is what most people expect to see when they seek
:15:14. > :15:24.images of Bath. The Georgian architecture has made it a world
:15:24. > :15:31.
:15:31. > :15:37.Heritage city. What happened after the Second World War made many
:15:37. > :15:40.residents shudder. The post-war architecture of Bath is almost
:15:40. > :15:45.universally hated by people who live here. We wanted to do something that
:15:45. > :15:52.explained a bit more about how it came about, and what the ideas
:15:52. > :15:56.behind it were. The opening of Bath University in 1965 stop being the
:15:56. > :16:04.great success and a perfect example of the new architecture. We were all
:16:04. > :16:09.moving forward and looking to the future. Celebration in 1968 for
:16:09. > :16:12.Bath's first multistorey car park. But there was an outcry about the
:16:12. > :16:22.destruction of Georgian buildings with dozens of tiny streets being
:16:22. > :16:27.
:16:27. > :16:30.destroyed. It was part of a process known as The Sack of Bath. This site
:16:30. > :16:35.dominates and outrage as the finest urban site in the whole of the West
:16:35. > :16:41.Country. It dominates it and outrages it. It was hard though, to
:16:41. > :16:47.match beauty with business. I think it is this building in the city
:16:47. > :16:52.centre that topped of the most loved building in Bath at the moment. Ruby
:16:52. > :16:58.is what it was all about, brutal bosom. At the time it was respected.
:16:58. > :17:05.In the guidebook, it is the place to go. That hotel is an absolute
:17:05. > :17:08.shocker. It should be not down and replaced with something nicer.
:17:08. > :17:13.car park and the Hilton were not loved by anybody, I do not think. It
:17:13. > :17:19.is not just about the ones that got built, but the ones that got away.
:17:19. > :17:24.This was planned to be built close to Bath Abbey. And these were going
:17:24. > :17:34.to be the new law courts, right next to the Hilton hotel. Like them
:17:34. > :17:39.
:17:39. > :17:42.although then, many of these architecture, how about modern
:17:42. > :17:45.transport? Yesterday in America, the multi-billionaire founder of Paypal
:17:45. > :17:51.unveiled plans for a travel system which he claims could transport
:17:51. > :17:55.people at up to 800 miles an hour. The Hyperloop would transport a
:17:55. > :18:05.dozen or so people in individual pods through a tube. But he's not
:18:05. > :18:08.
:18:08. > :18:12.the first to come up with the idea. Stuart Olds from Keynsham drew up
:18:13. > :18:16.very similar plans back in 1984 when he was just 14 years old, and he's
:18:16. > :18:20.brought in the drawings to prove it. Welcome, Stuart. The drawings look
:18:20. > :18:25.very similar. Tell us how they are different. The comparison is not
:18:25. > :18:31.much invisible but his design is a lot smaller with the tube to the
:18:31. > :18:38.train itself. Mine was drawn up from a roller-coaster ride which I try to
:18:38. > :18:42.improve on. Since then I have developed the idea to produce
:18:42. > :18:50.electricity and further on from that, ideas to help the global
:18:50. > :18:57.climate. It was a springboard for a creative mind. As regards Hyperloop,
:18:57. > :19:02.do you feel a little bit gutted. Initially, I thought it was bad
:19:02. > :19:06.news, but then I thought, it could work, so it gives me credibility for
:19:06. > :19:11.my other ideas which could be looked at and taken forward and produce a
:19:11. > :19:20.new range of jobs in different industries. I have to ask about the
:19:20. > :19:27.14-year-old Stewart. When I was 14, I was not coming up with ideas.
:19:27. > :19:33.You've got a letter back from ten Downing St, didn't you? I wrote to
:19:33. > :19:36.her just after she got ousted when she had more time on her hands. She
:19:36. > :19:40.wrote back and she said to send it on to the trade and industry
:19:40. > :19:48.Secretary. And I got advice from John major and from Michael
:19:49. > :19:55.Heseltine. Since then I had been pitching ideas to lower levels.
:19:55. > :20:01.this was you when you were 14? My dad was brought up on a poultry farm
:20:01. > :20:05.and he came in with an idea to improve the speed lines. And being a
:20:05. > :20:12.carpenter by trade, you always overcoming problems, so it has been
:20:12. > :20:19.developing from an early age. carpenter, do you look at problems
:20:19. > :20:23.and try and find solutions? It is almost like you just clash your mind
:20:23. > :20:32.with certain things that it might overcome was up for example with sea
:20:32. > :20:37.levels and global warming, we need solutions, to use the condensation
:20:37. > :20:42.method with polythene over the ground, which condenses quite
:20:42. > :20:49.instantly, so I thought, let's use that over deserts and industrialised
:20:49. > :20:53.that principle and by doing that we can see -- keep sea levels and use
:20:53. > :21:03.the sort to resell and eight the north Atlantic which would keep the
:21:03. > :21:10.
:21:10. > :21:15.Gulf stream going. Brunel came up with a similar idea. He could not
:21:15. > :21:25.keep the panel airtight because he was using leather and fat to seal
:21:25. > :21:28.
:21:28. > :21:32.it, and rats when the bling the fact. -- rats were nibbling the fat.
:21:32. > :21:35.If you were watching yesterday, you'll have seen the One Show's Mike
:21:35. > :21:39.Dilger dishing out tips on how to attract wildlife to your garden. But
:21:39. > :21:43.while he's urging us to get birds and butterflies into our new BBC
:21:43. > :21:46.rooftop garden, we think it would also be a good idea to have
:21:46. > :21:49.something local up there, too. So what plants say Bristol - what is
:21:49. > :21:53.unique to the West? Here's Jules Hyam. There isn't much that says
:21:53. > :21:57.Bristol more than this view - but for those in the know, it's not the
:21:57. > :22:01.bridge that's the highlight - it's all the wildlife around it. Hidden
:22:01. > :22:05.in rocky cracks - and in the woodland - the Avon Gorge is home to
:22:05. > :22:07.29 rare plant species - and several that exists no where else in the
:22:07. > :22:17.world. The species that exist here involved separately from anywhere
:22:17. > :22:20.
:22:20. > :22:26.else. You have the Bristol Whitebeam. It is one of five species
:22:26. > :22:30.that are found nowhere else in the world. The Bristol Whitebeam - with
:22:30. > :22:34.its green and white leaves and its clusters of berries - is easy to
:22:34. > :22:38.make out in a spring breeze. Less easy to spot is the Rock rose -
:22:38. > :22:41.again extremely rare. It's the prime food source for the Silk Wave Moth -
:22:41. > :22:44.and they too are found almost nowhere else but in this one and a
:22:44. > :22:47.half mile limestone gorge. The problem with rare plants is that
:22:47. > :22:51.they are, and as habitats change they can be forced out and then lost
:22:51. > :22:56.the other. The University of Worcester botanic Gardens are not
:22:56. > :23:02.just conserving unique and rare species but cultivating them.
:23:02. > :23:08.have gone out into the gorge and collected seeds such as the rock
:23:08. > :23:10.rose, which we have sown, and you can see the seedlings coming up, not
:23:10. > :23:15.quite big enough to fit into that rocky ledge, but when they grow,
:23:15. > :23:24.label joined this, here, and if you look over here, you can see the
:23:24. > :23:34.Bristol rock crests. -- cress. This is a very rare plant that grows only
:23:34. > :23:35.
:23:35. > :23:37.in the gorge, which provides ideal conditions. And it's not just rock
:23:37. > :23:47.cress and rock rose. They're growing Bristol onions, and they've been
:23:47. > :23:50.across the West collecting rare and unique plant seeds. We have some
:23:50. > :23:56.very special habitats that in turn support wildlife. If you want some
:23:56. > :24:01.ideas about what you can do in your own garden, the website address
:24:01. > :24:07.should be on screen now. That will give you lots of tips for what you
:24:07. > :24:10.can do at home. And finally, congratulations to 11-year-old Harry
:24:10. > :24:14.Wilson from Bristol, who's been turned into a comic character on the
:24:14. > :24:17.front page of this week's Beano. He was chosen to feature on his bike
:24:17. > :24:23.alongside Dennis the Menace because he's a cycling ambassador for the
:24:23. > :24:32.National Trust. He had to keep the secret for a whole week before being
:24:32. > :24:37.able to tell his friends. When I knew, I felt very excited. I was
:24:37. > :24:47.running around, and the excitement was fantastic. It felt really good
:24:47. > :24:51.
:24:51. > :25:01.that I am actually in a comic. congratulations to Harry. Now, to
:25:01. > :25:02.
:25:02. > :25:06.our own comic book super hero. In Clevedon, Gemma. If only I could
:25:06. > :25:10.have superpowers to magic the weather to what it should be at this
:25:10. > :25:16.time of year. The sun was blazing down over the Bristol Channel. But
:25:16. > :25:22.not tonight, with the weather being distinctly autumnal. As it has been
:25:22. > :25:26.for the bulk of the day. Taking a look at the forecast, we can see
:25:26. > :25:31.from the word go this morning, clouds filling in medley from the
:25:31. > :25:39.south-west, courtesy of a couple of week weather fronts, bringing moist,
:25:39. > :25:46.humid air. We saw a lot of showers coming in, some of those very light
:25:46. > :25:51.and patchy in nature, but at times, merging to form longer spells of
:25:51. > :26:01.rain. And we had some heavy downpours in the latter part of the
:26:01. > :26:01.
:26:01. > :26:09.day. Ten bridges around 17-18 -- temperatures around 17-18. And
:26:09. > :26:18.tomorrow it will be even muggier still. But Friday, the best day for
:26:18. > :26:21.sunshine, so a decent entered a week. -- decent end to the week.
:26:21. > :26:28.Those week weather fronts that brought cloud and rain with them
:26:28. > :26:33.today are edging away and tomorrow, for a time, it will be dry with some
:26:33. > :26:40.sharp showers, although humid, then we have a weather system coming down
:26:40. > :26:45.from the North West bringing heavy, persistent rain into Friday morning.
:26:45. > :26:51.For the rest of this evening, it is cloud that dominates and muggy
:26:51. > :26:55.conditions. There will be very little difference between daytime
:26:55. > :27:01.high temperatures and night-time low temperatures. Sunshine will break
:27:01. > :27:04.through tomorrow, merging with muddy air coming up from the south,
:27:04. > :27:10.pushing temperatures into the low 20s. That is what we want for this
:27:10. > :27:16.time of year. But it will feel very sticky and not everybody enjoys that
:27:16. > :27:21.type of weather. That weather fun coming in from the North West. And
:27:21. > :27:25.heading into Friday, we are looking at decent spells of sunshine. But
:27:25. > :27:35.make the most of those because it will be wet and windy on Saturday,
:27:35. > :27:40.