Starting off as a small fishing village, Weston-Super-Mare in North Somerset developed into a thriving seaside resort which is still popular with visitors today. Presenter Gwyn Richards spent the day in Weston discovering that there’s more to the area than donkeys and amusement arcades; there’s plenty of walks too, if you’ve got the stamina for steep hills.
This programme has been edited for rights reasons.
Clip taken from Day Out: Weston-Super-Mare, originally broadcast on BBC One (South West), 15 August 1980.
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49 Comments
Anyone know what that library music is they use at the start? It was used on a Secret Seven record I had as a kid! Suddenly the memories! I also worked in Weston as an actor several times and always had a lovely time… altho… ahem, it wasn't like this…
Seem to remember there was a horrible murder in the woods on Worlebury Hill later in the 80s (in broad daylight) – featured on Crimewatch I think…
I had the worst fish and chips ever in Weston Super Mare.
When I was a kid in the 70's we had regular trips up to Norfolk to see my dads parents and I've got so many memories of sitting in our car by a windy & rainy beach not having fun. All our proper holidays were in the South of France or the Balearic Islands or Italy. Sun! A proper golden sandy beach where the tide didn't take the sea three miles out! Somewhere that was exotic and new for a ten year old kid like me.
Spent many days every summer in Weston Super Mare (lived in Taunton, not too far away) as a child. We'd go as a family for the day on the weekend and ride the donkeys, go on the pier to the arcades and eat fish and chips from newspaper! Glorious!
12:18…There’s the Waverley! Still chugging around the UK every summer!❤
Shame it’s such a dump now , town council have let it go ,
3 pound 75p for a room for a night to well over 100quid in 2026
Wow
You told me that holiday was gonna be a two week blistering sex rampage. "It's Weston-Super-Mare, Eddie", you said, "Weston-Super-Maaaaaare!"
birmingham local even then!!!!!!!!!!!
Watching this and seeing the older ladies just made me realize how spot on Monty Python was with their drag.
😂😂😂😂 define golden sand
Does the local fishing industry still exist?
Now country is full of boat people.
Now ‘Bathing not advised due to poor annual classification’ SSRS data 🤮💩
15:00 that's my great grandad and grandad on the fishing boat
My son and l go to Weston every week it’s still has a quiet charm,not as busy as in it’s hey day but still a nice day out,people can be negative about any changes,because of our inclement climate a lot of people go abroad .
Those babies are now in their mid to late 40's
This is wonderful. I love Weston-super-Mare and my family have for generations too. I recently shared some of my grandpa’s cine film in the 60s if anyone fancies a trip slightly further back in time. Good to see The Waverley too. I recently enjoyed a trip.
Great to see the lovely man Claude Riou & the feature on the parks dept. I worked for Woodspring parks in those days chiefly in Grove Park but also in Clarence Park & the long gone nurseries. All the plants for the parks were grown in the nurseries & it’s real shame that most of this work is contracted out or left to volunteers nowadays.
Nowadays 3 million people a year still visit Weston – mostly to go to rehab.
My aunty used to take me and my brother for a day out. We absolutely loved it. Happy days
Clean, nice, nothing like today
the streets with no rubbish and plastic everywhere… bliss
What a dive
Happier times.
Use to holiday here from mid 90s to mid 2000's, loved it then. The caravan park we stayed on every time is now a housing estate. WSM now is a cackhole, which is a shame. I miss the Thomas ride on train too near the end of the strip, and the old pier before it got remodelled after the arson attack.
Even the Sky looks different.
My God, when it was ok to be a proud Brit and their was a very limited diversity , now we are fooked
It's weird how all of the adults are dressed so formally and inappropriately. No shorts to be seen!
Mud flats 🤣
Not a medieval dressed cousin F’er in sight. Bliss
Miles and miles of…MUD.
My grandparents retired from Wolverhampton down to a little village between Bristol and Weston. Our visits to them always culminated in a trip to Weston during the 70’s and 80’s. I visit now with my family – real trips down memory lane – still love it along with Burnham on Sea 🥰💕
it was a lovely place to go and it was my playground for many years, sadly ruined by successive councils and parking charges and crazy health and safety issues.
used to have a lovely green area by the sea but now been concreted over and so its lost its colour and appeal, its just a gloomy grey area to visit.
Looks great – a much better time. Everything looks so clean when compared to the Weston of today.
The quality of presenting was so superior then. No fake, forced exuberance or infantilising of the viewer.
Living in Bristol and not far from wsm have seen a big decline in this place very rough and scabby now. Such a shame
Nice to see mostly whites.
"It's air of neglected gentility is it's real attraction today". That's quite a quote from almost half a century ago. (Tip. Never use the word "Neglected" in your tourist blurb).
This could be a marketing film for going on foreign holidays (which of course … we all eventually did). People commenting that "Weston is a shadow of its former self today", but it looked pretty crap then as well tbh.
I'm 63. My childhood equivalent was Blackpool, Rhyl, Prestatyn and other North Western, muddy sea, "Resorts" (Resort to what exactly? The final resort?).
We had such low-expectations didn't we? Normal life was so mundane that rolling-up your trouser legs and standing in freezing cold brown water constituted an annual treat.
"Ooohh I like it hot … but not this hot. It's the humidity Frank, not the temperature. Take your tie off. Do you want an Ice Cream? I'll write those Postcards back in our Room but we need 20 Stamps"
None of my family or myself have ever been to Weston Super -Mare ..
Lovely back then. Live close and can tell you unfortunately its a shithole now.
Some people say the annual trip to the seaside was boring years ago but we regularly holidayed at Weston in the 1960's and '70's and I was never bored. We spent some time on the beach but there was lots more to do – model village, model railway, various parks, 'pitch and putt', crazy golf, sea-quarium, explore nearly Uphill, Kewstoke and Sand Bay, back then both piers were open, maybe a visit to somewhere like Cheddar or Bath. On a rainy day, 'summer specials' of the likes of TV Comic and the Beano or a paperback book would keep you occupied. There were also Cinema and Theatre although I don't recall using those during the holidays, and of course the pubs and restaurants, shops and cafes.
cool seeing all this old stuff. it is absolutely shocking how far the UK and the BBC has fallen. Completely taken over by its enemies.
The donkey guy very interesting 🧐
I visited between 1976 and 1983…Went back there in 2025.I do remember seeing an InterCity 125 at Weston-super-Mare Station when they were virtually brand new…Also, the amusement arcades and piers. My stepmum's mum ran a small hotel in WSM. The hotel is gone, but I already knew that. I visited the road, it was in, and it's a block of flats now.
KowpopipooFaloCamill0!😅
THOSE WERE THE DAYS. Some women didn't have bikinis and just wore a bra if it was hot
How I miss the peaceful conversation, well spoken, polite and so comforting. Can we campaign to bring back diction ❤