Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
IT’S a weird feeling going back to a place you were deeply committed to and seeing how it has developed and changed since you’ve been away.
Bristol was the Szecowka family’s port of call for more than seven years and this winter we returned to the historic English University City for a short break after six years of living in Bahrain.
We still have family and friends living there and a splendid townhouse rented out to civilian workers at the Ministry of Defence but in recent years our visits have been fleeting at most.
This winter we decided to base ourselves in the city, home to one of the world’s greatest (OK, I’m a little biased) football teams, Bristol Rovers, currently struggling near the foot of the lowest tier of English professional football but showing signs of recovery and preparing for a bright future in a new state-of-the-art stadium.
My youngest son, nine-year-old little Stan is football mad, plays for the Under-10 Arsenal Soccer School Bahrain team and is probably the only ‘Gashead’ in the kingdom – a term of endearment for all Rovers’ fans because one of the club’s former grounds used to be near a gasworks.
I shall not tell you what they call the followers of the city’s other professional team because this is a family newspaper.
My boy, born in the local hospital a little more than a free kick away from the ground, was invited to be Bristol Rovers official mascot but when we arrived at the stadium the game was called off because of a December downpour.
It rains often in England and it never stops raining in Bristol.
He was dressed in his kit ready for action and was gutted. A few fans passed by to chat in the car park because he was so upset and eventually we spotted a club official.
The gentleman was great, showed us around the home changing room, allowed Stan to have his photograph taken in the team bath, and then introduced us to the club’s new coach John Ward, appointed only hours earlier to be its saviour with a mission to keep the team in the Football League.
The warm-hearted boss signed Stan’s shirt, took him to the club shop and gave him the Rovers’ 2013 calendar, and then told him that he would be ‘his mascot’ on January 1, the day before we flew back to Bahrain, via Amsterdam.
Good life lesson, when things look bleak, they can suddenly turn round ... a little like Rovers fortunes as they have since gone on a run of impressive victories.
Anyway, the next morning in the hotel we received a frantic call from the club’s stadium manager saying news had spread across the online fan zones about how some poor child had flown 6,000 miles to be a mascot and was left crying at the gate because no one from the club had told him the game was off.
We did an interview on the BBC to set the record straight, I gave them a brilliant quote: ‘if the manager is half as good a coach as he is a man, the club will soon be soaring up the table’. It appears I’ve been proved right.
Little Stan sang the club’s quaint fans song: ‘Irene, Goodnight Irene’ live on the radio ... must have been magic for the listeners ... and the club was so happy they fed us both in the director’s box on match day as a way of saying thank you!
And, it’s not surprising Rovers are stealing the points necessary for survival, they are nicknamed The Pirates.
Walking along Bristol’s ancient harbour, it’s easy to imagine the tall ships with their sails whipping in the wind and the shouts and cries of sailors preparing to head out to sea. Bristol’s strong links with the ocean, and its key role in the trade of slavery and tobacco, inevitably led to the city’s involvement with piracy.
Bristol’s most famous pirate, Blackbeard, was allegedly born in the city, near the old harbour. Also known as Edward Teach, the infamous sailor led a reign of terror over the Caribbean Sea and the islands that inhabit it.
The rich and eventful history of Bristol as a port stretches back over many centuries. The original town was listed in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of 1051 as a port trading regularly with Ireland and Bristol played an extremely important role in sea trade for hundreds of years following this.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel was one of Bristol’s most famous sons, and his feats of engineering soon stretched to the city’s waterways. It was Brunel who played a major role in the cutting-edge design and construction of the floating harbour, which is still in use today.
One of Brunel’s famous steamships was the majestic ss Great Britain, the first iron-hulled, propeller-driven ship to cross the Atlantic. Built in Bristol and launched in 1843, this magnificent ship made voyages to New York and Australia and was used as a freight and cargo ship during the Crimean War.
It now rests in the original dry dock in which she was built, and is open to the public as one of Bristol’s major visitor attractions.
At the heart of the city is the Harbourside area, transformed in recent years through one of Europe’s most successful waterfront regeneration schemes.
And, anyone spending any length of time in Bristol is likely to come across The Bristol Hotel. Sitting pretty on the quayside of the Floating Harbour, this luxury property is surrounded by the best of Bristol’s Old City and maritime history: Bristol Old Vic Theatre and the beautifully-restored Queen Square, Bristol Cathedral and the @Bristol science attraction across Pero’s Bridge, and, of course, The Arnolfini, Bristol’s celebrated contemporary arts centre, right next door.
The theme of change remains. Formerly known as Jurys, it is one of 10 core hotels after the Irish company was split up and sold, to be rebranded as part of the Doyle Collection and a beneficiary of a multi-million euros investment back into the portfolio.
It now falls under the category of ‘deluxe-luxury’. For all these reasons, The Bristol Hotel is hard to avoid, even by visitors who are staying elsewhere.
Those who do stay at the hotel get to experience its great location, the fresh, modern luxury of its bedrooms, and the chic cuisine and quayside ambience of The River Grille and Shore Café Bar and the ivories of a grand piano being regularly twinkled by celebrated Britain’s Got Talent TV contestant Bill Hopper.
Bristol’s tourism sector has grown substantially over the last few years to the extent that the value of this market now exceeds £750 million (BD443 million) with over 15,000 jobs dependent on the sector.
The city’s buzzing nightlife is renowned across the UK and the city boasts arguably two of the finest Indian restaurants in the country, both called Raj Mahal.
Its Stapleton outlet on the fringe of the city, a short walk from the University of the West of England (UWE) campus and close to where the new Rovers stadium is to be built, is a renowned five-star establishment owned by Shaikh Luthfur Rahman, pictured right with his son. His son, Sadtqur, 26, now manages its new city sister twin restaurant in Redcliffe.
The tantalising flavour of their tandoori trout alone is worth the cost of a return ticket to the UK in my opinion.
Recent major capital investment together with the continued popularity of established attractions has led to a year-on-year increase in visitor numbers to Bristol, which is consistently one of the top UK destinations for overseas visitors.
Bristol received a massive boost with the opening of the £500 million Cabot Circus retail and leisure development in September 2008. Also, situated just north of Bristol is The Mall at Cribbs Causeway, which includes a number of major stores, including John Lewis.
The magnificent Bristol Hippodrome, a short stroll from the hotel, attracts top shows fresh from London’s West End and stages a traditional British Pantomime every festive season. The Bristol Zoo and Clifton Suspension Bridge are also major tourism attractions.
The old saying is that everything is shipshape and Bristol fashion … it’s a city that offers so much, and more, to the discerning tourist from the Gulf region.
