{"product_id":"when-the-bridge-goes-up-weymouth","title":"When the Bridge Goes Up: Local Secrets, Honest Stories \u0026 the Real Weymouth","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThis town runs on a bridge that goes up six times a day and does not care what you had planned.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEight, ten, twelve, two, four, six in the winter. Two more lifts in the summer. A bell, the barriers, and then two hundred tonnes of steel tips up on each side and everyone on Custom House Quay stands there holding their shopping. Brenda, who is seventy six and was born up the hill in Chapelhay and grew up in the flats they built after the bombing, says nobody from Chapelhay was ever early for anything in their life. You wait, or you walk round. That is the whole town in one sentence.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI came here alone from Reading in the summer of 2023 after my job went. I rent two rooms above the harbour on the side visitors don't cross to. I am not from here and I don't pretend to be. What I have is three years of walking, listening, getting the bus wrong, and one old woman on Chapelhay Street who decided I needed sorting out. I wrote it all down. This is that.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align:center;margin:26px 0;\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0942\/8218\/7134\/files\/when-the-bridge-goes-up-weymouth-spread.jpg\" alt=\"Chapter Two: Wait or Walk Round, a real spread from When the Bridge Goes Up\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:6px;\"\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eWhat's in it\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe bridge, properly.\u003c\/strong\u003e Winter and summer lift times, what the bell means, why the boats bunch up at the mouth before ten, what happens on Christmas Eve, the 1930 opening and the American granite at the north end, and Brenda's rule for never being caught on the wrong side.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTwo towns, one harbour.\u003c\/strong\u003e Melcombe Regis on the beach side and old Weymouth on the Nothe side were forced into one borough in 1571 and have argued ever since. Which pubs are which, Hope Square, Cove Row, Trinity Road, the Chapelhay steps, and where the day trippers stop and the locals start.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eChapelhay.\u003c\/strong\u003e What the bombing did to this hill, what the council did in 1946, who still lives in the flats, why the view from Trinity Terrace is the best in town and nobody photographs it. Brenda's dad, the Channel Islands boats, and the trains that used to run through the streets to the Quay.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe chippy question.\u003c\/strong\u003e Marlboro, Bennett's, Fish 'n' Fritz, King Edwards, the Old Harbour, and the ones in Wyke and on Portland that people bring up to end the argument. Who says what, and what to order at each.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe sands and the Clock.\u003c\/strong\u003e The Punch and Judy pitch that has been there since about 1880 and the men who ran it, the Jubilee Clock and how the prom came out to meet it, Greenhill and the huts, Castle Cove off the Rodwell Trail, Bowleaze, and which end the town actually uses in October.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePortland without a car.\u003c\/strong\u003e The number 1 every fifteen minutes, which side to sit, the causeway, Chesil, the Bill, Church Ope, why Speed Week happens in the harbour in October, and what a kimberlin is.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhat is being built and what isn't.\u003c\/strong\u003e Brewers Quay and the museum waiting on St Thomas Street, the Peninsula hotel plan, North Quay, the Bowl, the Rectory, the harbour walls, the flood scheme, the fireworks row this August. What has happened, what has not, and what people up the hill say about all of it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA year from the bench at the Nothe.\u003c\/strong\u003e Pirate Fest and the parade from St Mary Street, Speed Week, the fort's Halloween, the lights in New Bond Street, panto at the Pavilion, the empty January beach, the first bridge lift with the sun on it in April.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHow to live here alone.\u003c\/strong\u003e Buses, the Dorchester train, where the quiet cafes are on a wet Tuesday, and the honest bit about what it costs and who has been priced out of the seafront flats.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eHow it works\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eYou pay, the download link arrives straight away, and it opens on whatever you have in your hand. About sixty pages. Brenda keeps me honest, so when the bridge times move, a shop on St Mary Street shuts or the number 1 changes its timetable, the book gets rewritten and everyone who already bought it gets the new version free. No second payment, ever.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align:center;margin:28px 0 18px;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/rootsand-routes.com\/cart\/58091673059710:1\" style=\"display:inline-block;background:#a8302a;color:#fff9ec;padding:16px 34px;border-radius:6px;font-size:18px;font-weight:700;text-decoration:none;letter-spacing:0.3px;\"\u003eGet When the Bridge Goes Up now\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align:center;margin:26px 0;\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0942\/8218\/7134\/files\/when-the-bridge-goes-up-weymouth-updates.jpg\" alt=\"Buy it once, keep it forever, free updates for life\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:6px;\"\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eWho this is for\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003ePeople who grew up here and left and still check whether the bridge is up on the harbour cam. People whose mum is still in Wyke or Westham. Anyone with a week booked in a flat on the Esplanade or a caravan at Bowleaze who wants the town rather than the leaflet. And anyone who has ever arrived somewhere alone in their forties and needed a Brenda.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBrenda says you wait, or you walk round.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align:center;margin:28px 0 8px;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/rootsand-routes.com\/cart\/58091673059710:1\" style=\"display:inline-block;background:#6f9cc2;color:#fff9ec;padding:16px 34px;border-radius:6px;font-size:18px;font-weight:700;text-decoration:none;letter-spacing:0.3px;\"\u003eDownload it now, free updates for life\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align:center;font-size:14px;color:#555;\"\u003eInstant download. Any device. Written under the pen name Rose Adams.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Roots \u0026 Routes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":58091673059710,"sku":"WEY-BGU-01","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0942\/8218\/7134\/files\/when-the-bridge-goes-up-weymouth-cover.jpg?v=1790287501","url":"https:\/\/rootsand-routes.com\/products\/when-the-bridge-goes-up-weymouth","provider":"Roots \u0026 Routes","version":"1.0","type":"link"}