Today Radio Bristol are doing some live coverage from Nailsea and so I did my thought slot live from The Blue Room, a shop in the town centre. To understand the final line you need to know, if you are not local, that presenter Steve le Fevre does not come from these parts either:
I am in my home town of Nailsea. I moved here in 2006. Most people are incomers.
Allowed to grow from village to small town by the North Somerset Development Plan in the 1960s, more people moved here than come from here.
I am a Brummie. Proudly so. But Nailsea is my home. I don't come from these parts but I share with others, who have settled here, a growing love of town and a responsibility to look after the place and people.
I live on an estate that used to be fields. Lots of Nailsea used to be fields. This 1960s concrete town centre used to be the village green.
It was six months before I met anyone who had been born in Nailsea apart from the younger generation.
Location is interesting. There has been a community on this site since the days that a small island in a large bay became first tidal, then mainland.
It farmed, it became Roman, found coal, used coal to make glass and now has light industries and is a dormitory town. People sleep here and work elsewhere.
The Jewish and Christian stories start with God calling Abram to leave his home and go somewhere else.
Once, hearing that Jesus came from Nazareth, people said 'Nazareth? Can anything good come out of Nazareth?'
Later St Paul wrote, in effect, that we were all just passing through and our citizenship should be in heaven.
Where do you come from? Where are your roots? Where is your home? Are you a settler or a nomad?
So, as they used to say in my home and don't say here, Tarrarabit and back to the lovely local accent of Steve in the studio.
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