“Knitting helped me lose weight. It keeps my hands busy so I don’t eat so much,” Susan Jones says. She is tidying up years’ worth of loose ends – a ball of yarn that she’s created by tying up scraps of wool from old projects. She’s among a group of regulars who attend the knitting club at Avonmouth Community Centre Association on the outskirts of Bristol.
“I came here to find friends because I was new to the area,” the former bus driver says. “Moving somewhere new and not knowing anyone – you get four-wall syndrome.”
The community centre is a lifeline for many in the area, providing activities for a huge range of people from parents and toddlers to Bingo and New Age Kurling. Carol is a trustee. She runs the knitting classes, which have increased to three a week because of high demand from young and old. She remembers when the building used to be a school.
“One teacher had a high wooden chair in her classroom,” she says. “If we were good, we could sit there and polish her shoes at the end of the lesson. I was never asked to polish her shoes!”
People take part because it’s relaxing and a chance to socialise. There are challenges, however.
“You’ve got to have a warm room to have a knitting club,” Carol adds.
The Victorian building was not designed to hold in the warmth. The windows are high and arched at the top, you can see light shining in from under the doors and damp creeps up the walls. Some of the knitters remember going to lessons there before the school closed in 1971. “The taps used to freeze over,” one recalled. The coal-fired radiators gave off little heat.
Today, the team of local residents running the centre are in the middle of a huge renovation programme aimed at improving energy efficiency to cut bills and keep people warm. An important part of this work – replacing leaky doors and windows – is funded through our Megawatt Community Energy grant, which the centre received in the latest round.
“Last year when energy prices went up, it was a scary time because the hike in the bills could have potentially made the building unsustainable,” centre manager Rachel Haig says. Luckily, they were able to negotiate a special tariff. So far, with the help of grants and other funding, they have installed new radiator, thermostats and underfloor heating in the library. They have even started putting in some new windows with the help of grants.
“The old radiators didn’t give off much heat,” says Valerie Price. She’s just finished the Bingo and is sitting with a group of friends about to enjoy the community lunch. The regular meals are busy events. Today there are around 20 people sitting around the room, chatting and eating. They reminisce about the area and the building when it was a school, which many of them attended. They agree the centre is very important to them and the community.
“Avonmouth is a nice place to live,” Valerie says. “It can be a bit cut off because of the motorway but I love it. It’s the people that make it.
You can read more about our Megawatt Community Energy Fund, which we run with Low Carbon Gordano, here.
