Ep 72 – THE GREATER GOOD & Tenby!

Is there really a silent majority or do most people agree with this? Let us know in the comments.

Hello and welcome to the Great British Biking Adventures Coast Series. In this series we are travelling around the coast on our motorcycle, a Honda VFR1200X Crosstourer.

A lot of our viewers are bike enthusiasts but this series will appeal to a wider audience. Why? Because there’s so much more to the Coast series than motorcycles. There’s the challenges, the journey, geography, history and people. You get to travel the entire coast of England and Wales with us, see how we did it, share our ups and downs, experience English culture, the history and hear about the people that made Britain ‘Great’!

What’s also good about the coast series is it doesn’t matter when you start watching, it’s like one of those open top bus tours – you can get on at any point and just keep going until you arrive back where you started.

Who are we? We’re a husband & wife living in an unremarkable coastal town in England. We’ve been married 35 years and were brought together by motorcycles. One day, Esther’s Honda Melody broke down and she brought it to Jarrod’s motorcycle shop – the rest (as they say) is history.

One cold February day, we started riding along the seafront and just kept going. We wanted to record the experience to have something to watch in the future – the YouTube channel was an afterthought. Take a look at those first few episodes to see just how novice we were, cobbling together what little phone footage we had to try to make a story. To make up for our amateur recording and shyness we added information in the editing. This set the tone and style of our videos, we hope you like it. We like to think we’ve improved and hopefully you’ll agree, take a look, compare our earlier videos with the later ones and let us know in the comments.

There’s also the filming and production journey. When we started we knew nothing about filming, video and audio production, editing, YouTube and the like. We’ve learnt loads and spent loads in time and money along the way but it’s been almost as enjoyable as the journey itself. You’ll hopefully appreciate how far we’ve come.

But what’s with all those bible verses we hear you say. We know some of you don’t appreciate this aspect, one or two have told us in the comments! That’s fine – it really is. All are equally welcome here, believers and unbelievers. It would be a pity if you enjoyed everything else but just stopped watching because of the Christian references but we completely accept you’re free to do as you please.

Our faith has prompted us to include a bible verse in our videos and sometimes a Christian perspective on the things we talk about. The channel is not about Christianity but our faith cannot be separated from it. We hope and pray that it will make you think, inquire and even bring you into a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

[Music] hello and welcome to our trip around the English and Welsh Coastline we’ve just got the Welsh side of the Bristol Channel and a bit of the English side to do ooh we get this yeah try love it love it love it very nice in the last episode we arrived at tenby Esther will show you around this terrific little town in a moment but first I need to lament on our not too distant past dear seen better days hasn’t it abandoned post offices are a common site in the UK as are other municipal buildings that used to serve the public such as police stations and libraries in less than a quarter of a century virtually all of them have closed down but for the time being at least the buildings remain it’s difficult to disguise such identifiable architecture they stand like this one in 10B forgotten but still proud internally and externally these buildings were once both reassuring and slightly austere they provided specific public services and stood as a reminder of common good Civics nowadays their functions have been centralized either by being moved online out of town or Amalgamated into convenience stores and what’s called shared services all in the name of efficiency this is an example of greater good politics it’s all about the greater good the greater good how can this be for the greater good the greater good at this point if you prefer to get on with TBI fast forward now to the time shown on the screen to many the greater good and the common good are seen is the same thing but they couldn’t be more different the common good has been defined as peace security and a well-ordered community the greater good has been defined as the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong can you see the difference more importantly can you see the problems with the greater good in simple terms it allows for the ends justifying the means even if those ends are based on Good Intentions which often they’re not good intentions are not enough for the greater good has been described as the phrase that always precedes the greatest evil throughout history many catastrophic events have been justified in the name of the greater good these often resulting in significant human suffering and death during the Starling era of the Soviet Union the purges and famines resulted in the deaths of millions of people these actions were justified in the name of centralization of power and agricultural efficiency for the greater good of society in the late 19th and early 20th centuy some societies most notably Nazi Germany practiced for sterilizations euthanasia and genocide in the name of improving the human race millions of people were murdered these actions were Justified as being for the greater good of society since March 2020 governments have Justified the implementation of emergency powers and imposed restrictions on citizens rights and freedoms in the name of the greater good these restrictions were implemented with arbitrary and sometimes violent enforcement and included restricting freedom of assembly privacy the freedom to worship the freedom of movement through lockdowns the closing of businesses Banning of speech at disagreed with mandating vaccines limiting travel closing schools enforcing social isolation and rationing of Health Care the long-term social and economic impacts of these actions are still being assessed but they had to be done for the greater good or did they to do good is commendable but what is good is it good when it necessitates coercion and aggression against the few the greater good isn’t a reflection of what’s best for everyone but usually of what’s best for the people in power greater good politics use fear to exploit us to conform and to enthusiastically judge those who do not so let’s just make this very clear my nan my 97-year-old Nan here who we have taken from the care home because we haven’t seen her for 9 months is now being taken back by force to her care home my mother has been arrested my mother is in the back of a car here she is a nurse she is a fully qualified nurse who is wishing to care for her own mother and here we have an incredible use of police time to take my 97y old grandmother back into a care home where she is deteriorating where we haven’t been able to see her for 9 months N I love you and we are going to fight for you we haven’t got a signal at the moment or we we’ve just about gone into a signal but we haven’t got our Maps loaded so we know we’re in TBI and we know we want to go this way but it’d be really useful to load our next Maps um so we where we’re going speculating at the moment we’re just yeah riding ra we don’t know it that well we’ve been a few times but we know there’s a lovely old Harbor area and yeah and it’s all familiar yeah that’s the old city obviously but old city is it would you call it an old C City wall but I’m pretty sure they did it’s not a city anyway T is a town no that’s where we often park is in there don’t we yeah but we’re going to see how much we can drive around we’re half expecting to hit restrictions yeah Beyond the Wall as it were we might not be able to get in cuz there some really lovely streets but the seafront is also well temp is just gorgeous is a car well pedestrian so we can do this we can do this though lovely T Beach yeah wow gorgeous for us one of the attractions of Wales is how it somehow manages to feel different to England we often compare it to France and even Spain especially when the weather is favor able I’m not able to put my finger on it but TBI has a continental Vibe the three miles of lovely sandy beaches are separated by the old W town and Port that stand noticeably above them like canavan you can casually and easily wander these historic streets taking in the atmosphere my advice is to put your phone away and your map away and explore and discover this delightful old town for yourself as well as the Charming High Street and the little L that squeeze themselves between the beautiful buildings there’s the remains of an old castle and an island with a fort that can be accessed on foot at low tide I recommend you don’t make the mistake we did though avoid the holiday period and you will be rewarded with experiencing the real TBI check out the events calendar there’s lots going on such as the Blues Festival every November tby probably dates back to the 9th century the importance of its location was underlined with the construction of the castle and town walls the security this brought encouraged merchants and Traders in the town prospered for over 500 years however in the space of just a few years the town went into rapid decline from which it has never fully recovered it was hit hard by the English Civil War and in 1650 half the population died of the plague people often call the period that followed the Wilderness years in the late 18th century John Wesley noted during his visit how 2third of the old town is in Ruins or has entirely vanished pigs roam among the abandoned houses and tby presents a dismal spectacle at the beginning of the 19th century T’s decline started to reverse the upper classes were prevented from traveling to Europe because Napoleon bonapart was busy taking over the war provided the perfect opportunity for TBI to reinvent itself in 1802 local resident Merchant banker and politician Sir William Paxon invested heavily in turning TBI into a spa retreat for the elite The Venture wasn’t entirely successful but was saved just a few years later with the Advent of the emerging middle class no doubt wealthy victorians appreciated the opportunity to associate themselves with a prestigious Resort although by now Napoleon had been defeated by the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of waloo and Elite upper classes had abandoned TBI and returned to the more fashionable European resorts it’s fair to say since then T’s appeal has moved down the classes which means People Like Us can appreciate the Splendor and charm of this place you can keep nce I’ll take tby any day once you’ve exhausted the sights of tby and if you’re not too exhausted yourself then we recommend you take one of the regular boat trips to CI Island there’s been a monastery here since the sixth century and it’s still operating today [Music] [Music] for me though the best thing about CI Island are the red squirrels several times during this adventure we have been on the lookout for these elusive little tree rodents only to be disappointed unlike forby where there’s little or no chance of seeing them the red squirrels here at CI are not nearly as shy the red squirrel is indigenous to Britain but has been pretty much wiped out by the North American gray squirrel I know Jared’s given you enough Doom and Gloom for this episode but I have to lament also you may may be aware of the recent allegations regarding historic child abuse they are currently being investigated and reviewed so I’m not going to say any more about them but my heart is saddened every time I hear of the Dreadful things mankind does but especially when innocent children are involved on a lighter note in 2021 tby was part of Wally The waris’s Grand Tour Wally is an Arctic warus who made the unusual long trip South visiting Ireland Wales France Spain and finally the silly ises before returning home he was last spotted in September 2021 in Iceland he was a nuisance and responsible for sinking several small boats as he looked for the best spots to bask despite that he endeared himself and became quite an attraction his favorite spot at TBI was the Lifeboat slipway [Music] [Music] good [Music] sh [Music] oh [Music] [Music] bit of gangle of interes in bikes on the right motorcycles couple of old classics Honda 4 oh it’s an original BSA Rocket 3 now you don’t see many of those and original Triumph Bonville and a couple of modern triumphs quite something 554 Rocket 3 and Bonnie [Music] oh [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] there we go Kamal Thena welcome to Kamar venure is that right