By Isle of Wight Observer
The Isle of Wight Observer published on 18th September, 1920 discusses the unreliability of the British weather and the proposal of train ferries versus a tunnel to get across the Solent. More than 100 years later the same issues are still being discussed. The editor also had a dig about the lack of street lighting in parts of Ryde.
The fond hope that we were in for an Indian summer was rudely shattered this week by the heavy rain on Wednesday and again on Thursday morning, yet there are prospects for a fine week-end and a few more visitors to take the places of so many who have left. The season on the whole has been a very successful one and if only the railway companies could have done more for us in the way of excursions it would have been much longer. Perhaps this will come right another year if the world is in a less topsy-turvy condition. There seems to be the idea that the proposal for a train ferry across the Solent will assume a practical shape, in any case it will get more support than a tunnel.
Mr Crump had the satisfaction of hearing praise from a gentleman visitor of his al fresco dances. The gentleman was down here for a rest cure and he said it was an agreeable change to watch such a happy throng of young people enjoying themselves amid such bright surroundings. Of course he did not refer to the “bright surroundings” of Union Street or Pier Street in the evenings — abyssmal darkness as one of the councillors termed it.