Great Western Coffee Shop

GWR provides services in ... London and the Thames Valley, South West England and South Wales. But what is meant by "South West England"?   I have written the first of two positioning pieces as a newly appointed board member of "TravelWatch SouthWest" defining South West England and describing it from travel and transport viewpoint at  https://grahamellis.uk/blog1333.html . Lots of maps added there!

I agree, as does  Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_West_England).

Based on recent discussions, surely it’s anything that’s not in the Thames Valley?   ;)

Pleeeeze, don't stir that one up again........ ::)

The BBC only include Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, and Somerset in their Spotlight area. ITV include Bristol and Avon.

I remember getting Points West in Taunton rather than Spotlight.

Depending on where you're located, both are usually available in and around Taunton - just a case of which direction your tv aerial is pointing - towards Mendip, or towards Stockland Hill.  Or it used to be, in analogue days

I even remember being able to get Wales Today back then (this was north Taunton though so may not have been possible everywhere in the town).  Everyone seemed to have their aerials pointing towards Mendip but this may have been different elsewhere.

Two almost superfluous observations:

1. My "best" TV signal is from Crystal Palace, but I'm not much interested in London news, so have opted for a slightly less favourable one from  Hannington in North Hampshire.

2. My Reading-based Southern Region Office of the Central Office of Information embraced Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Hampshire the IoW - and Dorset, which was a real anomaly as most of the other government departments we worked for had regional offices in Bristol that covered Dorset. Probably this had its origins during the Second World War, when the Ministry of Information, COI's precursor, set up a regional network.

There were advantages for me in that I was the only person who could be bothered to travel that far on official business (and expenses), because my parents lived in Sidmouth in Devon, 15 miles over the Dorset border.

It is similar in Swindon.  The east of the town has aerials mainly pointing at the Beckley mast north east of Oxford.   That now carries BBC South and Meridian but going back was part of ATV land.   Meanwhile to the west they point to Mendip and BBC West/HTV.   Of course there are also a fair few properties with two aerials pointing in different directions.

I was going to be mischievous and extend this discussion to "what is the West Country" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Country_English), but it seems that it embraces the same counties as "the South West".

But "the West of England" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_of_England) is a smaller entity.

(But we never see "West England" or "Western England.)