“We try to come down to the Riverside Market every Sunday, just to pick up a couple of essentials. It helps when it’s sunny!”
As seen in: Riverside
Photograph by Helia Phoenix
***
“Fundraising is my absolute passion. I put on events to raise money for different charities – I raised twelve and a half thousand pounds last year. It started out being quite low-key – I love a good night out, and people started asking me to organise them locally. They’re great events and so much fun – and it’s all for a good cause. I call it positive socialising!”
As seen in: Roath
Read Wayne Courtney’s story for We Are Cardiff
Photograph by Helia Phoenix
***
“If we could go back to when we were setting up The SHO Gallery I don’t know what advice we’d give ourselves. We learnt so many little things along the way. The one thing we do know now is how little we knew back then!”
As seen in: Roath
Photograph by Helia Phoenix
***
“I started playing guitar at around the age of 12 after becoming hooked on classic rock music. I wanted to be like them! I still love Aerosmith, Whitesnake, Bon Jovi! Started writing songs at 15 and have just done it ever since. Cardiff is a great place to play gigs, but it can be quite cliquey. Having said that I’ve met some great musicians and promoters and have seen some great bands here. It seems to be getting better, but a lot of the alt-country-style bands I love seem to go unappreciated or seem to play Bristol more.”
As seen in: Cardiff city centre
Photograph by Gareth Davies
***
“I can’t pick a favourite song. There are too many I love! If I had to pick the perfect song for this very moment, it would be ‘Africano‘ by Earth Wind and Fire.”
As seen in: Roath
Photograph by Helia Phoenix
***
“My advice for newly-weds? Don’t do it. Actually I think it’s probably too late for that by then, isn’t it? So my advice is – show no weakness.”
As seen in: Roath
Photograph by Helia Phoenix
***
“The meals that remind me of my childhood are pie and … eggy bread. Pie because we rolled filo with my grandmother on the sofra (low round table) sitting in a lotus posture and eggy bread because it’s the treat we had every Thursday for a meal – little did I know it was my poor working mom’s cheats supper on her 12 hour work days!”
As seen in: Roath
Visit Lia’s Kitchen
Photograph by Helia Phoenix
Hello friends. Happy International Womens Day! To celebrate, our friend Kelly Page has written us a We Are Cardiff about the first female professor to be appointed to the (at the time) Cardiff University. Go! Go!
First Female Professor Appointed in the Largest Coal Port in the World
Imagine it is 1904.
You are living and working in Cardiff, the largest coal port in the world.
You are a woman, 40 years young, working as the head of women’s teacher training in the town’s new university.
The university, University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire (now Cardiff University) is only 20 years old. It was founded with 13 staff and 151 students, 15 of who were women (1883).
You are working at one of the first universities in Britain to open its doors to female students and with a residence specifically for women, Aberdare Hall (1885). A hall that is giving women from outside Cardiff the opportunity to attend university (and your training) without the stigma associated with living alone in rented accommodation. A hall, that is the second women’s hall of residence to be built in the UK (the other being at the University College London).
You’ve witnessed Cardiff Arms Park host its first international rugby match, an encounter between Wales and Ireland (1886); and looked on as the world experienced the first modern Olympics in Athens (1896).
The patent for radio communication was awarded just 7 years earlier to Guglielmo Marconi, with the first transmission from Flat Holm to Lavernock Point in South Wales (1897).
Sadly, a few years earlier Queen Victoria died (1901) after a 63 year-long reign. You and your colleagues are now living in the Edwardian era, as Edward VII has the thrown.
As you look around the town, not yet big enough to be officially called a city and years before it becomes the capital of Wales, you watch the hive of activity from the large coal port. You also see construction has started on Main Building (1903), a building that will take another 6 years to partially complete (1909) and define the universities campus.
You’ve taken a keen interest in the national movement for women’s suffrage, lobbying for political reform and militancy pushing for change. You want the right to vote.
Why is this year, 1904 so significant? Why are we here?
1904 is the year you are appointed as Professor of Education. An appointment, that will have you become the first female Professor in Britain and the first female member of the Cardiff Senate.
An appointment made one year before Cardiff is granted city status (1905); 24 years before women 21 years and over can legally vote (1928); and 51 years before Cardiff becomes the Capital of Wales (1955).
Your name is Hester (‘Hettie’) Millicent Mackenzie (nee Hughes), Professor of Education at Cardiff University.
From Bristol, Professor Mackenzie is described as an “enterprising colleague” and “absorbed in university teaching” who with her husband (also a professor at the university) liked to travel. She is a well-known educator and was head of women’s teacher training at the turn of the early 20th century, at what is now known as Cardiff University.
Aberdare Hall, Cardiff University
She is also the author of numerous books and lectures on education. Much of her work focused on the methods for preparing teachers for working in schools across the country and advocated co-educational instruction. She researched Welsh and UK schools and also drew insight from the US and European education systems. In 1894, with co-author Amy Blanche Bramwell, they wrote the title, Training of Teachers in the United States, a title that focused on the co-education in US teacher trainer schools. She also authored Moral Education: The Task of the Teacher (1909); Freedom in Education. An Inquiry into its Meaning, Value, and Condition (1925); and wrote Hegel’s Theory and Practice of Education (date unknown).
Professor Mackenzie was a supporter of the suffragette movement in Wales and one of the founders of the Cardiff branch, four years after her appointment as Professor (1908). The first branch in Wales of the movement to win the vote for women was founded in Llandudno in 1907. This was followed by branches in Rhyl and Cardiff (1908); and Anglesey and Bangor (1912).
In the 1918 General Election women were nominated as Parliamentary candidates for the first time. There were seventeen women candidates in Britain, but only one stood for a Welsh constituency, namely Prof. Mackenzie (Labour) for the University of Wales seat. She was unsuccessful.
Progress on women’s votes was slow. Enfranchised women over the age of thirty, provided they were local government electors, or the wives of local government electors, was awarded the vote 14 years after her appointment as professor (1918), three year after she had retired from her academic duties (1915). Women over 21 years old were granted the right to vote 24 years after her appointment (1928), 14 years before her death.
Having made a significant contribution in her work to Education; women in University life and the movement for equal voting rights, Professor Mackenzie died in Brockweir, near Chepstow on 10 December 1942.
To Millicent Hettie Mackenzie (nee Hughes) (1863-1942), I dedicate this #WOWWales tribute.
Professor Mackenzie, #WOWWales colleague, mentor and friend.
Who inspires you?
***
A quick reminder about our involvement with this initiative…
The goal of We Are Cardiff has always been celebrating the city of Cardiff through the stories of people who live here. Recently our (award winning – sorry, had to drop that in) blog was asked to be part of a campaign being launched by n0tice, which is a web platform that brings together hyperlocal news and events from various sites into one centralised place. The campaign that’s being launched is celebrating the British high street and its function in bringing together local communities across the UK.
N0tice’s celebrate and change the highstreet campaign is being launched in four different UK locations – Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, and Brighton. Revitalising city and town centre high streets as community hubs is an aspect of urban regeneration that we think is really important, and we’re delighted and really excited that n0tice have asked us to partner with them in promoting this new initiative here in the capital of Wales.
So – what does this mean for you guys reading this? Well, we want YOU GUYS to take photographs of what you want to celebrate or change about your local high street. You can tweet them with the hashtags #celebrate or #change and the hashtag #myhighstreet, and the n0tice guys are going to be putting together a hub of all the online activity, which you can see at http://highstreet.n0tice.com.
But it wouldn’t be fair to ask you to do ALL the work, right? So you can see below for two photographs of things that we’ve picked out as being things to celebrate and change.
CELEBRATE:
The people. So many people. This photograph was taken at Mardi Gras this year, and it was the sense of joy and fun that this event created that we think is so key for bringing people together. Especially considering this was an event celebrating the diversity of communities in Wales. So this is our thing we want to celebrate about the city that we live in – the people. Not surprising I suppose when you consider what We Are Cardiff is about…
CHANGE
It’s a fairly obvious thing to point out about most urban centres these days, but there are increasingly more and more abandoned and empty buildings in these locations. It’s particularly sad when the buildings are old or have some sense of history behind them. Cardiff Bay has more than its fair share of these kinds of buildings (you don’t have to wander far from the bright sparkly lights of Mermaid Quay to find them either) – gorgeous old buildings that have been left empty, some for decades. The Coal Exchange, the Point, the Vaults (although these buidlings are being used sporadically). This photograph captures two things – another lovely old building that’s been left empty, but also another example of one of the 12 pubs that’s been closing (on average) per week over the past few years.
So this is the question we put to you: what are the things you would like to #change or #celebrate on #myhighstreet? Tweet us your pictures with the hashtags and take part in this campaign that’s running over October and November 2012!
This year, we’re curating a stage at this year’s Cardiff-based musical cornucopia – SWN FESTIVAL! In the run up to the festival, we’re going to be running short profiles on each of the lovely people performing on our stage. Today, we’d like to introduce you to the lovely Rhodri Viney – aka, Ratatosk!
Q. You’re playing the WAC stage at Swn this year! Can you describe your music / your sound please? What can people expect?
A. A guy doing his sad sad quasi-historical faux-dystopian musical thing, with guitars, harmonium, saw, pedal steel and whatever else is within reach. Expect some looping of instruments, and miserablist folk songs about shipwrecked sailors and the like.
Q. Describe the music scene in Cardiff for us
A. Erm, having a young son means my finger isn’t exactly on the pulse anymore, so my answer would probably be inaccurate!
Q. Any local bands/artists/producers you’d tip for people to see?
A. Firstly, I’m playing in the In Chapters band on the friday night – In Chapters is always tremendous fun and highly unpredictable, so I’d recommend that. No Thee No Ess have been sounding tremendous lately, Zervas and Pepper, Among Brothers, Islet and Sweet Baboo are always good to see too. I’m sure some of the young types I’ve not seen or heard of before are probably good too – so just go and see some music.
Q. What’s your favourite thing to do in Cardiff? (music related or otherwise)
A. Drinking / film watching in Chapter – record shopping in Spillers – eating copious amounts of food from the Vegetarian Food Studio – Riverside market – haranguing the staff at Fresh baguettes before eating their phenomenal food – Garlands cafe…
Now I write them out, I’m surprised to see how many of my favourite things involve food… I must be getting older. And fatter.
Q. Have you ever played Swn Festival before? Have you got any good Swn memories? And… who are you most looking forward to seeing at Swn Festival this year?
A. Yes, I’ve played Swn quite a lot – I think my other band, Right Hand Left Hand have played four times, the highlight was a headline gig upstairs at the Model Inn on the sunday night – a packed, excitable venue, long queues to get in, and we played well – everything I’d want a gig to be! Though I mainly remember Alex from Islet being told off for crowd-surfing-walking on the ceiling.
Q. If people want to check out your music online, where can they do that?
A. A ton of pay-what-you-want-I-don’t-care downloads are available here: ratatosk.bandcamp.com/
The goal of We Are Cardiff has always been celebrating the city of Cardiff through the stories of people who live here. Recently our (award winning – sorry, had to drop that in) blog was asked to be part of a campaign being launched by n0tice, which is a web platform that brings together hyperlocal news and events from various sites into one centralised place. The campaign that’s being launched is celebrating the British high street and its function in bringing together local communities across the UK.
N0tice’s celebrate and change the highstreet campaign is being launched in four different UK locations – Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, and Brighton. Revitalising city and town centre high streets as community hubs is an aspect of urban regeneration that we think is really important, and we’re delighted and really excited that n0tice have asked us to partner with them in promoting this new initiative here in the capital of Wales.
So – what does this mean for you guys reading this? Well, we want YOU GUYS to take photographs of what you want to celebrate or change about your local high street. You can tweet them with the hashtags #celebrate or #change and the hashtag #myhighstreet, and the n0tice guys are going to be putting together a hub of all the online activity, which you can see at http://highstreet.n0tice.com.
But it wouldn’t be fair to ask you to do ALL the work, right? So you can see below for two photographs of things that we’ve picked out as being things to celebrate and change.
CELEBRATE:
The people. So many people. This photograph was taken at Mardi Gras this year, and it was the sense of joy and fun that this event created that we think is so key for bringing people together. Especially considering this was an event celebrating the diversity of communities in Wales. So this is our thing we want to celebrate about the city that we live in – the people. Not surprising I suppose when you consider what We Are Cardiff is about…
CHANGE
It’s a fairly obvious thing to point out about most urban centres these days, but there are increasingly more and more abandoned and empty buildings in these locations. It’s particularly sad when the buildings are old or have some sense of history behind them. Cardiff Bay has more than its fair share of these kinds of buildings (you don’t have to wander far from the bright sparkly lights of Mermaid Quay to find them either) – gorgeous old buildings that have been left empty, some for decades. The Coal Exchange, the Point, the Vaults (although these buidlings are being used sporadically). This photograph captures two things – another lovely old building that’s been left empty, but also another example of one of the 12 pubs that’s been closing (on average) per week over the past few years.
So this is the question we put to you: what are the things you would like to #change or #celebrate on #myhighstreet? Tweet us your pictures with the hashtags and take part in this campaign that’s running over October 2012!
Not sure if we mentioned it or not, but we’re curating a stage at this year’s Cardiff-based musical cornucopia – SWN FESTIVAL! In the run up to the festival, we’re going to be running short profiles on each of the lovely people performing on our stage. Today, we’d like to introduce you to Madame Mab Jones. Mab has been involved with We Are Cardiff before – you can read her story here.
Q. You’re performing on the WAC stage at Swn this year! Can you describe yourself as a performer? What can people expect?
A. I’m a modern-day Pam Ayres with a penchant for the political; a naughty-but-nice Welsh ‘lady’ who enjoysentertaining with raw, rude, ribald rhyme. I’ve performed at the Comedy Store, Leicester Comedy Festival, in the USA, Japan, on BBC Radio 4, at Latitude, Green Man, and many, many more. People can expect “delightful comic verse, articulate and imaginative” (Three Weeks, Edinburgh Fringe review).
Q. Describe the spoken word scene in Cardiff for us
A. It’s pretty good, with regular nights at Tommy’s Bar and National Theatre Wales’s Word 4 Word. There are some cool events at Gremlin Alley, the squat on City Road. And I also organise the odd event through my spoken word collective Jam Bones.
Q. Any local spoken word artists you’d tip for people to see?
A. My favourite Cardiff spoken word artists are Jack Pascoe, Liam Johnson, Nicholas Whitehead, Will Ford, and Steven Kenward.
Q. What’s your favourite thing to do in Cardiff?
A. My favourite thing is trying different types of world food – there are lots of good eateries in the Diff these days.
Q. Give us your lowdown on Swn Festival
A. I’ve been to bits of the festival before, and seen lots of great bands. I think this time I’m mostly looking forward to seeing The Lovely Eggs, who I missed in Cardiff earlier in the year.
Q. If people want to check out your stuff online, where can they do that?
A. They can look at my website, www.mabjones.com. Or else they can google me and see a lot of things I never approved and don’t like come up *sigh* **wink**.
We Are Cardiff 