“My lips are chapped but you take me as I am. I’m Pendragon.”
As seen in: Riverside
Photograph by Helia Phoenix
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I was born in Cardiff and although I have lived elsewhere for short term contracts, there has never been a good enough reason for me to live somewhere else permanently. I like my city! So there would have to be a good reason to leave.
I have lived in Roath a few times, Cathays, Splott, Heath, Cardiff Central, Pen-y-Lan and Grangetown. I think Pen-y-Lan was my favourite, a great location, but that also has some of the best memories for the time of life and good parties in that house!
I currently work as a aerialist, acrobat, actor, director and choreographer. I spend a lot of time training and researching in this area, and that takes up a lot of my time. As well as working freelance, I’m Artistic Director for Crashmat Collective.
My favourite thing to do in Cardiff is going to live events. There are so many live music nights, theatre, and so on. Lose yourself in the city and experience as much live culture as possible!
Paul Evans has over 20 years experience as a gymnast, performing with the Welsh Gymnastics Squad and achieving many competitive accolades. After completing his BA in Drama, Paul trained with NoFit State as an apprentice on their Tabu tour. Paul is a multi skilled performer and teacher specialising in aerial, acrobatics and acting. Paul also works as a director and aerial choreographer, creating individual routines and whole shows. He is Creative Director of Crashmat Collective and is currently performing in Mary Bijou Cabaret and Social Club show, Hitch. Catch Mary Bijou on Facebook or Twitter @themarybijou. Paul currently lives in Heath.
Mary Bijou’s show Hitch premieres in their purpose-built Spiegeltent in Cardiff Bay outside the Wales Millennium Centre between 31 July and 4 August 2013.
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“My sisters got me into playing rugby. I was about 12 years old – a late starter. I haven’t played for a while so I’m trying to get back into it now. I love playing the game, being caked in mud. It’s great to get to practise outside in the summer.”
As seen in: Butetown
Photograph by Helia Phoenix
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Year three has been a year of milestones for We Are Cardiff – we hit 100k views of the website, we made a documentary film about Cardiff, AND WE’RE PUBLISHING OUR 100TH STORY! Read on and meet Stacey!
Okay, so I haven’t really fallen in love with ‘the’ Big Issue man.. In fact I think it’s safe to say the single-girl-fairy-godmother has a vendetta for me (yes, there is such a thing).
Now I can only imagine how desperate I must’ve looked when purchasing It’s Called a Break Up Because It’s Broken and It’s Just A Date, but hey, when you’re faced with being single for the first time in the 21st century, you need all the advice you can get!
In a quick relationship summary, my high school sweetheart is now my high school best friend’s sweetheart (didn’t see that one coming!) and the guy I traveled the world and then got a mortgage with broke up with me one Saturday morning using the same nonchalant attitude you’d use to discuss the weather.
Heartbroken and, well, quite frankly broke, I decided to ditch the diet of junk food and re runs of rom coms and head to Sydney, Australia (as you do). With just 796 dollars to my name I set out in the hopes of discovering myself without having a man there to hold my hand and pour milk on my Wheatabix. *Sigh*
What was suppose to be a three month trip turned into three years, and consisted of me swapping my days of asking ‘Would you like to keep the hanger’ for a front row seat at fashion week , working not only as a registered business owner but alongside the editor of one of the most read magazine’ in the world as a features writer – the single girl features writer to be precise.
Yes, there would be no hiding my newly changed relationship status – I was being pimped out by my editor in the hopes of entertaining my fellow single ladies who were dating vicariously through me.
From doctors to lawyers, musicians to the real life kinda Dear John (who didn’t just want to ‘service’ me) I quickly realised that having your dream job didn’t entitle you to your dream guy…
…and even since leaving Sydney and moving back to Cardiff I’ve managed to keep my single girl status *sigh* and shall be documenting my life (post-koala bears and surfers) (major sigh over the lack of the latter) on my website – thatcardiffgirl.com
So, whether you have some dating advice or just want to hear about my last jaw-droppingly-awful-date put the kettle on, grab a biscuit and stay a while.
Stacey is 24 and turns the big 25 this year (the thought of which makes her want to projectile vomit). Since arriving back from Sydney she has moved back home to Cadoxton in the house her family have lived in since forever. Prior to this at the age of 19 she jetted off to LA the first stop on an around the world trip she embarked on and it’s safe to say she has had itchy feet ever since. Visit her blog at thatcardiffgirl.com.
Stacey was photographed in Cardiff city centre by Jon Pountney
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“My dog’s a boy, but he’s had his bits off. So I guess he’s a half and half now.”
As seen in: Riverside
Photographs by Helia Phoenix
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I went to Aberystwyth University and had a few friends that moved to Cardiff when they graduated. A few of us hung around Aber for a bit not knowing what we should do and then decided we would all just move to Cardiff. I’ve lived in Riverside then Roath and now settled in Adamsdown. Adamsdown is my favourite, because it’s cheap and most of my friends live in the surrounding streets. Though I have fond memories of Riverside and my housemates, and Roath because I met a lovely landlord and his family who became my adopted Cardiff family! Cardiff is just so friendly and welcoming which is why it rocks!
By day, I am a legal secretary for a Patent and Trade Mark firm. It’s a job I fell into but it’s pretty great. In my spare time I do the admin for the Mary Bijou Cabaret and Social Club. If you haven’t heard of us we are a Cardiff-based (so far!) cabaret night. We began in 2010, staging themed shows in our local community hall that featured circus performers, musicians, dancers and actors from Cardiff and around the world. Our shows are immersive and intimate, driven by playfulness and good fun; the audience is invited to become part of the cabaret family for the evening. By 2011 these nights were growing in popularity, and we were invited by the Wales Millennium Centre to perform as part of the 2011 Blysh festival. Since then, Mary Bijou has been going from strength to strength. We recently performed at our second Machynlleth Comedy Festival 2013, of which we were invited back to before our 2012 first year’s festival was even over! We provide the after-hours’ entertainment in the evenings as well as daytime circus workshops.
We’re going to be back at The Centre’s Blysh festival this July and August, bigger and better than ever, with a show called “Hitch” in the Spiegel tent which is ever so exciting. This year we get a four night run!
We’re confident that this summer’s show for the Centre will be our best yet. We’re already planning our shows for Machynlleth next May, and hope to include a daytime family-friendly “children’s’ cabaret”.
Some of my favourite things to do in the city are head to the hula hooping class at the Nofit State Circus HQ or at a spin class after work, or trawling junk shops for 1950s kitchens at the weekend, going to any number of the wonderful gigs and shows happening around town, electro-swing hopping with the Kitsch n Sync girls at their Tuesday class, drinking Waterloo tea in Porter’s and catching up with friends.
There are a whole load of fun things to recommend in this city – but obviously the first one would be to come and see our show in the spiegeltent this July 31st until 3 August 2013!
Ellie Pilott has collaborated with Mary Bijou since the first show in 2010. Nofit State circus inspired her to take up hula hoop but she is too shy to perform so she stays in the background and does a number of jobs filling in where appropriate but mainly the administration and marketing. She is a proficient tea drinker, junk shop trawler, hula hoop teacher and property finder. She makes Mary Bijou Go, Go, Go! Catch Mary Bijou on Facebook or Twitter @themarybijou or on their website. She currently lives in Adamsdown.
Mary Bijou’s show Hitch premieres in their purpose-built Spiegeltent in Cardiff Bay outside the Wales Millennium Centre between 31 July and 4 August 2013.
Ellie was photographed with her hula hoops at Porter’s by Adam Chard
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“You’ve got to go outside when it’s sunny and the weather’s good. It might be the only summer we get!”
As seen in: Roath
Photograph by Helia Phoenix
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My first ‘proper’ girlfriend was Sian. I used to visit her every now and then, catching the coach down from London. Back in the day, Sian would take me to Pillars for snacks, shopping in the arcades, to the ‘animal wall’, Spillers Records, a dusty old book shop… But this is now. Sian and I have swapped locations. She lives in London, and I, mostly, live in Cardiff. I don’t see Sian anymore, as that was then. That was 33 years ago.
And me? I’m 48, live in a van, and am, usually, as naked as the day I was born.
Cardiff has changed over the years. Cardiff has been spruced up. Cardiff has had a facelift. It’s a bit unfinished and tired in places, development land in the Bay is laying fallow, modern estates of twenty years past are so soon decaying… Cardiff’s heart is pumping, but its pimped up and requires feeding. The shops and pedestrian zones demand regular re-invention and a fatty, corporate growth. It’s as if Cardiff wasn’t ready, wasn’t right for the glitz and shimmer of town centre apartments, the footballers wives lifestyles. It’s limbs, it’s Roath’s, Cathays’, Canton’s and Grangetown’s, they are where Cardiff’s at.
I think I’ve aged better than Cardiff. You can see my history on my face. There’s no mask, no veneer, no lick of paint. I’ve grown craggy, I’ve grown brave, I’m wild now, a feral human… My eyes shine bright like the gleaming windows of the smart, dressed stone Victorian town houses that hem in Roath Park. There are lines gathering about them, lines of laughter, of sorrow, of astonishment and dismay. Those lines are as the rivers Taff, Ely and Rhymney that flow over the damp, dank creases of the cities weather beaten skin. My body is tighter, taughter. It’s straining to bursting. My body is the vehicle for my voice, the voice that it holds captive behind its sinew curtain, within its bone cage. And it creaks. And it’s slower to bend. And as I speak, I ache…
And Cardiff aches and snaps at times. It’s people spark at each other. It’s architecture has raised eyebrows. I see violence of fists and of the demolition ball against the backdrop of a screaming birthing of gleaming towers. I see it’s roads slow to a halt, but, always, there is movement over tarmac once more, an edging forwards, a traveling through time and space. There’s a fidgeting to the Bay, a trembling to Whitchurch, a lurching to Llanrumny. Cardiff breathes in and out a mass of humanity, several times a day. And the humans grow up, grow old. And the city changes. It’s forever changing…
And I’ve changed. I’m 48, live in a van, and am, usually, as naked as the day I was born. More so, in fact. Swaddling’s not my thing. I’m my partners muse, an artists muse, I can be your muse. I’ve become the most employed life model in the UK, the UK’s most naked man. I work for colleges, universities, artists, hen party’s, TV… I run drawing sessions in bars in the evenings… I’ve been filmed naked with Lacey Turner and Caroline Quentin… My bum’s been booked for theatre, appearing live, on stage, an avant-garde performance arse… I’ve been interviewed by the owner of the UK’s most famous bottom, for Radio Four…
I have Cardiff to thank for this. It’s the right size for a city. It’s easy to get stuff moving, to build on an idea, to drive a project to success. Cardiff enables personal re-invention as fluidly as it re-invents itself. Cardiff’s a city on a human scale. And when it gets me down, when the planners, politicians, businessmen and all their associates, that band of corporate bland, when they piss me off, I head to Roath Lake. I sit in my van. And I watch the duckies…
Originally from South East London Andrew has been in Wales for 25 years and has experienced living in the Valleys, Brecon, Talgarth and Cardiff. Since moving to Wales he has become, amongst other things, a mountaineer, a poet, youth inclusion specialist, an activist and of course, the most naked man in the UK! He currently lives in his van with his partner Becky and his dog, Rowan. They mostly park up near Roath Park and welcome visitors who often are treated to a cup of fresh mint tea. More info can be found at about.me.
Andy was photographed at Roath Park Lake by Lann Niziblian
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I asked this little dude to give me his best photo pose. He wanted to do a zombie pose. This was it!
As seen in: Riverside
Photograph by Helia Phoenix
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I came to Cardiff because of NoFit State Circus and their great community and fantastic training facility. I have lived in Splott and Grangetown in the city. Which is my favorite? I love my Splott friends, but I like the diversity of Grangetown and seeing the Taff every day.
I am a circus performer. The thing I’ve always liked about sport is the single-minded focus on physical agility and dexterity (but not so much the competition). What I’ve always liked about making art is the dissection and analysis of the human condition. Circus is a joyous mash up of these two.
To relax, I enjoy cycling around the city and visiting car boot sales. My perfect day in Cardiff would be spending a Sunday at Bessemer Road market and car boot, and then on to the Riverside Market for lunch.
George Orange is a performance artist, circus performer, outdoor theatre-maker, former mascot, ex-drag performer, co-founder of the Mary Bijou Cabaret and Social Club, but most of all, and without any doubt – he is a clown. Past work includes Parklife and Mundo Paralelo (NoFitState Circus), Facade (Crashmat Collective) and ten seasons with Chicago’s Midnight Circus. Catch Mary Bijou on Facebook or Twitter @themarybijou or on their website. George currently lives in Grangetown.
Mary Bijou’s show Hitch premieres in their purpose-built Spiegeltent in Cardiff Bay outside the Wales Millennium Centre between 31 July and 4 August 2013.
George was photographed at the New York Deli by Ffion Matthews
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“We were expecting an addition to our family today. Turns out he has different ideas. At least the weather’s nice enough to walk around and try and coax him out!”
As seen in: Roath
Editor’s note: less than 24 hours after this photo was taken, Theo Thomas made his appearance in the world! Congratulations to Huw and Caz from all at We Are Cardiff 🙂
Photograph by Helia Phoenix
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I’ve thought about writing a We Are Cardiff story since I set up the site back in 2010, but could never decide on an angle. What to write about? What to focus on? Cardiff has been so many things to me, been the backdrop to so many events and decisions and happenings and versions and re-versions of myself. How can I pick one, two, a dozen from the swirling pool? And yet that’s what I expected from other people – and everyone else who has written for the site so far has managed rather splendidly. So perhaps it’s high time I stopped whining and did the same.
What is the measure of a place? How can you distil that essence into a single piece of writing? Memories, tissue thin, layers of a skin laid over and over the streets and alleys and roads and the same cracks in the pavement you avoid, day after day, year after year. From a new-born to a toddler through to university student to working stiff. Cardiff has been a lot of things to me. It’s where I was born. My earliest memories are dark and fuzzy – my tiny hands, pulling at the thick velvet curtains in my room on Pen y Wain Road. Running a stick along the railings in Roath’s flower gardens. Carrying water in my hands from the fountains outside City Hall to a puddle nearby where some ill-navigating frogs had abandoned their spawn. I was worried the tadpoles would die in there without the extra liquid.
Cardiff housed me during my student years. It was the comforting bubble that enclosed me as I stayed up too late, spent too much time in pubs and clubs and at house parties. It was the wall I banged my head against, trying to work out ‘what I wanted to do when I grew up’. It gave me answers. (Sort of.)
And surely this is the measure of a city – a place that can transform and mutate and mould itself around you, no matter what stage of life you are at. Nearly all my university friends have moved away, and I’m asked on a regular basis how I can stay in the same city I’ve been in for so long. I try and explain, but I never seem to nail the answer. It’s not the same city it was when I was a student, or even when I was in my mid or late twenties. There are enough opportunities and diversity and change here to accommodate you, no matter what stage of life you’re at. It’s a different place now. It looks after me differently. I’ve found different things in it, and it’s brought out different things in me.
One of my favourite things about the city is how connected everyone is. New people you meet have random connections with people that you already know. They are someone’s ex-housemate, friends with someone’s brother, or they worked in Fopp together years ago. Although there’s a lot on here, the offerings pale in comparison to a larger city – our neighbouring Bristol, or a little further afield to London. But because our scene is smaller, it’s friendlier. You see the same faces over and over again, whether you’re at a metal gig, a film festival, a circus performance, a street fair, a club night, or an organic food market. And I like that. I heard someone describe Cardiff as Britain’s biggest village, and it’s that neighbourly, close feeling that I love about it.
Cardiff’s an amazing place to come back to. Of course, I get frustrated with it and I get tired of it and sometimes the smallness annoys me and my favourite bands don’t gig here and I want to leave it and move somewhere more romantic or exciting like San Francisco or the moon, of course. But when I get back here, I’m always filled with that intense sensation of how nice it is to be back. To return home.
I thought I’d finish with a list of my favourite things to do in the city. Who knows how long it’ll be possible to do any of these for. But if you get the chance, you should.
– Visit all of Cardiff’s parks. We have some amazing and diverse open public spaces (Cardiff Council – list of parks). I still haven’t been to them all. Roath Park is obviously lovely, but there are some undiscovered treasures just a little way out of the centre. Try Cefn Onn, or the Wenalt.
– Wander around the indoor market. Get a cup of tea and bacon sandwich (or vegetarian equivalent) from the greasy spoon upstairs, watch the people bustling around below.
– Fossil hunt. Wait for low tide then walk from the Custom House in Penarth around to the pier, looking for fossils. Once at the pier, consume ice cream.
– Car booting. In the summer, visit Sully car boot sale (Sundays only).
– More car booting. All year round – visit Splott market on a Saturday. Fruit, veg, baked goods, car booters. All of humanity are here.
– Run. Do a 10k run to raise money for charity. There are a few races that take place throughout the year, most of them either taking in the lovely scenery around Cardiff Bay or Bute Park. (My favourite running route is the 10k Cardiff Bay trail, by the way).
– Music. Buy records from Catapult and Spillers, ask the music junkies working in both places for recommendations. Ask about local bands and artists. Ask about what gigs are on. Buy music. Buy tickets for gigs.
– Get cultured. Go to the museum and art gallery. Entry is free! My favourite room is the room in the museum with all the crystals and minerals and rock formations. Beautiful.
Helia Phoenix set up We Are Cardiff in 2010. In 2012 the site won Best Blog at the Wales Blog Awards, and in 2013 she produced a documentary based on the site called We Are Cardiff: Portrait of a City, premiering at Chapter Arts Centre on 7 July 2013. She’s written a biography about Lady Gaga and entertains notions of writing a novel one day. In her spare time she enjoys travelling, listening to music, and long walks in the rain. Twitter @phoenixlily tumblr an antisocial experiment web heliaphoenix.com instagram @_phoenixlily_. She currently lives in Butetown.
Helia was photographed in Hamadryad Park, underneath the A4232 by Simon Ayre
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We Are Cardiff 