“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
In the 1790s, the ironmasters of Merthyr Tydfil decided to build themselves a canal to bring their goods to market quicker, and on a larger scale than was previously possible along the turnpike. Their target markets were abroad, and they needed a port where they could transfer their goods from the canal barges onto ships to carried out into the wider world. Land surveys determined that the easiest route for this canal was south down the valleys past Pontypridd to the coastal plains beyond, where the River Taff flowed into the Bristol Channel. Cardiff at the time was a small town clinging to the shadow of its ruined castle, neither capital city nor important port. It lay on the route on this little canal, and more importantly to the south had miles of abundant saltmarsh – the perfect place for the ironmasters to build their seaport.
The canal was the Glamorganshire Canal, and the sea port of the ironmasters became known as Sea Lock Pond.
Although the canal continued to operate through to the end of 1951 (in increasing states of disrepair), new industry soon meant that new transport methods were needed. Iron and tin quickly gave way to coal as the main export of the valleys, and during the 1800s and early 1900s five private railroads sprang up to compete for the business of bringing this black gold down to the massive docks that were built to the east of Sea Lock Pond to try and meet the demand.
Cardiff grew rich, prosperous and influential as the middleman in all of this trade. The profits to be had from the coal trade were immense for the time (did you know that the world’s first £1 million deal was done in Cardiff’s Coal Exchange?) and they paid for many of Cardiff’s wonderful parks and its magnificent Civic Centre, and much more besides.
Without this trade, the Cardiff we all know and love today would be a very different – and probably much smaller – place. And yet, the debt Cardiff owes to this industrial history seems to be largely unknown to the good folks of Cardiff, and it’s one that is seldom clearly acknowledged whenever there is an historical exhibition put on in the city centre.
Perhaps the reason why is because this story doesn’t have a happy ending – not for the valleys anyway.
By the 1960s, most of this trade had ceased, having been in decline since the 1930s, and the docks closed down. Over the next 30 years, as the coal mines of the valleys were declared unprofitable and also closed down, the towns and villages of the valleys sank into a deep decline that they have yet to recover from.
It wasn’t just the coal mining that went. None of the industry that lined this industrial corridor at its height exists today. The Merthyr iron forges, the world’s two largest tinworks, the many deep coal mines, the chainworks factory, the chemical works, the bakeries, the power station, and much more besides … every last one of them has closed. Little has come in to replace them.
Today, Merthyr Tydfil is normally mentioned in the media because of its terrible unemployment rates and benefits culture, and things aren’t much better in many of the former coalmining towns and villages that dotted the canal’s route. The valleys had a very small population before the mines came along, and although the mines are long gone, the people have stayed in the places they have made their homes in. It’s difficult to see how their fortunes will drastically improve in my remaining lifetime, as the days of mass employment in heavy industry show no sign of imminent return.
Cardiff too fell on hard times for several decades, but thanks in part to the influx of European funds to transform the former docks into Cardiff Bay, and the money that has been attracted by the setting up of the Welsh Assembly Government, Cardiff’s fortunes have turned out quite different from the valleys. Indeed, Cardiff instead is competing to be one of the top shopping destinations in the whole UK, and its council has announced ambitious plans for a new business district to further boost the local economy.
I’m originally from Yorkshire, a proud area that makes a point of teaching all of its children its major history, which dates back to Roman times. You have a proud and unique history too, and I’d urge you to put it proudly on display before it becomes lost and forgotten.
If you want to learn more about this industrial history, then I highly recommend reading the excellent two-volume set “The Glamorganshire and Aberdare Canal”, by Stephen Rowson and Ian L. Wright, available from Black Dwarf Lightmoor. You can also see some of my own writings about this at my Merthyr Road photography project.
Stuart is an amateur photographer who was first struck by the ruins of South Wales’ industrial past back in 2007 as he commuted past them every day to and from work. Over the last five years, he’s been slowly exploring and blogging about a history that he’s worried has already been forgotten. You can find his work at his blog.
Stuart was photographed at the Melingriffith Water Pump in Whitchurch by Jon Poutney
***
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/
If you’ve been on a train in or out of Cardiff recently, you may have noticed an enormous billboard just outside Cardiff Central promoting a television show of dubious – well, dubious everything – called MTV – The Valleys. As yet another example of lazy, poorly executed ‘reality’ brain mush that misappropriates everything about the place we live (the valleys are part of south Wales, after all, just like Cardiff is), you can imagine how annoyed we were to see it was being produced.
If any of you have watched the programme, you have our sympathies. For those who have managed to avoid it and are as angry about it as we are, then take hope from local underground theatre group Dirty Protest, who are reclaiming the valleys through an event being held on 25 October 2012 called ‘The Real Valleys’. The event is being held at the Bunkhouse in Cardiff, 7.30pm, tickets £5. For more anti-MTV valleys discussion, read this Radical Wales article and please support The Valleys Are Here campaign.
To show our support for the real valleys and these events, we’re publishing our first ever non-Cardiff story – Rachel Trezise, about her home town of Treorchy.
Treorchy is a small town, (pop. 8,105) at the upper edge of the Rhondda Valley, 14 miles north of Cardiff, cushioned on all four sides by great looming mountains that turn ablaze every spring and summer. It’s famous for three things; the commanding grey stone of the Edwardian Park & Dare theatre; its 1913 construction funded entirely by mine workers, a male voice choir founded in 1883 and described by Anthony Hopkins as ‘the master choir of them all’, and a seminal album by Max Boyce called Live at Treorchy, recorded in the town’s rugby club in 1974, (in the presence, I might add, of my stout-drunken grandmother).
Aside from brief stints studying in Ireland and teaching in America, I’ve lived in and around Treorchy all my life, growing and learning amid the hotchpotch of the old and the new, the melting pot of Welsh, Anglicized and immigrant culture: swimming in the sheep dip at the foot of the Bwlch, bunking off school in the sunken bomb shelter under the rugby pitch, drinking frothy coffee in the Italian ‘bracci’ long before Britain came to terms with the word cappuccino, staging-diving through band sets at the Pig and Whistle, hanging out in the library reading Flannery O’Connor, or tattoo magazines in my brother’s tattoo parlour. My first short story collection Fresh Apples was inspired, in part, by the yips of Treorchy Comprehensive School pupils drifting through my study window.
Early on a Sunday morning I roller skate in the park where, as a child, I learned to tread water in the open air paddling pool, where I first tasted salmon in a friend’s unwanted sandwich. I use the food trays and lager cans left by teenagers for floor markers to practice my weaving. I like eating Victoria Sponge at Wondersuff on the High Street. There is nothing more homely or satisfying than finding oneself cwtched-up in bed at 11.04 at night, hearing the whistle of the last train from Cardiff pulling into the railway station; the day ended, permission to fall fast asleep granted.
Rachel Trezise’s debut novel In and Out of the Goldfish Bowl won the Orange Futures Award in 2001. Her debut collection of short stories Fresh Apples won the inaugural Dylan Thomas Prize in 2006. Her debut non-fiction work Dial M for Merthyr won the Max Boyce Prize in 2010. Her current novel is Sixteen Shades of Crazy. Her second collection of stories Cosmic Latte will be published by Parthian in 2013. She hails from Treorchy.
***
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**.
Not sure if we mentioned it or not, but we’re curating a stage at this year’s musical orgasmia – 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 Mister Ffred Jones.
Q. Can you describe yourself as a performer? What can people expect?
A. Ummm people can expect some serious finger picking! Plus a lot more bluegrass inspired banjo tunes, gonna be promoting some of my new material, really excited!
Q. Describe the music scene in Cardiff for us
A. The scene in Cardiff is pretty good and vibrant, especially when you consider the economic climate, people aren’t coming out so much but it’s not stopping people playing which is pretty cool.
Q. What’s your favourite thing to do in Cardiff?
A. Favorite thing to do in Cardiff, hit New York deli for seriously killer sandwich after sound check.
Q. Give us the lowdown on Swn Festival for you.
A. I’ve actually performed at SWN a few times over the years. I opened for Benjamin Francis Leftwich last year which was awesome! Then I went and met Ben Howard after his set in Clwb Ifor Bach, that was pretty cool. Really looking forward to Among Brothers, awesome band.
Q. If people want to check out your stuff online, where can they do that?
A. People can find me at www.ffredjones.co.uk hopefully doing a website revamp soon, with loads new media and loads of free music!
I grew up in the Vale of Glamorgan, Penarth to be exact, and although it was a great place to grow up in, as I got older I started to feel disconnected, and longed to live somewhere else. When I finished school at sixteen, I decided to skip sixth form and head straight to Coleg Glan Hafren. I still – to this day – believe this was one of the best decisions I have ever made. It got me out into the world and gave me a chance to make new friends. In fact, it was at Glan Hafren that I made friends for life. All my friends there grew up and lived in Cardiff, and most of them still do.
After college, many of them went off to university and I stayed around to work, do some travelling and generally trying to figure out what I wanted to do. At some point, I needed to start making some decisions and one I really needed to make was the choice to go to university. I knew that economically it would make sense to study in Cardiff, I had job security and all my friends were here, so I moved to Roath and went back to college. Then at the grand old age of 23 (believe me, when the majority of your classmates are 18, 23 feels really old) I started university and never looked back.
Now, I am about to embark on my third and final year, I had one more decision to make – do I stay here after university? Or do I sail off into the sunset and see where the wind takes me? It was a tough decision, but I have spent my first 25 years of life here, so I think it is time to sail for a bit. However, I needed to remind myself of what Cardiff has given me over the years, and I wanted to create something that could represent that.
So this led me to creating a project that I could really connect with. I spent a few weeks going over ideas and came up with the Cardiff Food Project. I wanted this to be a blog that offered people a chance to find a new market or a new little corner of Cardiff they may have never knew existed. Through the blog, I have found new places and opportunities, and it has changed the way I think about food, photography and of course, Cardiff.
I’ve learned so much in the two months I’ve been running it, and I know I still have a lot more to learn. It has provided me with the confidence to try my hand at new things. I have set up a supper club, and am working on a new photography and travel website, and I hope to continue my writing. I have also become more aware of what is going in and around Cardiff and my local area. It has opened up my world to new possibilities and new connections, and really the only thing I have to thank for that is Cardiff.
I still have plans to head off in other directions, plans to work and live in different parts of the world. However, no matter where I go, Cardiff will always be home.
Lauren Mahoney is currently an event management student, often dodging the ‘typical’ students of the Roath area on her way to work. When she is not doing any of those three things, Lauren is working hard on her blog cffoodproject.blogspot.co.uk and her new travel and photography website (not yet launched) and getting involved in as many food, travel and photography projects as she can.
Lauren was photographed at Gelynis Farm by Ffion Matthews
***
Not sure if we mentioned it or not, (have we? HAVE WE?) 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 Laurence Made Me Cry (aka Jo Whitby). Jo has been involved with We Are Cardiff before (she’s like our resident songstress!) – and you can read the entry she wrote for the site here.
Q. You’re playing the We Are Cardiff stage this year! Can you describe your music / your sound please? What can people expect?
A. I’m very excited to play the We Are Cardiff stage, so great to be a part of it. My music has developed into something quite different in recent months. The EP I released last year was pretty much all acoustic based lo-fi folk music but since working on my new album I’ve started to explore more of my musical influences. I guess you could call it electonica-folk-pop? Something like that! My performance will still be very much acoustic based but I will definitely mix in a few of the more electronic tracks. That’s what laptops are for!
Q. Describe the music scene in Cardiff for us
A. As Cardiff is a relatively small capital it’s quite easy to follow what’s going on in the music scene. There are plenty of venues hosting music events every day of the week so loads of opportunities to see the local bands and musicians. Most of the Cardiff-based acts and promoters are really friendly so it’s quite easy to build up a great network of folks you know you can rely on.
Q. Any local bands/artists/producers you’d tip for people to check out?
A. It goes without saying that you should all check out two of my album collaborators Alone and Dementio13 both of which create the most awesome electronica. For some folk loveliness I would definitely check out Horizon, Scriber and Albatross Archive. Then there’s Inc.A of course who are fab live.
Q. What’s your favourite thing to do in Cardiff? (music related or otherwise)
A. My favourite thing to do in Cardiff is to take a walk from my house, through Wellfield Road then up for a slow stroll around Roath Park making sure I come back via a coffee shop. Simple pleasures.
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. I’ve not played Swn before and this will be my first festival performance as a solo artist which is terrifying but also quite special. I’ve rarely been in a financial position to attend the festival and when I had the opportunity my body had the audacity to become sick. There are so many acts I want to see! My current ‘must see’ list includes Pulled Apart By Horses, Trwbador, Jewellers, Alone (if we’re not clashing) and Ratotosk. I’m really looking forward to making some new discoveries too!
Q. If people want to check out your stuff online, where can they do that?
A. You can find lots of info and music on my website: http://laurencemademecry.com or if you’d rather access all the sounds in one click: http://soundcloud.com/lmmcmusic
Despite being born in England, I’ve always considered myself an honorary Welsh girl. I moved to Cardiff when I was four years old, so have very much grown-up feeling Welsh and I even started to learn the language again a few years ago. I grew up in Rhiwbina and have a lot of weird and wonderful memories from there as a child, going to Parc-y-Pentre on my roller boots (or ‘Parka P’ as we used to call it), and up the Wenallt for bonfires, as well things like Rhiwbina Junior’s old headmistress Mrs Harry’s leather trousers, stiletto shoe and Diet Coke obsession!
I left Cardiff for Staffordshire Uni to study the media, and then returned with a newfound love for the city in 2002. Since then I’ve lived in many of the boroughs that surround the centre; namely Roath, Splott and Grangetown. I love Roath and Splott. The local shops, pubs and eateries are excellent. Albany Road and Clifton Street have some great independent shops; as a DJ, D’Vinyl and The Record Shop have a plethora of gems waiting for you to hunt them down, plus there are the charity shops too!
Right in between Splott and Roath are the lanes that run behind the Blue Dragon Hotel on Newport Road. There’s a constant supply of amazing art here, much of it done by close friends representing the Cruel Vapours crew. I used to sit and watch in the sun when I lived on Elm Street – the most colourful street in Cardiff.
I now live right in the thick of it, on High Street. Despite being in the middle of a busy town centre, I love living here. The location is ideal – just a 10 minute walk to the Radio Cardiff studio where I present a weekly music show and a stone’s throw from a number of quality haunts.
One of my favourite places in town has to be the indoor market. Being able to buy fresh produce without going to the supermarket is a blessing, and you can always guarantee great banter from the people that work there! There’s also the weekend farmers market and Wally’s Delicatessen offering amazing treats when you’re feeling a bit more flush. Catapult Records, in the Castle Arcade is an essential shop for any DJ and to have the oldest record shop in the world, Spillers, definitely makes me feel proud as a vinyl lover!
DJing drum and bass and also funk and soul in Cardiff for a number of years has meant I’ve been able to play in some great clubs and bars, some are still around, like Clwb Ifor Bach and Milgi’s, but some have been shut down. This is one of the things that is always disappointing to see, as a DJ and a punter. The Emporium still stands as my favourite club of all time and living opposite its empty building, I’m constantly reminded of the great times I had in there and how gutted we all were when it was shut down. The bouncy wooden dancefloor (which we all thought would give way at some point) will never disappear from my mind! The Toucan club, despite having a number of different venues, is somewhere I loved playing in and I’ve always wondered if it would ever find another place to open up again. I could mention many others… As a clubber, the old Natwest bank down the bay now known as The Vaults has to be the best venue around right now. Backroom gave it legendary status bringing some of the worlds best house and techno DJs to Cardiff with a real family-run atmosphere.
Whether a venue closes or the nights stop though, Cardiff always manages to brush the dirt off and keep putting on good nights for clubbers, bringing some of the best DJs from all over the world to this tiny capital city. It’s also so refreshing to see how many talented DJs, producers and promoters we have. We’re literally bursting at the seams with talent and this is something I heavily try to promote through my show on Radio Cardiff (which is a community station, so, it’s all about giving something back).
For me, Cardiff does quite well in catering for all musical preferences so you really can’t complain. Similarly, if you love food and cooking, you can enjoy any kind of food here. Too skint to eat out? Grab some dragon sausages from the market and have a BBQ over the Castle grounds! That really is a feast fit for any Cardiff carnivore!
Lubi J is 31 and has been DJing for nearly 12 years. She presents a weekly music show called ‘System Check’, on Radio Cardiff, Tuesdays from 9-10pm (www.radiocardiff.org) with local DJs and producers regularly live in the studio and can sometimes be found playing drum and bass or funk and soul in some of the bars and clubs of Cardiff. She has a passion for cooking which is shared in her food blog, ‘This week I have been mostly cooking’ (http://thisweekbeenmostlycooking.tumblr.com/) and she also has a fine collection of trainers and hats.
Lubi J was photographed in Roath by Doug Nicholls.
***
I’ve lived in Cardiff for 42 years. So in thinking of a place that felt special to me, I had lots of choices. I love Donkey beach in Penarth, a secret little place under Penarth cliffs that my Nan and Gramps took me and my sister when we were little. I love the sea around Cardiff Bay and the docks. Bute Park, Roath Park, Victoria Park. Cardiff has good parks. I like sitting on Platform 7 on Central Station looking over to the Brains Brewery sign and the smell of the hops. I could have talked about lots of places that make Cardiff my home but I really wanted to talk about a place that has been part of my life for the last 25 years and I hope will continue to be so for the next 25 – Cardiff’s Sherman Cymru.
My first visit to the then Sherman Theatre was in 1985. I was 15 and had come on a school trip arranged by the English department to see Macbeth. I remember having to sit within hands reach of my teacher because my concentration wasn’t great and it was long. I was bored and fidgeting and desperately wanting to get back on the bus. When it ended I was relieved.
The next time I came to the Sherman was in 1987. I was being interviewed for a administration placement on a government Y.T.S. Scheme. I had left school with no qualifications to speak of so my choices were limited. I remember there was a matinee on. As I was lead backstage and down to the administration offices, various characters passed me by covered in copious amounts of blood, running from one side of stage to the other, backstage calls sounded out and dressing room doors opened briefly exposing a mixture of discarded costumes and everyday clothes. A blood curdling scream echoed through the maze of backstage corridors as I met the General Manager, ‘Sweeny Todd’ she smiled, ushering me in.
I began my placement the following week and my relationship with The Sherman Theatre began.
My placement was only for a year or so and as the end of the scheme approached I was dreading having to leave I felt like I’d found somewhere that I fitted. A permanent job came up in the finance department and I was offered the chance to stay. Although I worked in administration I spent all the time I could with the production team. I often volunteered to work on productions for the experience and did a lot of work for the Youth Theatre productions. It started to dawn on me that my heart was in the more creative roles in theatre and so after seven years I left the Sherman Theatre and went to Welsh College to train to be a Stage Manager.
Over the last 25 years or so the Sherman has been a part of my life. I’ve worked there and experienced making and watching some great theatre. This year Sherman Cymru are producing a play I’ve written called ‘Before It Rains’ and so my relationship with the building continues.
I couldn’t be prouder.
Katherine Chandler’s first play was a musical comedy called The Bankrupt Bride that was produced by Theatr na n’Óg in 2009 and toured nationally. She has had a long-standing relationship with the company and her play We Need Bees, a children’s play for the under-sevens, is currently on tour. As a writer, she has also had short plays produced by Dirty Protest and Spectacle Theatre. In 2011 one of her plays was selected by Pentabus Theatre as their We Are Here 2011 winning script and was developed in association with Sherman Cymru. Katherine is the recipient of an Arts Council Wales grant to write a new female-led comedy and is under commission from National Theatre Wales to develop a new piece of work with them. In early 2013 Katherine will be on a studio attachment at the National Theatre (England). Before It Rains runs at Sherman Cymru between 25 September – 6 October 2012. Katherine currently lives in Penarth.
Katherine was photographed at Sherman Cymru by Jon Pountney
***
17:00
Step off train.
In Cardiff.
But am I Cardiff? Is Cardiff me?
One year to find out, one journey to commence.
Problem: where’s the exit?
Resolution: straight ahead, I should have seen it.
Walking.
Man: where is Platform 2?
Riposte: I am sorry, I don’t know. Are you on Facebook?
An awkward silence like moss on a Norweigan tree in June. Is this the Day of Thunder?
I feel lost. Draw me a metaphorical mind map and I’ll lay down on your molten train tracks.
17:15
Exit the train station.
Flashing neon lights of the Burger King. Fast food generation nation. I think of fresh cod and trout, but this ain’t no rainbow city.
Me: Excuse me, where can I see a map for directional advisement?
Man: You don’t need a map, you need a new hat.
A languid finger points to a direction collection encased in grimy glass and ripe for intro-outro-meta-spection.
I walk 5-10 meters. Symmetry achieved.
17:45
Walk walk walk, stop, walk walk, stop.
St Mary’s Street, carnival and revellers. Sundown smile, my vision becoming multi-peripheral.
An Asgardian clock encased in glass, tick tock tick tock. Time flies when you’re coke and rum.
Friday the day of wages.
Factory workers reminisce of steel shaping shifts, blackened hands and tankards of ale.
Estate agents close a sale, suits pinstriped and pressed for success at half past wine.
Boozer, the Borough, Yates the wine joint.
Our money is the all the same and the drink takes the blame… or close acquaintances.
Closer yet further still, to whit the steel worker motions to a call centre executive with a closed fist and stiffening shoulder ensemble.
Conflict in Cardiff. Welsh Warriors. Fear flights through the five boroughs but I see no painted baseball clowns, only enraged dragons wearing culture crowns.
18:40
Drunk and a stumble. The Isle of Hayes.
Waterstones has a buy one get one half price.
Reminder: I’m here to learn, academia awaits.
19:30
Roath. Elegant two bedroom apartment; both en suite, but who’s counting?
Full media connection, but I need to interface with me.
This year is my journey, I need to make Cardiff my city.
I bite into an apple and open my Mac.
An email for an internship; please sir, can I have some more? Disaster interaction: the editor vexed with my corrections of his holy words. My direct style of communication is not in relation to the egos borne of procrastination and Big Ideas.
Culture: what is it? I am a force for my own stylings; drip drip drop drop, I need a trip to the shop.
20:05
Open my journal.
Words spill like snow in the winter from the requisite clouds and their multiverse formations: Afraid. Excited. New. Old. Castle. Take away food. City. Capital. Uncle Torr.
Entrance to the scene.
Roommate: I am your roommate.
Me: I am your roommate.
Roommate: We are at A, let’s get to B.
Me: And then C and D.
Both: This feels right.
Nods and smiles and flowing conversation covering a complete collection of crazed recollection. Squared. Rooted. Rebooted. Nostalgia nightmares of animatronic bears.
22:09
Speech slurring, world whirring.
Roommate: How about that 2 Fast 2 Furious?
Me: Yes! I own it on digital video disk, truly the filet of the franchise.
Roommate: Bond now assured and let me be clear; we are friends in concrete absoluteness, to which cannot often be said over such brief interaction. Rare.
01:11
Walking home to Roath.
Roommate has long since expired ‘pon a corner of the castle. Grassy knoll, well don’t we all? Life and death in the Diffusion City.
I look up to the sky, the stars aligned I see Oslo, Norway.
Focussing my spiritual and atomic distribution here I am in Cardiff, Wales.
I access, accept, and assimilate my fate for one year less one month. A beautiful city with opportunity aplenty and unto much learning to be anything less than a fleeting yearning.
We Are Cardiff? Yes. Yes we certainly are.
A writer, poet, artist and polemicist, Plangu, originally from Oslo, Norway, resides in Roath where he is undertaking a year of study at Cardiff University. Plangu’s debut short story collection, ‘Grenene Av Våre Trær’, is due for publication in late 2013.
The image above is a self portrait by Plangu.
***
BAG YOURSELF SOME WE ARE CARDIFF SWAG! Visit our new online shop
We Are Cardiff on Facebook / Twitter @wearecardiff / We Are Cardiff: Portrait of a City documentary
As I write this, I am sitting in my front room in Cathays. I can hear those seagulls we all hear on the roof and can smell “student cooking”. A thought comes into mind. No matter how hard the council tries to ‘Keep Cathays Tidy’ (and I know how hard they try) … it never really is tidy. I am starting to feel that somehow this is meant to be. Discarded pizza flyers and nibbled bin bags appear to be part of the shabby chic ephemera which typifies Cathays.
I love Cardiff. It is gentle, real and always grounded, no matter how many students, well-oiled rugby fans or naked cyclists pass through its streets. When I tell people that I live in Cardiff, they always say ‘’I have heard that Cardiff is meant to be a great place to live’’. They are right. Having happily lived here for nearly ten years with my partner, I always speak extremely highly of this wonderful town. Where else in the British Isles can you walk in a beautiful park, see a man banging sticks on a bin, see absolute stag and hen hedonism, an Indian City Hall wedding and the delights of a Norwegian church all in one day? Walking through Cardiff offers so many delights besides the great culture, architecture, museums and shops. If you look carefully enough, you may get to see its hidden treasures, like the teenage PDAs outside Blue Banana, the lady with the hat and black boots who spends hours dancing in front of buskers, the RAC man who seems to be everywhere, the religious preacher with his speakerphone or the almost edible kittens upstairs in the market. In Cardiff, no matter how crowded and busy things get, there is always somewhere for you to escape to. There is always a haven. One of my favorite havens in Cardiff has to be the ‘Summer House’ in Bute park. Just a five minute walk from my office or the town centre, it is the perfect place to sit and breathe, be it the middle of winter or the peak of our wet summers. Full of children with sticky fingers rushing around panting dogs, people getting lost in books and mums and dads on health kicks with bike helmets on, you can never be bored.
I first came to Cardiff to study Psychology in 2003. My sister loved it so I figured I would too. Being from Birmingham originally, Cardiff initially felt small and a bit old-fashioned. In my mind, I would stay for the three years of my degree and then go with my partner to somewhere more ‘exciting’. However, one night, as we walked under the bridge by the Hilton, my friend said ‘’Amy, I think you will find your Karma here’’. Little did I know, he would be absolutely right. I can’t see myself settling anywhere else anytime soon.
Cardiff has many wonderful resources. It is clever yet humble and gives often without wanting anything in return. May our wonderful town live on. Thanks Cardiff, you have been good to us.
Amy McClelland is a local Psychologist who runs the Cardiff Sleep Clinic ‘Sleep Wales’ and ‘Optimis Psychology’. Away from her office, she is a passionate linguist, likes singing, collecting her niece from nursery, yoga and spending free time in the College House chatting to Salvo, Dan and Michaela. Her favorite place in the world is the Blue Marlin in bar in Ibiza.
Amy was photographed in Bute Park by Lann Niziblian
***
We Are Cardiff 