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Read a throw away comment under the Coventry thread from Sludge Factory:
Set me searching and reading about the canals under Cardiff and about the Churchill Way project - I rented there for a few months in Spring 2021....and that set me searching on a nostalgia trail where I was brought up in Cymmer, .Porth.
It is very sad that the character that it once had has been subject to planning vandalism over the decades. Who are the people making these decisions? Where are the residents that they haven't stood up to them? Porth is shocking and lacks any sort of ambience or welcome. One of my early positions was with Midland Bank in Tonypandy - around 1968-70. My word....the place was buzzing.... The Co-operative there was thriving. Customers would be queuing outside the doors on a Saturday morning. I drove around there a year or two back (I say around because in their wisdom the main road through had been pedestrianised......starving the town of passing traffic.). It was absolutely DEAD. It all saddens me.
I have a beautiful book on Valley chapels.....and yes, the population no longer supports them, but surely instead of knocking them down (and I include many Working Men's Halls etc) they could be put to other uses - even apartments if nothing else?? They are beautifully built, solid buildings. - why destroy them to be replaced with soul-less box houses that add nothing to the architectural heritage - indeed detract from it? Cheap and Nasty comes to mind.
WHAT has gone wrong over the years?? One cannot simply put the blame on National Government, so it comes down to Local - yes they always claim they are starved of funds etc etc.... but lack of funds does not necessarily mean that places cannot be preserved and eyesores avoided. It is a sad indictment that throughout this deterioration people continue to vote for a Labour council.
I have never voted Labour in my life, despite growing up there and my father working in the mines. You know, when I was young,, and things were not so autocratic, there was one person who still occupies my mind - Annie Powell - I believe that she was the first Communist Mayor in the UK...maybe the only one(?). She CARED about the community.
One of my regrets in life is that I never put myself forward for any office that could INFLUENCE issues. Mainly because although I was always a thinker, I needed time. I was not an orator...an inability to respond with a quick retort.. Later life has rectified that to some extent but....
Here now in the Dordogne in retirement, we have a local Marie (Mayor) who I can contact immediately with any issue. - no bureaucracy.
My two young sons (9 and 4) attend local village schools which are reminiscent of the UK in the fifties. Small classes, everyday involvement. Everyone knows each other....the doctor needs no appointments......He has no staff.....you just walk in if you have a problem.....never more than a few (one or two) in the small waiting room.
I await the bullets......and seasons greetings.
Wish we had a navigable canal in Cardiff but most of its under the city centre
It is very sad that the character that it once had has been subject to planning vandalism over the decades. Who are the people making these decisions? Where are the residents that they haven't stood up to them? Porth is shocking and lacks any sort of ambience or welcome. One of my early positions was with Midland Bank in Tonypandy - around 1968-70. My word....the place was buzzing.... The Co-operative there was thriving. Customers would be queuing outside the doors on a Saturday morning. I drove around there a year or two back (I say around because in their wisdom the main road through had been pedestrianised......starving the town of passing traffic.). It was absolutely DEAD. It all saddens me.
I have a beautiful book on Valley chapels.....and yes, the population no longer supports them, but surely instead of knocking them down (and I include many Working Men's Halls etc) they could be put to other uses - even apartments if nothing else?? They are beautifully built, solid buildings. - why destroy them to be replaced with soul-less box houses that add nothing to the architectural heritage - indeed detract from it? Cheap and Nasty comes to mind.
WHAT has gone wrong over the years?? One cannot simply put the blame on National Government, so it comes down to Local - yes they always claim they are starved of funds etc etc.... but lack of funds does not necessarily mean that places cannot be preserved and eyesores avoided. It is a sad indictment that throughout this deterioration people continue to vote for a Labour council.
I have never voted Labour in my life, despite growing up there and my father working in the mines. You know, when I was young,, and things were not so autocratic, there was one person who still occupies my mind - Annie Powell - I believe that she was the first Communist Mayor in the UK...maybe the only one(?). She CARED about the community.
One of my regrets in life is that I never put myself forward for any office that could INFLUENCE issues. Mainly because although I was always a thinker, I needed time. I was not an orator...an inability to respond with a quick retort.. Later life has rectified that to some extent but....
Here now in the Dordogne in retirement, we have a local Marie (Mayor) who I can contact immediately with any issue. - no bureaucracy.
My two young sons (9 and 4) attend local village schools which are reminiscent of the UK in the fifties. Small classes, everyday involvement. Everyone knows each other....the doctor needs no appointments......He has no staff.....you just walk in if you have a problem.....never more than a few (one or two) in the small waiting room.
I await the bullets......and seasons greetings.
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