Things you remember as a kid visiting Cardiff Town centre

[jimmyscoular]

So many. Egg and chips at Astey's. Bag of cockles from the fishmonger at the entrance to Cardiff Market. Faggots and peas upstairs. Also upstairs, buying a goldfish and taking it home in a little plastic bag. Scary stuffed bear. Where was that? A growing awareness, as the years passed, that the Prince of Wales theatre was a naughty place. That cold shower I had to race through before entering the Empire Pool. The old central library — marble everywhere, spiral staircases and gloomy floors. Scary public toilets in The Hayes. Whatever-you-want and chips on Caroline Street. Lears bookstore. Corpus Christi. Watching the Daleks roll down Queen Street. I'm sure I'm forgetting a thousand things.

[light up the darkness]

So many. Egg and chips at Astey's. Bag of cockles from the fishmonger at the entrance to Cardiff Market. Faggots and peas upstairs. Also upstairs, buying a goldfish and taking it home in a little plastic bag. Scary stuffed bear. Where was that? A growing awareness, as the years passed, that the Prince of Wales theatre was a naughty place. That cold shower I had to race through before entering the Empire Pool. The old central library — marble everywhere, spiral staircases and gloomy floors. Scary public toilets in The Hayes. Whatever-you-want and chips on Caroline Street. Lears bookstore. Corpus Christi. Watching the Daleks roll down Queen Street. I'm sure I'm forgetting a thousand things.

Stuffed bear was at the entrance to a tobacconists on the corner of St May Street and Wood street near where the Prince of Wales pub is now. I think there used to be a cinema next to there once upon a long time ago.

The tobacconist then became a Body Shop