Things you remember as a kid visiting Cardiff Town centre

[splott parker]

Re: Things you remember as a kid visiting Cardiff Town centre

The Capitol for films but also the visits of all the top world acts to the venue. The Lexington, American style restaurant near the Cap, great burgers, the paper seller on the steps of the Capitol, buses pulled up right outside, cracking business for him. Rows of chocolate & amber football buses lined up on Wood St prior to every home game. Kwiksnaks, the skinheads hang out opposite Boots on Wood St, The Kensington (also known as The Happening) on St Mary St, where Kiwis is now, a West Indian hang out with reggae and Tamla blasting out. The chains on the bollards running along the castle lawn, just couldn’t resist swinging every one as a kid when walking past. Guildford Crescent, three swimming pools, Mixed, Boys & Girls. Dumfries Place, every old large terraced house seemed to be a solicitors office the whole length of the bus stops. The Centreplan 70 building near Wyndham Arcade on St Mary St with mock ups and plans of how great Cardiff was going to look by 1970!!!! The Prince Albert pub on Working St with a tree growing right through the middle of it. The huge map by Kingsway toilets, knobs on the side to roll it up and pinpoint various parts of the city. Blackfriars ruins on Greyfriars Rd, I think it was Blackfriars, the remnants of an ancient house. So much more I s’pose.

[theclaw]

Re: Things you remember as a kid visiting Cardiff Town centre

As a child I loved walking past The Castle walls looking at the stone statue animals on top.

[splott parker]

Re: Things you remember as a kid visiting Cardiff Town centre

As a child I loved walking past The Castle walls looking at the stone statue animals on top.

“ F*cking hell, where does she live? The castle wall?”

[Armitage Shanks]

Re: Things you remember as a kid visiting Cardiff Town centre

The smell of the brewery on Saturday afternoon.
Horrible smell

[Cyncoed Slumdog]

Re: Things you remember as a kid visiting Cardiff Town centre

The Wrestling at Sophia Gardens or the Guildhall on a Friday night

The Greyhound racing on a Saturday evening, before going after the other dogs down the Top Rank

I think you must have been a very precocious child.

[uncle bob]

Re: Things you remember as a kid visiting Cardiff Town centre

Remember using my folks family ticket they'd buy for using cardiff bus on a Saturday afternoon to go to town to play bingo at the gala bingo on St Mary street. I'd take a mate with me into town with them, they'd bugger off to bingo and we'd just jump on every single bus route over the course of a few weeks riding from town and then back, until we had to be back at the bingo to pick them both up. 😂 😂

[uncle bob]

Re: Things you remember as a kid visiting Cardiff Town centre

Water discos on Saturday afternoons at The Empire Pool

[uncle bob]

Re: Things you remember as a kid visiting Cardiff Town centre

Roller disco every Saturday at Sofia Gardens pavilion

[Seabird]

Re: Things you remember as a kid visiting Cardiff Town centre

Seeing Tommy Steele "live" at the Odeon (i think). Support act from America "Eddie Bell and the Bell Boys" performing "giddy-Up a ding-dong" 'onest.

[A Quiet Monkfish]

Re: Things you remember as a kid visiting Cardiff Town centre

Same here. I had to go the whole of the first year though!

Me too. School cap to go with them.

[DJ-Q]

Re: Things you remember as a kid visiting Cardiff Town centre

The tiny newsagent opposite the castle with the often open trapdoor to the basement - last stop before jumping on the 61 home - armed with stink bombs from the oriental shop

[Punxsutawney Phil]

Re: Things you remember as a kid visiting Cardiff Town centre

Think a lot on here would find this site interesting

https://www.cardiffians.co.uk/galleries/citycentre/

[jimmyscoular]

Re: Things you remember as a kid visiting Cardiff Town centre

Forget the Orange buses I remember the old maroon and cream buses (and trolley buses)!! I remember when they changed colour back in the mid sixties. Cardiff Bus started to replace the old double deckers with open platforms at the back with the entrance doors at the front. They had buses in three colours, two shade of orange and a turquois and asked the public to choose which would be the new bus colour. One of the orange colours was chosen.

I remember the Sophia Gardens ground being built and the old Cardiff Arms Park cricket ground. This was where Cardiff Rugby is now.

The old Sophia Gardens Pavilion was demolished after 4ft of snow brought the roof and most of the walls down in 1982. I say old but it was only just over 30 years old when the collapse happened followed by the subsequent demolition of the rest.

There used to be a big concert in the Pavilion with the year 6 kids (Standard 4 as they were in those days) from all the schools in Cardiff singing in a massive choir The boys wore white shirts red ties and grey shorts and the girls white shirts and skirts ( I think the girls wore red ties as well)

No long trousers until High School in those days, and even then in the first year many parents ( including mine!) still made their boys wear shorts It was the middle of the first year before i persuaded mine to let me change into long trousers

You're obviously a contemporary of mine. I "sang" in that choir. We practiced for months. All I remember is that we sang "Kalinka," a Russian folk song about a gooseberry. My mother hated those trolley buses. I remember her tut-tutting when that pole came off the wires, as it often did. I have not see the bus conductor mentioned on this thread. Honorable mention to that old warhorse.

[light up the darkness]

Re: Things you remember as a kid visiting Cardiff Town centre

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

[light up the darkness]

Re: Things you remember as a kid visiting Cardiff Town centre

Pick n Mix in Woolworths.
The restaurant in Littlewoods overlooking the shop where you could get a 5-item cooked breakfast for 80p or a 7 item mega for £1.
Traffic on Queen Street.
A grotto like clothes shop called 2007
A games arcade, I think in Castle Arcade
Buying darts flights from a little shop on Caroline Street but really having a sneak at the adult videos at the back of the shop

The shop was Fry’s