Things you remember as a kid visiting Cardiff Town centre

[splott parker]

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]

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

[splott parker]

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]

The smell of the brewery on Saturday afternoon.
Horrible smell

[Cyncoed Slumdog]

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]

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]

Water discos on Saturday afternoons at The Empire Pool

[uncle bob]

Roller disco every Saturday at Sofia Gardens pavilion

[Seabird]

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]

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

Me too. School cap to go with them.

[DJ-Q]

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]

Think a lot on here would find this site interesting

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

[jimmyscoular]

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]

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]

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

[light up the darkness]

Newcastle brown ale in the New Moon Club on the Hayes up a rickety wooden staircase

[Taunton Blue Genie]

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

Enough of the wife already.

[Taunton Blue Genie]

Newcastle brown ale in the New Moon Club on the Hayes up a rickety wooden staircase

Along with a crusty hot dog that was part of the entry price/membership. I remember the pool of urine that would accumulate around the raised stage area after escaping from the bogs.

[J R Hartley]

Toy Mic Trev

[Seabird]

I'm enjoying this thread. So many memories coming back.

[light up the darkness]

Roller disco every Saturday at Sofia Gardens pavilion

There was also a roller rink on cathays terrace

[light up the darkness]

Along with a crusty hot dog that was part of the entry price/membership. I remember the pool of urine that would accumulate around the raised stage area after escaping from the bogs.

Oh fk me yes. I’d forgotten about that. Thank you

[xsnaggle]

Beatties was next door to the Rose & Crown, as said where the Sony shop is now. They did model railways, model cars, kits, Subutteo etc.

Bud Morgan was the same but in Castle Arcade.


Lots of records shops too.
Traffic in Queen Street.,
Two cinemas in Queen Street.
Mackross , where St David's is now.
The Hayes before the knocked it down and built ST David's 2
Lears bookshop, later Ian Allan bookshop.
John Menzies opposite WH Smith.
Pubs.
The gun shop!

3 cinemas in Queen street - - depending on how old you are
odeon, gaumont capitol

[MacAdder]

3 cinemas in Queen street - - depending on how old you are
odeon, gaumont capitol

ABC, Odeon and Capital

ABC had 3 screens so technically five

[xsnaggle]

The saspirella shop in the Morgan Arcade,
Trolley buses,
Buses with open platforms on the back. (I remember one morning 3 of us watching in shock as a school mate Jonny Morris slipped tying to jump onto the platform of the No 7 going down Queen St didn't let go of the bar and got dragged past the top rank behind the bus)
Saucer of cockles with my dad in the market
Pick and mix in BHS on the corner of The Friary
The open feeder down Churchill Way
Snooker Hall in Charles Street
Not in the Centre but:
Playing football every sunday afternoon in the school field for Glan Taf. Anyone who turned up could play and we often had 16+ a side. We just kept making the pitch bigger.
The snooker hall in the old cinema at the top of Gabalfa hill next to the library (Both demolished for the interchange along with over 100 houses)
Saturday league football on pitches like Splott Park, Grangetown Rec, Ely Race course.
Going round all the Christmas toy fair in the shops we couldn't afford to buy anything in.