Newport

Clarence Place / River Usk

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Newport

A cluster of postcards of the Clarence Place / River Usk area:

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Tonypandy

Sir Archibald Hood
(Merritt, Walker: 1906)

Incised on front face of pedestal: ARCHIBALD HOOD / COAL OWNER / THIS STATUE IS ERECTED / BY HIS WORKMEN AND FRIENDS / AS A TOKEN OF RESPECT / TO HIS MEMORY / 1906. Incised on rear face of pedestal: ARCHIBALD HOOD / CODWYD Y CERFLUN HWN / GAN EI WEITHWYR AI GYFEILLION / FEL ARWYDD O BARCH / IW COFFADWRIAETH / 1906.

Source here

























Statue of coal miner with his family
Sculptor: Thomas, Robert J.R.
Year of unveiling: 1993


Inscription on bronze plate fixed to front of base: This sculpture of a coal miner with his family / was erected by the / Rhondda Civic Society / to commemorate / The Mining Communities of Rhondda / Unveiled by Rt Hon Viscount Tonypandy P.C. D.C.L. / 14 October 1993 Inscription on bronze plate fixed to rear of base: Codwyd y cerflun hwn o Iowr gyda i / deulu gan / Gymdeithas Ddinesig Rhondda / i goffau / Cymunedau Glofaol Cwm Rhondda / dadorchuddiwyd gan y Gwir Anrhydeddus Is-iarll Tonypandy P.C. D.C.L. / 14 Hydref 1993

Source here






















Tonypandy column
artist(s): Howard Bowcott
location: Tonypandy [south Wales]
completed: March 2000

Artist Howard Bowcott from Penrhyndeudraeth worked with Rhondda Cynon Taff County Borough Council on a large scale pedestrianisation scheme at Tonypandy which was officially opened by local born actor Glyn Houston at the end of March 2000.

The event marked a major stage in the regeneration of the town centre which has seen the creation of a 200 metre traffic-free pedestrianised area, a town centre relief road, 250 new car parking spaces, the refurbishment of the bus station, new lighting columns throughout the town centre, provision of new seating and planted trees with Howard's artwork taking a central role in the scheme.

The £3 million regeneration project was funded though a partnership between the Council and the Welsh Development Agency, with funding assistance through the Welsh Office's Strategic Development Scheme and European Grants.

The focal point to the work is a specially constructed sandstone column which stands in front of Bethel Chapel. At 15 feet high it is made from hundreds of small individually shaped pieces of thin sandstone, stacked and graded by colour. Designed in response to the surrounding architecture it is conceived as a piece of contemporary sculpture, but also makes a reference to geology and coal mining.

The circular hole through the top of the column is an indirect reference to the pit head wheel and the line running down the side could be seen as the mine shaft. The band of black slate towards the bottom of the column is 80 centimetres thick: it is the thickness of the 'two foot eight' seam in which 31 men were killed at the Cambrian Mine in 1965 - the last major coal mine explosion in Wales.

Without directly referring to this event, the dark band will nonetheless be a poignant reminder of the narrow seams in which the coal miners worked.


Two poets, Gillian Clarke and Menna Elfyn, contributed work which was engraved on the column.

Source here

Tower Colliery/ Images

Google image search: "tower colliery"
Results here

Selected:














Source here: Tower Colliery























Source here













Source here


















Source here: Cwmaman Institute















Source here: Tower Colliery, Community Sponsorship

Tower/ Opera

TOWER : The Opera

The world premiere of the new 'Tower' Opera will
take place at the Grand Theatre, Swansea, on
Saturday 23rd October and 100 tickets at 1
pound each have been reserved for a limited
period only, for families of mineworkers at Tower.

The opera follows the dramatic events which led
up to the buy-out of the pit, and stars international
bass, Robert Lloyd, and soprano, Bridget Gill,
along with other leading names from the world of
opera, as the main characters in the story. Even if
you have never seen an opera before, we hope
you will feel justly proud to see the re-enactment
of our achievement on-stage for all to see.

The four performances at the Grand Theatre,
Swansea will run on the 23rd,26th,28th and 30th
of October. Ticket prices range from 10.50 to 25,
with the show touring throughout Wales in
January and February 2000, including The
Coliseum, Aberdare on 15/16 February.


Source here

bbc.co.uk
Tuesday, 18 January, 2000, 12:47 GMT
Curtain falls on Tower opera

(...)
Tower was written by Welsh composer Alun Hoddinott and tells the David and Goliath story of Tower Colliery near Hirwaun in the Cynon Valley.

'Great drama'

The miners made history during a triumphant march back to work in 1995 after using their life savings to buy the pit, saving it from closure.

"This is a marvellous opportunity to create work around real people and real situations," said Mr Hoddinott.

"The story of Tower Colliery is a great drama and its success shows that real heroes can still emerge."

The libretto has been written in both English and Welsh by TV and radio scriptwriter John Owen.

Source here


New opera celebrates colliery's dramatic story
here


Tuesday, September 21, 1999 Published at 08:48 GMT 09:48 UK
UK: Wales
Opera chronicles Tower Colliery survival fight

(...)Director Brendan Wheatley hopes it will bring down the perceived barriers of elitism and bring opera to the masses.

"It's an art form for everyone and by doing an opera about a working class subject and getting it to the people with a huge education programme, which will bring in people, - an a contemporary opera at that, I think it's going to break down a lot of barriers."

More here


fastcompany.com
Underground Activists
From: Issue 52 | November 2001

Back in 1831, Welsh coal miners at the tower colliery invented the red flag as a symbol of rebellion. Today, miners own the mine, and they are focused on black ink and producing lots of it.

Work is personal? No one knows that better than Tyrone O'Sullivan. The toughminded union leader turned entrepreneur wept the day that the British government closed the Tower Colliery -- the last remaining pit in Wales -- seven years ago

"This has never been just a place I've come to work," says O'Sullivan, 56, a veteran of six strikes between 1969 and 1984. "My great grandfather and two of his sons were killed in mining accidents. My father died at Tower when I was 17. I've seen 14 men die within arm's length of me -- more than many soldiers see in battle. But what else could I be but a miner? A cow gives birth to a calf, not a sheep."

So it was an intensely personal battle when O'Sullivan led an improbable employee-buyout effort in 1994, confounding former bosses and turning the condemned pit in Cynon Valley near Hirwaun into a commercial success. The story of the miners' takeover of the Tower Colliery has been celebrated in a Welsh opera, and British movie-production company Working Title Films (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill) has commissioned a script about how the underground rebel with a matinee-idol name inspired his men to one final victory against the odds. "We call him Geronimo," says Brian Loveridge, the gatekeeper at one of the mine's entrances, with a laugh.

Miners here trumpet their legacy of rebellion. The first time a red flag was used as a symbol of revolt occurred at the Tower Colliery in 1831, after a strike at a nearby mine spread to Hirwaun; miners and ironworkers soaked a flag in calf's blood and used it as a battle banner. The story stayed the same for the next 150 years: Low wages, long hours, and dangerous working conditions galvanized miner resistance, which continued long after the industry was nationalized in 1947.

But the most implacable opponent of the miners proved to be the Thatcher government of the 1980s. Pursuing an unrelenting privatization-and-closure program and leaving for dead whole towns built around mine shafts, British Coal shut Tower in 1994, claiming there was no longer a market for anthracite.

The workers didn't believe that, however, suspecting (correctly, as it turned out) that the managers wanted to buy the pit for themselves. And while none of the Tower miners had a degree in geology or an MBA, they knew their mine. Many, like O'Sullivan, had worked at the coal face for more than 30 years.

Within a week of the closing, the workforce had voted unanimously to buy back its pit, and it formed a buyout group, electing O'Sullivan, branch secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), group chairman. Each worker chipped in roughly $12,000 of his redundancy money to rescue the mine -- and with the backing of local banks, coal buyers, and well-wishers, the miners secured nearly $16 million, beating a management-buyout bid. On January 3, 1995, O'Sullivan, a brass band, and 239 face workers, electricians, fitters, shot firers, and engineers -- each one a shareholder in the new cooperative -- marched back to the colliery to take control. Says O'Sullivan: "We were ordinary men. We wanted jobs. We bought a pit."

(...)

How do such achievements fit with the early part of his résumé? O'Sullivan sees a natural progression. The NUM of the 1960s was Britain's strongest, most influential militant union, but offered the trained electrician a parallel career path.

"In British Coal, there was no leadership. Managers simply followed the dictate of the government," O'Sullivan says. "But when I joined the union in the 1960s, miners were the thought leaders at the vanguard of improvements for working people and society. Mining destroys your lungs, crushes your body.

"Working underground makes you crave improvement. A century before, it was the miners' dues that helped build institutes of learning, theaters, libraries, reading rooms.

"Our job in the union was not only to represent our workers," he says, "but also to explain to them what it meant to work together, share together, support the national health service, improve the education system. The world was what we were working with."

Source here

Tower Colliery/ A tour underground

We were ordinary men....

We wanted jobs....

We bought a pit.























The Tower Colliery website includes a tour underground:















Contrary to popular belief the working areas are no longer claustrophobic and dangerous. As you can see from the walkway above, the modern age of mining now exists in a safer and more spaceous working environment.

Take A Journey Into The Mine here

Tower Colliery

Cash crisis puts coal out of reach of Tower

Jan 25 2006
Rhodri Clark, Western Mail


TOWER COLLIERY, the last major remnant of Wales' once-enormous coal industry, faces closure within three years despite rising energy prices worldwide.

The coal seams now being worked by the iconic pit's 375-strong workforce will be exhausted in two to three years, it was confirmed yesterday.

There is no shortage of coal which could be brought to the surface by the Tower shaft near Hirwaun, Cynon Valley - but reaching it would need investment which is beyond the means of the miners who sensationally bought their own pit in 1995 after the UK Government tried to close it.

One industry expert said yesterday government funding for Tower was restricted by European Union subsidy rules. Private investors could be wary because imported coal remains relatively cheap and the UK Government is looking afresh at nuclear power.

Ken Davies, company secretary at the colliery, said, "I would say if Tower had three years' work left in its present seams, that would be about the maximum.


"There are other seams, but they would need the investment to get into them. I doubt whether Tower would be able to generate that finance without someone making a commitment to mining in Wales, to keep 300-400 people in work and to provide South Wales coal to the power stations."

He said the UK Government was sticking to the Kyoto protocol on climate change while other countries had found ways to keep their coal industries alive. "In China, America, South Africa and Australia, if it's beneficial for the country to have an independent energy source or if it's beneficial from a financial position, they're using coal and going for clean coal technology to overcome the environmental problem."

"Our leaders seem to have decided that coal generally isn't acceptable."

(...)

The South Wales coalfield is short of miners and engineers, for the first time in many decades.

The situation is so acute that Welsh mines may have to import skilled workers from countries which have sustained their own mines and training courses.

(...)

Last year Corus was granted a licence for a mine at Margam to feed its nearby steelworks from seams containing about 36 million tonnes of coal.

Ken Davies, of Tower Colliery, said, 'If there was any pick-up in the industry in Britain, there would be a dire shortage (of engineers).

'Other countries haven't decimated their mining industries to the same extent as we have. I would imagine that we will be looking to those countries behind the Iron Curtain to provide us with qualified people, because we're not training our own at home.'


Source here

The final remaining mine on the south Wales coalfield is to close within three years.

Tower was bought out by its workers in 1995


bbc.co.uk
Last Updated: Friday, 27 January 2006, 12:55 GMT

Miner-owned pit is facing closure


The final remaining mine on the south Wales coalfield is to close within three years.

Tower Colliery, near Hirwaun, closed in 1994 but was bought and re-opened by its own miners in 1995.

It remained profitable, but it has been announced that coal seams being worked by Tower's 375-strong workforce will be exhausted in two to three years.

Tower chairman Tyrone O'Sullivan said it was possible that mining in south Wales could continue elsewhere.

'Last remnants'

Tower Colliery was closed in April 1994 after continued production was judged to be uneconomic.

Its own miners, however, were not convinced.

A group of 239 of them raised £2m by each contributing £8,000 of their redundancy money to buy the ownership of the colliery, which reopened in January 1995.

[The Tower story will go on for many years
Tyrone O'Sullivan, Tower Colliery]

The mine has been run successfully by the company formed by the workers, but on Friday chairman Tyrone O'Sullivan, told BBC Wales that the colliery was now coming to the end of its life span.

He said: "Probably we'll be the only pit in the world to work its last remnants of coal.

"We've seen the early closures of other pits (but) we, in many ways, are celebrating.

"At least we've been allowed, through getting our own pit, to work these last remnants of coal from Tower.

"Many of us have been here all our working lives - my father was killed here in 1963, so it will always have a huge place in my heart."

Tower is the final colliery in south Wales' once-huge mining industry.

At its peak in the early 20th Century, dozens of pits lined the valleys of south Wales, with the coal being exported through the booming ports of Cardiff, Swansea and Newport.

The industry went into decline in the second half of the last century with about 20 remaining south Wales mines closing in the years following the 1984-5 miners' strike.











Tyrone O'Sullivan said the Tower story could continue

But Mr O'Sullivan said Tower's impending closure may not represent the final chapter in the story of mining in south Wales.

"We are hoping to go down to Aberpergwm (near Glynneath). There's a small mine there," he said.

"Perhaps we can develop that into a mine which will continue mining in south Wales.

"I don't think this is going to be the end of mining."

The Tower chairman added that the company formed by the Tower miners was likely to go on to redevelop the colliery site.

"We own 480 acres of land, we want to fetch that back into the use of the people of the valley," he said.

"I think housing, factories, lakes, streams - the Tower story will go on for many years."


+ Related

bbc.co.uk
Last Updated: Wednesday, 22 December, 2004, 12:28 GMT

Miners' pit celebrates 10 years
Miners at Tower Colliery

Workers clubbed together to take over the mine
They said it would not work but, 10 years on, the miners who bought their own pit are still celebrating.

A decade ago, Tower Colliery at Hirwaun in south Wales was bought by 240 workers, whose members each put in £8,000 in redundancy money.

It was - and still is - the only miners' buy-out in Britain.

On Wednesday, a celebration is being held to mark Tower's 10 years in private ownership and look forward to another five years of production.

But the outlook for the mine, which survived the downturn of the industry after the miners' 1980s strike, was not always so good.

Pit closure followed pit closure across the south Wales coalfield, which once employed 35,000.


What stands out is the unbelievable commitment of the workforce
Brian Morgan

When the death knell was sounded for Tower, local MP Ann Clwyd took a stand and protested for 27 hours underground.

"A few weeks before, we'd been told that the pit was productive, and a lot of money had been spent on it," said the Cynon Valley MP.

"Then they were trying to tell us there was a geological fault.

"The men knew that was not true."

The mine did close, but the workers refused to give in and 240 of them paid in thousands to reopen it. The men marched proudly back to work under the pit's banner and Tower was back in profit within 10 months.

It has turned in a profit every year since, despite setbacks including an earthquake which caused a leak of methane gas.

Ann Clwyd after emerging from an underground protest at Tower
Ann Clwyd MP went underground to back the miners' cause

The pit has secured major contracts for its coal at home and abroad, and extra workers have been employed alongside the men who bought their own pit.

At the helm throughout has been the miners' ebullient leader Tyrone O'Sullivan.

"We were the ideal people to take on Tower Colliery," said Mr O'Sullivan.

"We've been out there and we've competed with the world. It's not that we've been lucky.

"It's about a company that went out there and took on the world and have done a good job"

The last three months have been among the most difficult.

Problems at the face mean many shifts have been unable to produce coal.

Tyrone O'Sullivan
Tyrone O'Sullivan: 'It's not that we've been lucky'

Some men will even work over the Christmas period to help out.

But Tower is still on target to produce 600,000 tonnes of coal this year, with a turnover of £25m.

Cardiff Business School's Brian Morgan, a non executive director at Tower, said the pit had done well despite there being no obvious market for its production.

"You could have perhaps the best production in the world, but if you couldn't sell it, these men were going to have lost their redundancy payments," he said.

"What stands out is the unbelievable commitment of the workforce.

"You can't believe they would have put in the effort if they had been owned by somebody else."

Source here

A brief history of Welsh mining from 1945 to the present day

A brief history of Welsh mining from 1945 to the present day: "1945"

Feb 9 2006

Molly Watson, Western Mail


1945

On January 1, 1945, the National Union of Mineworkers came into being, with the aim of maintaining, protecting and improving the standard of living of its members.

Created as a result of the approaching nationalisation of the industry, the union represented all mine workers including craftsmen, underground, surface, clerical workers and many others, with each pit having an individual lodge.

1946

Establishment of the National Coal Board, given sole responsibility for managing the industry and running it on business lines.

1947

On January 1, coal mines were taken into public ownership.

1955

Programme of pit closures begins in South Wales.

1966

Aberfan tip slide claims the lives of 144 children and adults.

1972 [and 1974]

National miners' strike

At the 1971 NUM Annual Conference, delegates asked for a 43% pay rise, at a time when the Conservative Government was offering around 7 to 8%. This was followed by a vote by miners to take industrial action if their demands weren't met. On January 9, miners from all over Britain came out.

Miners targeted all power stations and picketed coal depots, while dockers in South Wales refused to unload coal from ships. In early February a state of emergency was declared and a three-day working week was introduced to save electricity. An offer was eventually accepted at the end of February. But miners' wages failed to keep up and in 1974 they struck again. The dispute led to the fall of the Tories.

1984

The National Coal Board declared it wished to close 20 pits with the loss of 20,000 jobs, claiming that the deal made after the 1974 miners' strike was no longer valid. In March Arthur Scargill, President of the NUM, called a national strike against the pit closures. The strike was declared illegal as Arthur Scargill had not held a ballot of NUM members, which led to the confiscation of NUM funds and enabled the police to intervene. The strike lasted for nearly a year, but on March, 3, 1985, the NUM conceded defeat. Miners returned to work two days later.

1985

Beginning of the mass closure of collieries.

1994

Tower Colliery closes, the last deep-mine in South Wales

1995

Workers return to Tower Colliery after a successful employee buyout bid.

2006

Tower Colliery faces closure within three years.

One of Dylan Thomas's favourite pubs ready to risefrom dark cellar of disrepair

One of Dylan Thomas's favourite pubs ready to risefrom dark cellar of disrepair: "REPORTS of the death of a colourful Swansea pub have been exaggerated."

What happened to Wales?

What happened to Wales?: "About 60 years ago a Welsh miner used a wartime documentary to lay out his vision for a brighter future. As it is released for the first time on DVD, Molly Watson talks to his grandson about the intervening years and the changes they brought"

Cherry Orchard/ Parc Cefn Onn

http://www.cardiff.gov.uk/leisure/Parks/parks_files/cefn_onn.htm

Parc Cefn Onn

Footpath with flowering shrubs in Cefn Onn park The area of land comprising the Dingle, Golf Course, and adjoining hillside covers approximately 64 Hectares (160 acres) and was acquired by Mr Prosser, a resident of Llanishen who was Manager of the Old Taff Vale Railway before amalgamation of GWR during the early part of the century, before the first world war.

Most of the established exotic trees, the older Rhododendrons and Azaleas (e.g. the Azaleas bordering the long walk) were planted immediately before the first world war and during the 1920’s.

It was intended that a house would be built in the field at the northern end of the park but both Mr Prosser and his only son died before the Second World War and the plan was never carried out.

During both wars the Dingle was very much neglected due to a shortage of labour and particularly so during the latter part of the 1930s and up to 1944 when the property was acquired by the then Cardiff Corporation. The property had been left to Mr Prosser’s nephew who found it very difficult to maintain and eventually decided to sell it.

On a Saturday evening in 1944 Mr Tom Jenkins who had been in charge of the Dingle for many years (during latter years on his own) telephones Mr Nelmes, the Director of Parks at that time and reported that Mr Prosser had reluctantly decided to sell.

Trees reflecting in lake at Cefn Onn parkKnowing the value of Cefn Onn, horticulturally and as part of the green belt Mr Nelmes met Ald Hill-Snook (Chairman of the Parks Committee) and Ald Sir W R Williams (Chairman of Finance Committee) who were about to go to church, and took them to inspect Cefn Onn.

Both Chairmen were very impressed with the area. Initially Ald George Williams (Chairman of Estates Committee) bought the property privately for the sum of £7,000.

The next day however, at a joint meeting of the appropriate Committees, Ald Williams offered the land to the Corporation for the same price. The acquisition was unanimously approved.

Subsequently an additional area of approximately 16 Hectares (40 acres) of woodland towards the top of the hill was purchased from the Plymouth Estate and parts of two small fields to provide a car park and entrance on to the Cherry Orchard Road. Some of the land is now leased to a local farmer for grazing. The park was designated as a Country Park on 13th March 1972.
FACILITIES

The park is open by 8am midweek, 9am at weekends until sunset. Car parking and toilet facilities are available with provision for disabled people. Picnic tables and benches are set out within the park and many of the lower pathways are suitable for wheelchairs and push-chairs.
THE PARK

Meandering path at Cefn OnnPart of the charm of this woodland valley park lies in its capacity to interest visitors of all ages. The meandering paths, streams and ponds appeal to younger visitors particularly and there are several seats, benches and picnic tables. There is plenty of wildlife to be seen and Golden Crested Wrens have been sited in the area.

Shrubs and trees of special interest to the dedicated plants person are to be found throughout the park. Extensive planting of acid loving shrubs are included with many varieties of rhododendrons, azaleas and mecanopsis.

The southern part of the park, approached from the car park is a woodland garden and there are several varieties of magnolias, oaks and acers and although justly famed for its spring and early summer colour the park provides year round interest.

During the winter for example, the mature Hamamellis (Chinese Witch Hazel) are at their best together with the profusely flowering Mahonias with their fragrant racemes of yellow flowers. Clumps of bamboo and unusual conifers abound together with some unusual evergreens eg Nothofagus, Eucalyptus niphophila (Snow Gum).

Looking up, the visitor will notice the Abies Grandis (Giant Fir) which measures 44m (145ft).

As autumn approaches the changing colour of the many acers can be seen at their best.

2 pictures illustrating the wide variety of trees and shrubs in Cefn Onn parkSome trees and shrubs of special interest are as follows:

* Embothrium (Chilean Firebush)
* Ptelea trifoliata (Hoptree)
* Drimys winteri (Winter Bark)
* Camellia species
* Magnolia cambellii
* Magnolia wilsoni
* Magnolia liliflora nigra
* Magnolia watsonii
* Enkianthus campanulatus
* Euchryphia x nymansesis
* Stewartia pseudocamellia
* Prunus serrula
* Acer griseum
* Liriodendron tulipifera
* Enkianthus cernuus



* Cercidiphylum cernuus
* Cercis siliquastrum
* Podocarpus andinus
* Quercus pontica
* Quercus phellos
* Cunninghamia lanceolata
* Abies grandis
* Pinus wallichiana
* Pinus ayachuite
* Cedrus atlantica glauca
* Picea breweriana
* Metasequoia glyptostrobodies
* Peaonia lutea
* Saxegothea
* Fitzroya

The large pool is artificial, made by damming the tributary of the Nant Fawr stream. This stream has its source in Craig Llanishen, flows into Roath Park Lake, through the park and on to the River Rhymney. Plenty of frog spawn and tadpoles fill the pool in spring. Biological control started during the 1960s. The pond was overrun by caddis fly who ate many of the aquatic plants. An island was built to accommodate these plants as bog plants and marginals and the original orfe fish were introduced to eat the caddis fly.

Flowering tree Many large specimen Metasequoia glyptostoboides trees were planted when Cardiff purchased the land to surround the pool. Cryptomeria to the East were part of Mr Prosser’s original planting.

Here too lies a giant Sequoia, split apart by lightening in 1990. This measured 38m (127ft) and the stump has since been sculptured into a substantial seat.

The northern section was originally mixed woodland and some of these trees and many of the more recently planted one provide the dappled shade ideal for the camellias, rhododendrons, bluebells, wood anemones, garlic, violets and many varieties of celandines to be seen in all their glory during spring and early summer.

The pathways follow the slopes of the valley where the stream flows, providing the ideal habitat for the ferns, astilbes and other moisture loving plants.

Work continues to maintain the park as a delightful haven of tranquillity. It remains a plants person’s paradise.

To enable others to enjoy all the pleasures of Parc Cefn Onn, please ensure that you follow the Country Code, refrain from taking plants, flowers and cuttings.
CEFN ONN PARK - HOW TO GET THERE

From EASTFirs & Conifers
# M4 Junction 29 (A48/Cardiff West)
# 3rd exitA470 (Merthyr/Cardiff)
# Follow signs to Caerphilly
# (Crematorium on LEFT)
# Over Motorway
# 1st RIGHT Capel Gwilym Road
# Over Motorway
# (leads into Cherry Orchard just after the Old Cottage Pub Road)
# 250 yards turn LEFT into Park.

From WEST
# M4 Junction 32 (A470 Merthyr/Cardiff)
# Follow signs for Cardiff
# Turn LEFT at 3rd set of traffic lights into Tyn y Parc Road
# straight on
# Turn LEFT at 2nd set of traffic lights - Caerphilly Road
# Follow road north to Caerphilly
# (Crematorium on left)
# Over Motorway
# 1st RIGHT Capel Gwilym Road
# Over Motorway (leads into Cherry Orchard just after the Old Cottage Pub Road)
# 250 yards turn LEFT into Park.


26/03/2002

the BT IDC

Peter Finch

Ely Fields
& the
BT IDC

from

Real Cardiff
Two


Where the Ely meets the Taff has always been indeterminate. River mouths move as if they were speaking. Silt accumulates then shifts. The rivers themselves meander. In Cardiff's heyday the Ely looped here like a Hindu snake. Railtracks crossed the peninsula to the Victoria Wharf coal-stays on the tidal harbour. Penarth Dock station watched from the far side. Grime and sweat. The substance big cities are made from. By the 1960s the industry had gone and the wooden wharfs had begun to crumble. The Ely meanders were abandoned in 1971 and the river diverted through a new straight channel cut along their western edge. The river now ran parallel to the Cogan railway. Revealed hollows were used as landfill. The ancient Penarth Moors became a dump for city garbage. By the 1990s the hollows were full, capped with three-feet of impervious clay and redeveloped as Grangemoor Parc with the Cardiff Bay Retail Park alongside. South East lay the Ferry Road peninsula, the Red House, the Cardiff Bay Yacht Club, and the site for the in-coming Sports Village and attendant housing. To the south west, up Dunleavy Drive, are Ely Fields. Ely Fields? Secret, gated Cardiff. A thirty-acre triangle of land with the river front on its long side and the elevated Grangetown Link and Cogan Spur roadways on the others. Peer into it as you drive past, most you'll see are trees.

This is home to the exclusive Grangemoor Court waterfront apartments (£160,000 plus for a one bedroomed flat at 2004 prices) and Cardiff's much-vaunted Celtic Gateway Media Park. WDA, Rhodri, suits and smiles. Who creates these names? No park, no gateway, and hardly Celtic. Penarth mud, drained. But the media are here. NTL's bespoke 65,000 square foot call-centre with its glazed atria and softly curving maritime roof gleams white on the green sward . Opposite is BT's prize ninety-million-pound Internet Data Centre (IDC). Known as Elinia House, the complex is run by BT Global Services. No sign anywhere of the rolling silt mud that this place once was. South is water. Sky is blue. In the sun it feels like the Mediterranean.

BT Internet Data Centre front

The glass front of the IDC is riddled with words. High over the revolving entrance run a series of names: Peter Pan Tinkerbell Roger Ellis Norman Schwenk D.Z. Phillips William Carlos Williams William ap Will William Williams Jones Walcott St Paul ap Iestyn A.M. Allchin. Norman, poet, hat wearer, and American denizen of the Cardiff literary scene for at least forty years hasn't seen his name up here yet. Nether has Roger Ellis, nor, come to that, has Peter Pan, William Carlos Williams nor A M Allchin. These are all fragments of my long web poem R S Thomas Information, never published in hard copy form but now here, hard as you like and in copious quantity, all over BT's Bay masterpiece. I've parked my car on the roadside under the Link Road bridge. The official car parks are all chain fenced and motor barriered. The service roads look vulnerable, park and someone will remove your vehicle with a rocket launcher. Or tow it away for scrap. At the entrance a uniformed guard tells me that I can't just turn up here, I need an appointment. These buildings are not like offices. They are not . Inside the lobby is all curves and glass and R S Thomas deconstructed. Risk ripening rescued red random rubbing reborn R. rooting rnld ring remote rain rain rooting roof reason remoter root removes roses return rigid. Three hundred people a day will walk past it. fescue fuddled females flame fire flies flying failed flowed from fields foolish fields foolish This is data in action. You look at it. You read it. You don't take it in.

BT IDC in the corridor

Back in the early 80s when the best home computer in the world was the BBC B with 32k memory, no printer and a cassette-tape A-drive I wrote a program in Basic which would compose Anglo-Welsh poems for me. I set up a number of word pools containing the sort of vocabulary the Anglo-Welsh were famous for - sheep, stipple, cariad, hillside, hiraeth, chapel, pit - and then a couple of rules for how these words could be combined. Up it all came on screen.

slate fences on farmer's hillsides,
shrouded cockles and grass-polished deacons,
the nation majestically watered

This was great. Machines that could do your work for you. I copied the poetry down.

BT IDC Peter Finch's text

R S Thomas, Wales' greatest poet, dour and dark, was clearly next. He was a Cardiffian who had deserted the anglicised-city for the north. He'd learned Welsh to perfection and adopted a hard, revolutionary line on the culture. A man who certainly needed to be celebrated. I chose the most contemporary of devices open to me. The net. Using real and imagined sources I build up a hyperlinked database of the poet's history, his friends and acquaintances, his fans, his influences, his childhood, his favoured lexicon. We are all identifiable by the extent of our vocabulary and the frequency of its use. What would his look like? I found out. In his lifetime he was nominated for the Nobel Prize. He didn't get it. I wrote the history up. Did he ever listen to Mozart? Certainly. Dion and the Belmonts? Maybe not. He was a famous birder but not of the reworked feather-bearers I included. Greeebe Hebron Goshandy Goosehandy Gobbler Grey Dipper Kingklank Goldeneye Grodfish Godeel Golders Green Grass Basher h'm.

colour too

The database - the poem - grew like topsy. I built in a bibliographic resource showing his extant books and where to buy them. There was a newspaper story somewhere about him looking happy. I inserted a clickable link. I wrote an imaginary walk of his through fields of mangles and an encounter with the poet Childe Roland. Someone e-mailed me to say that R S had moved to Criccieth. I pasted it in. The piece was structured alphabetically to give it a base. I mixed genuine R S vocabulary with imagined resources and developed a host of cross-cutting links. When you arrived at the site there was no intention that you should read the data sequentially, A to Z. Far from it. This was a simulacrum of the real world where data was to be grazed and processed, batched and filed, cut and pasted, spliced and dumped. Visitors took it as how life was. His son Gwydion said the work was elliptical. R S himself would have been appalled.

and in the offices

Back out in the Bay the heat is burning the shirt into my back. Along the edges of the undeveloped areas of the site ragwort, wild carrot and yellow toadflax sprout. Inside the IDC data hovers. R S on the windows, R S in the cable, R S on the central servers. Data developed and deployed. R S of the new age. Wouldn't have been appreciated. I know.

BT IDC - all Welsh

Notes

In his hand he clutches a copy of Peter Meuiller's Distaff and the catalogue of book-bound objects showing at the European Centre for Traditional and Regional Culture at Llangollen, Clwyd. Childe Roland's paper book in a bottle, his bindings of torn paper, colours overlaid and rolling like waves, treaties with subject but no content, gestalt whiteness, French and welsh merging, fel melin, fel ymbarel, fel eli, fel melfa, fel tawel, fel dychwel, What are your plans for the future, my lord, Ham and Jam? There is light in these works; sometimes nothing but. Where else in this northern fastness can you find the word for light repeated so often that it glows. The friction of the signifier, the concrete base of Meuiller's brightness makes sparks in the Welsh air.

still there

Peter Finch