Ever since I handed in the MSS for Real Port Talbot to my publisher in March (Seren Books will publish it in November) I've been hoping that nothing significant would happen in the town, that nothing (else) would be demolished, that no local person would shoot to fame, that the streets and buildings would remain more or less the same so no part of the book would end up out of date or redundant. No such luck!
But the changes and developments don't affect the book too adversely. The new super-school planned for Baglan Bay will still be built... but on the Western Avenue playing fields.
Pre-Skool, the fire-cracker little dancers from TDM stage school who practice at the Mozart Drive Community Centre on Sandfields Estate, are in the final of Britain's Got Talent on 8th June. Dance, kids, dance!
But the changes and developments don't affect the book too adversely. The new super-school planned for Baglan Bay will still be built... but on the Western Avenue playing fields.
Pre-Skool, the fire-cracker little dancers from TDM stage school who practice at the Mozart Drive Community Centre on Sandfields Estate, are in the final of Britain's Got Talent on 8th June. Dance, kids, dance!
Port Talbot Arts Centre, Theodore Road, Taibach
And there seems to be hope for the old Port Talbot Arts Centre in Taibach, the former vicarage to St Theodore's Church, that was built around 1900/01 and sold with its surrounding acre of land to the local authority in 1959. It operated as an arts centre between 1975 and 2004. As late as March this year the plot of land was included on the council's potential housing allocation list. There were negotiations taking place for its sale to a developer, a sale which would more than likely have led to the (unlisted) building's demolition. But last month saw the submission of a new planning application to convert it into a veterinary premises without any alteration to the classic late Victorian architecture. Its preservation is wonderful news for a town that has lost so much of its architectural heritage.
But there is one scrap of information that I really wish I had discovered in time even though it wouldn't have amounted to more than a sentence or two in the South section of the book.
But there is one scrap of information that I really wish I had discovered in time even though it wouldn't have amounted to more than a sentence or two in the South section of the book.
Caricature and diary entry by Humphrey Lyttleton
The above cartoon and commentary are taken from Faces of Humph, a book of caricatures and memories by Humphrey Lyttleton, who worked at the Port Talbot steelworks in 1940, after he left Eton and before he was called up to serve in the Grenadier Guards. Lyttelton (1921 - 2008), jazz musician and the inimitable presenter of BBC Radio's Comedy, 'I'm sorry I haven't a clue', was a prolific diarist and there are a half dozen or so Port Talbot entries from a 1940 diary in this book.
There's no clue in this book, or in his bio on Wikipedia, as to how or why he ended up in Port Talbot but maybe one of the several autobiographical volumes he published will reveal the answer.
That's what so great about history. There's always something else to discover, another story to expand the picture you already thought you knew.
References:
http://www.tdmstageschool.co.uk/
Evening Post 30.5.2013
Humphrey Lyttleton on Wikipedia
There's no clue in this book, or in his bio on Wikipedia, as to how or why he ended up in Port Talbot but maybe one of the several autobiographical volumes he published will reveal the answer.
That's what so great about history. There's always something else to discover, another story to expand the picture you already thought you knew.
References:
http://www.tdmstageschool.co.uk/
Evening Post 30.5.2013
Humphrey Lyttleton on Wikipedia
RSS Feed