Cardiff Castle

Guess what - this is my 1,500th post since the start of blogging in February 2009. And I'm still going strong. Just now I'm finding it hard to keep up the cracking pace I set a while back, because the lingering tendonitis in my left arm is a physical discouragement to typing. But I expect to get back to blogging on most days before Christmas comes.

At the end of October I was in Cardiff for a few hours. It was a dull, cloudy day, but I didn't want to merely spend the time looking at shops. So I decided to park Fiona at one end of Queen Street, the main shopping street, and walk through to the famous Castle, which I hadn't been inside since 1963, when I was still a child of eleven. Indeed, that was the last time I'd looked closely at the city centre! I had of course driven past Cardiff many a time on the M4, and on occasion through parts of the city, most notably during my March 2013 visit to Cardiff Bay. But I'd gone nowhere near Queen Street. My goodness, it had changed from the staid old-fashioned street I remembered.

But first the parking. I found a spot, bought three hours on the meter, and was about to walk away when this notice caught my eye:

Headed CYNNIG TRAFFIG DROS DRO, it clearly had something to do with parking or traffic management, but it was entirely in Welsh. Cardiff is the capital of Wales, and no doubt the epicentre of Welshness and Welsh pride, but even so, visitors to it need an English translation to ensure that they don't infringe any local regulations. It seemed a bit off not to provide one. In fact, it was exasperating. I was Welsh myself, but I didn't know more than a few words, and the notice might be telling me not to park. The lack of a translation felt underhand. I looked carefully at the notice for clues. The only one that stood out was the word MARATHON in the sub-heading, which suggested that the main body of text was all about which streets would be closed on the day of that event. Since the street clearly wasn't shut off to normal traffic that day, I thought I was probably all right. But I had no real peace of mind about this until I returned later on. (I'd been caught out by parking regulations too many times before not to be paranoid about where I might park!)

Anyway, skirting part of the University, I ducked under the railway bridge and entered Queen Street. Well, the street (and the shopping centres off it) together formed a most impressive retail experience. It reminded me of London. It was much bigger and better than, say, Brighton. It was very hard to keep to my plan, and hold a straight course to the Castle. There were several street performers around. One of them was a giant metallic alien (a being from the planet Malevolor?), which an Islamic lady in a pink scarf was keen to photograph in mid-gesture. She got her shot. I got mine.

Aliens and Islamic persons were not prevalent when I was last here! Nor was the background buzz. The place was packed with families, and young people of student age. It's a funny thing, but the shopping streets of big towns and cities (at least the successful ones) seem to me much busier than they were when I was young. Perhaps that's because 'going into town' for a slice of café life, has become much more part of everyone's routine. And the shopping is in any case more attractive. And there are many more people around now with money in their pockets, or at least credit to make use of. On Queen Street, it's very hard to believe in unemployment, and food banks, and a hand-to-mouth existence on benefits.

Nearing the Castle, I saw a knot of people with cameras and phones out, facing something on the Castle Wall. Children - adults too - were posing with arms and hands just so, so that the shot would be set up to show them 'holding' something. My goodness. There was a giant rugby ball embedded in the Wall, as if kicked there from the Millennium Stadium not far distant. All to do with the Rugby World Cup (which had hitherto completely passed me by).

It was cleverly done. Frozen in the moment of impact! I learned later that I'd been very lucky to see this. It was taken down soon afterwards.

Into the castle then. Once through the gateway, I was directed to a modern visitor complex, and I joined the queue to pay. How much? Well, it was cheaper than the £13.20 I'd have paid five months earlier to get into Edinburgh Castle - which I'd thought way too much. It was 'only' £10.50 for Cardiff Castle. These are the prices for persons entitled to an age concession, by the way. The ordinary prices for adults were £16.50 for Edinburgh and £12.00 for Cardiff - proving that Scotland charges more for its heritage assets! On the other hand, being senior saves you as much as £3.30 in Edinburgh, but only £1.50 in Cardiff - proving that Scotland gives its older folk a better deal. Nevertheless, I cherished my £1.50, and did not cavil one bit. I love getting any kind of age concession.

I was first exhorted to see what the visitor complex had to offer, which included food and toilets, but also a section of the original Roman Fort, and a museum devoted to the Welsh Regiments. Why not? The museum was actually very well-presented, and even a lot of fun. It was full of life-sized model soldiers with pretty lifelike faces:

There was a mounted dragoon too:

These were meant to represent real soldiers who fought and quite possibly died. The mounted man was for instance killed at Waterloo. There were displays all around that told the service histories of Welsh fighting men, mostly doing very heroic deeds, complete with their medals and other personal effects.

Near the dragoon, some girls were posing for photos, all dressed up.

There were hats, caps and tunics to try on from various armies. I couldn't resist. Here I am, as a stern, implacable Russian Air Force officer:

And here as an incredibly haughty Russian Army general:

Next, I put on a German Army tin hat. It was very heavy.

Dare I say Very interesting...but stupid! (I'm referring to a recurring gag in Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In from the late 1960s) Perhaps the cap of a British Tommy in the trenches of the Somme would suit me better? Yes, it gave me an over the top look, don't you think?

Or the the kind of hat worn in the Aussie Army? Why, tie me kangaroo down, sport!

Well, that all used up an hour. I thought I'd better see more of the Castle. Basically, there was a Wall with a raised walkway that you could walk along, enclosing a high Norman Keep surrounded by a moat, a Gothic Revival mansion with a big hall and other mediaeval-style rooms, and lots of grassy space, complete with a siege machine. This was a big Castle! I walked the Wall first.

The first big thing to see on the walkway was a huge sculpture of a face, meant to represent The Abandoned Soldier - any person who fought, but whose valour had been overlooked or ignored. 

At length I came to an exhibition, created within the Wall, showing how it was used as an air-raid shelter during World War Two. It was dark in there. The dim electric lighting was very evocative. There were lots of wartime posters.

There were lots of posters about eating food that could be grown at home:

I particularly liked the recruitment posters. They made the work of an Air Raid Warden look fit for heroes:

And the work of a Land Girl was made out to be downright glamorous!

It's those natty jodhpurs, of course, plus the Hollywood hairstyle! No wonder that farmer is being civil. I believe that in fact the women wore (as you'd expect) plain ordinary baggy trousers and had no time (or energy left) to bother much with their hair. Hmm...I now recall a very dark film about Land Girls (not the 1998 film called The Land Girls) in which they all end up getting very nearly killed by moronic local men who fear their feminine wiles, and try to burn them to death in a barn. (A pity: I can't remember the name of this film) 

Emerging from the exhibition, my next destination was the mansion, a lavish creation of the third Marquess of Bute, aided by the architect William Burges. The pair restored Castell Goch (Welsh for 'Red Castle') up in the hills north of Cardiff in much the same elaborate style. And the decoration is indeed elaborate, and sumptuous, and rich, with many allusions to mediaeval chivalry and the the mystique of lord and lady. Here's just a sample: 

I doubt if real mediaeval castles could have capped this. The third Marquess must have spent a fortune. I had just enough time left to climb up to the Keep. It left me puffing for breath, I can tell you, but one certainly had a commanding view:

I couldn't stay longer - to my horror, I discovered that had only half an hour left before my parking ticket ran out! I just made it.

I could have seen a lot more. For instance there was a guided tour of the mansion, for which you paid extra, but it let you into rooms that the ordinary visitor didn't get a glimpse of. Even as it was, I thought I'd had my money's worth. Definitely worth a visit. 

In search of Banksy

Last weekend, I was in Weston-super-Mare, the seaside resort on the Somerset coast.

Weston was major in Victorian times, with great pretensions. 'Super mare' was added to give the place some class. It's just the Latin way of saying 'on the sea', but it sounds much posher. Bognor on the Sussex coast tried the same Latin trick in 1929, actually claiming royal patronage, by renaming itself Bognor Regis (that is, 'Bognor of the King' or 'King's Bognor'). The King in question (George V) disliked the place, and it's now legendary that when the town council petitioned him for this change of name in his honour, he sourly grumbled 'bugger Bognor!' They went ahead regardless.

Presumably these contrived modern Latinisms (quite different from the ancient naming of country villages - Twiddlecombe Magna and Twiddlecombe Parva, for example) were intended to impress, and confer a certain cachet on the developing new resort. A way, in fact, of warning the Lower Orders that only the Best People should come. Rather as if I abandoned plain honest Lucy Melford, and began to style myself Lucinda de Melford, in the hope that only Nice People would associate with me. A vain hope? Of course; and I'm not going to try; but years ago everyone of any education held Latin in very great regard.  

I wonder if there was a short period, early on, when those nineteenth-century town councillors, hoteliers, and local shop-owners would try to insist on the proper Latin pronunciation of 'super mare' (which is something like 'SOOP-air MAH-ray'). I can even imagine this pedantic pronunciation in train announcements at Weston station (and, no doubt, at Bristol Temple Meads, and most certainly at London Paddington). The speech of Cicero in West Country accents! But only for a while. Nonplussed looks on ordinary passengers' faces would have stopped that soon enough. So far as I know, it's been 'soopa mair' for a very long time indeed. Plebian but practical.

It would be fair to say that Weston - like many a British seaside resort - had its heyday long ago. It's no longer an obvious place to spend your annual two-week summer holiday. But it still has its sands, and lots of facilities; and although its glamour has faded, it would be churlish to dismiss it as the Resort of the Damned. For one thing, Banksy thought it a fine place to mount his Dismaland installation, which opened in September.

You know Banksy. The anonymous street artist who creates witty and faintly anarchic wall pictures in black spray paint, with stencilled lettering, who has gained enough recognition to mount legal public exhibitions. Dismaland was a spoof Disneyland. He set it up in the old lido on Weston's seafront. It drew in vast numbers of paying visitors. What they saw is on this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPU3D6o1AzY. It's all dismantled and gone now. But I wondered whether any vestigial traces of it remained. So, in Weston on a grey and windy Sunday afternoon, I sought out the venue.

I was walking in the right direction!

And this was the old lido. Hmm. Nothing to see here. But just behind me at this point were marks on the grass lawn that suggested snaking queues:

I felt like an urban archaeologist. I peered around. Some of the nearby metal signs were plastered in stickers:

Very International, very Prole Power, but - is it just me? - I felt that every message was deliberately expressed in coded language, to obscure the real meaning. Why was it all so cryptic? Why not speak clearly to the oppressed and misled masses waiting in line to enter Dismaland? Couldn't they have used Latin, for instance? And although Banksy was an Artist of the People, this stuff wasn't at all in his style. But wait! There was one sticker...

That was more like it.

But really that one sticker was all there was in the way of art - unless you counted the pavement direction marker - to show that Banksy had ever turned his eyes on Weston at all. So I walked on, determined to find the Soul of Weston instead. Surely it would be exposed with stark clarity in the bleak gloom of a November afternoon? I wanted my photos to capture the raw essence of this Somerset resort. See what you think. 

Let's caption this one Wish You Were Here! 

Despite the light rain, I kept cheerful. Strange structures, which I took to be nuclear test shelters of some kind, or at least tsunami shields, faced the beach. 

The stylish Grand Pier, rebuilt and reopened in 2011, and looking just like a Beijing People's Palace, emerged from the mist. I was disappointed that the foreground stall offering fresh whelks was closed. But I kept smiling!

Just then, a loud chuffing noise was heard - a real head-turner. There was a strong steam-engine smell. It was a steam bus!

Encouraged, I continued, passing the entrance to the Grand Pier. They wanted £1 to walk its length and visit the tourist honeypot at the far end. I let them whistle for that.

At night, it's all lit up. Here it was four years ago:

Let's face it, everything looks better when lit up at night. The Winter Gardens Pavilion does. It's a bit further on from the Grand Pier. Here it is in 2015, by day; and back in 2011, by night:

Surely not the same people in front of the Pavilion? Doomed to walk past for all eternity? Well, who knows.

One thing there's no lack of in Weston is food. There are invitations to feast all over the place. Several of these caught my eye:

How British! 

Hello, what's this? A restaurant offering an OAP Special! Fish and Chips. Scampi and Chips. Fish Cakes and Chips. What a choice.

This must be what Old Age Pensioners live on. And I'm an OAP. Damn. I'm obviously doing it all wrong, because I eat lots of other things, including green vegetables. This has churned me up. It's so worrying. How am I to have any credibility as an OAP if I don't eat lots and lots of fry-ups? And it wasn't by any means the only OAP eating enticement I saw. 

There you are. Senior Citizen Specials. Cod, chips, peas, bread and butter. Ham, egg, chips, peas, bread and butter. How very special. Here's a question for all my readers. See if you can guess the right answer. What item is essential for each and every OAP meal? Stumped? Flummoxed? Haven't got a clue? Well, it seems to be chips. Something I have once in a blue moon. OK, that's an exaggeration. Say only once a month. And if people are noticing that, they must be laughing themselves silly whenever I mention my State Pension. What a fake, they must be saying. I'd better step up my chip intake PDQ.

Another thing. Those old persons above are dressed in grey, have half-moon specs, false teeth, and funny little tongues. God's teeth! I just don't look the part. It's a nightmare.

And what do these OAPs do all day in Weston? Shop at the 99p store? Or Wilko? Both shops are in this picture, taken in the Sovereign Shopping Centre. (To be fair, there's a Waterstones bookshop in the same shot) 

Or do they spend their pennies in the amusement arcades? In between snacking on chips, I mean. I wish I knew.

Thankfully, I found the steam bus again. It was taking a breather. It needed quite a 'crew' to get the steam pressure up, and generally look after it. They easily outnumbered the passengers waiting inside. 

I wasn't tempted to enquire about a ride. It was getting wet and chilly, and the light was beginning to fade. The caravan called. This was my evening meal later on:

Chicken, new potatoes, carrots, broccoli, gravy, and a large smear of dijon mustard (more for colour effect, really). Not Masterchef, but hey, it was vegetable-heavy and tasty - and not a chip on the plate. It was also a hopeless travesty of what real Old Person's Nosh is like. I ought to be ashamed of myself.

One year in the Bingo Club

I have just passed the first anniversary of my State Pension beginning. My entitlement ran from 6th November 2014. I was then sixty-two years and four months old, and I felt very lucky to be getting an extra £6,500 odd a year. Well, actually not quite so much - 20% income tax had to come off. But even so, a vital addition to income.

Instead of merely breaking even each month, I could begin to accumulate some savings, and in the fullness of time create for myself a financial safety net. I had walked a tightrope in that respect ever since finally selling Ouse Cottage in August 2011. Yes, I was free of a bankruptcy-threatening debt (that private loan from M---) but stripped naked so far as ready cash was concerned. It had been three years of spending all my income, down to the last penny, on whatever I did, with never a chance to put something by for emergencies. OK, the 'income' was my super-reliable Civil Service Pension, and not some meagre social security benefit that might get snatched away. And I need not have enjoyed holidays and a social life. But the sense of nagging insecurity, of frank doom, if I mismanaged my money or suffered some unlucky household appliance breakdown, was genuine enough. It was three years of watching every outgoing, conscious that the Bank of Mum and Dad no longer existed. Neither did I have a husband or other close companion to share that precarious existence with, laughing the worries away together. The relief of having an extra £500-odd every four weeks was enormous. The Seventh Cavalry to the rescue, no less.

But there were other psychological effects beyond feeling more secure. They call it the State Pension, but for much of my life this was the Old Age Pension, the thing old dears and old gentlemen (the 'OAPs') queued up for at the Post Office, when sixty-five was the Retirement Age, and life expectancy was shorter. I was joining their ranks. Would that 'Old Age Pension' label change my viewpoint?

I'd say yes, it has. I no longer feel separated from older people, as if an intruder from another world. I'm definitely one of them, even though (so far) I've suffered few of their aches and pains, and can whizz about like a forty year old. Even though their attitudes and prejudices and worries and naïvities and lack of tech-savviness are (as yet) foreign to me. I have joined the Old Age Club - as a New Member, yes, but in time I'll get a comfy chair to doze in, and more recognition - a seat on the Bingo Committee perhaps. Wow, what a challenge. Bring it on, I say. And one day, when I no longer look so good, when I've started to slow up and stumble, the world at large will assume that I am feeble-minded, and can be treated like a child needing gentle care and guidance, not a real human being at all, but an object to be patronised and tidied away, and denied choices. Not such a pleasant thought. I shall have to develop a protective front, and masquerade as someone much younger, simply to avoid constant indignities and humiliations.

But for now there is plenty of time to play at being an OAP. I love visiting museums, galleries and country houses, and asking for an age concession on the price of admission. Every 50p off (sometimes it's as much as £2) is a satisfaction that I savour. They get it back: if I save a couple of quid on admission, then I am that much more inclined to celebrate with tea and cake at their café. It's not about the money; it's about claiming a social reward. For it's a major achievement, not to be undervalued, to arrive in your sixties in good health and lissom enough to get out and about. Instead of sitting at home watching daytime TV, and dying a bit more every day.

Bus passes and railcards for senior folk are similar rewards. They say 'well done, you', but they also murmur 'that's the right spirit' and 'keep active' and 'don't stand still'. Good advice indeed.

All the time, though, I feel different from the average oldie, because of my particular personal circumstances. When you have no aged parents on your hands, no partner or siblings to get concerned about, no children to look out for, no grandchildren to spend time on, no dog to walk, no pets at all, and your social world is populated mostly by friends made only recently, you can't help feeling out of the ordinary, something of a misfit. Thank goodness I've always enjoyed being the odd one out!

Fear of flying

Yet another passenger aircraft falls out of the sky - I'm talking about the latest example to hit the news, the Russia-bound Airbus that flew out of Sharm el-Sheikh and disintegrated over Sinai.

The British government considers that there was a bomb on board, which implies that security at the Egyptian holiday resort airport wasn't good enough. Understandably this has infuriated the Egyptians, partly because they feel it is a slur on their own capabilities, and partly because the forensic work has hardly begun, and so there is no proof yet of what the British government believes must be the case - although our government claims to have special evidence that conclusively justifies the action it has taken. Which is to stop flights from the UK to Sharm el-Sheik, and bring British holidaymakers home safely. That is, to evacuate them. Or in yet other words, rescue them from a life-threatening situation. Who can blame the Egyptians for seeing this attitude, and this act, as likely to affect their tourist industry quite badly?

And yet a government that acts fast to get its citizens out of trouble is surely being caring and responsible. Cynics will naturally sneer that this is a government scared of criticism for doing nothing until too late. Well, I dare say it is indeed playing for safety, possibly being over-cautious, and certainly jumping the gun on the forensic inquest. And being advised (i.e. told) to go home at once will curtail or spoil many a current Red Sea holiday. But if I were out there, I would in the circumstances appreciate the chance to board a homeward-bound plane specially laid on, especially one examined by British security experts and guaranteed to be bomb-free. Getting home safely, and staying there, would suddenly seem very appealing.

We will see more and more of this kind of thing. Many countries like Egypt have economies partly or mainly dependant on holidaymakers. In the last few decades, many political and business deals (clean and dirty) must have been done across the world to ensure that this country or that gets a thriving tourist industry. Holidaymakers bring money. Beautiful beaches, guaranteed sunshine, exotic nightlife, packaged local culture. It's a winning formula, and if all the right ingredients are put in place, local prosperity will follow and the people will be content. Frightening the holidaymakers away is an obvious method of spoiling the game. It stops the flow of easy money, brings back impoverishment, fosters resentment against the government, and isolates the country by making it seem unsafe. It also curbs Western influence and withers Western-type institutions, definitely an important ideological goal in some parts of the world. Ultimately the country becomes ready for trashing in a civil war, and a take-over by the winning faction. Egypt fears going that way. So the British government's swift vote of no-confidence is not only insulting but may begin a process of destabilisation. A knife in Egypt's heart, no less.

And there doesn't necessarily have to be a bomb on any plane, merely the suggestion that a terrorist organisation has planted one, or could have. It's therefore (from the terrorists' point of view) worth claiming responsibility even if the plane was brought down by a natural event or a straightforward mechanical failure.

Only extreme measures at airports - directed at the plane, its crew, the passengers, and every item that may be concealed in their clothing or baggage - will ever 'guarantee' immunity from bombs when flying. But implementation would throttle the process of flying so much that the airlines would go into sharp decline. And yet striking a reasonable balance between security and passenger convenience is bound to introduce a degree of risk.

We all live with risk, every day. But some risks can be avoided. For instance, the risk of climbing mountains, or the risk of being a Formula One racing driver, or an astronaut. Or the risk of getting into a commercial aircraft.

Personally, I feel very disinclined to fly again in my lifetime, if there is another way to get to my destination. And I won't be cutting out an important part of my life by any means. Let me see: I first flew in 1971 (Mallorca). Then in 1972 (Mallorca again), 1974 (Jersey), 2007 (USA, New Zealand, Hong Kong), and 2010 (Guernsey). That's all. It's not much flying! But I feel no deprivation, and no urge to fly again. I can't be sad about it. It's never been a yearned-for experience. It's not a romantic or comfortable way to get from A to B. It involves hassle and delay and significant expense. It requires patience and endurance. It enforces immobility for too long - and I am vulnerable to deep-vein thrombosis. It's boring and tiring. It's all these things, even without playing Russian Roulette with the terrorist bomb that might be on board.

It may seem an odd thing to say, but I'm rather glad I don't now have the spare money for a long-haul flight. In fact this lack of capital is keeping me out if harm's way. That's how I look at it.

Rugby club men

I must make it clear from the outset that I'm going to be talking only about Welsh men of a certain type. It happens to be a type seen everywhere, and they may make up a significant proportion of the Welsh male population, at least in South Wales. I don't want to define them in terms of social class, though I will say that all of them would consider me an over-educated snooty bitch who needs putting in her place. The older ones might say this politely and gently, and with a wry sense of humour - for which all Wales is renowned. The younger ones, less worldly-wise, more brittle in their self-esteem, might say it harshly, with scorn in their voice and resentment in their face. Using intolerance as a shield and a weapon at the same time.

Not that I would ever do anything to provoke any such reaction. But just as I can detect their kind from numerous tiny clues, as well as more obvious ones, so they can pigeonhole me at a glance. We are not birds of a feather. A few years back, in Brighton, someone said to me that I would never be taken for an empty-headed fluffy-brained bimbo because my eyes gave me away. They looked much too intelligent for me to pass as a disco chick. This was, in its way, a very high compliment. Me, obviously intelligent? My goodness! Not many had ever said that before. But I knew what they meant. My eyes weren't dead or foolish. I had never believed they were sharp or clever eyes, but they were at least alert eyes that hinted at strong will, knowledge, education, perception, discernment, the judgement to resist guile and false flattery, and a self-assurance that would make me difficult to coerce or con. At the same time, those eyes placed me in danger. They made me threatening, capable of effective censure, a challenge to any man intent on having his way. Any man of the type I am talking about. But particularly any man who hated authority and was inclined to be rude to it whenever possible. And especially a man of violence, who would hit out, verbally if not physically, if confronted with someone he couldn't dominate.

There are many other eyes like mine in Brighton and elsewhere. Brisk, no-nonsense eyes in pretty faces. All of us likely to unsettle a certain type of man.

And, it seems to me, Wales is the place to encounter men who expect women to play second fiddle and know their lower status. They want to see decorative women, smartly-dressed even when pushing a buggy and child around town. They want to see their women at the shops, in the house, but nowhere else unless it's with them, or on their say-so. They want women who are good with children, and know how to make home seem warm and cosy. They expect their women to be chatty - but only with other women. They don't want a woman who knows a lot, and expresses her own opinions. Or is creative. Or better than them with words. They need to win every argument, because they, the man, must make all the decisions that matter. That's the culture.

They certainly don't want a woman of independent ideas - or independent means. Indeed, anything that makes a woman a force in her own right undermines their manhood, and if they do not clearly have the whip hand their standing among other men will be compromised. I'm trying not to exaggerate. But I do believe that the kind of Welsh male I am talking about is vulnerable to shame, and therefore acts tough to uphold their primacy. Such men often look beefy and muscular, not because they knock their wives and girlfriends around, but because it's a look that impresses other men.

So when they see me getting out of my big car, walking around the place unescorted, confident, camera in hand, meeting them in the eye, they feel it isn't right. Where's my man? Who is responsible for me? Why have I got what they haven't? Why am I here at all, where I don't belong? And their wives and girlfriends think the same. Their accusing eyes say so. Why aren't I conforming? Why am I independent? Why aren't I like them?

I'm going up to Treorchy this afternoon. It was once a grimy mining village in the Rhondda Fawr Valley. I last went there in 1960, when aged eight, in the company of the boy down the back lane, Peter Jones, and his Dad. We were going to see Peter's gran. The coal mining has gone, and I expect to find the place cleaned up, but something of the old atmosphere may linger. Last time, I found a pyramid-shaped piece of glass in a derelict house. I treasured it for years. Maybe, fifty-five years on, I should look for another souvenir. Otherwise I shall wander about, trying hard to reconcile now with then. I will take photographs, possibly in high-contrast black-and-white rather than colour, because I am recording a dream.

Let's hope no rugby-shirted lout steps in my way, and gives me a scowl.

Sequel
Gosh, it had changed. The last of the afternoon sunshine lit up the trees on the valley side high above the town, making them golden. I saw no grime, but the terraces of little brick-and-stone houses were still there, in all the back streets. No Rugby Men scowled at me, but I could see some of them inside the rather clublike pubs. This wasn't a town where a woman on her own could go into a pub unnoticed and simply order a coffee. I didn't attempt it.

Dusk curtailed my visit. It was clearly a spectacular climb at the head of the valley, the A4061 snaking up and over in a series of hairpin bends. But I did it in the dark. I'd like to see the same view in daylight.