During the 36 years I've lived in Merthyr the area at the bottom of our village has undergone a total transformation.
   It should really be known as ' Heolgerrig' and we at the top as 'Pen-yr-Heolgerrig' ( or 'Penrhiwl', as it was called).
   Before you reach it , there's Georgetown, a community which consisted entirely of terraces where ironworkers who worked at Crawshay's Cyfarthfa Works lived.
   I've vivid recollections of the sheep there: they wandered everywhere, grazing on roundabouts and taking cover in  doorways.
   It was like a Gren cartoon till the whole of Georgetown was demolished and replaced by new houses remarkably similar  to the old  ones.
   A new pub was also built, The Great Escape, which appropriately is now a funeral parlour (the only growth industry in Merthyr!).
   We used to have Christmas staff events there till we were banned! I recall one where an inebriated  Maths teacher ate the paper table cloth and pelted the Head with bread rolls.
   As you   walk uphill,  one of the few remaining buildings is Christ Church. There's  a story that  Robert Thompson Crawshay ( he with GOD FORGIVE ME on his large gravestone in Vaynor churchyard) encouraged  a tip to be made to deliberately block his view of the church......whatever was on his conscience only the ghosts of the maids of Cyfarthfa Castle know.
  Gone the old redbrick standup urinal, most useful as you staggered home.
  Gone the disused railway bridge and large tip of lime.
  Gone most of the dense bushes and  trees and the shortcut lane down to Ynysfach.
   Now the A470 arches over your head and the noise of traffic carries upwards against the prevailing westerlies.
   Parks, both health and retail, dominate.
   On the left is Keir Hardie Health Park ( still misspelt in the bus station!) and on your right Cyfarthfa Retail Park, whose sign still isn't bi-lingual.
   Only a couple of weeks back Carlo Windsor visited the Keir Hardie University Health Park. The week before police were out sniffing the drains and workmen sucked up every stray leaf.
   It was the ultimate irony in a town whose Rising of 1831 was based on the slogan 'I lawr a'r Brenin!' ( 'Down with the King!').
   Not only that, but it's another calculated insult to the memory of one of the founders of the Labour Party and a former Merthyr MP.
   In 1894, Hardie delivered what's still considered to be the finest republican speech ever to boos and jeers in the House of Commons. One sentence gives an insight -
   ' From his childhood onward this  boy will be surrounded by sycophants and flatterers by the score and will be taught to believe himself as of a superior creation.'
   His argument about the royal baby then is  just as relevant today.
   Hardie argued that it was complete hypocrisy to rail against hereditary titles, yet support the monarchy.
   Our Labour Council have consistently chosen to ignore Hardie's fervent republicanism and pacifism and their fawning over Carlo Windsor is  a symbol of that.
   On the opposite side, the retail park and fast-food outlets show how we've become like everywhere else : chain stores thrive and the town centre shrinks.
   In a town which tops the leagues for obesity and heart attacks, the smells of the fast food giants hang in the air , a smog of frying fumes.
   When this area was mostly wasteland, there were actually two stores here, perched incongruously ; but there was enough rough ground for Travellers to settle most years and sell their carpets and offer to tarmac drives.
  On the right as you continue uphill (or travel by the legendary John's Buses) is a vast area of disused land, once a brickworks.
   In 2006 it was stabilized in readiness for the shopping store Trago Mills. who have three outlets in the West Country.
   Their owner Bruce Robertson, UKIP's main donor, applied to dig up the site for 80,000 tons of coal and was met with so many local objections that he gave in.
   Now the only purpose of this site seems to be to publicise UKIP every election time with many posters on  the fences.
   Trago Mills still promise to come here and the Council have no other plans, despite the company's very dubious record, including the posting of a blatantly anti-Muslim advert in a page it took in a Falmouth newspaper in 2009.  
​   Further on is the entrance to Brondeg  council estate and just along the way is Cephas Free  Presbyterian Church ,opened by the founder of the fundamentalist Protestant sect Rev. Ian Paisley.
   I recall writing an article for the 'South  Wales Echo' about 'my locality' and the journo who'd requested it published not my photo but  that of Paisley to accompany it!
  As somebody who once marched in support of the H-Block Hunger Strikers , I was not exactly pleased.

   This is a poem set in the area I've described in my micro-psycho-geography.



Outa  the  Undergrowth 
 
 
Outa the undergrowth by B an Q’s they come
off of theyer eads on cheapo rocket fuel.
 
 
It’s a glorious Mediterranean day in Merthyr,
ev’ryone’s wearin socks ‘n’ shorts ‘n’  trainers.
 
 
Towards the church, clutchin plastic bottles
they’re screamin an yellin,  larfin an barkin.
 
 
A woman crosses over an I slow down ;
seen em before but I’m still on pins.
 
 
They’re flingin stones at lamp-posts
in some crazee competition.
 
 
The pavement’s a tight-rope
an they keep on fallin.
 
 
The woman’s eyes like a bird
with a cat close by , stalkin.
 
 
They ewse  fewnral cones as loud-ailers,
callin on-a dead t answer. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
                 

   Dai 'The Rhyme' Davies lives in a small bungalow 'up the Winch', not far from my street.
   He only once attended our monthly Open Mic. sessions at The Imp in Pontmorlais and I believe Richard Gwyn was the guest poet.
   Gwyn's work was erudite and somewhat prosaic and Dai wasn't impressed. He told me he wouldn't return till we got 'someone like Pam Ayres'.
   However, his favourite poets are Idris Davies and Harri Webb, though he dislikes the latter's politics.
  ' He was a bloody Welsh Nash!' he  snarls, baring his teeth,' most probably in that  FWA and an anti-English racist.....couldn't half rhyme though!'
   Dai is an avid bird- and dog-lover and I often see him walking his Jack Russell Vlad ( after Lenin) on his daily stroll to the paper shop and back.
   He does, however, despise pigeons. This is because he was set upon by a particularly vicious one in the bus-station  a few months back.
   He was wheeling his beloved shopping trolley along : it's his pride and joy and has a special compartment for Vlad when he feels like a dog-nap. He also has warning lights on it, which flash like Christmas decorations.
   All this did not deter the pigeon, who took a fancy to his bag of sausage rolls fresh from Gregg's and began to ferociously poke  at his precious trolley bag ( which is plush red).
   Dai took off his fur hat with a red star on it and flapped at the psycho-pigeon. Luckily he disturbed Vlad who began barking at the mangy bird.
   Apart from pigeons, Merthyr Council are the main targets for his verse and, despite its remarkable reburbishment, he has no time for the Redhouse (Old Town Hall).
   'Just look at all those pictures of Merthyr luminaries,' he told me,' they all look like characters from bloody Tintin! And what the hell's Harri Webb doing there?.....he came from The Gower!'
   Dai 'The Rhyme' is a communist with a small 'c'. whose family came from the Rhymney  Valley; from New Tredegar ('same place as Johnny Owen, the boxer').
   He's an ex-miner, which further reinforces his admiration of Idris Davies - 'Gwalia Deserta, The Angry Summer , amazing poems mun....who needs Shakespeare?'
   Whenever I meet him I ask if he'll come along to the next Open Mic. and he always says - ' Nah, sorry Mike.....too much of that modern stuff!'
   He explained about his latest project, which happens to be limericks of well-known figures, mostly politicians. He slipped me one as we exchanged 'Hwyl fawr!' and here it is -

                 There was a politician called Cameron
                 Needed a pig's head to turn him on,
                 When he shoved his plonker
                 In the mouth of the porker
                 He squealed - 'Sow much better than porn!'

   Two days ago I met him down town and he was distraught. He was breathing heavily and I thought he was having an asthma attack.
   ' Mike....It was trolley rage mun!'
   I led him to a bench, as Vlad cheerfully snapped at pigeons on the way.
   Here he explained that 'some woman he might of gone out with centuries ago' had deliberately rammed her tartan trolley into his, breaking one of his warning lights.
   'She yelled at me!' he was aghast.' You know what that's for Dai Davies!......But I never! I could hardly remember her. As Max said Duw it's hard, eh?'
   'You could try writing a limerick about her,' I suggested.
   'Limerick? Can't even remember her name!'
   Dai hasn't been the same since his wife Doris passed away, while waiting to be served at Tesco's fish counter.
   I've only been in his house once and it's full of photos of her ; she looked a stunner when younger as well. So sad they had no children.
   When I explained to Dai about Wayne-O Pijin and his antics he stared at me as if I was on day release 'from Bridgend' ( as we used to say).
   But he must've been taken by the notion because he commented - 'I can see why he uses that Redhouse as his headquarters.....it's only fit for bloody pigeons!......Mind Mike, you're still off your trolley!'

   (This is one of a batch of poems he handed me a while ago and asked me to put on my 'dot-dot machine' some time).

                            MERTHYR IS HAVING BOTOX

They cleared the brickworks site
Waiting for Trago Mills,
For years a terrible site,
A rash upon our hills.


The Council are no doctors
They cannot cure our ills,
I wonder what they're for,
Can't save Merthyr with pills.


The litter spreads like acne,
Pigeons are taking over
And it's been this way
Ever since Hoover's closure.


The brand new retail shops
Are just like plastic surgery,
The old town's having botox,
But it's not for me! 
      

 
Move to Cymru, Jezza,
you’ll find a welcome here
(and not just in the hillside)!
 
Don’t buy a second home
and stop talking about Britain….
join our national liberation.
 
Despite our ‘cig’ this and ‘cig’ that
we’ve plenty of veggies and vegans,
you’ll savour our Glamorgan Sausages.
 
There’ll be no macho northern folk
condemning you as ‘a wimp’;
many of our finest  poets were pacifists.
 
( I know,  as you admit, you aren’t
strictly one as well, but anti-imperialist;
we are a colony, you’ll appreciate  that.)
 
You don’t have to be a bard
but try a limerick about Jeremy Hunt,
it’ll be easy to find a rhyme.
 
Move to Cymru, our new Keir Hardie,
with only the ‘Western Mail’ on attack
and who reads that anyway?
 
Most of us are against air strikes here;
you  can come along to the football
and cheerfully boo the royalist anthem.
 
You’ll feel at home everywhere
except, maybe, in the Vale….
mind , Charlotte Church could be your neighbour.                                                                                      

 
   Merthyr Tudful is experiencing a serious problem which the local paper described as ' like  a Biblical plague'.
   The behaviour of an infestation of pigeons in the town centre is causing consternation and horror.
   I myself was set upon by a low-flying bird and had to be taken to A & E at Prince Charles Hospital with head wounds.
   I was shocked to find others in the waiting-room with similar experiences.
   One mother had brought her 6 year-old daughter there after a pasty had been snatched from her hand, badly damaging her fingers.
  One man - who admitted he'd 'been on the pop all day' - claimed that several pigeons pecked at his mouth when he fell over, after 'bits of spew'. His lips were bleeding profusely.
   Later I contacted Prof. Andre Bartzman, a PhD in Avian Psychology at Glamorgan University and he explained the phenomenon -
   ' I have been studying pigeon behaviour for many years and my thesis was on the possibility of them taking over the world one day.....I am familiar with Merthyr's situation and would attribute it to power struggles in the pigeon world.
   Wayne-O Pijin is exercising his power in an attempt to show his rivals - such as Bazza of the Black Wood - that he has complete control of local flocks.'
   Indeed the 'coo' around town is that ex-leader of the Coo-coo-operative Party and present leader of the Pijic Flying Party Wayne-O Pijin, is becoming increasingly paranoid.
   After his 'chipwa' ( pijin for fatwa) on Bazz Woodpijin, he has alienated former Campaign Manager Al-Wings Jones.
   Al-Wings has reportedly 'gone underground' having had life-changing wing surgery and is trying to persuade local rats that he's one of them.
   Former legal adviser Timothy Rich-pickings has started his own counselling service for 'victims of pijic abuse', which Wayne-O Pijin will only interpret as a threat to his hegemony.
   When I attempted to interview him on the roof of Redhouse (which he strangely calls 'Ty Glas'), he dismissed me with a single phrase - 'Me and Mourinho!'
   I did manage to catch up with one of his many wives however, when she appeared at Lucy Thomas Shrine to pay homage to Wayne-O (in the form of several Yum Yums).
   This wife called herself' Gloria McFly', though I doubt that's her real name.
   'Is Wayne-O responsible for the extremely aggressive attacks by pigeons in town over the last few weeks?' I asked her.
   'No, this is caused by No-Wings' provocation. Once they began putting spikes on bins and window sills, they were asking for trouble.'
   'Has Wayne-O instructed pigeons to cause these terrible injuries?'
   'Not at all! Pijic Flying encourages a genuine sense of utter peace. Any anger in the pigeon population is merely a reaction to traitors in our midst and No-Wings' warfare.'
   'Why won't Wayne-O speak to the media at all? Is he afraid of being exposed?'
   ' Whatever Wayne-O says will be misrepresented.....Did you know that pigeons played a vital role in your world wars? Homers like 'Cher Ami' and 'The Mocker' were heroes as carriers.
   But we've aided the No-Wings for too long and Satguru Wayne-O has expressed utter contempt.
   If the Food Cloisters are knocked down and the bus-station relocated, then I dread to think what will happen!'
   'But Wayne-O's book '49 Steps to Pijic Flying' is literally flying off the shelves in Cardiff bookshops. Surely, this proves there's sympathy for your plight.'
   ' That's because seagulls are seen as the enemies in the capital. They understand us there, whereas here in Merthyr we are seen as enemies.'
   With that, she fluttered off to join Wayne-O Pijin on the roof of Redhouse.

   Local poet Dai 'the Rhyme' Davies has been moved to pen this about the highly disturbing events :-

                                FAT  RATS  WITH  WINGS

We got pigeons down town
fat rats with wings,
making the Council look like clowns,
attacking us,stealing our things.


Taking our pasties, pies and chips
as we innocently walk,
I always give them jip -
'Bog off, or I'll get the hawks!'


Totally beyond they are,
we need that mosquito machine
which gets rid of teenagers,
to work for the mangy pigeons.


They aim their droppings
onto our pensioners' hair,
they even attack our shopping,
so you'd better beware!


They fly into kiddies' faces
as if they have gone mad,
even cafes are not safe places,
​I've never seen it so bad.