Every day walking downhill to town I'm accosted by bewildered SatNav followers who can actually see the new mock-castle beyond a fence, but can't find a way in.
'How do I get to the new Trago Mills?'
I'm tempted to misdirect every one of them, with 'Left, left , left and left again.....till you end up where you began!'
In other words , keep heading leftwards till you're in welshsocialistrepublicananarchosyndicalist territory....the only way to react to a UKIP-owned megastore dominating Merthyr, just as Crawshay's Cyfarthfa did in the heyday of iron and exploitation.
It's been over a decade coming and is probably the final knockout blow in terms of the survival of the town centre which - apart from market day - is devoid of life.
The Redhouse cafe is regularly shut, so you can't get to stare at those Tin Tin cartoons of Labour politicians nobody's heard of.
Only recently Burton's clothes shop closed down on the corner of John Street, which contains the last Bracchi, Viazzani's ; a shop which is part of Merthyr legend.
'Burton's Corner' was the supposed meeting-place if you wanted a prostitute and, when I was teaching, a few cheeky pupils would say - 'Sir, I seen yew on Burton's Corner las night!'
I never did see dubious women there, but it was the regular patch of one 'Billy Sticks', an emaciated seller of the South Wales Echo, with grubby mac and limbs like......well, 'sticks'.
Grahame Davies - a fine writer who unfortunately works as a lackey for Carlo - tells of rescuing Sticks once from assailants and getting set upon himself for doing so.
Sticks was there of an evening selling the Echo from a doorway and the Pink on Saturday , which I always bought after a Cardiff game.
'Echo! Echo!' he'd echo. Or sometimes just 'Co!'
Eventually his career ended when he went to court accused of masturbating in public, looking at himself in Burton's window as chapel-goers were passing.
He got a 'conditional discharge'! You couldn't make it up!
Actually, I might have more in common with him than I thought, as Peter Finch referred to my 'political flash' in a recent review in 'Planet' of Prof Tony Curtis' Selected.
Now I imagine myself as a political flasher complete with dirty mac revealing a red flag instead of a plonker!
The characters, like the shops, have disappeared.
On the bus home the old folks bemoan a centre they recall as bustling not so long ago.
It all seems hopeless, yet the Portuguese manage to sustain two cafes, a shop and a pub along the stretch of High Street : custard tarts and espressos to get you buzzing.
On the plus side, the caffi at Canolfan Soar will soon be reopening under the stewardship of the inimitable Jamie Bevan, returning from his Sully sojourn.
I look forward to the 'coffi go iawn' and 'pice ar y maen' straight from the bake-stone. Everything will be totally Welsh, with coffee beans from the tropics of Bedlinog.
I once wrote a haiku for the Canolfan and, amazingly, it's still hanging as you enter -
Nawr, mae'r Canolfan
yn tyfu fel y dderwen :
pobl yw'r mesen.
It's good to see somewhere flourishing.
As to the town centre, what can be done?
I do have a wish-list, but know it's pure fantasy -
* small bookshop focusing on local writers with a cafe for events
* proper bakery where you can get fresh bread and scones etc ( think of those in small towns in Ireland)
* vegan/ veggie deli like the one in Pontardawe ( smaller town than Merthyr) with lots of tasty pies and pasties
* pop-up craft/art shop featuring local photographers , artists and craftspeople
* craft and real ale shop with all the best Welsh beers and ciders....not to mention whisky
* a tidy restaurant , not too fancy, but concentrating on tasty, nutritious fare : soups, salads and the like
* tourist advice centre ( there used to be one), directing people to the many wonders of the area and selling the local walking and mini-bus tours which our imaginative Council will no doubt create.
If all this sounds very Pontcanna, just remember that Canton has many of these features and I believe there are enough people in the borough who would support them and also we could attract far more tourists if there were thematic tours relating to our vital contributions such as boxing, literature, historians and the FWA parading with wooden guns.
Festivals and one-off events aren't enough and the town will be duly ignored by all the Trago-seekers who snarl up the traffic every weekend.
Kipper Towers looks like a travesty on the skyline, designed by a 5 year-old playing with his new Lego set.
I really hope our town centre fights back. ' Bara a chaws!' proclaimed the protesters of 1831.......not just the basics, but so much more.
Ewge shop
They built this ewge shop outside town,
it looks like a cardboard castle
made by a kid in an afternoon.
My mate tol me the owner’s racist
an they always support-a Kippers –
but if they offered me a chance….
We ewsed t make things yer,
people ave soon forgot –
clothes, toys, bulbs an washin-machines.
My dad worked down Oover’s,
woz totelee gutted when it closed down –
ee lost it, lost all purpose.
I get sent all over f jobs,
anythin t cover up the statistics -
slave labour even in-a charitee shops.
My mam keeps askin agen an agen
‘Wha yew doin now, son?’
Maybe I’ll be gatekeeper in tha fortress,
stridin them turrets with keys in and,
watchin out f’r-a bard boyz –
or maybe I’ll join em.
'How do I get to the new Trago Mills?'
I'm tempted to misdirect every one of them, with 'Left, left , left and left again.....till you end up where you began!'
In other words , keep heading leftwards till you're in welshsocialistrepublicananarchosyndicalist territory....the only way to react to a UKIP-owned megastore dominating Merthyr, just as Crawshay's Cyfarthfa did in the heyday of iron and exploitation.
It's been over a decade coming and is probably the final knockout blow in terms of the survival of the town centre which - apart from market day - is devoid of life.
The Redhouse cafe is regularly shut, so you can't get to stare at those Tin Tin cartoons of Labour politicians nobody's heard of.
Only recently Burton's clothes shop closed down on the corner of John Street, which contains the last Bracchi, Viazzani's ; a shop which is part of Merthyr legend.
'Burton's Corner' was the supposed meeting-place if you wanted a prostitute and, when I was teaching, a few cheeky pupils would say - 'Sir, I seen yew on Burton's Corner las night!'
I never did see dubious women there, but it was the regular patch of one 'Billy Sticks', an emaciated seller of the South Wales Echo, with grubby mac and limbs like......well, 'sticks'.
Grahame Davies - a fine writer who unfortunately works as a lackey for Carlo - tells of rescuing Sticks once from assailants and getting set upon himself for doing so.
Sticks was there of an evening selling the Echo from a doorway and the Pink on Saturday , which I always bought after a Cardiff game.
'Echo! Echo!' he'd echo. Or sometimes just 'Co!'
Eventually his career ended when he went to court accused of masturbating in public, looking at himself in Burton's window as chapel-goers were passing.
He got a 'conditional discharge'! You couldn't make it up!
Actually, I might have more in common with him than I thought, as Peter Finch referred to my 'political flash' in a recent review in 'Planet' of Prof Tony Curtis' Selected.
Now I imagine myself as a political flasher complete with dirty mac revealing a red flag instead of a plonker!
The characters, like the shops, have disappeared.
On the bus home the old folks bemoan a centre they recall as bustling not so long ago.
It all seems hopeless, yet the Portuguese manage to sustain two cafes, a shop and a pub along the stretch of High Street : custard tarts and espressos to get you buzzing.
On the plus side, the caffi at Canolfan Soar will soon be reopening under the stewardship of the inimitable Jamie Bevan, returning from his Sully sojourn.
I look forward to the 'coffi go iawn' and 'pice ar y maen' straight from the bake-stone. Everything will be totally Welsh, with coffee beans from the tropics of Bedlinog.
I once wrote a haiku for the Canolfan and, amazingly, it's still hanging as you enter -
Nawr, mae'r Canolfan
yn tyfu fel y dderwen :
pobl yw'r mesen.
It's good to see somewhere flourishing.
As to the town centre, what can be done?
I do have a wish-list, but know it's pure fantasy -
* small bookshop focusing on local writers with a cafe for events
* proper bakery where you can get fresh bread and scones etc ( think of those in small towns in Ireland)
* vegan/ veggie deli like the one in Pontardawe ( smaller town than Merthyr) with lots of tasty pies and pasties
* pop-up craft/art shop featuring local photographers , artists and craftspeople
* craft and real ale shop with all the best Welsh beers and ciders....not to mention whisky
* a tidy restaurant , not too fancy, but concentrating on tasty, nutritious fare : soups, salads and the like
* tourist advice centre ( there used to be one), directing people to the many wonders of the area and selling the local walking and mini-bus tours which our imaginative Council will no doubt create.
If all this sounds very Pontcanna, just remember that Canton has many of these features and I believe there are enough people in the borough who would support them and also we could attract far more tourists if there were thematic tours relating to our vital contributions such as boxing, literature, historians and the FWA parading with wooden guns.
Festivals and one-off events aren't enough and the town will be duly ignored by all the Trago-seekers who snarl up the traffic every weekend.
Kipper Towers looks like a travesty on the skyline, designed by a 5 year-old playing with his new Lego set.
I really hope our town centre fights back. ' Bara a chaws!' proclaimed the protesters of 1831.......not just the basics, but so much more.
Ewge shop
They built this ewge shop outside town,
it looks like a cardboard castle
made by a kid in an afternoon.
My mate tol me the owner’s racist
an they always support-a Kippers –
but if they offered me a chance….
We ewsed t make things yer,
people ave soon forgot –
clothes, toys, bulbs an washin-machines.
My dad worked down Oover’s,
woz totelee gutted when it closed down –
ee lost it, lost all purpose.
I get sent all over f jobs,
anythin t cover up the statistics -
slave labour even in-a charitee shops.
My mam keeps askin agen an agen
‘Wha yew doin now, son?’
Maybe I’ll be gatekeeper in tha fortress,
stridin them turrets with keys in and,
watchin out f’r-a bard boyz –
or maybe I’ll join em.
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