your comments
Mike Edmunds, Hertfordshire
My parents lived with first my mum's family, and then my dad's until we got our first place of our own in Janet Street around 1961. Well, I say 'our own' but actually we shared the small Splott terraced house with another family. We had the downstairs (One bedroom, Living room/kitchen and outside toilet) while a Greek family had the upstairs. Lovely people, I used to play with their two daughters. I went to nearby Marion Street Infant's School. The whole area was our playground, we played outside in the street for hours when not at school. My dad at the time worked in Curran Road and! I would often wait out in the street for him to come home on his old Norton motorcycle and sidecar. In about '64 we left the area when we moved into our first proper council house in Trowbridge, which my parents still live in, although we sort of returned to Splott for a while when my mum ran a shoe shop in nearby Ordell Street.A few years back, in the mid-90s I returned to the area and spent some time wandering round my old haunts. Janet Street is of course, still there but the sense of community that I remembered didn't seem to be as strong as I remembered, and it was sad to see that the site of my old school was now a leisure centre and there was no trace of the lovely old Victorian school building at all.
Ruth Witzel, Camebridge, Canada
Andrea Mc Culloch - I read your article and was surprised to read the name Kudins. I was living in Cardiff from 1948-1951. Are you related to Alfons Kudins? My name is Ruth Witzel nee Genz - I was a member of the British-Councel-Club I believe it was St Mary Street. I am living in Canada now - it would make me happy to hear your family story.
Sue Donaldson from Caerphilly
I was born in Amethyst Road. I remember the Dell. My brother joe and I used to go play up on the rope swing, a gang of our friends in tow. We used to call it boarding. It was so much fun and the private closure where we would sneak in and have hours of fun. It's all gone now. Kids today don't have much imagination, but boy did we have some great times. We knew everyone in our street. I know noone where I live now. I wouldn't change a day of my childhood.
David Evans in Gold Coast, Australia
I was born in De Croche Place in Canton. I used to watch Mills Circus unload the animals from the trains and then see the parade to Llandaff fields. I liked it when the Eisteddfod was held in Sophia Gardens, and we all got a bible presented to us. Most of all I remember my mother shouting to me "come on down they are over head", meaning I wanted to stay in bed during an air raid. I hated going into the cold damp air raid My name changed after I went on the stage. I left Cardiff when I was 16 years old. Before I left I often sang for my friends at the railway canteen which was in the goods loading yard in Penarth Road at the back of the station.No matter where you live, how long you are away, you are always proud to say you are Welsh.
Geoff Harris, Melbourne, Australia
I was born at 15 Percy Street, Grangetown in 1949. Dad bought the house in 1940. In those days it joined Harper St at the gates of the then Hancocks Brewery,now Brains I think. We had a happy childhood and played soccer, rugby and other games on the open area at top of the street. They stabled the dray horses near the gates and I remember feeding these huge horses carrots. The horses were still used to deliver to city pubs in the 60s.
Karen Hodgetts (nee Ford)
I was orignally from Marion Street in Splott. I remember the old East Moors Steel works blowing out all the dirt and dust, but the washing was always white and clean on the lines - how the people managed that I will never know. The older people of Splott were always ready to help each other in a crisis. Where has all that gone today? Everyone rushes round, nobody knows anybody, and certainly there is no time for one another. It's a great shame.
Gerry Rose from Newport
Back in the forties, my granny lived in Grangetown. I cannot remember the name of the street, but as you turn left off the Penarth Road Taff bridge, there is a lane immediately on the right. At the end of the lane turn left and she lived in that street. I have a tale or two of Cardiff in the aforementioned time. Can anyone identify the street name for me, please?
Andrea McCulloch - Elfed Green, Fairwater
What a magical place this was to grow up, facing the green space of Fairwater Park, far better known as The Dell. Elfed Green is a cul-de-sac of 1940s redbrick semis with an offshoot of small bungalows at the top of the road. My family, the Kudins, had one of the corner houses with a huge garden.Much has probably changed since I last saw the Dell in 1991, but in my 60s childhood it was an adventure playground on a grand scale. There was the pond at the top that held newts, and the tree with a rope swing that launched right out over it. In bitter winters the pond iced over, providing an extra excitement.
Near the pond was 'the quarry'. Further along still was the wide grassy slope that became the Ski Centre - the first in Wales. Before the Centre arrived, real snow meant a chance to slide down the slope and hope you stopped before you hit the hedge at the bottom or flew into the road beyond it.
Who remembers the stream that ran past the derelict farmhouse, now the site of the Clos Y Nant sheltered housing complex? The stream ran through a small park that flanked the Dell. The gates of this park were always locked, and trespassing strictly forbidden. Just who was that park for? I never knew.
A view of the Dell from Elfed Green is near me as I type, painted from precious photographs. The distinctive stand of tall pine trees against the skyline, the wonderfully gnarled oak tree that stood to the left, flanked by an ancient looking holly tree. The views from the top were amazing, across to the Garth Mountain to the North, and the green bulk of Leckwith Hill to the south.
I can still name every family that was in that street in the sixties, probably five times the number of neighbours I can name around me now.
Does anyone else out there have Dell memories? I suspect it is no longer as idyllic as it was, a chunk of the countryside transplanted into the heart of western Cardiff.
Richard McMahon - Flaxland Avenue
I lived and grew up on this avenue just off Whitchurch Rd and I clearly remember the day the old railway bridge at the end of the road was knocked down to make way for the current bypass. The UHW was built and it made a great playground for all us kids, I remember climbing the scaffolding and looking down the liftshafts, dropping anything that I could lay my hands on. Flaxland was a great place for adventures, it was close to the shops with Mrs Jenkins corner shop on the corner. Allensbank school was just a 10 min walk away for us and just across the road was Heath Park and across Whitchurch Rd was Maitland park, we were hardly ever home. Great days and great memories.
Victor Gray - Mynachdy Road, Gabalfa
I was born and bred in this street in 1942. I spent a lot of my first three years in and out of an airraid shelter in the back garden.
Steve Leach - Nesta Road, Victoria Park
I used to live on Nesta Road. Everyone was very friendly and we all knew each other. The favourite meeting place for all families was the Victoria Park pub known locally as 'The Vic'. How things have changed - the residents don't know each other so well and the the Vic has been 'done up'. There used to be a famous monkey that lived on this street in the 1930s.
Christine Muscat in New York
I was born in my grandparents house in Loudon Square in 1949. My grandfather Michael ran a boarding house for Merchant seamen and also a green grocer. It was an exciting life and so much to like there. Even though my family worked hard from early morning until night, life was good.My grandmother raised 13 children and did all the cleaning for the boarding house as well. My grandfather managed the boarding house and shop, along with my aunt Josey and uncle Ken. I lived there for ten years until I emmigrated to New York with my parents.
I found life to be an adventure - getting to meet people from all over the world who had lots of stories to entertain me with. I didn't know the word predjudice, everyone was equal. I attended St Cuthberts School, had my milk warmed in front of the coal fire and used outhouses at school. Life was good. The roundabout in Loudon Square park was one of the best - and playing Queenie O'Coco was a daily routine. The Rag and Bow Man, the fishmonger, the junk man, the yearly encampment of gypsies - who could ever forget things like this?
