"To know Swansea, in the 1930s, long before it attained the grand status of a city, was to know a township of crowded buildings of an assortment of styles flanking main roads and narrow streets, where cobbled stone was much in evidence and pavements became a resting place for water in wet weather.
"Swansea was a town that, on weekends in particular, came into its own and showed off its many features. The flamboyance of a Friday and Saturday night gave way to the austerity of a Sunday, where for many, especially non-churchgoers, time stood still.
"The town was a mixture of old and new, tramcars competing with buses, horse-drawn vehicles vying with motorised transport. There were sailing ships in the docks, the trains were powered by monster steam engines, and the much-lamented Mumbles Train swayed and rolled on its journey along the sea front to-and-fro the Mumbles.
"Shops were ablaze with light in the winter evenings, oil lamps, gaslight and electric providing a variety of illumination to the wealth of goods waiting to be purchased - if you had the money. It was a town bulging at the seams; at holiday times, a vast influx of valley-folk descended like locusts to cart away to the mountainside those things a small township or villages could not supply.
"Well groomed gentlemen of wealth and substance paraded on the main streets, ladies flaunted their fashionable finery jostling with those from the poorer quarters, men with traditional flat caps and mufflers, womenfolk with shawls draped across their shoulders. It was a wide-ranging populace, their class status clearly defined. The chatter from shoppers, allied to the noise of slowly moving transport, the clank-clank of tram cars and the strident sound of motor horns, seemed to reverberate around the closely packed thoroughfare, the hustle and bustle of a thriving town at work and play."Roy
your comments
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Williams, Carmarthenshire
The Top Rank disco on a Saturday morning late 1960's & early 1970's. It was the place to go if you were aged 7 - 13 yrs old! Tony Wyn Jones was the DJ. It cost half a crown to get in and was worth every penny.
Fruit flavoured 'snow cones'(forerunner of slush puppies) were available for a few pence. Following the junior disco, we would make our way to High Street Woolworths, where we dine on beans and chips in the first floor restaurant - what bliss!
Wed Apr 29 12:29:47 2009
Diane Williams from Swansea
I wonder if anyone could help me. I have a very old family portrait taken by a photographer called A. Mogridge of 23 Fleet street, Swansea. Would appreciate any comments.
Tue Mar 24 15:34:50 2009
Angeli Di Lucca
Mr. John Lewis might talk to some of the local Portugese, after all Lisbon is their capital!
Mon Jan 26 15:27:59 2009
john lewis,ammanford
Anybody know origin of Lisbon District, Treboeth?
Tue Feb 26 10:43:36 2008
Tony O'Sullivan
I have many fond memories of visits to Swansea with my late father, he was born in swansea and loved to return to visit his brothers and sisters. We visited all the old pubs like the 'No Sign Bar' and 'Cross Keys' along with the Cwm Felin Club. I still visit and will continue to do so for the rest of my days..Swansea am byth..
Mon Feb 25 10:18:35 2008
Marilyn Kenna Swansea
I remember as a child 'going to Town' with my mother or father on a Saturday morning. We'd walk to the top of Rhyddings Park Road to catch the 75 into Town. It was a 'double decker' and if I was with Dad, we'd sit upstairs on the long bench seats. If we were lucky we could sit at the front. Our shopping trip would end and we'd wait outside the Market for the return trip. I remember the sight of the 'round windows?' at the top of the market's front wall. The bus would travel along Oxford Street then when it turned right off Oxford Street towards Hospital Square, there was (and still is) a house with the corner wall sculpted as though to make room for the bus to get through. We'd get home and my mother would cook our lunch.....Bacon, egg, fried bread and lavabread. I can taste it now....
Thu Jan 31 13:15:16 2008
Ron Williams Trebeoth ex Hafod Swansea
I have lived and worked in Swansea all my life and would never move to any other location....Swansea is as expensive to live as any other city. Your home town is what you make of it and I for one love it. I am an avid collector of the picture books of old Swansea and I always wish I had a Jules Verne time machine to go back to the old Wind street area of Swansea c 1899 to 1939 and see how they lived as I find the pictures of that area most interesting. Perhaps the comments made by the last gentleman were adhoc or perhaps he should leave this Dylan Thomas's ugly lovely town...
Mon Jan 21 09:36:46 2008
Carol Voigt from Newark, Delaware USA
Does anyone have a picture or history of the old Swansea Normal School? I have a picture of my g-g-grandmother standing on its steps in 1858 or 1859, but have found no other evidence of the school's existence.
Thu Aug 9 10:17:25 2007
Jim Evans
Swansea used to be a good place to be in when it was a town, but since becoming a city it has become a dump. The present council has altered it so much that it has become unrecognisable. It is now an expensive tip.
Mon Jul 30 17:06:26 2007
Do you have any memories of Swansea you'd like to share? Add your comments here.
Fancy a night on the town in Swansea, 1930s style? 
