Ertblog

Start of the Pier show: Penarth wins lottery money

Snow on Penarth pier pavilion, 23 December 2010. Photo: Bob Skinner

It's lovely waking up at Mum & Dad's home on Penarth's seafront and looking out the Bristol Channel past the town's pier. The view wil be even better soon, as the Heritage Lottery Fund has just awarded £1.65m to Penarth Arts & Crafts' plans to restore the distinctive art deco pavilion at the pier entrance. Fittingly, I heard the news after we got back from a weekend in Penarth.

Penarth is a small town in the shadow of the Welsh capital, Cardiff. It was once a significant port, but is now best known for its short seafront and pier. Penarth has featured in countless family memories - ice cream on the pier and trips on P&A Campbell's steamers to Weston and Ilfracombe. 

The winners of Penarth's lottery funding, Penarth Arts & Crafts, are based in the excellent Washington Gallery, which hosted the launch of my father Bob Skinner's autobiographical book on 60 years in journalism and PR, Don't hold the front page. 

Penarth has a special place in our family. Mum was born here in 1928, and both parents started their journalism careers on the Penarth Times in the 1940s. (Mum took Dad's job as chief reporter when he joined the army in 1944!) Now Owen is the latest member of the family to discover the town's charms. It will be even better when the iconic pavilion is open again. 

The pier and pavilion, November 2010

Winter sunrise: 28 December 2004

Penarth Pier, February 2008

 

 

Happy 120th birthday, Nan!

Above: me with Nan at her 100th birthday party, April 1991

I'm celebrating my Victorian grandmother's 120 birthday today.

Sadly, Nan won't be there to blow out the candles. But 20 years ago today she celebrated her 100th birthday, and enjoyed two further anniversaries. 

Gwendoline Annie Skinner (nee Dymond) had a remarkable life. She was born on 22 April 1891, and turned ten a few months after Queen Victoria died. The Titanic sank the week before her 21st birthday and she was married the week Alcock & Brown made the first flight across the Atlantic. She made just one flight herself: from Cardiff to Bristol in her nineties. 

She was a perfect grandmother: kindly, lovely and a source of endless stories. I was fascinated by her tales of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897. And moved by her harrowing story of helping fetch her dying father's oxygen cylinders by Hansom cab in 1912.

Like many of her generation, she had a tough life in many ways. She lived through two world wars and the Great Depression. She was bombed out of one home in London's blitz. Her husband's twin brother died in the great flu epidemic at the end of the Great War. And she was widowed at 51 - exactly half way through her long life. 

Yet she had tremendous spirit. She took great pride in the success of her three children and five grandchildren. And lived to enjoy the arrival of six of her nine great grandchildren. 

Turning hundred was quite something, especially as she had been so ill during the war, fifty years earlier. (The devoted care of daughter Dorothy, whom she lived with after husband Frank's death, was a big factor in her longevity.) We all enjoyed a special party at County Hall in Cardiff. And on her 100th birthday the Lord Mayor of Cardiff visited Nan and toasted her centenary - below.

Finally, here's a photo of Nan as a young woman. 

 

 

 

 

Remembering South Glamorgan - the locomotive and the county

Owen and I love trains. He was thrilled when I dug out my 1970s and 1980s model engines from their hiding place in the loft last month. Every weekend, I put together a short length of track so he can enjoy seeing them run. I quite like it too...

Today, on a visit to London, I spent a happy quarter hour admiring more modern model locomotives in ModelZone in Holborn. I was just browsing, but suddenly I spotted a fine Hornby OO gauge version of 56 032 Sir De Morgannwg/County of South Glamorgan. This was a powerful class 56 engine built for heavy freight work. Minutes later, I was heading for my next meeting having bought the engine, despite having nowhere to run it other than our weekend track.

It was an impulse buy, but there was a reason for it. My father Bob Skinner was public relations manager for the county of South Glamorgan from the authority's birth in 1974 until 1982, when he retired. He must have been delighted to have seen the county's name immortalised on an impressive railway engine. I can't wait to show him the model when we stay with Mum and Dad in Penarth this weekend. (Owen will be thrilled too!)

The class 56 engines played an important role in the South Wales economy, double-heading Britain's heaviest trains from Port Talbot docks to Llanwern steelworks in the 1980s. Dad's friend, Western Mail editor Duncan Gardiner, officially named one of 56 032's sister engines after Wales's national morning paper at Cardiff Central in 1981. Bizarrely, the first 30 engines in the class (but not 56 032) were built in Ceaușescu's Romania as Brush at Loughborough didn't have capacity to build them. That proved a disastrous mistake. 

Ironically, 56 032 outlived the county whose name it carried. In 1996, South Glamorgan was abolished and Cardiff became master of its own destiny again. But Owen and I will enjoy the engine - and when he's older I'll explain its link with his grandfather. Meanwhile, here a YouTube clip of the engine going through Cardiff Central in 1996. 

Farewell, Wrexham & Shropshire trains

Above: Wrexham & Shropshire staff pose for last-day photos at London Marylebone station

Today was a sad day. A rail company that was loved by its passengers closed, ending the short lived revival of train services from Wrexham to London. Wrexham & Shropshire achieved the best rail customer satisfaction ratings in Britain. But not enough people used the service to make it pay. 

We enjoyed seeing the Wrexham trains race through our local station in the days when Karen and I commuted to London. It was a nostalgic reminder of the days when expresses were hauled by locomotives (Wrexham & Shropshre used class 67 freight engines and sleek British Rail Mark 3 coaches, many still in 1970s blue & grey livery). I hoped to take Owen on the Wrexham train when he was a little older, but we won't get the chance now. 

We were always concerned that the coaches looked empty. Just a year after the service started, W&S ran a successful campaign against Virgin Trains, which threatened to launch a rival service, as I blogged in May 2009. W&S survived that threat, but the writing was on the wall. The Guardian's John Vidal reported that same month that the service was wonderful but slow. W&S was forbidden from calling at busy stations en route but had to crawl through them. But he waxed lyrically about the North Walian train crew and the lamb shank, veg and wine.

By chance, I was in London today and witnessed the sad scenes as W&S staff posed for photographers at Marylebone. I hope they find new jobs, as they will be a huge asset for any organisation that cares about its customers. As I write this, the very last train is on its way north to Wrexham. 

Here are some scenes from Wrexham & Shropshire's last day, including a mug they gave me at Marylebone!

 

 

 

Remembering Grampy

This is my grandfather. The photo captures him at his trade: a linotype operator at the Western Mail & Echo in Cardiff who turned journalists' words into the magic of print. His trade has long vanished, along with the steam train fireman and lamp lighter. 

Grampy died 44 years ago in December 1966, some five years after he retired. I was just three at the time, so I have just one clear memory of him. But it's a precious one: we were sitting in front of the fire in my grandparents' home in Penarth, Glamorgan, and Grampy was showing me how to shell peas. 

I was thrilled last week to find this photo of me (and my sister) with Grampy. I reckon I was between two and three years old, which means it dates from the spring or summer of 1966. (Was it taken the same day that I watched Grampy shelling peas?) I like to think it captures Grampy's pride in his two grandchildren. It's strange to think that my son Owen is the same age as I was on that far-ago day in the 1960s.

My friend the deacon: Anthony's special day

I've known my friend Anthony Beer for over 35 years. It's a friendship that flourishes even though we now live 150 miles apart, and meet only once a year. It also got off to an inauspicious start - the first time we met, in 1972, I ruined Anthony's toy snooker table!

We really become close friends in the years leading up to our A levels. We played football and put the world to rights during the hours we weren't revising during our A level month, June 1982. Later that summer, we went camping near Porthcawl and distinguished ourselves by thinking turps a suitable substitute for meths to fuel our camping stove! We also tramped across the coastline for a glimpse of the Gwely'r Misgl mussel beds - only to find them deep under water at high tide.

So I was thrilled to join the celebrations yesterday when Anthony was ordained as a deacon in the Church in Wales. I couldn't be there for the service in Llandaff Cathedral - just a stone's throw from my old house in the city within a city - but went to Anthony's celebration lunch in Canolfan Beulah in Rhiwbina. Anthony gave a lovely speech, describing how everyone present had left "fingerprints on my life".

Anthony will make a wonderful deacon. He's a deeply caring person, who has found his true vocation. I'm privileged to have known him all these years.

PS: by coincidence, I remember explaining to Anthony in the early 1980s that the Anglican body in Wales was called the Church in Wales, not the Church of Wales, because it had been disestablished in 1920!

Goodbye to Ninian Park

Cardiff City have played their last regular league game at Ninian Park, the club's home for almost a century.

Ninian Park is hardly the most impressive ground in British football - and was looking shabby even 26 years ago (above) when I watched Wales draw 1-1 against mighty Brazil in a friendly. But many like me will have a stack of memories of the old place.

I went to my first ever football game at Ninian Park at when I was 10, on 3 November 1973. Dad took me to see Cardiff City against West Bromwich Albion, standing on the Bob Bank. It was a dreadful game, and we went to leave just before the end as a 0-0 draw looked inevitable. Suddenly, as we passed under the Grange End, we heard a roar from the away fans as West Brom scored a winner.

That game was forgettable. But as I became a regular, I learned to love Ninian Park, especially at night games under the floodlights. But the greatest night of all for me, unlikely as it will sound, was a game in the old third division. City were relegated in 1975 from the second division for the first time since the second world war. I was horrified: how could such a fate befall a club that snatched the FA Cup from England and come within a whisker of winning the league in 1924? But glory was the last thing on our minds in 1975 as we welcomed the likes of Halifax and Bury. At first, City struggled, but as 1976 arrived we were strong promotion candidates. One warm April night, Cardiff beat eventual champions Hereford United in front of a crowd of 35,000. As Max Boyce would say, I was there! My mother later got the autographs of most of the City players at a special celebratory dinner held by the county council.

I've seen just two competitive international games at City's ground, The first was Wales's narrow defeat to England in the 1976 British home internationals. (I got Lawrie McMenemie's autograph after the game: he managed Southampton team to a shock victory against Manchester United in the FA Cup Final just weeks earlier.) Soon after, I was disappointed to see Wales lose on aggregate to Yugoslavia in the second leg of the quarter finals of the European championships, in a game marred by crowd violence.

Ninian Park has featured a few times in this blog. Last year, I wrote nostalgically in Ertblog about City's wonderful FA Cup victories at the ground in 1977. I also wrote about my experiences as a Ninian Park programme seller the night Jock Stein died just minutes after his Scotland team secured a place at the 1986 World Cup finals at Wales's expense. And finally, an early  post told how Wales nearly beat Brazil in that 1983 friendly.

I could talk about City's famous victory against Real Madrid, or the European Cup Winners Cup semi final against Hamburg - or even the Pope's visit to Ninian Park in 1982. (My friend Anthony was there!) But I couldn't claim to have been there on those special days!

Back in 1977, I took schoolboy pride in being able to name every Football League club's ground. Derby County? The Baseball Ground. Sunderland? Roker Park? Those grounds, like Ninian Park, were part of the furniture of the sport for half a century or more. Over 30 years on, dozens of clubs have moved home. Cardiff City are just the latest but it does feel more personal when your own club packs its bags. 

Railway rivals: Virgin Trains threatens Wrexham & Shropshire's service to London

 

A Wrexham & Shropshire train at London Marylebone, 6 May 2008

In the Victorian and Edwardian eras, Britain saw 'railway races' as rival companies competed for the prize of the fastest trains to places like Plymouth and Aberdeen. Elsewhere, the rail system had dozens of competing routes, few of which survived Dr Beeching's axe.

Over a century later, a similar rivalry has emerged, with the unlikely destination of Wrexham in north east Wales. (See today's Guardian article: In praise of ... Wrexham and Shropshire trains and this BBC story.) Wrexham & Shropshire Railway begun a train service to Wrexham and Shrewsbury from London Marylebone in 2008, prompting Virgin Trains to declare it wanted to offer a rival service. Suddenly, the media have taken an interest in the apparent David v Goliath clash. Virgin's move comes seven years after it axed direct trains to ago. (A Virgin spokesman got rather frustrated on last night's Radio 5 Live Drive programme trying to explain why it had changed its mind without descending into geekspeak.)

The Wrexham & Shropshire service has much to commend it, as John Vidal pointed out in a lyrical feature in Saturday's Guardian travel section. (Though what possessed the subs to describe this four hour, 195 mile journey as a commuter train?) It runs without a subsidy from the taxpayer, and has axed sky-high peak fares in favour of all day, every day low prices. It's also one of the few locomotive hauled services left in Britain, with spacious carriages in the old British Rail blue and grey colours. I'm always heartened to see it racing through our local station, and hope it beats off its opportunistic rival.

PS: The Guardian seems to be campaigning for Wrexham & Shropshire: Simon Hoggart praised it in his column last weekend!

Scargill's folly: the miners' strike, 25 years on

It's hard to imagine a strike dominating the headlines for a year in 2009. The era of flying pickets in industrial conflict is long over, which makes the bitterly fought British miners' strike of 1984-85, which began 25 years ago this week, seem like a chapter from a far older story.

The strike divided the country. There was widespread sympathy for the miners, whose communities were threatened with catastrophe at a time of mass unemployment caused in part by the brutal economic policies of Margaret Thatcher's government.

Thatcher was determined to defeat the miners - permanently. Ten years before, the National Union of Mineworkers had humiliated the Conservatives as the Heath governments called election to decide who governed Britain: the elected government or the striking NUM? Heath lost. In 1981, the deeply unpopular Thatcher administration quietly gave in to the miners. Three years later, the new NUM leader Arthur Scargill called a national strike against pit closures. The scene was set for a monumental battle.

Famously, the NUM decided not to call a national strike ballot. Scargill today ducked the question, telling The Guardian that miners in Nottinghamshire wanted a ballot to call off the strike, as if that justified the decision to avoid one. Many who would have supported the NUM changed their mind as a result, especially when the NUM indulged in mob violence to try to intimidate working miners. The sickening low point was the killing of a taxi driver, David Wilkie, who was driving a working miner to his pit in South Wales. He died when two striking miners threw concrete through his windscreen. The thugs were later jailed for manslaughter.)

All miners deserved better than the fate they suffered in the 1980s and after. Scargill was a disastrous leader: anyone who knew anything about power knew it was folly to launch a miners' strike as spring was approaching. The Thatcher government was well prepared: I remember passing Didcot power station in April 1984 on the train and seeing an enormous stockpile of coal: the miners had no hope of forcing power cuts this time.

Scargill was a far better communicator than the chairman of the National Coal Board, Ian MacGregor, The government feared it was losing the PR battle, and after six months drafted in an NCB area director Michael Eaton as NCB spokesman. In reality, few people trusted Scargill. A quarter of a century later, he's as unapologetic as ever, despite a well-deserved reputation as a first world war general, sacrificing his men for no advantage.

Miners in my native South Wales had very mixed feelings towards the strike. Initially, they were reluctant to come out, but once the strike began they proved very solid, with the highest support at the end of any NUM area other than Kent.

The Guardian today summed up the disastrous strike as the war that no-one deserved to win. That reflects how many of us felt in 1984-85: sympathy with the miners and their communities; deep unease at the Thatcher government's indifference to their suffering; revulsion at the attempt to intimidate those who did not want to go on strike yet had been deprived of their right to vote to keep working.

Margaret Thatcher was always a deeply divisive leader. But her decision to force the unions to hold strike ballots and to outlaw secondary picketing - violent or not - was hugely popular. Within a year of the collapse of the miners' strike, Rupert Murdoch broke the power of the print unions - probably the most self serving workers in Britain - and life was never the same again.

Yet most would agree the pendulum has swung too far the other way. In 1992, Michael Heseltine's proposals to close a huge number of coal mines led to a huge protest, even in solid Conservative areas. (Though the protest ultimately proved futile as the Tories sold off Britain's remaining pits.) The current anger at the rewards failed bankers like Fred Goodwin have pocketed shows that the British people are disgusted at the way management has feathered its nest since the Conservatives vanquished the unions in the 1980s. It's a tragedy that the 1997 Labour government was unwilling to make even modest amends to the Thatcherite settlement. Its failure to do is likely to hand victory to the Tories in 2010 - surely the ultimate irony.

PS: six months into the miners' strike, the coal industry ran a consumer advertising campaign headlined 'Coal Now'. An extraordinarily timed move. I photographed this poster on a Cardiff bus (Dinas Caerdydd is Welsh for City of Cardiff) passing Cardiff Castle in September 1984.

Simply snow: Britain stops in its icy tracks

Yesterday, snow fell over London and South East England. Roads, railways and airports came to a standstill. A fifth of us failed to get to work.

The media didn't know how to handle this story. Should the transport system and the country's schools have coped better? Were we a country of skivers? How much money did a few inches of snow cost the economy? Did we keep going better when winter got icy 30, 40 or 60 years ago?

 

Not in my experience. True, the winters of 1977/78, 1978/79 and 1981/82 were far worse than this one. (My 1982 diary shows that it started snowing at 9pm on 7 January and continued for 44 hours, until 5pm on 9 January.) But as my photo above from January 1982 shows, British Rail didn't run a service at all on the Coryton line in Cardiff, which is why you can't even see the tracks to the left of the signal box at Heath Junction. We were off school for a week as a result. (We had lessons in February half term to make up some of the lost time in our A level year.) So much for claims that schools never used to close because of wintry weather! And when we went on a school trip to London a week after the snow stopped, we had to go by coach as there were still no rail services between Cardiff and London. I cleared the drive at home the day before we set off (below).

Back to 2009. The media and political know-alls were proclaiming mock outrage at the fact a snowstorm could bring London to a standstill. True, it was hardly a heroic performance. But as Boris Johnson said, it hardly makes sense spending millions on snowploughs that would only be used once every 10 or 20 years. My father Bob Skinner recalled London's Hounslow Council buying Swiss snowploughs for £500,000 after a bad winter in the 1960s - only to see them sitting idle until the winter of 1982!

It's also easy to sympathise with the Local Government Association's spokesman who was given a very rough time by Radio 5 Live Drive's Anita Anand. He was trying to justify why Birmingham and other authorities had announced on Monday afternoon that their schools would be closed on Tuesday, when the forecast heavy snow locally didn't materialise. He rightly said they'd have been damned whatever they had done. Working parents needed time to arrange childcare, rather than face a problem when they turned up at the school gates in the morning. Anand at least had the good grace to concede she had been unfair, after many listeners emailed and texted in support of the LGA's man. An example of how interactive broadcasting is a good thing rather than a fad.

Tonight's 5 Live Drive show also had an excellent contribution from Philip Eden from the Royal Meteorological Society. He paid tribute to the accuracy of the weather forecasts this week, which accurately predicted the snowfalls. He pointed out that the media's obsession with simplicity and brevity reduced the benefit of accurate forecasts. And, pointing out the London-centric view of the media, he showed how the weather men's accurate description of 'London's heaviest snowfall for 18 years' became, inaccurately, 'Britain's worst snowfall since 1991'.

Finally, over to Michael Fish, once Britain's best known weather forecaster. Writing in The Guardian today, he said yesterday hardly counted as a blizzard, which is drifts of eight to 10 feet. Those of us who enjoyed real winters in the 1970s and 1980s could have told you that! (The photo of our garden in Winnipeg Drive Cardiff in January 1982 shows what you get when a blizzard visits your home.)