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llywelaThis is my great-grampy, Billy T - picture taken in 1943 when he was stationed in North Africa during the war, the only time in his life that he ever travelled abroad.
This is the shiny new Doctor Who Experience, which opened last month about 3 miles down the road from my house. Fast work - this time last year they hadn't even started building it yet.
So what do the two have in common? This:
The shiny new Doctor Who Experience was built on the site of the old dry dock where my Great-Grampy Billy worked almost his entire life, starting out as a teenager in the 1920s. He worked there right through to the 1960s, when he was forced to give up work because the chemicals were damaging his lungs - although instead of retiring, he took up chimney-sweeping to make ends meet.
My Great-Grampy Billy came from a long line of mariners and dock workers, and lived his entire life in the Bay area of Cardiff, within sight of the Bristol Channel. When my mother lived with him as a child in the 1960s, their house on Ferry Road was little more than a stone's throw from the water, when the tide was in - a house that had originally been built for the sea captains and their families, with high attics where the wives could look out to see if their husband's ship was on its way across the Channel yet! That house is still there today, but thanks to the construction of the Cardiff Bay Barrage and redevelopment of the Bay area, it is no longer a stone's throw from the water's edge...instead it is now a stone's throw from Ikea!
When Billy started work on the dry docks in the 1920s, Cardiff Bay looked a bit like this:
In fact, for 12 hours a day when the tide was out, the Bristol Channel having the second greatest tidal range in the world, it looked a bit like this:
When my Mum lived with her grandparents in the 1960s, it was possible when the tide was out to walk across the mud flats and around the headland to Penarth Beach...where you would then have to stay for 12 hours until the tide was low enough to make the return trip! But since the barrage was built across the entrance to Cardiff Bay in the 1990s that walk is no longer possible, as those tidal mud flats have now been turned into a beautiful freshwater lake, allowing extensive redevelopment of the surrounding land - including the construction of the new BBC film studios and Doctor Who Experience.
This is what Cardiff Bay looked like this morning.
The lovely red brick Pierhead Building is still there, and so are the old dolphins, but not much else looks the same. And look! There's even a new Doctor Who Experience stop along the water bus route, with a TARDIS signpost and everything!
This is Billy in 1985, just a few months before he died - this is how I remember him. In fact, that's me sitting alongside him...apparently doing some cross-stitch, of all things, although why I of all people would be doing cross-stitch I can't imagine!
Billy lived and worked in Cardiff's docklands his entire life - he spent most of his career working on the site where the shiny new Doctor Who Experience now stands. He would not recognise the area, if he were still alive today!
This is the shiny new Doctor Who Experience, which opened last month about 3 miles down the road from my house. Fast work - this time last year they hadn't even started building it yet.
So what do the two have in common? This:
The shiny new Doctor Who Experience was built on the site of the old dry dock where my Great-Grampy Billy worked almost his entire life, starting out as a teenager in the 1920s. He worked there right through to the 1960s, when he was forced to give up work because the chemicals were damaging his lungs - although instead of retiring, he took up chimney-sweeping to make ends meet.
My Great-Grampy Billy came from a long line of mariners and dock workers, and lived his entire life in the Bay area of Cardiff, within sight of the Bristol Channel. When my mother lived with him as a child in the 1960s, their house on Ferry Road was little more than a stone's throw from the water, when the tide was in - a house that had originally been built for the sea captains and their families, with high attics where the wives could look out to see if their husband's ship was on its way across the Channel yet! That house is still there today, but thanks to the construction of the Cardiff Bay Barrage and redevelopment of the Bay area, it is no longer a stone's throw from the water's edge...instead it is now a stone's throw from Ikea!
When Billy started work on the dry docks in the 1920s, Cardiff Bay looked a bit like this:
In fact, for 12 hours a day when the tide was out, the Bristol Channel having the second greatest tidal range in the world, it looked a bit like this:
When my Mum lived with her grandparents in the 1960s, it was possible when the tide was out to walk across the mud flats and around the headland to Penarth Beach...where you would then have to stay for 12 hours until the tide was low enough to make the return trip! But since the barrage was built across the entrance to Cardiff Bay in the 1990s that walk is no longer possible, as those tidal mud flats have now been turned into a beautiful freshwater lake, allowing extensive redevelopment of the surrounding land - including the construction of the new BBC film studios and Doctor Who Experience.
This is what Cardiff Bay looked like this morning.
The lovely red brick Pierhead Building is still there, and so are the old dolphins, but not much else looks the same. And look! There's even a new Doctor Who Experience stop along the water bus route, with a TARDIS signpost and everything!
This is Billy in 1985, just a few months before he died - this is how I remember him. In fact, that's me sitting alongside him...apparently doing some cross-stitch, of all things, although why I of all people would be doing cross-stitch I can't imagine!
Billy lived and worked in Cardiff's docklands his entire life - he spent most of his career working on the site where the shiny new Doctor Who Experience now stands. He would not recognise the area, if he were still alive today!
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Date: 2012-08-10 06:56 pm (UTC)(And, yeah, I know what you mean about the Bristol Channel - I lived on the other side of it growing up & I know what Burnham beach was like - and the River Parrett in my town.)
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Date: 2012-08-11 07:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-10 11:17 pm (UTC)The bit about how your mum being able to cross at low tide, but now it is a permanent lake was particularly touching and bittersweet. And the pic of you with your grandfather and your puzzlement at needlepoint was great. *hearts*
Btw, I'm also in awe that you are only 3 miles from something like the Doctor Who experience. I never live near anything cool!
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Date: 2012-08-11 07:30 am (UTC)I hadn't been down to that end of the Bay since construction on the Doctor Who Experience came to an end - they've moved the footpath slightly to accommodate it, the old footpath wasn't so close to the dry dock basins. So it just really struck me, as I walked past yesterday, that this huge visitor attraction is built right on top of the spot where my great-grampy used to work all those years, and made me wonder what he'd have made of it all. This city was built on heavy industry...and now relies heavily on tourism! How times change.
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Date: 2012-08-11 03:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-11 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-13 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-05 11:27 pm (UTC)And aww, that's a nice story about your grandfather, and some cool old photos of that area! (I recognized the old building right away, lol)
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Date: 2012-09-06 05:20 am (UTC)The old Pierhead Building is very distinctive! It's about the only thing around the Bay that hasn't ever changed.