Monthly Archives: May 2012

The People

Behind the camera: Simon Ayre

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You may have noticed that the We Are Cardiff website features some rather wonderful photography. We’ve decided to run a series of posts introducing you to our photographers, who volunteer their time to keep this website looking as amazing as possible. Please meet the lovely Simon Ayre!

One reason why Cardiff is an ace place to live

One of the things that makes Cardiff so good is one of the many reasons why people often leave: it’s such a small place. This means that you’re no more than a 15 minute walk (if you bump into friends along the way which you probably will) from one end of the town centre to the other. As a town centre it caters for all sorts of people, at daytime or night. Outside of the town centre there are so many things going on it’s just a case of finding what’s right for you. Or you can be a hermit.

Favourite place to eat out in Cardiff

Anywhere that isn’t my house, pretty much. Probably Wagamama, maybe.
“Ooh but it’s a chain.”
“Oooh but I don’t care.”

I don’t eat out that often and when I do it’s usually in the Rummer Tavern before a gig (despite their peas). I love their food but have no idea why.

Favourite shop in Cardiff

Well, I rarely shop. I never have any money, so pretty much the only shop I really go into is Spillers, if they’re REALLY lucky.

Favourite Cardiff venue

Clwb Ifor Bach. We’ve got some great venues in Cardiff with the likes of the Globe and Buffalo, but the gigs and nights out I’ve had at clwb are consistently great.

5. Best Cardiff memory (can be a gig or show or exhibition or anything you like)

Too many to mention. Actually, my friend Gareth drunkenly getting the members of Broken Social Scene to draw pictures of him in his passport instead of getting autographs will go with me to my grave.

Book/s you’re reading at the moment

Press Gang: 3. Checkmate

Yes, a book based on the kids ITV series. Following a conversation on Twitter (with someone I’ve only met for about 10 minutes) about the books/ series around 6 months ago, I got a message last week asking for my address. I had no idea what it was for but gave her my address as I occasionally like to live my life REALLY on the edge, and it came in the post yesterday with a really lovely note. Also, given that it’s essentially a book for kids, I’m kind of at roughly the right mental level.

Film/s you’ve recently seen and likes

I probably haven’t been to the cinema since Scott Pilgrim. I recently bought Submarine for some inspiration for an engagement shoot for friends and really liked it. I generally like Shane Meadows’ stuff, a bit of horror and some older classics… Singin’ in the Rain is the best film ever. North By Northwest, Blow Up, Cabinet of Dr Caligari, Bonnie and Clyde… er…… . My film degree is absolutely wasted on me though to be honest. No concentration for films – I always feel like I should be doing something.

Band/s you’re into atm

If I was asked this three years ago I could have reeled off countless names. Things have changed a lot for me since then and I’ve found myself so out of touch with music as a result. I always wondered at what point my parents stopped listening to new music and I think I’ve reached that point in the last couple of years, due to various circumstances. Having said that, the newer releases (as in bought in the last few months, not released last Monday) I’ve been enjoying recently include Howling Bells (The Loudest Engine), The Horrors (Skying) The Sons of Noel and Adrian (knots) , Evan Dando (The Hotel Sessions) and Neil Young (Live Cow Palace 1986) … that’s pretty much it I think.

Any projects you’re working on at the mo you want to big up…?

Got a music based photography one underway which will probably go live on a website in a couple of months, once momentum picks up with it, but I’m not saying any more as I want it to be associated with me and not some other copycat!

What camera do you use? Any favoured lenses for portrait photoshoots like the We Are Cardiff shoots?

Canon EOS 5D mk2 and a Canon EOS 7D. I don’t necessarily have a favourite lens for the shoots as all the portraits are different, so what is suitable for one story isn’t suitable for another. Generally I probably use a 50mm or 24-70 most, but If I get the chance I’ll get my 100mm out because it’s lovely.

Your favourite We Are Cardiff photoshoot

They’ve all been really good to do for one reason or another and it’s nice getting to find so much out about people while doing a shoot. The shoot with Zoe Howerska earlier this year was great for that reason, with the added bonus of an amazing dog!

Thanks Simon! Simon Ayre online: flickr / twitter

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The People

“Newtown, Little Ireland, Cardiff” – Mary

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Newtown (Little Ireland)

For almost 40 years I’ve been living in a leafy suburb in North Cardiff. I’m happy here and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else – but my most vivid memories are of growing up in a very different part of Cardiff.  A tiny place called Newtown (‘Little Ireland’). I can clearly remember those six streets of drab grey terraced houses. There were no trees, not one visible blade of grass but  life in Newtown was anything but dull. And I loved it.

It all started with The Great Irish Famine during the 1840s. Thousands of people lost their lives and thousands more faced starvation and destitution. During that time Cardiff was going through rapid development and the Marquis of Bute made arrangements to bring over a large number of Irish families (mostly from west Cork) to provide the labour to complete the building of Cardiff Docks. He settled them into purpose built housing near the docks and the Newtown community was born.  A vibrant self perpetuating community – spanning four generations – lived and thrived in those six streets.  Most of the men and some of the women too worked on the docks And once they were complete the people of Newtown continued to work in or around the Docks. The men became dockers, steel workers, foundry or factory workers. The women (who weren’t at home looking after their children) worked in some of the many other small manufacturing industries, like the Cigar Factory, or in local offices as shorthand typists and clerks, or in the retail industry as shop assistants.  Early maps indicate that Adamsdown was part of Newtown but the Newtown I knew consisted of just six streets, these were: Tyndall, Street, Pendoylan Street, Roland Street, North William Street, Ellen Street and Rosemary Street. We had several corner shops and a few public houses. but at the core we had our Church –  St Paul’s –  where we prayed together and had our baptisms, our weddings and our funerals.

Newtown was situated between the Docks and Splott. It was surrounded by railways, walls and feeders to the dock – rendering it a virtual island. My family lived in Pendoylan Street, and when I say my family I really do mean my family.  My Grandmother – who worked for Edward England on the Dock unloading potatoes – had thirty seven grandchildren. All but six of them lived in our street. The rest of the houses were occupied by other relatives or friends.

No-one had a telephone, but there was a Public Telephone Box at the end of Tyndall Street, opposite the Church.  I remember someone putting a piece of carpet on the floor of the phone box. I have been told that the Priest’s Housekeeper used to polish the phone and occasionally put fresh flowers in there. Oh, there is so much to tell about the Newtown but I have neither the time nor the space here. But I shall jtry to give you a snapshot of what it was like living there.  As anyone who lived there will tell you that doors were never locked and what little we had we shared.  It was a common occurrence to go next door or across the road to ‘borrow’ a cup of sugar, a couple of rounds of bread or a ‘drop’ of milk. The first family in our street to have a telly were ‘the Welsh’s’ and we would queue up to watch it. Needless to say everyone wanted to be Terry Welsh’s best friend.

In those days everyone had a tin bath which would be brought into the living room every Saturday night and the younger children would be bathed in front of the fire. The first one to have a bathroom was my Aunty Nora (my mother’s sister) and us older ones would have to put a shilling in the Mission Box for African babies if we wanted to have a bath.

Babies were delivered assisted by the appointed unofficial Street Midwife (in our street it was Mrs Slade) and when there was a death in the street the same Mrs Slade would oversee the washing of the body while an army of women would take care of cooking for the family, helping with the children and preparing the front room where the corpse would be laid out ready for a good old Irish Wake.  The wake could last two or three days and nights. As children we would be encouraged to knock on the door to pay our respects – the smaller ones having to be lifted up to peer into the coffin and say a little prayer. The men would take it in turns to stay up all up all night sharing a couple of bottles of Guinness and maybe a drop of the hard stuff too, recalling stories and telling tales involving the deceased.

Before any of us had television we entertained ourselves – there was always someone to play with in the street. We played games of baseball, football, Rugby (touch & Pass), Cricket Alleligo, Leapfrog, Bulldog, Hopscotch, Allies, Buttons and Rat Tat Ginger, We’d sling a thick rope on the arms of a lamppost to make a swing. Summer days seemed to last so much longer then. Towards the end of October we’d start collecting old wood, newspaper and orange boxes in preparation for Bonfire Night. Our Bonfire was generally built at the top end of the Street.  Window panes would crack and putty start to melt before we’d hear the siren and wait for the big red fire engine to lumber into the street.  Luckily I don’t remember anyone being injured – although for the life of me I cannot understand how any of us escaped.

The streets always seemed to be alive.  I have memories of Hancock’s Draymen with their two big shire horses delivering beer to the Fitzy’s  Pub at the top of our street and of being woken up most mornings by Sammy the Milkman who yodelled as he cycled his way through the street to make his doorstep deliveries. Throughout the week we had a variety of tradesmen selling their wares, Gypsies would come around door to door selling pegs and lucky charms. Then there was the baker, the greencrocer, the fishmonger and Robbo, the ice cream seller on his motorbike, who was later replaced by Mr Dimascio in his van. They had fierce competition from my Auntie Annie though – she made her own ice cream and sold cornets and wafers and toffee dabs too from her back kitchen. I also remember Mr Cox who  came over the bridge from Union Street  to sell custard slices from the back of his green van. There was also the pop seller; the laundry man, the salt and vinegar man; the coalman and the essential ‘Jim The Ashman’ with his famous ashcart – keeping  the streets clean. I promise you I am not just looking through Rose Coloured glasses.  Life in Newtown was at times tough, tempestuous and tragic, but there was a lot of love and laughter in those streets and – most importantly of all – an overwhelming sense of community.

Sadly a Compulsory Purchase Order during the mid sixties began the demise of Newtown.  It’s Church, houses shops and pubs  were demolished and its community scattered to the four corners of the city. Remarkably the community survived – we still had a Newtown Identity. So thirty years on, inspired by a poem recorded by Tommy Walsh, entitled Newtown: the Parish of St Paul’s,  a group of us former residents got together and formed The Newtown Association.

I am pleased to say we achieved our aim, which was to record the History of the Newtown community, to keep its memory alive, and to provide the people of Cardiff with a source of educational archive material about the Newtown community,  And in March 2004 we unveiled a permanent memorial to the significant part which the people of the community played in the development of this wonderful City.

Mary Sullivan lives in Penylan with her husband Vincent to whom she has been married for forty four years. They have five grandchildren and a great grandson. She is Chair and Co-founder of The Newtown Association – an organisation set up in 1996 to record the history of the Newtown community and to keep its memory alive Mary currently works as an administrator for Communities First in Cardiff Bay – an area very close to where she was born.

Mary was photographed in the Newtown memorial garden by Ffion Matthews

Related: you might also like to read THE HISTORY OF TYNDALL STREET – AND THE LOST COMMUNITY OF NEWTOWN, “LITTLE IRELAND”, CARDIFF

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The People

“The wonderful bubble world of Cathays” – Tim

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Just over three years have now passed since I first started life as a student here in Cardiff. three years of living in what, I, personally can only characterise as a bubble. A big shiny bubble cast from the disposed fairy liquid bottle that is the ‘studentville’ land of Cathays. This bubble is itself filled with smaller bubbles, with posh, flip-flop wearing, hands-free talking, ‘Walkabout loving’ numpties living inside. These smaller bubbles bounce along in unison to an overplayed Kings of Leon track in the glorified infant school disco that is the Cardiff Student Union. Wait a second … it gets better. These bubbles are not bouncing around without purpose, oh no, they do have purpose these bubbles … yeah; they call it ‘a degree’. So this bubble world is now even better, because all the bubble people bounce around in lecture halls to the bemused expressions of unshaven ‘slightly good looking in a weird way’ lecturers who have no idea why they themselves are even here in this strange smelly bubble world.  So, all we need now is Sean Bean to narrate this, because it’s already looking like an O2 advert.

Allow me to speak personally about my place in this bubble world. When I first arrived in Cathays as a fresher, I was an Alien. I was at first, bubble free. Before I knew it however, I was walking around in a bubble that was a lot bigger than everyone else’s. To put it more plainly, I was a massive twat. Living in the absolute shite hole that is Senghennyd Court, or rather ‘Senghetto’, (yes, I was not the only massive twat) myself and my bubble friends drank a lot of alcohol, damaged a lot of playing cards and drank a lot of alcohol. Looking not too dissimilar to a homeless man’s first bubble bath, my bubble self and my bubble friends soaked Cardiff by crowding into pubs and clubs dressed as golfers, becoming emotionally attached to fish and chip shops workers and constantly singing, or rather belching the words ‘House G!’ everywhere we went, in homage to our decrepit nest.

I would like to say that when starting this article, I did actually plan just to refer to Cathays and University life in general as one singular bubble. This was so that later on I could make an insightful, meaningful point about the bubble bursting when you graduate and how all of us ex students have to struggle to find our place in this world. But then I thought fuck it, that’s boring and students annoy me too much now so I am going to have a good old fashioned moan about them. This is the thing really. I wanted to illustrate Cardiff University students living in bubbles because it is the one style of life that inevitably has to end, the same way in which bubbles eventually have to pop. When this experience does end, and your shaking the hand of that ‘bloke’ at the graduation ceremony, it feels very much like you’ve been popped by a massive drawing pin. You then find yourself flapping around on the floor, gasping for air like an ambitious fish that wanted to see more of the world outside of his fish tank. However after jumping out of the tank, he realises when it’s too late that he cannot actually breath in this world. I, myself am one of those graduate people and in between trying to be a sitcom writer, playing Fifa 12 and furiously masturbating, I sometimes chat with my friends about how different we all were back then or rather, ‘how silly we were’.

When you try looking at all this objectively, I think you actually realise that maybe, the bubble has not actually burst. Instead, the bitter little masturbating graduate inside probably feels like that they don’t deserve to be like they once were in their student days because life is now apparently ‘hard’. Well it’s not though is it? The fear is based on having to get a job isn’t it? A boring job that everyone inevitably has to get stuck into. So, to all you graduates out there, get back in your bubbles and bounce around like you once did. Bounce around and be annoying by talking to your friends in the street really loudly so that other people can hear how cool your are, go out and get blind drunk … I can hear ‘Sex on Fire’ already.

After graduating from Cardiff with some degree to do with Religious Studies, Timothy Collins currently still resides in Cathays, and outside of working in the University libraries he is attempting to get to grips with sitcom and comedy theatre writing.  He also does other things. For example … erm, what else does he do? Oh yeah. BUGGER ALL!

Tim was photographed in The Vulcan Lounge in Cathays by Doug Nicholls

 

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The Arts, The People

Behind the camera: Amy Davies

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You may have noticed that the We Are Cardiff website features some rather wonderful photography. We’ve decided to run a series of posts introducing you to our photographers, who volunteer their time to keep this website looking as amazing as possible. So please meet a lady who makes this all possible – the lovely Amy Davies!

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Give us one reason why Cardiff is an ace place to live

Cardiff is an ace place to live because it’s small enough to get around most places super quick, but also big enough to have loads of different things to do. I love the beauty of the place, and that includes things that people don’t seem to notice, like the architecture, the roofs of buildings and so on. I’ve lived here for seven years now and still see things I’ve never noticed before on a weekly basis.

Favourite place to eat out in Cardiff

Ummm… I don’t know if I have a favourite place to eat, I’m not a massive foodie, but I do like to pick up fun things from Wally’s Deli of course. I’ve been impressed by the performance of the Potted Pig and I’m really thrilled for them… although it does mean I can’t get a table even though I live next door (literally!).

Favourite shop in Cardiff

My favourite shop changes from day to day, I’m a big fan of The Pen and Paper though as I love craft and the owner there has helped me with various things – including finding some sticks and sawing them up for me during a mad project to create props for a photobooth party I was having… so props to him!

Best Cardiff memory

I’ve got so many Cardiff memories, it’s hard to pick one. I had such a blast doing my postgraduate degree here though and I’ve made friends for life through that course. I also met my boyfriend here and now even though I work over in England I can’t bring myself to leave this wonderful city… too many memories to go into really!

Favourite books

I’m ashamed to say that I’m always so busy reading magazines and blogs etc (partly for work and also for pleasure) that my book reading has gone downhill in recent years. I’ve got a lot of craft books on the go though, my favourite one is probably the Everything Alice: Wonderland Book of Makes.

Favourite recent films

I’m probably more of a TV person (love my American dramas… hello Mad Men season 5!), but I am unashamed to admit that I’m really looking forward to watching Titanic 3D… I saw that three times at the cinema when I was 11, it’ll be great to see it on the big screen again, haha!

Band/s that you’re into

I firmly believe I was probably born in the wrong decade as I spend very little time listening to modern music and a lot of time listening to a variety of bands from the 60s-80s. The Beatles are a really cliche answer, but I do love them. I’m also very much into Northern Soul and Motown … impossible to pick a favourite!

Any personal projects that you want to big up?

I’m always working on the Cardiff Arcades Project … I’ve had my ups and downs with that, but I’m still keen to keep it going. I want to have a solo exhibition and a book … but of course it all takes time (and money), which I’m short of at the moment… one day, one day …

What camera do you use? Any favoured lenses for portrait photoshoots like the We Are Cardiff shoots?

I’m very lucky that because of my job I use all kinds of different cameras on a weekly basis. I own a Canon 60D and an Olympus PEN E-P3 though. With my 60D I have a 50mm f/1.4, 60mm f/2.8 macro, 10-20 Sigma and 30mm f/1.4 Sigma lens. However, recently I’ve been shooting with a Nikon D800, Nikon D4 and Canon 5D Mark III (which a couple of my WAC shoots were done with). Like I say… I’m very lucky!

Most memorable We Are Cardiff photoshoot?

One of my favourite shoots was with Sarah, who I photographed on the roof of St David’s Car Park. It was one of my favourites because I’d never been up there before. Other than that, I also enjoyed Rachel Kinchin’s shoot (not published yet) because she’s just so damn pretty! 🙂

Thanks Amy! More on Amy Davies here: web / Arcades Project / twitter

 

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The People

“Music – Culture – Politics – Parties – Great Outdoors” – Maka

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Ode to Cardiff

The million pound deals in the biggest docks, where our black gold was swept out to sea to fuel the rest of the empire. That was just a memory, a memory dredged up by Gran as we took the thrill of the double decker bus to town.

Those docks became Tiger Bay as we became the washed up dock town at the end of the line. Bringing people of the world to a corner of Wales, changing the face of the place as town turned hesitatingly to city to Capital City. As a pride in a nation a language and an idea was formed around this new title.

In school we studied the docks as History, the mix of cultures that brought injera, plantain and pickled herring to our shore. The sailors, the dockers, the chancers, the old hopes of new lives. We were told of an idea to redevelop ‘the bay’, we went to Butetown, to see the tower blocks marked for demolition, to see change set-in as a glitter of steel and glass descended. In the new bay, we were told, the water was supposed to be clean enough to swim in; we looked at the black-running Taff and laughed.

As the bay was building we forgot to care. We were making music and music had changed. Squirrel and G-Man showed us how we could take our guitars and drums and play like 24 hour party people. Chapter Arts front bar meant a different world now for us, teenagers getting to play psychedelic dance jams to rooms full of grown ups. Now gigs, now girls, now long hair and baggies, then bleeps and fleeces.

The Indie Chart on the Chart Show was full of rave, the hills around Cardiff were alive to the sound of this music. Adventures planned from service station to station, forest to forestry. New best friends made and lost in forgotten nights as we danced imagining the world would have to change now.

Music had its hooks in, and Cardiff was the place to be pulled about. In the face of poor promoters DIY was the answer. Clwb Ifor Bach let us try, and the Toucan, and Dempsy’s, and we found Rajah’s, a busted up pool-hall in Riverside that let us play and DJ and dance all night.

That set the tone, music was all: Oval Sky, Dark Bazaar. Kah Buut Sounds, Optimas Prime, Pink Pussy, Tiger Bay warehouse raves, SOUNDWAVE, Adi Boomtown, Secret Garden. Twenty years of making and taking music in and out of Cardiff.

Been all over the world, but keep coming back. As well as friends, family, work and opportunities, Cardiff has great open space at its heart, stretching from the Castle all the way up the Taff. And escape is all around, places so near it’s amazing you feel so far away: west to the beaches of Monknash, east to the top of Machen mountain, north to the Garth, south to Flatholm island. Walking, climbing, surfing, taking in the views, getting out of our little city.
The smallness leaves us equally cursed and blessed. Sometimes you can’t escape, and everybody knows your name, your business. Sometimes it’s hard to get stuff going, to build up a scene, to get bars and clubs busy and bubbling. Sometimes it feels like the city planners don’t listen to us, and are throwing away everything that makes the city special and individual for the sake of massive mall clone-culture.

But there are chances here to get involved in anything you want, from intellectual flights of fancy to making a fool of yourself. I’ve enjoyed drumming at the SWICCA Carnivals; performing at Blysh; reflecting on the future of the city at the Nutopia Symposium; dancing as a righteous pineapple at Chapter; and more, and more.

As well as being a place to party, Cardiff is now the political centre of Wales. Social justice has an illustrious history across our country, and it still has echoes in our modern capital – the Senedd attempting an openness and accessibility of government that other nations envy. I’ve been fortunate to work for organisations that have successfully lobbied and pushed for changes to policy and governance, realising that people and organisations can shape legislation here. This gives a sense of ownership and accountability missing in Westminster.

We’re still finding our feet as a nation, and a capital city, still struggling with the dual identities that come from seeking to embrace Welsh and English; heritage and modernity, fairness and conservatism, the past and the future, hedonism and responsibility… but this is a great place to be while we try.

Music – Culture – Politics – Parties – Great Outdoors – Family and Friends – All I need to get by.

Now my work, will and wanderlust takes me away from here for the next few years, which is odd, unsettling and exciting; but Cardiff, my adopted city, will always be my base, my place, my home.

Mark Maka Chapple grew up in a little village outside Caerphilly and started promoting discos in the local village hall when he was 14. Llanishen High brought drums and the first band of many. Years of playing and promoting led to seven years lecturing on music and performing arts, then onto a career with Save the Children, eventually managing the Wales Programme – working across Wales and the west of England. A deployment to Zimbabwe ignited a passion for humanitarian work, one that’s led to him now leaving Cardiff to pursue an international career in South Sudan. He has lived in Roath for the last nine years, and still DJs, drums and performs in various venues and festivals in Cardiff and across the country when he gets the chance.

Maka’s tips for a good time in Cardiff are: Milgi’s, Gwdihw, WMC, Roath Park and Madhavs. For the best view of the city head up the lane past the Ty Mawr pub in Lisvane to the top of Caerphilly Mountain, hop in to the field and soak it up.

Maka was photographed in Bute Park by Ffion Matthews

 

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Whats on

You are invited to: ‘We Are Cardiff: a Roath state of mind’ exhibition, 29 May – 2 July, Waterloo Teahouse

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Friends, Cardiffians – it is our pleasure to invite you to our first localised exhibition, which is taking place in the heartland of Roath.

The boundaries of Roath spread further and run deeper than the thin lines on the map that separate it from surrounding Penylan, Cathays, Adamsdown, or even Splott. Roath is more than a place – it’s a state of mind, and we invite you to celebrate that with our first localised exhibition, featuring stories and photography of local residents who have been featured in the We Are Cardiff project.

You are invited to the launch party, on 1 June 2012. Come have a peek at the exhibition, and learn more about the film that we’re currently making about our fair city of Cardiff.

‘We Are Cardiff: a Roath state of mind’ exhibition
Waterloo Gardens Teahouse
Launch party: Friday 1 June 2012, from 6.15pm-8pm
Exhibition 29 May – 2 July 2012

www.wearecardiff.co.uk
www.waterlootea.com

RAFFLE PRIZES – UPDATE

A four-ball round of golf at St Pierre Golf Club in Chepstow (donated by Acorn Recruitment and Training

A speedboat trip for two around Cardiff Bay (donated by CAVRA)

A meal for two from the set menu at Ffresh (donated by Ffresh)

A luxury haircut (donated by the Constantinou salon)

A pair of trapeze taster session tickets (donated by NoFitState circus)

A meal for two in the Gallery Restaurant at the Grosvenor G Cardiff (donated by the Grosvenor G Casino)

A Fairtrade chocolate hamper (donated by Fairtrade Wales)

A print of Roath Park artwork (donated by Gayle Rogers)

A hand crocheted blanket (donated by Andrew Williams)

A framed print (donated by Jo Whitby)

A screenprinted t shirt (donated by Droneboy Laundry)

A bottle of champagne (donated by EstatesDirect Cardiff)

A screenprinted Shewolf t-shirt (donated by Spike Dennis)

A limited edition We Are Cardiff t-shirt

We’d like to say a very large thank you to ALL the sponsors who have donated prizes for this draw – you’re helping us out with a worthwhile project and we really appreciate your support.

So … more info on our lovely sponsors…

FFRESH. With stunning views of Cardiff Bay, a stylish and contemporary feel, and a wonderful seasonal menu showcasing the best of Welsh produce, ffresh Bar and Restaurant is catered to enhance your culinary dining experience.Excellent quality food and service is led by Executive Chef Kurt Fleming, along with consultancy expertise from Shaun Hill, Executive Chef at The Walnut Tree Inn at Abergavenny. The ffresh team have a great deal of experience to help you choose a menu that suits tastes and budget. All our menus have wonderful vegetarian options, and our Chefs are more than happy to cater for any special dietary requirements…
ffresh Restaurant is open Tuesday-Saturday 12 noon- 2.30pm; 5-9.30pm and Sundays 12 noon – 4pm. Please note that on Mondays, ffresh Restaurant is only open for pre-show dining. Whether you are visiting Cardiff bay for an afternoon, seeing a production at the Centre, or looking for a special evening dining experience book your table at the restaurant on 029 2063 6465 or ffresh@wmc.org.uk.

FAIRTRADE WALES. Did you know Wales is a fair trade country and Cardiff was the world’s first Fairtrade capital city? Fair trade is about creating opportunities for producers in the developing world to receive a fair price for their goods and to work their way out of poverty. Put simply, it is an opportunity for them to improve their lives and the lives of their families, and is as simple as the choices you make on your weekly shop.

ESTATES DIRECT – the 0% Commission Agent. At EstatesDirect we charge a fair fixed fee to sell or let your property.  To see how much you could save and find out more please visit our website. EstatesDirect Cardiff is owned and run by Paul and Helen Walters. We pride ourselves on offering excellent customer service throughout your property sale or let, from the initial FREE valuation, through to viewings and finally the sale or let of your property. We are local to Cardiff, and will offer expert advice on marketing your property to its greatest potential and to as many targeted buyers and tenants as possible.

JO WHITBY. Jo Whitby is an all-round creative type who likes to cram her days with as much arty/music/culture stuff as possible. I Know Jojo is where she freelances as an illustrator and artist doing all sorts of works from depicting classic Welsh myths to crowd surfing a Smart Car. You can also find Jo making music as Laurence Made Me Cry and sporadically updating a music and culture blog called Cat On The Wall.

SPIKE DENNIS. Spike is  a maker, an imaginator, a unicorn farmer & a Romanticist with a burning desire to understand that which lies beyond the stars but you can call him an artist for want of a better word. He has lived in Cardiff for five years and recently launched ProjectCardiff with co-conspirator Lann Niziblian. Spike will be exhibiting some collaborative work inspired by the Brothers Grimm fairy tales at St Donats Art Centre in the Vale of Glamorgan throughout June this year (full details available shortly)
More info at: www.spikeworld.co.uk / www.unicorn-porn.com

ANDREW WILLIAMS. Andy is a knitwear designer that has been knitting since 2004 and crocheting since 2009. He has free patterns available on his blog and Ravelry page, and some of his patterns are available to buy from Calon Yarns on Cowbridge Road East. Making blankets is an obsession he has. Blankets of all shapes, sizes and colours. “I’ve loved blankets since I was little. They make me feel safe and warm. A handmade blanket is even better, because not only are you getting a lovely handmade thing, you’re getting someone’s time – that’s a really precious thing to give. The blanket I’m making for We Are Cardiff is a giant granny square, which I will embellish with some appliquéd bits and bobs. It’s super colourful, hope someone colourful wins it!” See also: Ravelry

NOFITSTATE CIRCUS. No Fit State was founded in 1986 by five friends. During a politically charged time, in a recession, and as a creative reaction to the world around them, the circus was born. Twenty-five years later NoFit State still believes that the total outweighs the sum of the parts. The company lives together, works together, eats together, laughs and cries together – travelling in trucks, trailers and caravans and loving and breathing as one community. This is what creates the spirit that is NoFit State and gives the work its heart and soul. Contemporary circus combines live music, dance, stage design, text, and film with traditional circus skills. It is rooted in the travelling community who turn up, pitch a tent, drum up an audience, and then leave with only flattened grass and a memory to show they were ever there. The circus are the strangers who live amongst us – and if we run away to join them we are throwing off our inhibitions, our conventions, the rules of settled society. We are taking to the road knowing that there is no destination – only a journey.
Today, NoFit State is the UK’s leading large-scale contemporary circus company, producing professional touring productions and a wide variety of community, training, and education projects for people of all ages.

The Arts, The People

“ME is debilitating, misunderstood, confusing and unpredictable” – Pippa

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12th May is International ME awareness day. You know ME, it’s the lazy people’s disease? Well, it’s estimated that over 28 million people now suffer from it in the world and in the US alone, more people now have ME than AIDS.

I have suffered from ME for 13 years, since I was 14. I got glandular fever and it simply never went away. Instead it mutated into a new, terrifying beast. ME is debilitating, misunderstood, confusing and unpredictable. Even the name is debated. Many people prefer the term CFS or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome over ME which stands for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. It is pure medical semantics, but they both generally describe the same condition – depending on your doctor’s preferred interpretation! The prognosis is ill-defined and unknown too. The best anyone can tell you is that if you contracted is when you were under 18 then you stand a better chance of one day getting better than if you contracted it over the age of 18.

I first came to Cardiff because of my disease, but this was ultimately an extremely happy and serendipitous event. I had been told by my doctors I wasn’t well enough to go to university, but that wasn’t a very sensible thing to tell me, a stubborn over-achiever –  Cardiff was near enough to home for me to be a part time student and have my wonderful mother drive me to each lecture, then straight home to bed again. The understanding and kindness afforded by Cardiff University’s English Department – especially Prof. Martin Coyle – was what made me first love the city. I didn’t just feel welcomed by the university, but the place. After battling through school and a system not set up to understand my disease, I was met by people determined to help find a way to make it easy for me to study because they saw the passion I had for the subject. Without their dedication I would never had gained the confidence to explore Cardiff, make friends here and make this city my home. I cannot imagine living anywhere else in the UK.

Cardiff Council on the whole is pretty terrible with regards to disability – but the people more than make up for that. Certain councillors and fabulous people like journalist Hannah Waldram (ex of Guardian Cardiff) have helped me, for example, when the council wouldn’t let me park outside my home (pretty vital when you often need sticks to walk with!). Also, Cardiff is a small enough city (and a flat one!) to make city living easily accessible to me.

The welcoming, friendly mood of the city has helped me grow in confidence with my illness. The stigma with ME/CFS is so strong I have spent much of my life terrified to tell people I am ill, but of course you have to. Firstly, because you need to know if your friends are ok with it otherwise they’re pretty lousy friends, and secondly, because people need to know they are encountering people with the disease – otherwise how will we ever help spread awareness?

I feel I have received such positive reactions from my friends in Cardiff. It’s been so different from other experiences when people are too uncomfortable after a while to talk to you again. Even my parents have lost friends because of my illness – it made their friends embarrassed, uncomfortable. Instead, the people I have met and come to cherish in Cardiff, if they don’t know about it, they ask, or they just accept it. Perhaps in Cardiff we’re all slightly odd and so we are ready and willing to accept each others’ foibles and issues. Who knows? Whatever it is I can’t help but feel it is unique to the city as it is an attitude en masse that I haven’t experienced anywhere else.

I have always loved music. My ME only really got very severe when I was 19 and before that I was training to be an opera singer. I come from a musical family too and so, unsurprisingly, the often-dubbed ‘friendly incestuousness’ of the Cardiff music scene is something that I cherish about the city. We are so lucky here to have a ridiculously talented pool of musicians and music professionals; Gruff Rhys, Future of The Left, The Gentle Good, Swn, Spillers Records, Musicbox. I do a lot of music photography and my favorite event each year to shoot is undoubtedly Swn festival. I hate stadium shows, I hate the impersonality of the photographs they produce. I like sweaty, cramped gigs where you feel the music, which is what Swn provides. Shooting that passion and energy is exciting and energising in itself. Each year I have been lucky enough for my photos to be used by various news outlets such as BBC and Guardian Blogs, so even in the face of this horrible disease, I make sure when I am having good periods, I make them count. I don’t miss out. I am trying my damndest to build a life and a career that can sometimes be dipped in and out of, although it is often an impossible struggle, and the older I get the more difficult this seems to be.

Each year I live in Cardiff I watch it develop, become more creative and exciting with the introduction of things such as Third Floor Gallery. And yet one of the most exciting artistic elements of the city has stood here for nearly 100 years. Once described by a Daily Telegraph art critic as Britains “hidden artistic gem”, The National Museum of Wales in Cardiff is my favourite part of the city and I still remember my first visit there in technicolor with each painting and sculpture still perfectly arranged in my mind. I remember seeing some of the Monet Rouen cathedral paintings and being bewildered. I’d seen others in the series in the Musee D’Orsay in Paris but some of them had been missing, and they had been here, in Cardiff, in this beautiful white marble home. In short, its collection of art is breathtaking. It houses such important and beautiful pieces that take so many people by surprise. The gallery works as a metaphor for Cardiff. We get a bad wrap for being the “binge drinking capital of the world” and such, but when people actually take the time to truly experience cardiff, walk through the rooms and study the pieces and “gems” that make up this city, they are astounded it was here under their noses all along and that such a small corner of Wales can house such talent, compassion, and culture.

At times I have been almost completely well, which has been magical. I have managed to do long distance swimming (keeping as fit as possible is definitely the key to keeping on top of the disease), I’ve travelled the world (if only to sit in the sun, but that doesn’t make me much different from anyone else), and I’ve enjoyed a full social life. I’ve had to fit all of my life’s experiences, however, into about 20% of my time, because the flip side to the last 13 years have been overwhelmingly debilitating, unpredictable, and totally devastating relapses that take months to years to rehabilitate from. I get to a point where I am in bed, struggling to reach for a drink, or turn over without help, unable to hold a book. I’ll need help getting to the toilet, washing, brushing my hair, dressing. Most people’s belief of ME is that it makes you tired. Which it does, but in the most extreme way that would be, in layman’s terms, more akin to military sleep deprivation. However, it also causes many other symptoms relating to your central nervous system, cognitive problems – the most common being a ‘foggy’ brain with short term memory loss and concentration problems, muscular pain (fibromyalgia), a compromised immune system leading to higher rate of infection and constant flu like symptoms, sleep disturbances, photo and phonophobia and many more besides. When I relapse I am unlucky enough to be put in the worst five percent of M.E sufferers. Some people with M.E/CFS experience a more constant low level tiredness which is no less debilitating or upsetting – there are simply varying levels of severity of the disease. To be in the most severe five percent means I have been ill enough to be hospitalised, and many sufferers even need feeding and oxygen tubes – Something I am grateful I have never had to experience. In short, M.E can kill you because you are left without the energy to keep yourself alive.

There are other worrying medical abnormalities associated with your body being too tired to regulate itself too. For example, last June I was in a hypoglycemic coma (though I’m not diabetic), and more recently spent nine days in hospital because I had a rare form of migraine that mimicked a brain tumour – all caused by my brain and body being exhausted from the ME.

Sadly, and I can honestly say I understand why this would happen, many ME sufferers cannot overcome the horrific reality of their illness, especially in adulthood where it can break up marriages, cause infertility (if you are well enough to look after children at all), and leave you unable to work. The desperation is made all the more pressing so little is known about the disease. Unsurprisingly, the suicide rate among ME sufferers is very high. Some months I manage to work part time as a photographer. But many I can not. It drives me mad. The unpredictability. Not knowing when you might relapse is heartbreaking sometimes. You learn life is about compromise early on with ME. You learn you don’t get to socialise unless you pace yourself and rest and you don’t get to work unless you pace yourself and don’t really let yourself have too much fun.

Many people believe that ME is a modern illness – an indulgence, if you will. It is anything but. ‘They’ think the modern world panders to eccentrics, that ME is ‘allowed’ to go on and it is almost too painful to write the things I have been told over the years to this effect. Obviously the most common stigma we have to overcome is that often, because we have good periods and bad periods is that people will say we don’t look ill. Also, it is impossible for some people to accept that even young people in their 20s can be disabled. This sounds weird but it is true. I have a disabled badge for my car, but I still have to argue most trips to the supermarket, as I am being helped out of my car by my boyfriend, that I have the right to park in a disabled space. People see a young person with no disfigurement, not in a wheelchair and cannot connect that with disability. The fact that swimming has been my main physiotherapy causes similar problems too. I often need help getting into the pool, but when I’m in the pool I am pain free because my body and blood pressure is supported and can move so much more freely. So I can’t be ill, right?

ME is anything but a modern disease, however. Literature chronicles people dying of ‘failing’ going back hundreds of years and there is a strong argument that this ‘failing’ in many cases could have been ME. For example, if you had ME just 50 years ago you were either put in a mental institution, many believing this ‘refusal’ to move being some sort of madness, or died from not having the energy to feed yourself or from the inability to fight the constant infections you were subjected to due a compromised immune system and a lack of antibiotics. There was no sick pay. If you couldn’t work, you couldn’t earn, you couldn’t eat, you couldn’t live. I grieve for those who have suffered from this disease before me. We are still in the dark ages. We still desperately need more research as every glimpse of ‘proof’ or theory is disputed by each country’s scientists, but at least we live in a time where this disease is now ‘indulged’ enough to mean that ME sufferers have medical help to be kept alive.

In Wales we are worse off than most areas of the UK for ME specialists. We have one consultant in Newport and there is a pain management centre in Brecon, but even people like me aren’t eligible for funding for it. And it is for pain. Not ME. This illness ruins lives. I was almost better then an inexplicable relapse put me in hospital and left me unable to work for an unknown length of time. Many people severely affected even need oxygen and feeding tubes. It is so much more than people think and the USA is doing fantastic research, but here we need to improve understanding and increase research funding.

So please support International ME Awareness Day. The best thing you can do is to learn a bit more about the disease – The best place to do it is at the ‘Get Informed‘ page at the actionforme.org.uk charity site. On May 12th, tweet the link, post it on your profile and help increase awareness and understanding for this stigmatised disease. We need the government to put more money into research. You can also support the Facebook page for ME awareness day. Or donate to ME Research UK, the UK body funding biomedical research into the disease.

You can see Pippa’s photography including music photography online at pippabennett.com and she writes a blog about her experiences about living with ME. She currently lives in Cardiff city centre.

Pippa was photographed at Clwb Ifor Bach by Adam Chard

 

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