# What you used to love about Cardiff



## badlands (Sep 25, 2008)

back in the day like

swimming in llandaff fields
the Custom House
Top Rank (sundays for the bands)
heading for Barry on bank holidays (to be met by coppers who confiscated your shoelaces)
Casablanca
Chapter downstairs bar (bands)
swimming in Ely river
watching the sun go down, smoking an embassy number 6, high up in an oak tree. 
Howells school disco
and long, long hot summers.


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## 1927 (Sep 25, 2008)

Now I know where that feel in ya films comes from, ya big softy!

If that post was a film it would be...........................Stand By Me, only in cardiff iyswim!!


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## Udo Erasmus (Sep 26, 2008)

There seems to be some big development going on in Chapter with the bar moved to another area, I hear they have got a massive grant.


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## King Biscuit Time (Sep 26, 2008)

The Staff Club.


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## Dic Penderyn (Sep 26, 2008)

King Biscuit Time said:


> The Staff Club.



innit


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## Udo Erasmus (Sep 26, 2008)

The Hayes Island Tea Bar used to be better when I first moved to Cardiff, I recall you got real cups for your tea which in those days was 50p for a large cup and there was always a good contingent of unemployed hanging out.


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## zog (Sep 26, 2008)

cassblanca
big windsor
inn on the river
hippo
rajahs
lazyhouse nights
partys up the wenalt
chapter before they did it up and when they let us do anything we liked
dirtbox
the 4 bars


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## marty21 (Sep 26, 2008)

haven't been there much - i was in swansea for 3 years though all i can remember is the phillomonic? huge pub


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## Gromit (Sep 26, 2008)

Adding to the list...

Empire pool
The cinema on North Road
Boogiez
The Dog and Duck - God i loved that place
The Studio

More will come to me later


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## editor (Sep 26, 2008)

Capitol cinema gigs
The old Queen St station
The Sarsaparilla Bar in the arcade


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## badlands (Sep 26, 2008)

What was that place called next to the indoor market?

You had to climb 3 floors of rickety wooden stairs to get up there.

It had pool tables and space invaders. Went there once and half the welsh rugby team were there. We had to show them how to play space invaders.


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## skyscraper101 (Sep 26, 2008)

badlands said:


> heading for Barry on bank holidays (to be met by coppers who confiscated your shoelaces)



What was that all about?


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## Udo Erasmus (Sep 26, 2008)

The Land of Green Ginger on Salisbury Road. Got lots of fabulous secondhand books and record dirt cheap. 

Roberts Emporium on the same street, I don't actually miss it, but it had a certain character . . .


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## badlands (Sep 26, 2008)

skyscraper101 said:


> What was that all about?



They used to get quite a bit of trouble in Barry on bank holidays. 

One particular bank holiday (think it was August) literally hundreds got on the trains to Barry for a tear up basically. 

The cops got wind of it. As we got off the train we were coralled on the platform and they ordered us to remove our shoelaces. 90% of us had docs on. Cue a most surreal scene, hundreds of us shuffling slowly around the Island in our 10 hole boots.

The day passed off peacefully.


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## Brockway (Sep 26, 2008)

Nero's function suite where all the cool people hung out
The Lexington
Square Club
Radcliffes
Paradise Garage clothing emporium
The shop that sold clothes for Ska enthusiasts, upstairs in the market
Kelly's record emporium, upstairs in the market
The decommissioned cannon outside the Master Gunner pub in Gabalfa
The Plaza cinema


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## pigtails (Sep 26, 2008)

Hippoclub 

Cocos 

Guilford Crescent Baths

Howardian High School


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## Gromit (Sep 26, 2008)

Udo Erasmus said:


> The Land of Green Ginger on Salisbury Road. Got lots of fabulous secondhand books and record dirt cheap.


 
Too cheap. They also used to pay you too much for your books.

Probably why they went under. They hadn't quite worked out profit margins.


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## Gromit (Sep 26, 2008)

Brockway said:


> Kelly's record emporium, upstairs in the market
> The decommissioned cannon outside the Master Gunner pub in Gabalfa
> The Plaza cinema


 
Kelly's is still there ain't it. Though you are better off going to Devinyl by death junction (City Road).

Has the cannon gone then?

Ah yes the Plaza. Thanks for remembering the name for me.


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## Brockway (Sep 26, 2008)

Marius said:


> Kelly's is still there ain't it. Though you are better off going to Devinyl by death junction (City Road).
> 
> Has the cannon gone then?
> 
> Ah yes the Plaza. Thanks for remembering the name for me.



Kelly's is there in name only. The local woman who used to own it and sold stuff at really cheap prices has gone. The new owners sell everything at catalogue prices. It's now the most expensive second-hand record shop in the world. 

The cannon went years ago - ended up in a museum somewhere or other.


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## zog (Sep 26, 2008)

Marius said:


> Too cheap. They also used to pay you too much for your books.
> 
> Probably why they went under. They hadn't quite worked out profit margins.



I don't think it went under, I think the owner died. heart attack if i recall correctly, something to do with jogging (and someone else told me that it may have been a bit beak induced - but that is purely idle rumor)


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## zog (Sep 26, 2008)

Udo Erasmus said:


> The Land of Green Ginger on Salisbury Road. Got lots of fabulous secondhand books and record dirt cheap.
> 
> Roberts Emporium on the same street, I don't actually miss it, but it had a certain character . . .



I forgot jah scouses place. went to some strange parties there


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## Udo Erasmus (Sep 26, 2008)

zog said:


> I don't think it went under, I think the owner died. heart attack if i recall correctly, something to do with jogging (and someone else told me that it may have been a bit beak induced - but that is purely idle rumor)



The owner was Seb Coe's brother, apparently it took a few days to identify him 'cos obviously being out jogging he had no ID. I knew the guy who followed him, and he got squeezed out in a bit of dirty dealing. Then the guy with the leather jacket who liked jazz who worked their took over. I got the impression that the shop next door had some hex on the license for the premises and wanted to sell up to a more profitable customer.


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## Udo Erasmus (Sep 26, 2008)

zog said:


> I forgot jah scouses place. went to some strange parties there



The baldy guy works in some shop in the arcade, I almost brought an accordion from him.

Yes, I heard they had some sort of parties there - I was never invited (probably a good thing . . .)


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## Brockway (Sep 26, 2008)

Udo Erasmus said:


> The owner was Seb Coe's brother, apparently it took a few days to identify him 'cos obviously being out jogging he had no ID.



It was Steve Cram's brother, if I remember correctly.


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## Udo Erasmus (Sep 26, 2008)

Brockway said:


> It was Steve Cram's brother, if I remember correctly.



You remember correctly:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...unning-accident---Im-life-saving-crusade.html


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## 1927 (Sep 26, 2008)

Brockway said:


> The shop that sold clothes for Ska enthusiasts, upstairs in the market




Didnt they have two branches, one upstairs in amrket and another more or less where O'Neill's is next to the market opposite St.John's church yard. Name will come to me if I think hard enough, bought my first tonic trousers in the one by churchyard.

Can I add...

Hudson and Hudson, when they were by the Philly and before they became all posh and that.
That other boutique type shop, Pink Cadillac?
The Crooked Stairs
The Indian next door to the Philly.
Oh yeah and while we at it, the Philly!!
Plus all the usuals like Mars Bar, Square Club etc.
The original Hayes fruit market when it was in them blue box things  and there was a Thayers shop at the end.
Sasparella bar in the arcade.


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## 1927 (Sep 26, 2008)

Buffalo Records
Buffalo Jeans


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## phildwyer (Sep 26, 2008)

The Casablanca
The Dowlais
Smiley's


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## Gavin Bl (Sep 26, 2008)

I used to love going down there to buy Tamiya kits in Beatties, and ska badges in the Arcades, trundle down from Merthyr on the train - it used to crawl along going round the houses, Pentrebach, Quakers Yard...damn we were itching to get out by the time we got to Queen Street.


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## Gavin Bl (Sep 26, 2008)

And a pint of Dark in the Albert(?) by the brewery waiting for the next train to Paddington, when it was a railwayman's pub - looked a bit "trendier" mad:) when I went past a few years ago

They used to keep a fine pint of Dark in there (as you would expect, didn't exactly have to travel)


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## badlands (Sep 26, 2008)

Strikes
Cabbies
The Tudor
the road in the middle of Queen Street
Alpine pop delivered 
the jukebox in the Angel Tavern
rag and bone men
the man from the Pru (and my mum hissing in a loud whisper, "get down, don't answer the door, stay still, ssshhhhh!")


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## Brockway (Sep 26, 2008)

badlands said:


> the man from the Pru (and my mum hissing in a loud whisper, "get down, don't answer the door, stay still, ssshhhhh!")



Our mother used to do the same when the rent collector called around.

rent collectors
milk floats
Asteys


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## Brockway (Sep 26, 2008)

1927 said:


> That other boutique type shop, Pink Cadillac?
> .



Paradise Garage


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## Sweaty Betty (Sep 26, 2008)

The HIppo club

bogiez downstairs

globe cinema (saw BMX bandits )

having a cigarette in the old arcade with a nice pint

The docks, before they fucked with it and forgot about the people who really mattered in that area....

MR whippy van----he has dissappeared


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## Gromit (Sep 26, 2008)

Hah ha i had a man from the Pru. And a little book to keep my payments in


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## Sweaty Betty (Sep 26, 2008)

The corona pop man


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## Sweaty Betty (Sep 26, 2008)

Lloyds- downstairs to philarmonic....


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## Sweaty Betty (Sep 26, 2008)

Sunday all day lock in at the Great Eastern, adamsdown with all the bass brewery crew!!!


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## Sweaty Betty (Sep 26, 2008)

phildwyer said:


> The Casablanca
> The Dowlais
> Smiley's



U remember the scaramouche* on city road???



* sp


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## phildwyer (Sep 27, 2008)

Sweaty Betty said:


> U remember the scaramouche* on city road???
> 
> 
> 
> * sp



Vaguely, but wasn't that a bit after the Dowlais, Smiley's and the Casa B?  My Cardiff clubbing/gigging days were the early 80s, and I was mostly in heavy metal bands, so that determioned the kind of clubs I went to.  Bogies on Penarth Rd was another favorite, musicians from the Damned, Motorhead and Eddie and the Hot Rods used to hang out there.  Also Pino Palladino, who is now in The Who.  All those bands had strong Cardiff connections.  There was also the New Moon, the only drink they served was Newky B.  Ah memories...


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## 1927 (Sep 27, 2008)

PCs, why has noone mentioned it yet.


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## Sweaty Betty (Sep 28, 2008)

phildwyer said:


> Vaguely, but wasn't that a bit after the Dowlais, Smiley's and the Casa B?  My Cardiff clubbing/gigging days were the early 80s, and I was mostly in heavy metal bands, so that determioned the kind of clubs I went to.  Bogies on Penarth Rd was another favorite, musicians from the Damned, Motorhead and Eddie and the Hot Rods used to hang out there.  Also Pino Palladino, who is now in The Who.  All those bands had strong Cardiff connections.  There was also the New Moon, the only drink they served was Newky B.  Ah memories...



I ended up in an AA meeting with a member from the Damned


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## shygirl (Sep 28, 2008)

Guildford baths
Top Rank Saturday morning disco for kids
ABC Saturday kids films
The dandelion and burdock bar in one of the arcades
Casablanca
Lloyds (nightclub)
Heol Trelai youth reggae nights
Fitzallen      "         "       
Exploring llanedeyrn and beyond before they built Pentwyn
Splott baths
Victoria Park
The cafe on the Lake, school lunch times
The Globe (cinema)
Caroline street chips at 2 am
The steak house on Crwys Road
Roopa, first proper jean shop in Cardiff, circa mid-seventies
Central library
Sophia Gardens, collecting chestnuts
Corpus Christi, parading through Cardiff every year in fairy dresses and tiaras


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