Stories from Splott
Splott was the area that I received for my grid project and after visiting it a number of times I started to recognize that much of it had been re-built in recent decades.
So it was whilst looking on a BBC website that I came across a section entitled ‘Stories from Splott’ which provided a forum for people to be able to post up there memories of the area whilst they where growing up. Reading through these I began noticing a repetition in the way that every persons memories where linked in parts to physical objects that they either played with or a food and smell that they could grasp onto. Picking up on this I decided to make a series of still life images representing an object that stands out in each individual story. Choosing to make the pictures in front of a black backdrop I wanted to create an aesthetic that one would associate to the notion of remembrance, directing light at the given objects I wanted them to be the sole focus of the image in a way that is aesthetically pleasing, which I intended to be a play on the notion of only easily remembering the reminiscent events of the past.
I think that each of the memories gives not only a wealthy understanding of the social conditions of their past but also a hint as to how people and situations change in the future. With many ‘Splotties’ now living further a field in America and Australia due to both health and economic conditions one starts to form a picture of how people, large and small migrate around the world, still clinging onto moments lost in a bid to maintain a sense of place.
Bryn Davies, CowbridgeMy Aunty Shirley as a young girl from school went to work at CWS's biscuit factory at the top of Railway Street. This huge Victorian factory's gate was a magnet to every small Splott child at 5pm every Friday evening. The factory girls were allowed to take home a big blue paper bag of broken biscuits. This share of the damaged biscuits was heaven to a small child whose household was still under food rationing after World War Two. "Give us a broker misses?" was the call from our gang of kids. When my Aunty Shirley appeared I followed her home where my grandmother Rosie would spread the blue bag's contents over the kitchen table to be sorted the best for the biscuit barrel, sometime we would find a chocolate covered biscuit, a treasure for a 7 year old.
Tracy ( Ashmore ) Bray in Los Angeles CaliforniaI love the fact I came from Splott and Tremorfa, it prepared me for the world, good and bad, and let me tell you Tremorfians and Splotties, we can roll with the best of them and win. Maybe it was the cold water in Splott baths, or the toxic fumes from the steel works or the teachers at St Albans, we can do anything! My Mam was Bootie Miller, we lived in Habershon St and Tweedsmuir Rd. My nana lived in Storrar Rd. I sure do miss them all.
Steve Pain of Brisbane, AustraliaI was born in Rumney Street, Splott, 1950. My parents immigrated to Australia in 1956 because of my mother's asthma. My father (in Splott) would go downstairs & light the fire early to warm up the house. Then us kids would go down & put socks on our cold hands. Our gloves would be drying out from getting wet in the snow the previous day. We would make snowmen & throw snowballs. We went next door to watch 'Cisco Kid' on their TV. I remember being pushed in a pram up the road to see my older sister start grade 1. I remember going to Cardiff Castle and catching goldfish in a jar. I remember sitting on the fence in the backyard of the neighbours opposite & watching the trains go by. I would spit out the cod liver oil tablets my mother gave me. My father worked in the steel works. I remember him cooking us rice & bread puddings. My mum made Welsh Cakes. I have revisited Rumney Street & the house where I was born it had changed alot. We went straight to the mines in Mt Isa in Australia where my father had work.
Linda, Rumney, CardiffI remember the lady that sold the toffee dabs in Robinson Square (where I lived). She lived on her own, I think her son was away at sea. Every Friday afternoon she would stand on her front door and all us kids used to run over with our pennies - the toffee dabs were lush! She used to sell toffee apples as well.
David ThomasMy parents were living in rooms in Marion Street when my sister was born in hospital, but when it was my turn the second born could be at home. Around the 1980s my mother told me that I was born upstairs in the front bedroom of my grandparents home in Carlisle Street due to adequate facilities - Grampy was managing Boley's butchers and lived there. Gramps would ask us to go into the walk in freezer and get sausages from the back shelf. We would have to walk past the carcasses of lamb, pork, and beef and I remember how scary it was. Then suddenly the fridge door would slam shut behind us, there we were in pitch black screaming our lungs out, and he would only open the door after all the customers had split their sides with laughter - seems funny now!! Anyway, to calm us down and to stop us crying he would take us over the road to a shop and buy us an Uncle Dick's lollipop. I can tell you we had many visits to that shop! Does anyone else out there remember those parts of Carlisle Street?
