My Cadoxton

As I pay for my purchases, I hear a loud voice from the back of the shop. It’s Gordon our local 'Wide boy; Del boy type' whatever! Tightening my grip on my newspaper, I nonetheless hope I have cleared the till area before he arrives there, it’s not to be so. "Hello what have we here?" he booms "Jenny G the light of my life!! Tell me sweetheart are you still ACTIVE?" Now I mean! This in a shop full of people! The young man behind the counter grins from ear to ear, he knows what is coming, it’s a ritual now. Thwack! Thwack! My paper descends with practised ease, on the top of Gordon’s head. He is just one of the many characters we have here in Cadoxton When I first moved here I was entranced by the funny, odd, wacky people I found. The shop door opens and one of the Spaney brothers comes in, another Cadoxton local. Now this man I have know from a teenager, because even as a young girl Cadoxton had pulled, I cannot recount the number of times I walked down the Ash Path from Merthyr Dyfan where I lived as a child, to reach Cadoxton. A brief hug from B Spaney, and I leave, pondering how lives cross, his wife Cassie who I had never met as a youngster, had helped me when I had been nursing my sick mother.

Gordon on the other hand I had only met since coming to live in the area, he was a respectable business man, no wide boy this, it was a fallacy he liked to uphold........ In reality he’s a respectable dad and granddad, very smart and very fanciable. ...............To Some!

For seven years before we moved to Cadoxton, we had lived right in the centre of town, very handy for the shopping, but in a street where most of the residents were elderly, where traffic was busy, it served until the time we could upgrade.

Upgrade? Now that was a debatable point as far as some were concerned, as Cadoxton was to some considered (the wrong side of the tracks) the poor area.

But for us there was no hesitation, a new house in Cadoxton opposite a lovely park or an old town house crammed between rows of terraced houses, there was no contest.

Cadoxton has always had colourful characters, a close- knit community. When we first arrived, the welcome was warm and friendly in the most part, we settled. The children all eventually went to the school at the end of our road.

They decided to build an estate, just round the corner and a short distance from our street....it was a lovely estate, and the people who came to live there integrated well, but as has happened all over Britain, as houses became empty they were sold on to housing associations. Nothing wrong with that, people have to live somewhere.......but the area started to go down hill, not the estate! But our area outside, where groups of youths from the estate, gathered every night vandalising and creating mayhem in general. What a pity, this scenario now being played out in many parts of Britain, has affected the once largest populated area of our town, trouble being taken right down into the old village area at night. The characters are still there, some of them; but others have joined, they are colourful too; but colours of a different hue....Why don’t you move? I'm often asked “Why should I! I reply to leave after 35 years, an area I still love, despite its faults, no! I will not be forced out of my own home, by anyone or for anyone.”

As I type this I can see out into the park, 'Victoria Park' built in Victorian times, they are working on it, and the old band stand has been replaced, but every detail true to the original Victorian one. Hopefully they will replace the tennis courts, and the football pitch, the bowling green has always been in good condition, but the club house was in sore need of attention. The Childs play area opposite the school, need's to be brought up to today’s safety standards. I can’t wait for it to be completed, and I wonder; if Brass Bands will ever play there again, as they did when I first came to Cadoxton.

Since first writing this they have indeed replaced the tennis courts with a basket ball area, where they offer coaching for youngsters, the children’s play area is brand spanking new, and brass bands do indeed play there once more, we also have a kind of ‘club house’ really the park keepers domain, where they offer tutorials on crafts etc. We have had a Mutts dog show, and they even post a coming events leaflet through our doors to let us know what’s on the future agenda............A real Improvement and all down to a grant from the lottery fund I believe.

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