If you had a bike when I was a kid, the world was your oyster, well Cardiff Docks and the surrounding areas to start. It was our playground and safe because there was less traffic on the roads than today.
At the entrance to the Docks, there was a kind of police shed come office but I was never stopped going through the Dock gates I was more likely to be stopped by the roving paddy wagon the Docks copper it seemed didn’t like to walk. Anyway, there were a number of ways on to the Docks without the possibility of running the gauntlet of the police even if they were interested.
We would cycle over to the foreshore, watch the boats docking or leaving if the tides were right or just hangout because it should have been out of bounds for us scallywags. Sometimes you would leave with a pocket full of fruit a Dockers perk if a box was broken and as Docks boys a freebee for us surely.
Only if mum knew what I was up to she probably wouldn’t have bought me a bike in the first place. As I grew, we would venture further afield as a bike was freedom. I suppose the idea of a gang of grubby Docks boys and less grubby girls tearing over to Grangetown over Clarence Road Bridge could be scary but we were pussycats.
The Docks was our playground because we had nothing! No Cinema or Swimming Pool unless you called the river Taff our pool. Today in the new Cardiff Bay there is an abundance of local amenities and now the rest of Cardiff and the world travel to the Old Docks/New Cardiff Bay to be entertained. Who would have thought of that back in the early seventies our entertainment was watching the bulldozers reduce the area to dust.
Still a bike would not curb our adventurous ways be it spending most of the day with a walk over the ‘burning ground’ a former coal slag pile long covered with vegetation over the Docks. A wander over Grangetown and Ferry Road, and the waste ground around the Red House pub we were early seventies explorers before we left school and you had to search for a job. We would literally turn over every stone in search of enjoyment.
In the summer bus trips to Llandaff fields, the open-air swimming pool, and the long walk home following the river Taff because we spent our bus fare home on sweets or ice cream. We would make expeditions into town to the Empire Pool or my particular favourite, Guildford Crescent less posh than the Empire. Remember folding a towel then putting your swimming trunks in the middle and roll the towel then setting off for the pool.
Our local cinema was not that local being over Grangetown ‘The Ninian’ a quint cinema house full of fond memories of Saturday morning club and general films until its decline and closure.
The train was a popular means of transport like trips to Cefn Onn an open space and poor man’s Barry Island, Penarth not much to do or see unlike Barry Island with a fun fair and much more. The trains to the Island would nearly always be packed with Families coming down from the valleys for a day out at the seaside on a sunny summers day. If with caught the train at Grangetown Station with it being full there was a chance you could dodge the ticket collector saving on the cost of a return ticket.
Yes, we were a gang but we try to avoid trouble like the plague except before bonfire night the only reason to carry a knife was for a game of splits and that would be a tiny penknife. If you have a fight, it would be a bout of fisty cuffs maybe not the full Queensbury rules the odd kick could be involved.
