A Rat Islander by default – Docks Boy – Pomeroy Street

Rat Island

I always enjoy meeting up with my friend Gillian has we always slip into memories of our childhood remembering them fondly. We grew up on the same street you could say across the road from one another.

I say ‘by default’ because although I was born in St David’s Hospital I headed home to Tiger Bay/Butetown and Patrick Street where I was in residence for under two years before moving to Pomeroy Street. I have no memory of Patrick Street, we lived in a basement flat, and it was awful, cold, and damp according to my parents.

Gillian still lives in Pomeroy Street but we left in the early 1980s. I felt a bit jealous of her and any other of my old neighbours still living there but on reflection, it is not the same street I grew up in. My old neighbours have gone so have many of my friends and my house and the last time I was in the street I stood on the bus stop looking back and I was not feeling that kind of love I had growing up.

I am not sure that neighbourhood spirit is still there every time I go down there one thing that surprises me each time is how quite it is although I have been informed it can get lively. Where I lived was like a giant playpen, as if being in the house with mom having eyes everywhere with neighbours and family friends act has authority figures for your parents. The number of times I heard “Peter Ugarte, I know your mum and dad or I will tell your parents” happy times.

It was not helped because we lived on a kind of an island known locally has ‘Rat Island’. Sandwich between the old Glamorganshire Canal, now a park, and the River Taff and Clarence Road. A lot of the housing I remember is still there with the major changes happening to warehousing and old factories turning into flats, apartments, with some social housing.

Cardiff Bay

The whole area now comes under the Cardiff Bay banner beloved by estate agents and like another planet compared to my childhood. In the early 1980s, I did a project on the Cardiff Bay development for my English RSA exam and from what I see now it was nothing like what was planned then. It is now a major destination for the people of Cardiff, Wales, and the World. There is the Wales Millennium Centre, Mermaid Quay, The Doctor Who Experience, The Red Dragon Centre, The BBC Studios, and the profusion of restaurants, pubs/clubs, and arty shops that have transformed this once neglected Docks area into a thriving cultural hub. The Welsh government is base down the bay, which in itself brings in their camp followers looking for office space. Many events happen down the bay like extreme sailing, the Cardiff summer beach, and others.

The future of the Coal Exchange?

In a nod to my history I still refer to the area as the ‘Docks’, it’s my heritage I will leave ‘Cardiff Bay’ to the trendy newcomers. With all the shiny newness it’s a pity some of the old properties have been left to rot like the old Post Office and the abandoned Bute Street railway station. The old business area around Mount Stuart Square is not so shiny either and difficult to incorporate into the whole Cardiff Bay/barrage development. Many buildings are grade I and II* listed like the Coal Exchange Building, where there is an ongoing campaign to repair and reopen the building but parking is very limited making it difficult to see how the area could attract visitors.

The empty buildings were built in the time of opulence when coal was king when you were making a statement when building commercial properties. With the decline of business and people, they became white elephants, too big for purpose. We will have to see what the future holds.