Forgive me
if you’ve seen previous posts on this subject, and you already know all of
this, but in case you don’t . . . Way back in the mists of time, back in 2019
before lockdown, my daughter, Phillippa, who manages the Oxfam shop in Port
Talbot came to me and said this. She’s had a line drawing of part of Port
Talbot – it escapes me which now – in the shop, and sold it for £30. Her
immortal words were , “Yours are no worse than that. Can yo do some for me?” Well
it’s hard to turn down a request when you’re asked so nicely.
That initial
tranche of sketches did very well for the shop, raising several hundred pounds.
So when the shop reopened last summer after the first lockdown, I did some
more, and without going into the actual figures, they raised a lot for the
shop.
So, here we
are again, shops opening all over the place, and with only a couple of sketches
from the 2 dozen or so I made last year still in stock, Phillippa asked me to
do some more. So here they are.
1) The Big
Apple Aberavon Beach.
If you want
to see a kiosk like this you have to go to Mumbles, the other side of Swansea,
where there’s one in the car park right above Mumbles. This one used to stand
on the prom in Aberavon Beach. I’ll be honest, I never saw it in person. I don’t
know when it was removed, but it had certainly gone by the time I moved to Port
Talbot in 1986. I’ll say more about this when I get onto the funfair, but it is
difficult to understand what the local council were up to with Aberavon Beach
on the 70s and 80s.
2) Ore
Cranes
I’ve sketched Port Talbot’s iconic dock cranes several times before. I will come clean and
admit this was purely a commercial decision. Don’t get me wrong, I love drawing
the cranes, but also, they sell. We sold drawings of these cranes in both
previous Oxfam selections, and during my first raft fair I sold one to our
local MP. The sketch for Oxfam in 2020 is one of my best selling prints as
well.
3, 4 and 5)
Miami Beach Funfair Aberavon
The funfair
was opened in 1963, I think, and closed in 1983, so for me it was a near miss –
I was only 3 years late. I don’t know why it was closed down – although I can
hazard a guess. Businesses rarely close because they’re doing well and making
money. It’s a shame though – nearby Porthcawl’s Coney Beach has managed to keep
going. The funfair is still very fondly remembered by a generation of Port
Talbot’s citizens though. The second of these pictures was sold for the shop
even before the shop reopened! One of my previous Oxfam sketches of the fair is
amongst my best-selling prints.
4) Jersey
Beach Hotel
We’re still
down the beach again with this next one, and yes, I have drawn the Jersey Beach
hotel before. I’ve made well over a hundred drawings of Port Talbot so
repeating myself is something that’s going to happen, I’m afraid. The Jersey
Beach Hotel was a fixture on the Aberavon Seafront for a long time, and I
remember it quite well. I played my first ever big quiz final in there in 1988,
when my team completed the Port Talbot League and cup double, and I won the
individual (because the two better players in my team didn’t want to play in
it.) The hotel closed for good in 1999, and was destroyed by fire a few years
later.
5) Station
Road with Level Crossing
In the last
couple of years I drew the same scene of the level crossing twice, so I fancied
a different view of it. I’m still in the 50s/60s with this sketch, but it’s
done from the street level, and from the other side of the gate in this one.
Station Road is probably Port Talbot’s main shopping street, even if many of
the main stores have now moved into the Aberavon shopping centre. As for the
level crossing, picturesque as it is, older inhabitants of the town remember it
as causing real traffic problems. Looking at old photographs, it’s hard to
disagree that the 1970s redevelopment of the town centre to make room for the shopping
centre and the civic centre ripped the guts and the heart out of the centre of
the town. Still, removing this picturesque traffic impediment was at least one
positive development.
6) The Plaza
Cinema
This
building is currently in the process of a major redevelopment. The 1930s
original façade is still standing, but the original building behind has been
demolished, and a new purpose built arts centre is going up behind. I’m gong to
reserve judgement until the building is actually completed and opened. I think
it’s going to be important to remember that the Plaza, like most cinemas of the
same period, may have had a fantastic façade (it did), but behind the façade it
was largely a huge concrete barn.
I’ve
sketched the Plaza for each of the previous Oxfam selections. Last year I
sketched it from the station. This year I used the same reference photo that I
used for the 2019 sketch – which incidentally is by some distance my best-selling
print – and I changed the film. I’m a massive fan of the Indiana Jones movies (even
the Crystal Skull) so I changed it to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade since
I first saw that one here in the Plaza.
7) Shift Change at the SteelworksThis one
shows steelworkers at shift change, walking along Ffrwdwyllt Street. This
street has greatly changed since the reference photograph on which I based the
drawing was taken. The chapel and some of the nearer houses are still there,
but this entrance to the steelworks has been closed off, and you have to go to
Margam. My steelworks pictures have always sold well in Oxfam, while steelworks
are another of my bestselling prints, along with the Plaza, the Funfair and the
Ore cranes.
