Civic engagements week ending 4 November 2018

Parlour visit by delegation from Beijing

One of the many pleasant duties of being Lord Mayor is meeting and greeting visiting groups to the City. Many of them come from abroad and relish the opportunity to meet the civic head and be shown around the historic Guildhall.

Due to the non-availability of the Lord Mayor, I was initiated into this role this morning when we were visited by a group from Beijing, who I believe form part of an infrastructure commission for that City.

We started off the visit in the Lord Mayor's Parlour, where our guests signed the visitors' book and we exchanged token gifts. I then took them into the Council Chamber which was constructed in 1934 with the rest of the building and panelled with Australian walnut, shipped over from Australia specifically for this purpose.

The columns in the Council Chamber are also Australian walnut and are one continuous length of wood, 22 feet tall with no join. There is a tapestry that runs around the chamber just below the ceiling, which depicts a scene from the National Eisteddfod and which is reputed to be the longest tapestry in Wales. As well as being decorative it is quilted and therefore helps with the acoustics in the room.

We then went onto the Brangwyn Hall to see the famous Brangwyn panels. These 'Empire panels' were commissioned in 1920 by the House of Lords to represent the British Empire and serve as a memorial to those who lost their lives in the First World War.

The artist commissioned was Frank Brangwyn, who was born in Bruges, Belgium in 1864 and who had a Welsh father and English mother. After 7 years of work, the House of Lords turned down his work reputedly because they objected to the bright colours and bare-chested native women. They still had to pay the £20,000 cost of the commission.

Both Swansea and Cardiff showed an interest in housing the panels but Swansea won out as they were still constructing the Guildhall and were able to raise the ceiling of the proposed Assembly Hall by 44 feet to accommodate them in what became the Brangwyn Hall.

The Brangwyn Hall was what our visitors had come to see and there were lots of photographs taken of the party and the panels themselves.

Abbey Players - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

I am at an age when I saw all the classic films - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins - when they first came out. And now I am attending stage shows of the same productions, all celebrating their fiftieth anniversary and more.

Last night's production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was staged by Abbey Players, who despite being an amateur theatre company produced a highly professional and entertaining performance.

The company's website tells us that Abbey Players started in 1960 when 22 singers, actors and dancers from various societies in Swansea but mainly made up of members of Uplands Arts Club met in Cwmdonkin House to answer the call of Swansea University who were raising funds for their Development Appeal.

The group decided to perform ‘The Boy Friend’ in the Llewelyn Hall (YMCA) on January 24th to 28th 1961. This was intended as ‘One Off’ performance only but that turned out not to be the case. The Appeal benefited by £200.

They are called the Abbey Players because, not having a rehearsal room readily at their disposal, they rehearsed in Singleton Abbey which was part of the University complex and hence the name ‘Abbey Players’ was conceived.

The website records that Abbey Players did not produce a show in 1962. In 1963 , they produced ‘Salad Days ’and thereafter produced a show every year in the Llewelyn Hall until 1978 when they made the momentous decision to perform in the Grand Theatre with the inaugural show ‘How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying’ and they have put on a show there every year since.

The old adage of never work with children or animals did not apparently phase the producers of last night's show. The youngsters were outstanding and are clearly very talented. Their adult counterparts were also excellent.

The dog, who is not credited in the programme, was led onto the stage on a lead at appropriate moments looking a bit bewildered but keen to drag its handler into a willing audience where no doubt it would have been petted and fed treats.

The theatre was packed and gave a deserved standing ovation to the large cast at the end. The show runs until Saturday. If you can, go and see it.

Civic engagements week ending 28 October 2018

Civic engagements week ending 21 October 2018

Friends of Cwmdonkin Park fundraising coffee morning

Swansea's Mansion House is in serious need of investment, which if done properly could both pay for itself and being in a nice income for the council. However, in the meantime it remains an iconic venue for charity events and other occasions.

The latest organisation to take advantage of this opportunity was the Friends of Cwmdonkin Park. They have recently been reformed to both enhance and protect this historic park in Swansea's Uplands district.

As their website says, this park has undergone many changes as a result of winning heritage lottery funding and these alterations culminated in celebrations for the 100th anniversary of Dylan Thomas’ birth in 2014.

The Friends of Cwmdonkin Park is a community group dedicated to supporting the council and community in its attempts to keep the park a beautiful space for everyone to use. This includes:

• Sponsoring and supporting activity that maintains and improves the park
• Encouraging people to use the park by providing local events and activities

This morning's event saw about 45 local people gather in the Mansion House to raise money for this cause and, as is usual, there was cake. There was also an outstanding performance by two stalwarts of Swansea's Little Theatre, who gave us a history of the park, read related poems, and even performed a scene from Dylan Thomas's 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog'.

One of the poems was 'The Hunchback In The Park', which starts:

The hunchback in the park
A solitary mister
Propped between trees and water
From the opening of the garden lock
That lets the trees and water enter
Until the Sunday sombre bell at dark

Eating bread from a newspaper
Drinking water from the chained cup
That the children filled with gravel
In the fountain basin where I sailed my ship
Slept at night in a dog kennel
But nobody chained him up.

Dylan Thomas's birthplace is at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, just across from the reservoir in the park. He lived there until he was 19 and made use of and wrote about the park.

One of his poems is inscribed on an engraved memorial stone to the poet which was erected in 1963. One of the projects being pursued by the Friends is to restore this stone so that the poem is readable once more.

Citizenship Ceremony

Until I started to scrutinise the Lord Mayor's schedule more closely a few months ago, I had not realised that citizenship ceremonies were a thing in the UK. They sort of sneaked up on me without my noticing.

These ceremonies are big in the USA of course and apparently have been here since February 2004. Some areas make a big fuss, others just get on with them quietly behind closed doors. In Swansea we fall into the former category.

So today, I was dressed in the full Deputy Lord Mayor's robes and joined one of the Deputy Lord Lieutenants and the High Sheriif (complete with garters and sword) to welcome eleven new citizens to the UK.

Many of them had been settled in Swansea for some time and were already part of the community and contributing to the local economy. They brought along friends and members of their family to watch and, after affirming their loyalty to the Queen, were presented with a certificate, a welcome pack and a souvenir present.

They had come from countries all over the world to make their home here and it was important that they were made welcome. This ceremony was the welcoming committee.

MOCSA Young Welsh Singer of the Year

From the Soroptimist lunch we were whisked to the Swansea University Bay Campus for the Morriston Orpheus Choir Supporters' Association annual concert and 42nd final of the MOSCA Young Welsh Singer of the Year Competition.

I have to admit that until I got there and read the programme I had not realised how prestigious this competition was. Previous winners include Bryn Terfel and Rebecca Evans. The competition has been going since 1977 under the auspices of the Morriston Orpheus Choir and boasts a fabulous trophy and a £2,000 first prize.

The standard of the competition was very high and it was obvious that the judges were having problems choosing between them. In the end they awarded the prize to the exceptional Kieron Connor Valentine, a counter-tenor.

The evening was enhanced by the singing of the outstanding Morriston Orpheus Choir, who had to add to their planned programme due to the time it was taking for the judges to decide the winner.

Soroptimist International Swansea's 85th Annual lunch

My day started with a very pleasant lunch with the Swansea branch of Soroptimist International, the oldest branch in Wales, having been founded in 1933 at the inaugural dinner in the Hotel Metropole in Wind Street.

This was the 85th annual lunch of this organisation, which is part of a much wider internatiional network, carrying out charitable works across the world. Some of their activity in Swansea includes:

• reading to youngsters in St. Helen's Primary School, 90% of whom are from different ethnic backgrounds and where over 20 languages are spoken;
• putting together emergency toilet bags and other essential items for Swansea Women's Refuge; 
• donating items to the East Side Food Bank, including sanitary products to help tackle period poverty;
• making and collecting baby blankets and jumpers for Africa and Romania;
• Making Twiddlemuffs for dementia patients in Awel y Mor care home and for SENSE for deaf and blind children;
• and helping other charities including Swansea Young Single Homeless, Guide Dogs for the Blind and Alzheimers Swansea.

As I said when proposing the toast to the Soroptimists, organisations such as this and the people who give up their spare time and often their money to support good causes and to help those less fortunate than themselves are the glue that keeps our society together.

They intervene where governments and local councils are unable or unwilling to do so, and the lives of those they assist are enhanced because of the work they do.

Civic engagements week ending 14 October 2018

Glamorgan Harvest Festival

Considering how long I have been in politics I quite surprised myself that tonight was the first time I have attended a harvest festival. It was organised by the Glamorgan branch of the NFU and Young Farmers and was held in the magnificent surroundings of the Margam Abbey Church.

This architectural gem was previously unknown to me and has quite a history. Wikipedia recounts that the abbey was founded in 1147 as a daughter house of Clairvaux by Robert, Earl of Gloucester, and was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Early Christian crosses found in the close vicinity and conserved in the nearby Margam Stones Museum suggest the existence of an earlier Celtic monastic community.

The abbey was dissolved by King Henry VIII in 1536 and sold to Sir Rice Mansel. From the Mansel family the abbey eventually passed into their descendants in the female line, the Talbot family. In the 19th century, C R M Talbot constructed a mansion at Margam Castle which overlooks the abbey ruins. The nave of the abbey continued in use as the parish church, as it does to this day. It is Anglo-Catholic in its churchmanship.

Margam Abbey now consists of the intact nave and impressive surrounding ruins. Those ruins not belonging to the church are now owned by the County Council.

The service itself included an offering of produce from local farmers which will be donated to a nearby hospice and ended with a very generous buffet.