The Cardiff Book of Days (7 page)

1976:
Two Scottish rugby fans got themselves into an unfortunate predicament when they got stranded on the West Stand roof at the Arms Park on one of the coldest nights of the year. For reasons best known to themselves they had climbed up a ladder onto the roof the previous evening but when they tried to come down they discovered that the hatch that they had clambered through had been closed. Sustained only by half a bottle of scotch, they remained there until they were spotted just before kick-off peering over the edge of the roof. Their day did not improve much; Wales, captained by Mervyn Davies, won 28-6. (Robert Cole & Stuart Farmer,
The Wales Rugby Miscellany
, Sports Vision Publishing, 2008)

1770:
The stables at the Red House Inn (on the site of the site of the Cardiff Arms) were destroyed by fire. Three horses died in the blaze. The inn was owned by the Bradley family who were involved in horse racing in Glamorgan. In 1796 John Bradley ‘Postmaster, Mail Contractor and Innkeeper' owned the Angel Hotel. By 1860 the family were wealthy enough to lease Splott Farm at 300 guineas a year. Ten years later they unsuccessfully petitioned the Commissioners of Turnpikes for exemption from tolls for carrying of hay to their stables twelve miles away. (William Rees,
Cardiff: A History of the City
, Cardiff Corporation, 1969)

1978:
Guitarist and folk singer Victor Parker, well-known for performing in pubs around Bute Street, was given a New Orleans-style funeral following an all-night wake at the Butetown Community Centre. Guitarists from all over South Wales contributed plectrums for a distinctive wreath. Headed by a jazz band, the coffin was carried along Bute Street to St Mary's Church where the band played ‘When the saints go marching in'. (John O'Sullivan & Bryn Jones,
Cardiff: A Centenary Celebration
, The History Press, 2005)

1775:
‘A vessel bound from South Carolina to Bristol with a cargo of wheat and flour foundered near Sully. Mr Jones of Fonnon and Mr Price, Duffryn, and others came to preserve the goods but, on the 10th to the 12th, country people broke in to steal flour. On the 12th, at night, some broke the ropes that kept the vessel firm. For four days the tide cast up the wheat and people by the hundreds, farmers and others, pilfered it and sold it at 4
s
a bushel. The vessel was taken to Aberthaw.' (Contemporary accounted quoted in E. Alwyn Benjamin,
Penarth 1841-71, A Glimpse of the Past
, D. Brown & Sons, 1980)

1994:
The reputed skull of St Teilo, mounted on Art Nouveau silver, was returned to Llandaff Cathedral on this date, St Teilo's Day, by the last of the male line of the Mathew family, its traditional keepers. Though the skull has been dated by experts only to the fifteenth century, it was revered for hundreds of years as a true relic of one of Llandaff's patron saints. In medieval times three churches, Llandaff, Llandilo Vawr and Penally, all claimed to possess his body. (Llandaff Cathedral guidebook)

1794:
To mark the completion of the canal from Merthyr Tydfil a flotilla of horse-drawn boats arrived in Cardiff ‘laden with the produce of the ironworks to the great joy of the whole town'. The borough's Water Bailiff, a Mr Bird, was given the honour of steering the first one. In the words of one observer ‘nothing appears more extraordinary than, from a boat navigating this canal, to look down on the River Taff dashing among the rocks a hundred yards below'. In 1793, before the canal was completed, Judge Hardinge, travelling from Brecon to the Cardiff Assizes, travelled from Merthyr to Pontypridd by boat, accompanied by Samuel Homfray, with a harpist in attendance to entertain these two eminent gentlemen. (
Glamorgan Historian
, 1972)

1977:
A lorry demolished the landmark glass canopy over the entrance to Cardiff's Queen's Hotel. (Stewart Williams,
Cardiff Yesterday
)

1877:
At the borough police court Nicola Campi, an Italian sailor, aged 26, was charged with stabbing Lorenzo Fasserci, also an Italian. ‘Bute Dock Police Sergeant Grist stated that on receiving information of the occurrence he boarded the vessel lying in the East Bute Dock. He found the defendant on board who, on being accused of stabbing the complainant said in Italian ‘Yes, I did' and produced the sheath knife which he had used for the purpose. The complainant being still unable to leave the
Hamadryad
hospital ship, the prisoner was remanded.' (
Western Mail
)

1887:
William Thorne was fined £15 after being found guilty of defacing the statue of John Batchelor in The Hayes by throwing paint at it. Batchelor, a former Mayor of Cardiff, had been a combative Radical. When he died in 1883 his colleagues decided to erect the statue in his memory. His political enemies objected strongly to its prominent location and it had to be given police protection. (Stewart Williams,
Glamorgan Historian
, 1972)

1884:
The trial began in Cardiff of Dr William Price (84) of Llantrisant who was accused of attempting to burn the body of his infant son, instead of burying it, and with intent to prevent the holding of an inquest. Price was quite a character: freethinker, Chartist, herbalist, vegetarian, nudist, nationalist and, it would seem, father in his old age. He habitually dressed in green coat and trousers with a red waistcoat and a fox-skin cap with the fox's brush hanging down behind. He had become an ardent advocate of cremation in preference to burial. The judge, Sir James Fitzjames Stephens, summing up, expressed the view that Price had broken no law that he knew of. He said that it was his strong view that it was not the duty of judges to introduce new crimes. The first jury could not reach agreement on a verdict. A second trial took place in which Price was acquitted. This was the Test Case that The Cremation Society of England (set up in 1874) needed. Accepting the judge's stipulation that cremations should be organised in such a manner that gave no offence to neighbours, the first cremation took place in 1885 in Woking. (Elizabeth Dart, ‘When Legal History was Made in Cardiff' in
The Cardiff Book
,
Vol.3
, 1977)

1923:
First BBC radio broadcasts from Cardiff. The call-sign of the studio (a small room above a cinema in Castle Street) was 5WA. The opening ceremony was conducted by John Reith, the BBC General Manager. The first programme was at 5 p.m. and consisted of stories for children. Later in the evening listeners heard Mostyn Thomas (baritone) and the Carston Quartet. At 10 p.m. the Wireless Orchestra presented ‘dance music and a pot-pourri of Welsh airs'. Initially the BBC had no intention of providing a special service for Wales. Cardiff was seen merely as the headquarters of its West Region and there were no Welsh people on the staff. The only Welsh language broadcasts that could be picked up in the area came from Radio Eireann. W.J. Gruffydd, Professor of Welsh at University College in Cardiff, set up Cylch Dewi to campaign for Welsh-language programmes. Station head E.R. Appleton replied that it was natural to restrict broadcasting to the official language and that it would be wrong to yield to ‘extremists' who were trying to force Welsh on listeners. (John Davies,
A History of Wales
, 1990 (in Welsh), 1993 (English))

2010:
Rugby player Andy Powell, who had been capped fourteen times for Wales, was arrested after a golf buggy was taken from the team's hotel and driven along the M4 in the small hours. He was subsequently charged with ‘driving a mechanically-propelled vehicle while unfit through drink'. Powell and the rest of the Wales players had spent the previous evening celebrating their dramatic 31-24 victory over Scotland at the Millennium Stadium. Wales had trailed 14-24 with only four minutes to go but in what the
South Wales Argus
described as ‘the greatest comeback since Lazarus' had taken advantage of the Scots being down to thirteen men after two men were ‘sin-binned' by the referee. Powell admitted that he and a friend had driven the buggy along the motorway to a service station after finding that the hotel was not able to serve them breakfast at 4 a.m. ‘This kind of behaviour cannot be tolerated in a professional elite sporting environment,' the WRU stated. ‘We have acted quickly and incisively in order to leave no ambiguity over the dim view we take of this situation'. Powell was sacked from the squad. (
Western Mail
)

1773:
A cockfighting event held in Cardiff brought in spectators from a wide area, even including inmates from the town jail. Howell Morgan of Pentyrch, also a rat-catcher, Methodist preacher and classical scholar, was so highly-regarded in the sport that he corresponded with the King of Denmark on the subject. (William Rees,
Cardiff: A History of the City
, Cardiff Corporation, 1969)