First published in: City GENT Issue 128. January 2006
It is with much sadness that Bradwan morns the closing of perhaps Bradford’s most culturally significant pub. When you read this Brother Eamon of the Melbourne, on White Abbey Road, will have called last orders for the final time. Despite being fairly close to Valley Parade it was never really a City pub, but Eamon is a character, the pub was full of characters, and he also had the widest range of live bands of any pub venue in the city, with no door charge. Since the Royal Standard was lost for another ring road we reckon central Bradford has lost a least half a dozen pubs that provided entertainment and have not gained a single new venue of any kind: which shows just what an insult Bradford Capital of Culture was to the people of Bradford.
COLCHESTER 2
There is an earlier Bradwan Guide at Colchester (123).
We are just going to give some advice based on our experience of seeing City here last season, but do not worry, this is unlikely to become a habit.
Layer Road
The ground is a very long walk from the town, there seemed to be no buses linking the two, there are no pubs next to the ground and only a few on the way there, and Colchester, apparently, has almost no taxis and the few there are are driven by neanderthals. The ground is very old fashioned, and they are desperate to move, but at least the away end is covered, so it is better than Chesterfield.
Some streets in the town centre are obviously oozing wealth, and some look almost as poor as Manningham: and Colchester may be the only place in Britain with more kebab houses than Bradford. We guess this comes from Colchester’s years as a massive army town; but nearly all the barracks we passed were boarded up awaiting redevelopment or dry rot.
SWANSEA
Swansea’s new ground is a thousand times easier to get to by car than the old Vetch and you go straight there you will see nothing of Swansea; but according to Richard Stedman of The Football & Real Ale Guide there is not one single boozer within walking distance of it, and we reckon Swansea is worth looking around rather than missing totally.
Swansea’s worst feature is the frighteningly busy A road that cuts the place in two. . There is nothing they can do about it, the hills and the sea rule out a by-pass or a tunnel, but it is a real shame that the centre is cut off from the bay, harbour and museums.
Swansea Bay
It is a simply stunning sweep of seascape, although you really have to walk along the front a little to fully appreciate it.
All the museums are within the Harbour redevelopment, as is one of Swansea’s best boozers. Swansea Museum is a traditional town museum, and all the better for it.
The Transport Museum was very small, and it may have been eaten by a bigger predator museum, but worth a look if it has survived.
We like Dylan Thomas a lot. There is not a vast amount on show here but the display is well thought out and appeals to fans and informs folk who as yet know little. This museum also has a good book shop with a large second-hand section.
The Queens Hotel
Marvellous beer and splendid food within the harbour area.
The Adam & Eve
We have never seen this pub in any pub guide, but enjoyed drinking here. It is a rock pub so dark that it looks smokey even when it is not. The Brains Dark Mild was good and if you go to Swansea by train you will almost certainly pass it as you walk down the High Street
Swansea Evening Post
This is an excellent paper and we wish the Bradford Telegraph & Argus was half as good. The C.E.O of Bradwan was born in Gorseinon just to the west of Swansea. On his last visit this was enough for him to be featured in the paper The feature was by Chris Peregrine, and the photo by Gayle Mason. It appeared on the 14th September 2004, the day after my birthday.
The reporter and photographer were both friendly and professional; whereas the Bradford Telegraph & Argus could not be bothered even mentioning his first book launch, despite it being supported by Kenneth Branagh, and their photographers often acted as though they hate the world general and the people they are photographing in particular.
Link to very large image
Text only version of report.
Castle
It is a large lump of rock that most folk just walk past, but it is worth pausing for a look. The toilets nearby are also a must see. They are simply the cleanest and best looking loos we have ever seen. How can Swansea manage that when free public toilets in England are becoming rarer than competence within the FA.
Market
Swansea is still famous for shellfish and this is the place to try it. You should also be able to by laverbread. If you like spinach you will love this seaweed.
According to a Kenneth Branagh’s secretary Milton Keynes is home to a large proportion of London’s taxi drivers. It is a town designed for multi car families and easy access to the smoke; and seeing it has a higher than average number of detached houses most of the cabbies will be able to play their Chaz & Dave records at full blast without annoying more than a dozen of their neighbours.
These are interesting times when Britain’s longest running Cultural Football Guide can write a full paragraph about Milton Keynes without slagging the town; but seeing Bradford has lost nearly all it’s music venues and the future of the football club is no where near certain; it’s not has if we can claim the cultural high ground over any other town.
Milton Keynes, like Scunthorpe, was built around a lot of villages; although Scunthorpe has the advantage of not being planned in the Nineteen Sixties. We guess Milton Keynes was chosen as the name, rather than Bradwell, Castlethorpe or Little Linford (all of which have Norman churches), because it was roughly in the centre of the planned new town. The centre of Melton Keynes feels a bit more like a town centre than Scunthorpe, but it only has shopping mall shops and big pub chain boozers, and it is very easy to get lost in the rest of the town if you are new to the place. On the other hand they have a newly built theatre complex, and an orchestra; whereas Bradford only ever managed a part share in the Halle even when it was rich.
A small but bright and sparky museum in Wolverton. Most of the history is about the area before the new town was built.
POST SCRIPT
This may be the last Bradwan Nationwide Cultural Guide. We have already written about all the other towns City are due to visit this season; apart from possibly Cardiff; and if City get to play in Cardiff I will ask for Bradford to turn into a prosperous and well run city while the age of miracles lasts. What we do next season depends on what happens this. If City go down there will be lots of new towns to write about, but we doubt the club will survive to visit them, and the City GENT will follow it to extinction. If a miracle happens and we go up it will have been at least three years since we covered the towns in the Second Division. If we stay in the Third we may have had our wells of enthusiasm drained dry by hopeless football and a leaderless club; but there could be seven new towns, and we have always said there was more to following City, and life in general, than watching football. If there is not we are in big trouble!
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