Barry Welsh Towns

In 1913, 11 millions tons of coal

were exported from here to the four corners of the globe.

This is Barry and, at the beginning of the 20th century,

it was the biggest coal port in the world.

Before these docks were built, there was nothing here

but countryside and a few small hamlets.

Barry Island, just over there, was just an island

a place best known as a destination for pilgrims.

The docks changed all that, linking the island to the mainland

and attracting a new type of pilgrim.

Barry Island became the Blackpool of South Wales,

a magnet for day-trippers

with its less holy offerings of chips...and ice cream.

Now Gavin and Stacey has given Barry a new celebrity

and if you asked, "Oh, what's occurrin' in Barry's history?",

the answer would be quite a lot.

Barry lies on the South Wales coast,

about nine miles to the west of Cardiff.

The town and the island together have a population of 47,000

but how did it come to be here and what, or who, was Barry?

So we shall follow, for this first part of our thanksgiving

for the life of St Baruc, this short order of service, here...

It's said that Barry is named after St Baruc, a 6th century Welsh saint

and today, the 27th September, is St Baruc's feast day.

On this day, every year, the faithful of Barry Island

gather to commemorate him.

Giraldus Cambrensis writes about the legend of St Baruc,

a young monk who forgot one of his master's books

and was sent back by boat to retrieve it.

The unfortunate Baruc drowned and was washed up on Barry Island.

It's said the book was miraculously discovered inside a large salmon,

remarkably, "free from all injury by water."

For centuries afterwards,

Barry Island was an important site of pilgrimage

and thousands of bodies were brought across the sands

at low tide to be buried on what was then an isolated, mysterious island.

There's no actual proof that Baruc ever existed

and his tale is more than a little fanciful

but there is evidence that Barry had been settled

for many thousands of years.

The Romans were here in the 1st century,

in the age of Hadrian, the Emperor who built the wall up north.

And just above the shoreline, here, lie the remains

of another structure built in his time.

It was discovered in the 1960s by a local schoolboy.

Howard Thomas was only 16 when he saw something unusual

lying in the ground near the beach.

I was walking past the Water's Edge Hotel,

which was then being built,

and I noticed on the ground there were foundation walls

with Roman bricks lying around.

I made a note of it and the developers,

they got in touch with me

and they told me that it was of no consequence.

But the teenage Howard Thomas wouldn't let it go.

He eventually graduated from Cambridge as an archaeologist

and, 20 years after that first discovery,

he took part in a full scale excavation of the site.

It revealed a much larger building than anyone could have imagined.

So, what have we got, Howard? A nice little Roman villa by the sea?

It's a classic Italian house.

22 rooms round an inner courtyard, which was surrounded by a veranda.

It's most likely to be an official inn for travelling civil servants.

They would probably stay overnight, have a hot bath and then horses

would be provided and then you would gallop inland with the dispatches.

-What's this, then?

-It's a Roman tile.

It's got a footprint of a Roman on it, the actual footprint.

-Oh, yeah.

-A hobnail sandal.

And the person walked across the brickyard

when the bricks were still soft,

before they were fired, and left a footprint on it.

Typical Roman hobnail sandal.

After the Romans departed, leaving only their footprints behind,

the big events of history passed Barry by.

There were Viking raids and the Normans settled there

but for centuries the area was just sparsely-populated farmland.

There were three small villages,

Barry, Merthyr Dyfan and Cadoxton.

There are still traces in today's modern town

of these villages' more rural existence.

This is Cadoxton Court, a Victorian rectory,

right alongside, something a lot older.

This dovecote was built in the 13th century.

It has roosts for 1,400 birds.

They were kept for eggs, meat and as a status symbol,

to show off to the neighbours that you really were somebody.

And a short dove flight away from Cadoxton Court

is another part of Barry's hidden history.

Nestling amongst the modern seafront apartments

is a thatched cottage dating from Tudor times.

The owner, Tom Kendrick,

showed me where the original occupants left their mark.

Yes, so this is Jane Andrews,

married to Alexander Grant in about 1585.

The flowers?

The flowers, they are, kind of, traditional.

Three flowers like that indicates it's a marriage portrait.

It probably would have been the groom next to her.

-She looks young, doesn't she?

-She does, very young.

But they married young, I think, in that period.

15 years old, perhaps?

There she is, Jane Andrews. 430 years old.

Preserved for posterity, yes. Very nice.

It's one of the nice things about old houses.

By the second half of the 1800s,

much of the landscape of South Wales had been changed dramatically.

The Industrial Revolution was in full flow

but Barry and its island remained an isolated backwater.

This is a photo taken in the early 1880s and it shows farmland,

and Barry Island surrounded by water.

The census of 1881 reveals just 85 people living here.

Ten years later, this landscape too had been transformed

largely thanks to one man.

David Davies Llandinam was a true self-made man.

Born into poverty in mid-Wales,

he made his first fortune building railways

before digging some of the most profitable mines in the Rhondda.

But all of Davies' coal had to go through the docks in Cardiff,

owned by the Marquess of Bute.

These Cardiff docks were chock-a-block

and Bute charged a premium, a penny a ton, to use them.

The self-made Davies hated paying his dues to the aristocratic Bute.

His solution was simple he'd build his own port

and the place he chose was Barry.

Although Davies was one of the wealthiest men in Britain,

he still had to get his plans through Parliament.

Bute and his influential friends stymied the first attempt

but, at the second reading, the bill was passed

and Barry Docks got the green light.

Construction started on November 14th 1884

and, remarkably, it was completed less than five years later

an extraordinary engineering achievement.

A causeway was built to the island to create the docks,

linking Barry Island to the mainland

for the first time since the ice age.

The official opening, in July 1889, was a grand affair,

with David Davies welcoming over 2,000 guests.

To keep a close eye on their business,

the owners of Barry Docks built this imposing office,

high on the hill above their creation.

Opened in 1898, it's supposed to be a calendar building -

with 365 windows for the days of the year

and 52 rooms, one for every week.

David Davies died a year after the docks were opened

but his audacious plan worked far better

than even he could have imagined.

By 1897, Barry had overtaken Cardiff

and by 1913, it was the biggest coal port in the world,

with 11 million tons of coal passing through

and 4,000 ships using the docks.

It's not hard to imagine the directors standing here,

counting their ships in and out.

Counting their fortunes, as well.

The docks brought thousands of people to live and work

in the new town.

They came from across Wales, Britain and beyond.

Historian Deirdre Beddoe was born and still lives in Barry,

her father and grandfather worked in the docks.

This dock was surrounded by coal hoists, 30 odd of them,

where the coal went straight into the hulls of the ship.

I mean, this was an exciting place.

People came in from all over, from other parts of Wales,

like my mother's mother, from Llandudoch, in Cardiganshire

but her husband was from Bristol.

His father came as well - he was a Bristolian,

he brought his wife from Germany on his ship -

and that's just one side of my family.

My grandfather worked on the dock, my father worked on the dock

and, for me, living on the sea

meant I always seemed to look out to that wider world.

I thought that was much more exciting.

You know, I could tell you because I had a little book

with all the distances given from port to port,

I could tell you in those days the distance between

the Port of Barry and Buenos Aires or Caracas

but I had no idea where Bangor or Bala was.

19th century Barry was full of shops, grand houses and schools,

all built at, "Almost American speed," according to a local paper.

Even though it was a boom town, Barry was built to last

and its late Victorian splendour is still visible today.

The Tabernacle Chapel, built in 1894 was, and remains,

the heart of the town's Welsh speaking community.

The grandest of Barry's civic buildings

is the town hall and library, opened in 1903,

but what sort of town was Barry at the beginning of the 20th century?

Historian and broadcaster Dai Smith went to school in Barry

and still lives there today.

Barry's expansion at the end of the 19th century is truly incredible.

400 people, a sleepy little village,

the docks come, 40,000 people within 20 years.

It is dynamic, it is radical, it is rough, it is tough

but it's also a place looking for a deeper sense of belonging

and that is, I think, what makes Barry unique.

It's a town out of time, in that sense.

It's a meteor that flashes across the Welsh sky.

It's different from the growth of the Welsh valleys

because that's over a longer period of time.

Barry just happens.

The railway was crucial to the history of the town, bringing

millions of tons of coal down from the valleys and out to the world.

It's said that in those days you could walk all the way from Barry

to Pontypridd along the tops of coal wagons waiting to be unloaded.

Nowadays there's very little left of the railway traffic

that used to be crammed into the docks

but these locomotives waiting to be restored

give a glimpse of the age of steam -

and it wasn't just coal that they pulled into Barry.

They also brought people.

For centuries it had only been possible to get

to Barry Island at low tide

but when a railway connection was made in 1896, all that changed.

The beaches were now accessible to anyone

who wanted a cheap day out by the sea -

and come they did in their thousands.

The First World War put a stop to the fun but in 1920s and 1930s,

with the advent of paid holiday leave,

numbers went through the roof.

In the basement of Barry Library is the archive

of The Barry and District News, which gives a first-hand account

of the impact on the town of this new mass tourism.

Local papers always paint a good portrait of what was going on.

A few letters expressing outrage at the beaches

being left knee-deep in litter

but here we have August 1937, "Record Crowds At Barry.

"120,000 in just one day on a bank holiday in August.

"They stocked up with lemonade and orange juice

"and one trader was much dismayed to find it was absolutely

"annihilated in two hours on a Sunday.

"He thought he had bought enough to last the week."

Postcards, too.

Here we have Barry Island in all its splendour.

Did they have a good time?

"Dear Lily, we are having a fine time and the weather, lovely.

"Love from Alice."

There were fortunes to be made from this new mass tourism.

The first owners of the Pleasure Park

were the White Brothers in the 1920s

but in a rollercoaster turf war they were outbid

by fairground owner Pat Collins, who took over in 1929

and the White Brothers were relegated to this smaller site.

The sign is still here, the trouble is, it's just not very cosy.

The Collins family ran the Pleasure Park until the 1990s

and Pat Collins' grandson, also called Pat,

still runs the rides on the promenade.

The island is the nearest seaside resort to Birmingham

in the country...

..that is why my grandfather actually thought,

"Yeah, we'll have a crack at that."

And that was it. And then it was unbelievable.

People say, "Oh, there were hundreds and thousands of people."

There were. There were. Literally.

Then, in September 1939,

the crowds were suddenly absent from Barry Island.

With fear of invasion, the beaches and funfair were closed...

..but, as a major port, Barry and its people had a vital role

to play in the war effort.

With its docks and maritime tradition, it was natural

that between 1939 and 1945, many men from Barry went to sea.

Most joined the Merchant Navy, bringing supplies to Britain,

running the gauntlet of German U-boats.

The cost in human lives was great.

Proportionally, more merchant seamen from Barry died

during the Second World War than from any other seaport in Britain.

This is a memorial to nearly 500 men from Barry and the surrounding area

who never returned home.

In 1943 and 1944 Barry's docks were crucial in the build-up

for the D-Day landings.

More than 8,000 American soldiers lived in camps around the town.

17-year-old Pearl Beaudette worked for the Americans in the docks.

They were homesick, a long way from their family, from their friends,

in a perfectly strange country.

I mean, they had landed from the land of plenty

into austerity, rationing, blackout.

There were many black soldiers in Barry.

Pearl was shocked by the discrimination they faced

from their fellow Americans.

Of course, being a gregarious Taff, we always wanted to say,

"Hello, how are you?", and we got told off...

..you know, you weren't supposed to talk to them.

Of course, that didn't go down very well with us, coming from Barry.

I mean, our school friends had had a different colour skin to us.

One American meant more to Pearl than any other.

Gerald Beaudette was a warrant officer

who she met through her work.

You know, when we did have any time off, we'd go to the pictures

but it was obvious...

..we were getting very attached to each other and...

..he was a very special person.

Pearl and Gerald were married

but soon afterwards he had to leave to take part in the D-Day landings.

Despite the secrecy, he got a message back to her.

He phoned me in the office.

Of course, we'd been sworn to no contact, no...

So, that was the 6th...June.

He rang because my birthday is the 7th June,

so he'd rang up to wish me happy birthday.

But that was the last time Pearl, who was expecting Gerald's child,

ever spoke to her husband.

Like many wartime marriages, it was short-lived.

And Rhoose Airport, near Cardiff,

is easily the most important airport in Wales.

The Second World War had another lasting effect on Barry.

In 1942, Rhoose had been selected as a training station

for Spitfire pilots and, by the 1950s was established as Wales'

first airport, with flights to Ireland and France.

But, for most, foreign holidays were a far off dream

and Barry Island was busier than ever.

When we used to have the miners' fortnight,

you couldn't count the people.

There would be 200 coaches in the car park.

There would be rail excursions coming from everywhere, even England -

Manchester, Liverpool, London, or from the Valleys.

I don't know how this island didn't sink,

under the amount of people that were here.

Still we had the railway,

which was bringing in train loads and train loads.

Even I can witness it, on a bank holiday Monday, in the early '60s.

I would stand on the top of the Scenic Railway

and watch lines of trains coming in, dropping off, pulling back out.

In, out, in, out. It was...mind blowing.

These thousands of people needed feeding

and what else would they eat but fish and chips?

The O'Shea family having been selling fish and chips

on Barry Island since 1946.

Barbara O'Shea remembers the early days.

They'd get off the bus and it was like a tidal wave.

They used to come down the road

where they'd stop and buy their posh hats,

with "Kiss Me Quick" on and that sort of thing.

We had just come out of a war.

For the vast majority of people, it was like coming to heaven.

Before we finished the day's work,

we then had to sit down by a great big zinc bath

and hand-peel potatoes ready for the next day because we had no peelers!

-All by hand?

-All by hand.

-And chip.

-We didn't even have a chipper.

-A hand chipper.

-You know, the old-fashioned hand chippers?

-Yeah.

Business got even better when Butlins arrived in 1966,

and an extra 7,000 people stayed on the island every week.

Broadcaster and writer Gwyn Thomas caught the appeal of Barry

perfectly in this BBC film from 1969.

This place to which we came once a year for one day,

as a reward for Sunday school obedience,

glowed like a healing radium through all our dreams.

Here, the sea hinted at a possible escape into infinity.

Hills did not block out the sky,

men did not vanish into holes in the ground.

To my eyes and ears,

Barry Island still wears the past like a robe of rustling laughter.

Thomas was a teacher at the town's grammar school.

Barry's schools were renowned,

both for the quality of their staff and the success of their pupils.

And the great headmaster of Barry Grammar School from the 1890s,

Edgar Jones, and his daughter

who then runs the girls' grammar school

was one of Wales' great educationalists

and he runs that school for the next 20-30 years as if it's an Eton.

And in very many senses, Barry, I do think, was one of the most important

schools in Wales for over a generation.

-SPEAKER:

-Gwynfor Richard Evans...

One of the school's most famous old boys was Gwynfor Evans,

son of Dan Evans, owner of the town's department store.

Born in Barry 100 years ago in 1912, he became Plaid Cymru's

first MP when he famously won the Carmarthen by-election in 1966.

CHEERING

Another Barry institution was founded in the same year

as Gwynfor Evans' birth.

This is Jenner Park, home of Barry Town Football Club.

Founded in 1912, they were regular winners of the Welsh League and Cup.

But their most memorable games were reserved for European competition,

like the time they beat Portuguese giants Porto 3-1 in the Champions League.

COMMENTATOR: Certainly at the moment they're playing

with a great deal of pride.

There's another opportunity as well! CHEERING

And the header goes in and they're ahead!

The goal is scored by Mike Flynn

and Barry Town lead the Portuguese side.

Since then, well, it has been a struggle with

the ownership of the club changing hands several times.

Now, it's the supporters who run the club

and everyone here hopes that the good times will return.

The town of Barry has also suffered its ups and downs.

The docks went in to slow decline after the Second World War

and the railway became better known as a graveyard for steam engines.

From 1959 Geest did import bananas to Barry from the West Indies

but it left in the '80s.

Where there were once thousands of ships,

nowadays the arrival of one boat can be seen as a bit of an event.

But the docks are by no means dead.

The long-standing Dow Corning chemical works employs 600 people

and its products still go through the docks to far-flung destinations.

And Barry, like docklands everywhere,

has its waterfront developments.

And so it is that the coal trucks have been

replaced by supermarket trolleys

and where they used to rumble by,

there are now car parks and balconies.

Barry Island also suffered. Butlins finally closed in 1996.

The Pleasure Park is a shadow of its glory days,

with the famous log flume now closed down,

no longer ringing with the screams of terrified day-trippers.

But just when it seemed that Barry was no more than a faded

postcard of holidays past, it was given a new moment in the sun.

Yes, Gavin And Stacey. Essex boy meets Barry girl,

one of the most popular British comedies in recent years.

You can feel its effect everywhere

and once again people are coming from all over the world

to visit film locations here on the island and in town.

This is Number 47, Trinity Street. Home of Stacey's mum, Gwen.

It's only small

but it's one of the biggest tourist attractions in Barry.

# Tell me tomorrow I'll wait by the window for you. #

When Glenda Kenyon's house became a key location for the series,

she couldn't have imagined how it would change her life.

Oh, my word. Look at this.

-Glenda, this is your shrine to Gavin And Stacey!

-Yes.

-This is a museum, it's a shrine, it's a place of pilgrimage.

-Yes.

-They come and they sign?

-Yep.

-Do you count them in?

-Yes, yes.

I'm up to 10,185 people.

It is. There are people from all over the world.

Australia, India, Africa, New Zealand,

London, Bristol, my estate...

-Essex?

-Yep.

-Hiya, Mum.

-Hiya, love. Was that Doris out?

-Yeah.

How's her leg?

-Fine.

-That's a nice top.

-TK Maxx. Five quid down from ten.

-Can't go wrong. Fancy an omelette?

-Aye, go on then.

-Ness will be here at six.

-Will she want an omelette?

-I don't know.

-I guess this is it.

-The famous frying pan.

-Do you use it?

-Not for omelettes!

HE LAUGHS

-Oh, hi, Ness.

-All right, Bryn.

-How's it going down the slots?

I won't lie to you, Bryn, I hates it.

Barry Island's not what it used to be, but what can you do?

Times change, people move on.

But Gavin And Stacey HAS changed Barry

bringing tens of thousands of new visitors in its wake.

And now with talk of plans to demolish the old funfair

and replace it with a new leisure complex,

people here are positive about the future.

I'm back where I started, on the floor talking to people

and the amount of different accents I am hearing now -

Japan, Australia, Germany, Ireland, all over -

which before, we never used to hear.

Barry's back on the map,

and we'll benefit from that for a number of years.

It depends on what happens with the developments around,

on Barry Island. The fairground, the old Butlins site

but hopefully something positive will happen there

and we'll be here for another 50-odd, 60 years.

What's next now is to make Barry Island an experience.

There's a lot of planning,

a lot of money want to be investing and signing.

We've got the roads, we've got the railways,

we've got the infrastructure.

People are interested and want to invest on Barry Island.

So it's got to be a winner.

Barry's heyday - those extraordinary years at the end of the 19th

century when entrepreneurial drive could lead to fortunes being

made through coal, or could lead to this place becoming

a paradise for day-trippers - well, those days are gone.

But Barry is more than just hanging on in there.

Something has been born again here and...well,

Barry and its island are happening places.

Things are occurring here once more.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd