Barry Island - photos, history, railway and memories

[Lucky JACKSON]

No man is an island - except Barry Island.

Every mention of my hometown comes with a stack of flak,knowing jibes and now bloody Porthcawl has been referred as an upscale edition by the editor.
It aint right.
I feel it's time someone restored the balance.
Some Barry facts
1) When the Welsh edition of Monopoly was launched Barry got the covetted Old Kent Road spot.
2) Barry has a park dedicated to the blind. It used to have a wooden rail alongside perfumed plants with the plants name in braille.
It now has weeds and the shelters have been bricked in to stop that other smell.
Then the council built a pond.
Then they banned dogs.
3) My favourite snippet of overheard conversation was a mother and a daughter arguing while walking their dog. 'He's not a paedo he's just a pervert'. Local colour you just don't get in the city.
Please feel free to add more favourable facts and restore some of the old dignity.

 

[1927]

When leaving the public library on King's square a few years ago I noticed that one of the drunks was drinking Kaliber. That sums up Barry more than anything else I can think of!

 

[Brockway]

There was a massive fruit fly epidemic at Barry Island that peaked in the summer of 1966. Apparently it was down to bananas being dumped at Barry Docks. Shopkeepers were wiping hundreds of dead flies off their shelves and the general public had to keep their windows permanently shut despite the hot weather.

 

[oooomegrapes]

The cockles from the beach made me sick once

the local shops have the most amount of flavours of mad dog 20/20 in the western hemisphere

 

[Velouria]

Barry who?

 

[oooomegrapes]

he was the fat bloke in enders who janiiiiiiiiiine chucked off a cliff

 

[suzee blue cheese]

I cycled to Barry from Port Talbot when I was 12 with my younger bro and his mate. They had Racers, I had a Moulton Mini

We bunked in to Barry Butlins through a squeezable gap in the railings. It was great. Much more exciting than Aberavon.

We stayed overnight at the Youth Hostel, near St Athans if I remember correctly.

I'm so glad my childhood spanned the 60s & 70s - the freedoms we had compared to what kids have today..

 

[phildwyer]

A bit rough at night innit. I remember playing gigs at the Sea Lion, just by the causeway to the island in the early 80's and there was *always* a fight, even when there were only five people in the place. I loved the funfair and the Butlins in the 70's but its all a bit grim these days.

 

[RubberBuccaneer]

'Pleasure park ' is pushing it a bit. I feel distinctly undertattooed when I go there and keep my sunglasses on all the time so as not to catch peoples eye.

The beach is lovely though, always combed by a tractor...good for the kids!

 

[Dai Sheep]

I used to love going Barry whwn I was a kid - especially the pleasure park. Its only when youre older that you realise how tacky the place really is.

Last time I went was a couple of years ago in the evening with the mrs. It was like fucking chav city. We stayed about ten minutes and went while we still had our wallets.

Shame, could be such a nice place...

 

[editor]

I used to go to Barry a lot when I was kid - I can even remember playing in the rows of sorry rusting steam locomotives in Dai Woodham's yard!

I'm made a start with a load of photos taken a few weeks ago, but I'll see if I can dig up some archive stuff too.

Anyone else used to holiday on Barry?

http://www.urban75.org/photos/wales/barry-island.html

 

[mwgdrwg]

Nice one editor.

I went to Butlins on Barry Island a couple of times when I was a nipper.

 

[Biddlybee]

Nice

 

[Herbsman.]

Those pics are amateurish, they dont address the concerns of the learned differences inbetween real and the 'superfluous' experience, what the eye sees and the eye knows are two entirely partial subtances, distance is no object and thats because the metaphysical metatarsal metaphor is indicative of the fact that the editor was staring nil at the LCD screen when he tooke them

 

[passenger]

use to go there every year, when i was a kid brings back memories

 

[phildwyer]

Remember the "Traum Boot?" Its still there.

 

[Sweaty Betty]

I remember the big yellow numbers on the beach wall, so you wouldnt get lost..........i would still panic , as there was sooo many on the beach back then, i would invariably get lost....

 

[cesare]

Daytrips when I was a kid staying at my nan's. There or Porthcawl usually.

 

[Brockway]

Anyone else used to holiday on Barry?

Yup, Fred West. A regular visitor throughout his life. There are photos of him at Barry Island in a couple of those True Crime books.

Also cool sci-fi writer Alastair Reynolds is from Barry (although he now lives in Holland). The steam locomotive scrap yard influenced his version of outer space!

We used to have street trips to Barry Island. Oh the glamour...

Nice pics btw

 

[editor]

I remember the big yellow numbers on the beach wall, so you wouldnt get lost..

Ah yes, I remember them. And I got horribly lost several times - but then the beach used to be packed solid in those days.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

So what happened to the scrap yard? Is it not there any more? I went there on a trip organised by the Great Western Preservation Society sometime in the late 60's and was most impressed by the masses of rusty steam locos all parked on lots of parallel railway lines. I think they bought some locos and parts to use on the Paignton and Kingswear line which they later opened as a working steam line. I visited Barry several times years later, on the way to other places, but it always seemed a grim place to me, even in the summer.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

Those pics are amateurish, they dont address the concerns of the learned differences inbetween real and the 'superfluous' experience, what the eye sees and the eye knows are two entirely partial subtances, distance is no object and thats because the metaphysical metatarsal metaphor is indicative of the fact that the editor was staring nil at the LCD screen when he tooke them

Herbsman

You are the arts correspondent of the Underwater Basket Weavers gazette. I have my copy of the free colour supplement for January 1957 and I claim my ten shillings and sixpence

 

[editor]

So what happened to the scrap yard? Is it not there any more?

The scrapyard's long gone, although there is now a preserved steam line running past the site. http://www.valeglamrail.co.uk/

 

[Cadmus]

Anyone else used to holiday on Barry?

No, but it seems whatever island u holiday on you get similar pics.

nice pics, as always.

 

[Strumpet]

Beautiful pics.

Yup used to go on day trips alot when small.

 

[suzee blue cheese]

Back in the early 70's when children were let out during their own childhoods, my brother, his mate and I set off on our bicycles from Broomhill in Port Talbot heading for the Youth Hostel near Barry, in St Athans I think it was. I was the oldest having just turned 12.

We squeezed through the railings into Barry Butlins and had a great day, staying overnight at the YH before heading homeward the next day. Ah those heady days of childhood independence.

 

[RubberBuccaneer]

Barry scares me

 

[Brockway]

Barry scares me

Apparently there is a bit of a feud between the yoot of Ely and Barry at the moment. Young scamps from Barry have been coming to Ely looking for trouble.

 

[Sweaty Betty]

They been exchanging pot shots for years......

 

[Brockway]

They been exchanging pot shots for years......

I didn't know that. Seems geographically quite an odd one to me. Do kids from Llanrumney fight kids from Newport? Maybe they do.

Anyway my brother-in-law found a youth from Barry cowering in his front garden the other week. Apparently he had been chased all over Ely and was shitting himself. He had to be driven out of the area by the coppers for his own safety, once it was established he wasn't on the rob.