Swansea Archives – Page 2 of 6

Posted on February 21, 2018May 6, 2019 by emma cownie — 21 Comments

Time to Call it a Night?

I woke up a bit earlier than I usually do this morning. It was just before dawn. The night was no longer inky black but had a bluish tinge to it. The light has been changing ever since. Now it is mauve. It will lighten until the light is pinkish, then finally white. Throughout the course of the winter I have been used to waking in the dark and waiting for the sun to rise. No so much recently. The days are lengthening noticeably. Instead of night arriving unexpected at 4 o’clock it now holds off about tea time. This gradual lengthening of the day has a natural rhythm and logic.

The sudden arrival of British Summer Time (BST) or Daylight Saving Time (DST) when the clocks are turned forward an hour in late March does not. It feels like we are catapulted into the summer with more light than we know what to do with. I find it odd that I am sad at the arrival of BST because all that extra daylight means I can paint for longer. I should be happy. I am happy but the abrupt lengthening of the day feels wrong. The “loss” of an hour is also tiring. It’s much worse in the autumn. Instead of easing into winter we are hurled into the darkness. Others feel this way too.

The EU is debating this right now. There have been calls for the European Commission to launch a “full evaluation” of the current system and come up with new plans, if necessary. In Europe, currently, EU law sets a common date in spring and autumn on which clocks must be put forward and back by one hour in all 28 member states. Supporters of the DST say it saves energy and reduces traffic accidents but critics argue it can cause long-term health problems and studies have generally failed to show significant energy savings associated with the shift.

They hate it in Finland. More than 70,000 Fins (out of 5.5 million) signed a petition asking the state to give up the practice. French MEP Karima Delli argued that moving clocks forward to summer time left people tired and led to increased accidents”Studies that show an increase in road accidents or sleep trouble during the time change must be taken seriously”, the French MEP said, adding that estimated energy savings were “not conclusive”. Belgian lawmaker Hilde Vautmans, however, said that changing daylight saving could mean either losing an hour of daylight every day for seven months in summer or sending children to school in the dark for five months over winter.

I was surprised that the USA also uses DST. I assumed that with so many time zones, nine, that they would not have wanted the added complication of DST. It was introduced during the Second World War and most mainland states areas still have DST except Arizona (although the Navajo have DST on tribal lands). Many studies have been done in the US that show the negative effects of the biannual shift to DST. Losing that hour’s sleep in spring affects health; strokes and heart attacks are more likely, there are more traffic accidents and it affects relationships, tiredness causes more arguments.

Interestingly, one big country has tried life without DST. In 2011 Russia (who have on less than 11 time zones in their massive country) first tried clocks on year-round summer time but that proved unpopular then in 2014 switched to permanent winter time or “standard time”. Russian MPs said permanent summer time had created stress and health problems, especially in northern Russia where mornings would remain darker for longer during the harsh winter months. However, I have yet to discover whether the return to permanent “winter time” is popular with the Russian people.

So if I want to avoid this biannual lurch forward and back in the day, I can move to Russia, Arizona or one of the other 70 countries that don’t bother with it including Japan, India, and China.

Posted on January 27, 2018July 12, 2022 by emma cownie — 29 Comments

Frank Brangwyn and Brangwyn Hall

You cannot miss Frank Brangwyn’s name in Brynmill, Swansea as there’s a huge hall that takes his name. These past two weeks or so I have worked as an invigilator for Swansea University. One of the venues used for exams is this beautiful hall. The murals that adorn the massive walls are stunning.

Frank Brangwn was born in Bruges, Belgium (Welsh father, English mother) in 1867. His father was a church architect and craftsman. Frank was largely self-taught but that did not stop him from becoming a painter, water colourist, engraver, illustrator and progressive designer. In his youth, Brangwyn had joined Royal Navy Volunteers and travelled extensively including Russia and South Africa.

He was an astonishingly proflic artist. As well as paintings and drawings, he produced designs for stained glass, furniture, ceramics, table glassware, buildings and interiors. He was also a lithographer and woodcutter and was a book illustrator. It has been estimated that during his lifetime Brangwyn produced over 12,000 works. His mural commissions would cover over 22,000 sq ft (2,000 m²) of canvas, he painted over 1,000 oils, over 660 mixed media works (watercolours, gouache), over 500 etchings, about 400 wood engravings and woodcuts, 280 lithographs, 40 architectural and interior designs, 230 designs for items of furniture and 20 stained glass panels and windows.

Known as the British Empire Panels Brangwyn spent a total of 7 years producing 16 large works that cover 3,000 sq ft (280 m²). When you see the size of the murals you can understand why they took 7 years to complete.

In 1928 the House of Lords was commissioned Brangwyn to produce a series celebrating the beauty of the British Empire and the Dominions to fill the Royal Gallery. Lord Iveagh tried to secure Brangwyn full artistic freedom to design and paint the commission his way. Unfotunately, Lord Iveagh died in 1927. After 5 years of work the panels were displayed in the Royal Gallery for approvial by the Lords, but the peers refused to accept them because they were “too colourful and lively” for the place. It was worse than that. Some of them mocked his work in the national press. Lord Crawford, a Tory Peer, wrote in a “The Daily News” that the painting would be more suited to a night club than the House of Lords: “Just imagine five feet long bananas and grinning black monkeys looming over them!”

East Indies.jpg — One of the Panels that Lord Crawford criticised

It has been suggested that, this was rejection was part of a increasing restriction on artiostic expression that accompanying the birth of totalitarian movements across Europe. Fortuantely for the people of Wales and Swansea in partricular 1934 the panels were purchased by Swansea Council in 1934 and were housed in the Brangwyn Hall, Swansea.

_76424653_brangwyn2 — Brangywn Hall, inside

The House of Lords’ loss is Swansea’s gain. These panels are absolutely astonishing. They are massive, colorful and packed to the gills with detail. Apparently, the height of the Hall’s ceiling had to be increased slightly to accommodate the tallest of the panels. They dominate the very large hall and the photographs fail the capture the huge scale of the panels. The are a true feast for the eyes.

The Glynn Vivian Gallery and Brangwyn Hall has on display quite a few of Brangwyn’s beautiful preparatory cartoons. He was a brillant draughtsman.

Interestingly Frank Barngwyn used modern technology to aid him; photography. The squaring up technique is one that artists have used for centuries, and is still used today by many (including me). If you look closely at the murals you can see the feint pencil lines of the grids he used. (Brangwyn photographs courtesy of Paul Cava Fine Art https://paulcava.com/frank-brangwyn)

Sir Frank William Brangwyn (British (born Belgium), Bruges 1867–1956 Ditchling, Sussex) [Study for Missouri State Capitol Murals], ca.1914 Gelatin silver print with graphite; Image: 21.4 × 16.4 cm (8 7/16 × 6 7/16 in.) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Twentieth-Century Photography Fund, 2013 (2013.269) http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/307068

The animals and people are incredible but the foilage of each country has also been painstakingly researched. I initally thought that the mass of green were sort of generic foliage but when I looked athe panel for England I was blown away when I realised that I recognised every type of leaf and flower; oak leaves, horsechestnuts, sunflowers, pears, apples, foxgoves, irises, blueblues. This is true for all the panels.

I particularly enjoyed the details at the bottpom of the panels as they were at eye level. There were lots of tortoises, rabbits, bugs, butterfies and reptiles. The only thing thatappeared to be missiong were fish and aquautic mammals! In the 1930s, before colour television and nature programs (and the nearest zoo in Bristol) this riot of creatures must have been quite a relevation for the people of Swansea.

Frank Brangwyn’s evident enthusiasm for the British empire was somewhat out-of-step with the increasingly introspective times of the inter-war years. Interestingly, his treatment of the different and diverse peoples of the British Empire was powerful and energetic. There are plenty of impressive female breasts but the women are strong and vital figures, not overtly sexualised. Perhaps, his celebration of empire makes for uncomfortable viewing in a post-empire world. Yet, the men and women of the Empire are depicted with dignity and sympathy, and the accent throughout is on the people, animals and plants of the conquered countries rather than on the activities of the conquerors.

Sadly, the rejection of the Panels by the Lords devasted Frank Brangwyn and it caused lasting depression in him. He became increasingly pessimistic and a hypochondriac and began disposing of his possessions during the 1930s. This is so sad as these murals are so wonderful!

Was this grinning monkey Lord Crawford objected to?

Brangwyn, Frank, 1867-1956; British Empire Panel (14) Australia — Australia

Burma

Posted on December 11, 2017May 6, 2019 by emma cownie — 9 Comments

Snow, snow, everywhere but here.

In the Brecon Beacons it has snowed. In Stroud, where my parents live, it has snowed. Here? Nope. We had about ten minutes of sleet yesterday morning and that’s it. That’s what you get for living next to the sea, mild winters and damp summers.

The last time it snowed here was about 7 years ago. I’ve been a long time waiting.

I love watching snow falling out the sky. I like to stand outside and look up into the sky and watch the flakes tumbling one after another down to the ground. I love the muffled sound and the creaking sound under foot. But its not to be *sigh*. It’s just not the same with rain!

Winter Snow on Mumbles — Wintery Mumbles c. 2010

Posted on December 8, 2017December 28, 2017 by emma cownie — 9 Comments

And the winner is….Coventry.

So it wasn’t to be. Swansea wont be the UK city of culture in 2021. It will be Coventry. How disappointing.

We went down to a venue on the High Street called the Hyst to see the result announced live on BBC TV. There was a lot of excitement and cautious hope. We had to wait 20 minutes whilst we endured what must have been the dullest ever TV show called “The One Show”.

The winner was going to be made at the end of the show. In the meantime, I looked around for clues that it might be Swansea’s night, such as famous artist-media-types or interested journalists. There were none. The few people that looked like reporters looked as bored as we felt having to watch a TV programme interviewing some people about Master Chef (a competition cookery show) and then a segment about a new battleship. At this point some “livelier” members of the crowd booed the footage of ex-Tory MP, Gyles Brandreth.

GylesBrandreth_1799499b — Gyles – not popular in Swansea

When the announcement was finally made the chap reading it didn’t bother with the usual fake suspense you see on “I’m a Celebrity” of “X-factor”. He just opened the envelope and read it out. Coventry. A massive groan went up! There may even have been few more boos but then a polite round of applause went round for the winning city. If it was decided on the numbers of people each city got to come out to hear the result, Coventry won hands down. There were plenty of people in Swansea but Coventry had a seemed to have lot more maybe, hundreds of supporters. So good luck to Coventry.

We still have plenty of culture here in Swansea but I’m very sad that Michael Sheen won’t get to do his production in Swansea now. It all reminds me of why I don’t get involved in sports, its very depressing when your side don’t win!!

Posted on December 6, 2017June 5, 2019 by emma cownie — 10 Comments

Swansea, city of culture!

Swansea is nervously awaiting to hear on Thursday if its has been selected as UK city of Culture 2021. We know that no UK city can be a European city of culture thanks to Brexit. Swansea has made the short list before and lost out to Hull. This time the other shortlisted cities are Coventry, Paisley and Stoke (Coventry is the bookies’ favourite at 7/4).

These are all post-industrial cities looking for a boost and Swansea would use the title well. This city is full of talented artists, writers and musicians. There is more to Swansea than Dylan Thomas and Kingsley Amis. These are the things that come to mind (in no particular order). We have a fantastic bay (second largest in Europe) with a very long sandy beach. We have a beautiful art school, two universities, and about 100 artists studios in the town centre, we have the Glynn Vivan Art Galley, Elysium Art Gallery, Mission Gallery, Volcano Theatre Group, Dylan Thomas Theatre, The Dylan Thomas exhbition in the Dylan Thomas Centre, Dylan Thomas house and trail, the Grand Theatre, Nawr experimental music gigs, several music venues in the Uplands, Swansea Museum, the Martime Museum, the Egypt Centre, Gower Festival, Troublemakers’ Festival, Gower Folk Festival, Blue Grass Festival and I know I have forgotten lots of other things like Premiership football team.

Award winning Egypt Centre

If we win, actor Michael Sheen, has promised a city-wide theatre production like the brilliant “The Passion” Easter production in Port Talbot in 2011. There are many other events planned too.

There is so much talent here and Swansea would really flourish given half a chance. The bookies have placed us at 10/1 but I have my fingers crossed that Swansea will get to be the first Welsh UK city of culture tomorrow. Pob Lwc, Abertawe!

Michael Sheen, Rhys Ifans and Bonnie Tyler

Posted on November 13, 2017May 6, 2019 by emma cownie — 18 Comments

Good Drying Weather

My mother tells me many people don’t use clothes lines or washing lines any more. They use tumble driers, instead. They must have big electricity bills. What better way to dry your washing that using good old fashioned solar power? In the early modern period people just laid their clothes out on bushes to dry. The word “clothesline” wasn’t used until the 1830s. Presumably, increasing urbanisation meant that things like bushes or even rocks were no longer available to dry clothes on!

24x30cm oil on linen canvas

Posted on November 12, 2017May 6, 2019 by emma cownie — 8 Comments

Crowded Community

Wednesday morning with was bright and crisp. I decided to the cold blue sky and bright autumn sunlight was similar to the conditions in which the original series of the “Hollowed Community” paintings were created. I want to compare the empty almost desolate streets of August with the very crowded ones of early November.

The children are back at school and students have returned in even greater numbers than ever. The number have supposedly increased by 20% and there certainly seems to be more noise at night times and cars in the day time.

In 2015/2016 there were approximately 21,800 at Swansea University and Trinity St David’s Swansea Campus, including 18,340 full time students. When many HMO (Houses of Multiple Occupation) houses have up to 6 students living in them (some of the very big HMOs on Bryn Road have 12 residents) and some streets have over 70% HMO housing, the streets get VERY crowded. Students are supposedly discouraged from bringing their cars to Swansea but about 25% don’t live in the city and drive in from the surrounding areas. There are now two campuses for Swansea University, one on our doorstep in Singleton and the other new campus, the Bay Campus is five miles to the east of the city in in an area that used to be known as Crymlyn Burrows (Burrows means “Dunes”). So students live in Brynmill and Uplands for the social scene and drive to the Bay Campus.

Many of the long standing residents of Brynmill report that they have “never known the parking situation to be as bad as it is now”. Its not just the student but also lecturers and research staff looking for free parking on the residential streets. The University has only a limited number of parking spaces on campus that fill very quickly in the morning. There is parking on “The Rec” on Oystermouth Road but that has recently put up its parking fees so you find students and staff will jammed their cars onto the corners of narrow streets rather than pay the fee. All this is compounded by the loss of paper parking permits so that residents do not know whose cars are entitled to park in residents bays.

My photographic project is called “Crowded Community” to contrast it with the summer paintings. I take my tour and find cars where I didn’t realise they would be, down the back lanes.

Shadow Play

Converted

Parking on the pavement was a surprisingly common too.

Or on double yellow lines

On some roads I found it difficult to find a space to take a photograph from.

Rhyddings Hotel from Brynmill Avenue (Park Place end)

Uplands

Its not total “carmageddon” as such, has in other places there are spaces in the residents parking zones or on the forbidden zones like double yellow lines and bus stops.

Bus Stop (back of Brynmill Launderette)

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And finally, a shot with no cars just a woman with a pram – but it is double yellow lines along here.

Posted on October 11, 2017March 17, 2018 by emma cownie — 2 Comments

Brynmill Primary School

The distinctive pitched roofs of the red brick Brynmill School dominate the area. Sitting on the crest of a hill they can be seen from miles around. From the seafront and beach to the south as well as from Uplands and Mount Pleasant to the north. It is one of two local primary schools. It is a handsome building. Bold red brick. Confident and happy looking. The other is the Welsh-medium school Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Bryn-y-mor, which had previously been Brynmill Infant’s school.

Brynmill School was opened on 31st August 1896 and was big enough to accommodate over a thousand pupils. In its early days, boys and girls were taught in separate classes. The girls were taught in classrooms on the ground floor and the boys on the first floor.

During the Second World War many buildings in Brynmill were damaged. On 21st February 1941, the girls’ school was hit and the school had to close for a fortnight. Rhyddings House was also badly damaged by a bomb and it became known as “the bombed house” and a place where the local children would play.*

The school undergone quite a few changes. The many tall chimneys and the tower on highest part of the roof are gone. Extensions have been added at the front and back of the school. There are relatively few school-aged children that live in the heart of Brynmill, those that attend the school most seem to walk from Uplands or are driven in from other areas of Swansea. Schools are at the heart of sustainability. Many rural communities have lost their post office, pubs and schools and then cease to fully function as communities. Brynmill School, however, has clearly worked hard to keep their numbers up and continue as a beating heart of the community.

Pre 1920s Brynmill School — pre-1920 Brynmill School (from Graham William’s personal collection)

*Information about Brynmill School came from an article by Juliette James “Life in the district of Brynmill in the early 20th century” published in “Minerva: Swansea History Journal, Vol 24, 2016-7.

Posted on October 8, 2017February 25, 2018 by emma cownie — 5 Comments

Dylan Thomas in Metroland

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As a trained Historian as well as being an artist, I feel the need to place my “urban minimal” paintings in context. I think it helps me understand the city around me too. Swansea is a town in which nothing in particular has happened. There was no workers’ rising (Merthyr and Newport), no cross-dressing protests (Rebecca Riots to the west of here) although Emily Phipps and the suffragettes were pretty active here in the years before the First World War. Again and again I come back to Poet Dylan Thomas who grew up here.

“Metroland” or “Metro-land” was the name dreamt up by advertisers for the new commuter belt communities to the north-west of London that was served by the Metropolitan Line. The 1920s and 1930s saw the rapid growth of new houses often in a mock Tudor/rustic style. In Wales, the presence of swathes of brand new Metroland-style houses signalled that the middle classes were as respectable (or “tidy”) and as well off as those in England. This was in stark contrast to the working-class mining communities in the South Wales during the Great Depression. They were experiencing destitution and extreme poverty. The 1930s in the Rhondda Valley was all about soup kitchens and the means test, not faux rustic idylls.

hunger marchers — “Hunger March” to London by welsh miners to draw attention to their plight

Not so in the heart of suburban Swansea. Poet Dylan Thomas, was born in an Edwardian house in 1914. His home was in the bosom of Swansea’s version of Metroland; Ffynone, Uplands and parts of Sketty. He grew up in Swansea in the 1920s, well before the Luftwaffe and the town planners destroyed the town centre. He famously wrote that Swansea was “an ugly, lovely town … crawling, sprawling … by the side of a long and splendid curving shore. This sea-town was my world.”

5 Cwmdonkin Drive — Swansea birthplace and childhood home of Dylan Thomas.

Writing to his friend, Trevor Hughes, in early 1934 he describes himself as “living in Metroland” in the midst of “respectability and subservient to the office clock”. This is quite ironic as Trevor lived in Harrow, outside London which was part of the original “Metro-land” served by the Metropolitan Line.

Young Dylan clearly found the respectability suffocating. Indeed, Dylan Thomas’s antics were not always to the tastes of the people of Swansea. After all, his birth place number 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, was only made into a museum and restored to its former glory in 2005. As a teenager, Dylan acted in several plays at the Swansea Little Theatre which was based in a small church hall in the sea-side village of Mumbles near to Swansea. His alcoholism was already affecting his life as he frequently needed to slip out of rehersals for a quick drink.

The Antelope and the Mermaid Hotel were closest. He later wrote about breaking his tooth playing “cats and dogs” in the Mermaid. Dylan entered wholeheartedly into the game by crawling about on his hands and knees, barking loudly and finally shuffling outside to bite a lamp post and breaking a tooth! However, when the Company producer gave him an ultimatum at a dress rehersal, he left the company.

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Mermaid Hotel Mumbles

It was at number 5 Cwmdonkin Drive that he wrote more than 200 poems in his tiny bedroom before he was 20 years old. Later in the same year he wrote to Trevor Hughes about “living in Metroland”, he left Swansea for Fulham, in London. To live with his artist friend Alfred Janes. He had well and truly left Metroland now.

Alfred Janes Portrait — Alfred Jane’s Portrait of Dylan Thomas

Posted on October 7, 2017February 25, 2018 by emma cownie — 2 Comments

Going up in the world (the rise of Metroland)

If you walk north of Brynmill, you start to go up in the world. The surburbs of Ffynone, Uplands and Sketty are perched on one of Swansea many hills. The houses that were built here after the First World War are big and spacious. Swansea, like the rest of the UK, experienced a house-building boom in the late 1920s and the 1930s. This put home ownership within the reach of many for the first time. Now families with modest means could see their aspirations realised in bricks.

Some edgy flat roofed Art Deco houses were built. Much more popular, were detached and semi-detached mock Tudor styles with front and rear gardens. Their interiors had to be fashionable. Art Deco fireplaces were everywhere. Electricity was also installed. That way, the family’s maid could use new domestic inventions like the wireless and vacuum cleaner. They were light, clean family homes that were both practical and elegant. This was suburban splendour.

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Old time house buying

This was the chic of “Metroland”. This so-called”Metroland” or “Metro-land” was the name given to the suburbs of north-west of London that was served by the Metropolitan Railway (The Met). The term “Metro-land” was coined by the Met’s marketing department in 1915 when the Guide to the Extension Line became the Metro-land guide. It promoted a dream of a modern home in beautiful countryside with a fast railway service to central London. The Metroland style was self-consciously rustic. It was a peaceful Eden that harked back to a Shakespearean “golden age” of England. It was a style that was adopted by builders wanting to appeal to the professional classes of Wales too.

Metroland was part of popular culture of the 1920 and 1930s. There were several songs about Metroland. Evelyn Waugh had a character Lady Metroland who appeared in several of his books (“Decline and Fall”, “Vile Bodies” and “A Handful of Dust”). Poet John Betjeman, wrote poems about Metroland. He even made a celebrated documentary for BBC Television, called Metro-land, in 1973.