‘The town that was murdered’
FOR generations who worked underground in South Wales, the annual two-week summer break meant one thing – Porthcawl or Barry Island.
Miners’ fortnight – the last week of July and first week of August – saw thousands of miners and their families flock to the southern coast of Wales, when they would fill every seafront guesthouse in the hope of enjoying some seasonal sunshine.
An alternative would be to hire a caravan, and these days Porthcawl would be almost unimaginable without the large static caravan site at Trecco Bay.
The large sandy and rocky beach was once just that, until the late Fifties and early Sixties, when it started to be used to site increasing numbers of caravans, with which the area is now synonymous.
By the mid-Sixties, there were 4,300 caravans on the former sand dunes of the bay on the eastern side of the town, more than the number of houses in the town.
At peak times, the holiday population was greater than the 14,000 that lived in the town permanently, with eight miles of roads, 25 toilet blocks, 750 water points, half a dozen laundries, as well as a church.
It was said at the time to be the largest concentration of caravans in Europe.
Yet not everyone was enthused. Some councillors called for the concentration of caravans to spread among other resorts along coast, others for the site to be abolished completely, with chalets instead. They argued the rateable value of the site could increase fivefold.
One planning consultant commissioned by the civic council described the huge number of caravans as “like a cloud of regimented locusts, settled in a place they had reduced to a desert, their apparently endless lines thrusting their multitudinous murder onto every view”.
He concluded: “There is a town in England which was once labelled the town that was murdered. Porthcawl could well be given that description today”.
It’s fair to say the size of the site divided locals.
Dennis Theodore used to visit Porthcawl as a child with his family, who identified a potential business opportunity for the growing popularity of caravanning.
“The early Sixties coincided with many of the mines closing down,” he said. “It was a time when few people went abroad for their holidays, and many of the miners used their redundancy to pay for caravans.
“Before that you would have people coming down to Trecco Bay with wardrobes on the back of lorries, and they would setup with tents.
“There was some opposition to the dunes being levelled so they could accommodate caravans. It was an undulating area, and all of sudden you had people coming along with ex-ministry bulldozers to level it.”
One of those to take advantage was former army major Sir Leslie Joseph, an amusement park entrepreneur who devised popular water chutes, first at Coney Beach in Porthcawl, and later at Battersea.
“We are here primarily to make money,” he admitted. “But we also at the same time serve the purpose of providing about 30,000 families with a holiday they would otherwise not get”.
Mr Theodore’s father, who brought his family to Porthcawl for holidays, had a caravan at Newton Point, and eventually bought a row of them.
It was the start of a business which saw the family sell up to 700 caravans a year, and eventually snap up caravans at two sites in Gower, in Burry Port and Kenfig.
“Initially, they were made of hardboard, but slowly they were converted to aluminium” said Mr Theodore. “Over the years, they would bring in millions to Porthcawl. The town was booming, people would come and spend money here”.
David Newton-Williams was a Porthcawl councillor for more than 30 years, and a three-time mayor.
Now aged 90, he said: “I remember coming down here as a child. It was second to none; functions would be held there, and it would host beauty competitions, which were popular in those days.
“But I think it initially sprang up without a thought for landscaping, there were no trees on the site.
“When I came down originally there were trains coming here, but Beeching put the mockers on that, as he did to Ilfracombe.
“Nobody bought tickets to leave Porthcawl, they only bought tickets to come here.
“It was the end of the journey, the destination”.
Sir Leslie agreed, admitting that while the caravan site had changed the character of that part of Porthcawl, it had not changed that of the entire town.
“I believe most resorts in this country will have to change their character or go out of existence” he said.
“Foreign travel has become so popular that many of the resorts that depended on the old traditional type of holidaymaker for their revenue will have to change”.