CARDIFFREMEMBERED Giant’s replica was highlight of carnival held 30 years ago

THE hidden history of volunteering on Charles Street was the subject of an interesting walking tour recently staged by Chronicle, a two-year community heritage project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The tour guides put the spotlight on Charles Street’s community action group in the 1970s.

They told how they moved from 58 Charles Street to other houses/offices in this historic city centre street over the years.

We also learned how the Charles Street Carnival, established in 1977, and held as an alternative event during the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, and which ran for 20 years came about.

The centrepiece for the 1987 Charles Street Carnival was an exact replica of one of the biggest archaeological frauds in history, namely the Cardiff Giant.

The original Cardiff Giant was the brianchild of 19th-century swindler George Hull who had arranged for a fake petrified 10ft 4in monster to be found on a farm in Cardiff, New York, in 1869. The monster fooled all the experts of the day and Mr Hull toured the country with his creation and thousands of people were willing to spend a dollar to see what was billed as “The Eighth Wonder of the World”.

That was until it was discovered to be a fake and was then known as Old Hoaxey.

My literary friend Peter Finch, who used to manage the Oriel Bookshop in Charles Street, and who was also on the walking tour, had actually seen the Cardiff Giant when he visited the States as it was still being exhibited in a museum near Cooperstown.

The Charles Street Carnival Cardiff Giant, the centrepiece of the 11th carnival, was made by Terry Chinn, of Riverside, with the backing Charles Street Art foundation.

It was apparently made at a cost of about £200 – said to be less than a 10th of what it had cost to make the original one.

At the time, the foundation had hopes of finding a permanent exhibition space for it.

However, I learned on the tour that of the