CARDIFFREMEMBERED New book explores the dark side of our beloved capital city

JOHN F Wake, a former police detective, is in love with the Cardiff of yesteryear.

And that love and sympathy shows through his books, even though his subjects are often about the violent and dark sides of our beloved city.

As a follow-up to his books And Tiger Bay Died Too and The Cruel Streets Revisited, his latest work Cardiff: Those Cruel and Savage Streets includes a number of true and fascinating stories.

These include the Llanrumney Hall Murder, Harry Houdini’s Brush With the Law, The Food College Murder and the tale of Mad Jack: Cardiff’s Wildest Publican.

The latter, by the way, is no stranger to this page. I have written about him in the past after receiving a letter from his great-great-granddaughter some time ago.

There are chapters on policing the streets through time, street life, baby abandonment and murder and these sad stories reveal just how hard it was in those far-off days to survive on the streets of Cardiff.

We take a trip to long-gone places such as Landore Court where babies were born into squalor, the dreaded Mary Ann Street with its shebeens (unlicensed drinking dens) and the infamous street of pubs known as Charlotte Street, which was situated near to where the posh Marriott Hotel now stands.

We learn that: “As early as the 1840s the area of Whitmore Lane, China Row and Charlotte Street was notorious for its awful conditions and its seedy inhabitants.