BRIAN’S BLAST FROM THE PAST

Send your memories and pictures to Brian Lee, Cardiff Remembered, South Wales Echo, Six Park Street, Cardiff, CF10 1XR or email brianlee4@virginmedia.com

THE heavy rains and floods of late have had Cardiffians recalling previous floods within living memory.

However, one Cardiffian writing to a local newspaper paper many, many years ago recalled the time when Leckwith Common and Moors were awash with sailing ships and rowing boats.

He wrote: “In the September sunshine it left a picture in the memory which will never be forgotten.”

He went on to say: “It was a most exciting and thrilling experience for the inhabitants residing in Grangetown and Canton.”

But it could not have been very thrilling for the packed congregation of a Grangetown church when, during the service, a sudden rush of water came up from through the floorboards.

We are informed that the worshippers became panicstricken.

The clergy implored them to keep calm but it was all to no avail and they rushed out only to be confronted by a rush of sea water which flooded the church.

The floodwater swept up as far as Wellington Street at one end of Canton and right up to Llandaff Road. Pedestrians had to be conveyed by boat to their homes.

When the area was flooded again in 1927 the famed Billy the Seal escaped from Victoria Park and was apparently found boarding a tram in Cowbridge Road East.

The story goes that the conductor told Billy to roll over, a favourite trick of his, and Billy rolled back into the flooded road.

Other reports had Billy sighted in several fish and chip shops and even a dentists!

When I was researching the story of Billy the Seal, so many people claimed Billy had ended up on their doorstep that I can only envisage Billy must have visited nearly everyone in Canton!

I seem to recall seeing, many years ago as a young schoolboy, a picture in the Echo of Billy and the said conductor on the platform of a tram.