Saddened by state of city church

BORN and brought up in Roath, Cardiff, until the age of 17, I then lived in Caerau village, Ely, from 1957, when our dad bought the Hill Dip Shop until I married in 1963. From 1959-52 I read archaeology at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire.

My 38-year career was spent with the British Council, starting at its Welsh Office in Caroline Street, before being posted to India and returning for three years in 1985 as Director Wales. My last posting was to South Africa, where I now live.

My wife and I visit the UK fairly regularly, and not only does Cardiff feature in those visits, but we always climb the hill to St Mary’s Church and the hill fort at Caerau, where I spent much time looking for sherds of pottery in the molehills in the Iron Age fort. The recent discovery of a Neolithic causewayed enclosure particularly excited me and it featured in an article I recently wrote on Stonehenge and Wales and the bluestones for the Council’s Retirement Association Newsletter.

However, it saddens me enormously on those visits to see what has happened to the church. As a teenager I served at the Communion services held there and got to know Father Vic Jones well.

He did so much to restore the church.

Three of us lads helped him build a small room onto the church where he could robe for services. That room has now gone and all sadly in a state of decay due to vandalism and the consequent necessity to deconsecrate the church, which had been standing there for some 800 years. Recently the 13th-century cross on top of the splendid saddleback tower was stolen; a further profane act of senseless vandalism. Very sadly it will probably not be the last.

I applaud and try to support the wonderful work that Delia Jay and other Founders of the Friends of St Mary’s are doing to preserve and maintain what is left of the church supported by others such as CAER and my alma mater. It is so good that the local community is also involved.

But I have to wonder what more can be done not only by the authorities but other members of the local community to prevent further damage.

Security is clearly an issue and work, I gather, is needed on the tower.

Would it not be possible for your paper to spearhead an appeal to Cardiff businesses and individuals to help provide much-needed funding? If such an appeal could be started I am more than happy to help kick it off with a modest donation of £50. Cardiff’s present is built upon its past, and nowhere in the city is there a better reminder of that past dating from some 5,000 or more years ago than that hill in Caerau.

Let’s all dedicate a month to preserving St Mary’s. Les Phillips OBE D.Litt (Hon) and Fellow of Cardiff University Johannesburg, South Africa