Memorial to honour city icon toy mic trev
TOY Mic Trev is to be remembered with a lasting memorial at the spot where he loved to sing.
The busking legend, who was a fixture on Queen Street for many years, passed away in July, aged 80.
Trevor was known as Toy Mic Trev because of the distinctive children’s toy microphone with which he would entertain the public from his regular spot between Boots and Greggs.
Now FOR Cardiff have teamed up with local music campaigner Daniel Minty to produce a memorial to Toy Mic Trev – a mural to be painted on the wall to next to Greggs at the spot where he sang to thousands of people over the years.
“I grew up going to Nottingham where there was a similar local legend busker called Xylophone Man,” said Emily Cotterrill, project manager at FOR Cardiff, formerly Cardiff Business Improvement District (BID).
“When he died people in Nottingham fundraised for a large paving slab which is placed outside H&M at the the spot he performed in memory of him.
“I tweeted randomly one day that I thought it would be lovely if there was a similar thing in Cardiff for Trev, and Minty got in touch with me to say he’d been thinking the same thing.
“As I work for FOR Cardiff, the business improvement district, Minty said it would be good to work together to see what we could make happen.”
The plan so far is that FOR
Cardiff will bear the full cost of the mural and Greggs, where the mural would be painted, have happily agreed for the project to go ahead. I’ve been in touch with Greggs on Queen Street next to where here Toy Mic ‘s Trev spot was,” said Emily.
“At the moment the shop hop has a large vinyl decal up p of a chicken baguette that hat keeps getting graffitied on. n.
“I got in touch with them em and said if we were to put up some kind of mural on there and we’d look after it on the side of your building ng which wouldn’t be covered ed in graffiti would you be okay with that? And they hey said yes.
She added: “So we’re e at the point where Greggs are happy for us to use their space, and we’re now looking for images that hat we can use to develop a mural from with a local artist.
“We hope it will make an impact and be a nice way of remembering him. He was such a big part of the spirit of the city and it seemed an obvious thing to do.”
■ If you have images of Toy Mic Trev, you can send them to Emily via info@forcardiff.com