Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 78 total)
  • Ever wondered what the Welsh Valleys are really like?
  • milky1980
    Free Member

    This mini-series is pretty accurate, even though it focuses on Merthyr mostly!

    Valley Cops

    Might give a few people an insight into why the Welsh trail centres are pretty important to the communities, helping with regeneration and jobs etc. Knowing some of the areas well it seems a pretty honest picture of life there.

    jimdubleyou
    Full Member

    I watched the one where a fella had beaten his mate up in his house and dumped him round the corner to try and get away with it.

    Feeling in the community was he had gone too far…

    wwaswas
    Full Member

    Made me quite sad to watch it, the slow decline of communities over several generations.

    People torn between leaving friends and family to find work or staying and feeling life has somehow passed them by.

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    Very similar to the ex mining communities of Ayrshire in many ways, beautiful countryside, no jobs, lots of good folks still there surrounded by depravation, drugs and huge levels of alcohol abuse, immensely sad.

    perditus
    Free Member

    I live in one of the Welsh Valley’s and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else tbh.

    ton
    Full Member

    all mining communities are/were the same.
    fantastic places to live if you come from there, but pretty alien to outsiders/incomers. 8)

    BigJohn
    Full Member

    Huw Greene was my valet.

    T1000
    Free Member

    The particular problem for the Welsh Valleys is the historically poor transport connections

    dragon
    Free Member

    The particular problem for the Welsh Valleys is geography. No company in their right mind would be base there, when they can be based in the M4 corridor. The thing for the Welsh government is to ensure that the M4 corridor has plenty of companies and hence, jobs, that people can commute to.

    globalti
    Free Member

    Same as Calderdale as well, where as recently as 2007 a teenager was kicked to death for belonging to a different culture.

    milky1980
    Free Member

    The particular problem for the Welsh Valleys is the historically poor transport connections.

    The rush-hour traffic has to be seen to be believed. It’s almost as though the whole of each valley is trying to get south at the same time! Going into Llantrisant or Pontypridd in the mornings is not fun and the A470 is one giant car park. But then it’s to be expected when you have multiple parallel valleys and no roads linking them over the tops. I think it’s why some people never leave, they can’t 😛

    johndoh
    Free Member

    A friend of my wife lives in the Valleys and by christ it is a scary place. We were in a pub and I got ‘asked outside’ simply because I wasn’t a local. I was only saved from a brutal beating by the friend intervening and letting the scrotes know I was with her and it was all okay.

    :-O

    Her hubby is now a policeman in the force down there – not seen him on the show though.

    deviant
    Free Member

    This is going to sound harsh but very few industries continue indefinitely….yet former mining towns and villages seem to think they were entitled to jobs for life from the coal industry.

    It’s like all the mobile (and static) deisel tuners at the moment, a few years ago they were raking it in as people took their 150bhp Golf to 250bhp for a few hundred quid….things must be slowing now and with deisel phasing out they’ll be looking for work soon.

    You adapt, don’t get complacent, take courses when they’re offered to you, be willing to travel etc….there’s loads of people in my town/village area of Wales (Lampeter/Llanwnnen) who moan there’s no jobs, no social mobility etc….true, it’s like retirement city here but if you’re willing to travel 1/2 hour to Carmarthen in one direction or the same in the other direction to Aberystwyth then there are plenty of jobs…as above if you’re willing to travel for an hour it gets you down to Swansea, Llanelli and access to more work…but this requires effort and its easier to moan there’s not a 25k a year job at the end of your road than put the leg work in.

    The attitude since I’ve been here (even among locals) is that there is plenty of work if you’re willing to travel, the problem is the attitude to work….in the South East where I’m from it is considered nothing to commute over an hour to work….here in Lampeter locals consider Carmarthen a long way a way (30 mins)….change that and you change the whole face of the area positively.

    When we fell in love with the area and decided to move here we were well aware that jobs were thin on the ground but we were also prepared to travel up to 90mins to get to work, that put us in touching distanceb of Cardiff…no problems then, but talk like that to locals and they think you’re mad.

    Public transport is actually really good with buses going from the village and town to Carmarthen and Aberystwyth every half hour from 6am through to 9pm, now this won’t be perfect for all jobs but it’s a damn site better than the South East was.

    In the South East people will move house and relocate for work, talk like that here and locals will look at you like you’ve got two heads…it’s a very old fashioned parochial view that hasn’t changed with time.

    uselesshippy
    Free Member

    I had a night out in Aberdare once, on the day that England beet Wales at rugby by the highest ever margin 😯 it was,…. scary

    JackHammer
    Full Member

    Well said Deviant, couldn’t agree more.

    FunkyDunc
    Free Member

    I tried watching that series, but they were all speaking some weird foreign language that I couldn’t understand

    JackHammer
    Full Member

    It’s got subtitles for most of it.

    JackHammer
    Full Member

    Only Gogs and posh South Welsh people speak actual Welsh.

    wwaswas
    Full Member

    You adapt, don’t get complacent, take courses when they’re offered to you, be willing to travel

    This made me quite sad when I read it a week back – people who put their trust in a politician putting their lives on hold waiting for him to deliver what he promised. The rest of the world look on and think ‘you poor fools’.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trump-effect-coal-retraining-insight/awaiting-trumps-coal-comeback-miners-reject-retraining-idUSKBN1D14G0

    finbar
    Free Member

    benp1
    Full Member

    @Deviant – Interesting point around commute times

    i’m in London my limit is an hour’s commute. Fair few people around me with commutes longer than that

    MrSmith
    Free Member

    The particular problem for the Welsh Valleys is geography. No company in their right mind would be base there, when they can be based in the M4 corridor.

    i had a manufacturing client in Merthyr, the welsh assembly basically gave them a huge industrial unit to expand into for free. i remember going to Asda at lunchtime and it was basically full of obese mums in onesies and a high proportion of mobility scooters.

    it a grim place.

    perditus
    Free Member

    In the South East people will move house and relocate for work, talk like that here and locals will look at you like you’ve got two heads…it’s a very old fashioned parochial view that hasn’t changed with time.

    Possibly your would be happier in the South East. Not everyone wants to up and relocate away from families and communities – family and community bonds are that somewhat stronger in Wales I would say and I am not sure why good jobs cannot be brought to the valleys and the West.

    Ro5ey
    Free Member

    I watched the one where a fella had beaten his mate up in his house and dumped him round the corner to try and get away with it.

    Feeling in the community was he had gone too far…

    TBF … the victim didn’t.

    He didn’t press chargers although he was put into intensive care !!

    Look out .. generalisation … the Welsh seem to love a tear up ?? … (actually I’d add most of the west country to that sweeping statement)

    Scienceofficer
    Free Member

    I studied at trefforest and lived in and around the environs of Ponypridd for 3 years. Going to Uni there after 19 years of the leafy New Forest was an eye opener to say the least.

    zippykona
    Full Member

    I drove through Wales about 10 years ago.
    Going through some of the villages people would look at me in my car and their eyes were saying” I don’t care where you are going,take me with you.”
    To be fair most people think Hastings is a shit hole but once you know the place it’s great.

    deviant
    Free Member

    Possibly your would be happier in the South East. Not everyone wants to up and relocate away from families and communities – family and community bonds are that somewhat stronger in Wales I would say and I am not sure why good jobs cannot be brought to the valleys and the West.

    I’m happy here, you couldn’t pay me enough to go back to England….but the attitude to work here stinks, that’s all I was pointing out.

    I also agree about jobs being spread around the country, if you want a nicer UK in general (and I think we all do) then governments need to offer incentives to get companies to expand or setup in regional areas…I’d vote for whoever promised that but even Labour politicians seem to be London centric these days, sad really.

    finbar
    Free Member

    I also agree about jobs being spread around the country, if you want a nicer UK in general (and I think we all do) then governments need to offer incentives to get companies to expand or setup in regional areas…I’d vote for whoever promised that but even Labour politicians seem to be London centric these days, sad really.

    Amen to that. Something Germany does very well, though history is against us in the UK as London has been preeminent for – what – a millenium now?

    milky1980
    Free Member

    +1 for deviant, definitely the attitude there with regards to travelling or moving to the work. You’re a braver man than me though if you say that to them though 😯

    chakaping
    Free Member

    I saw the one with the rubbish armed robbers and the lad whose car they’d used, who’d been buzzing for a fortnight.

    Bit of an eye-opener. Good TV, very non-judgemental.

    stumpy01
    Full Member

    It’s a great TV program & really struck a chord with the places I have seen on my drive to trail centres, such as Cwmcarn & CyB.

    We stay in Trawsfynydd normally when visiting CyB (which I know is at the other end of the country from Valley Cops), and that seems like a very similar village with people who are trapped & very little local work.

    When we started going, there was a pub up the road & a bar at the hotel down the road. Then over time, the pub closed & last time we went everyone was piled into the hotel bar.
    There is a bit of an aggressive undercurrent when you walk in, but we have always found it to be pretty friendly once you get involved & chat to a few people.

    Trimix
    Free Member

    One of the issues is company’s don’t want to relocate to places like Wales as there is a shortage of skilled staff there. So even if the council offer incentives, businesses cant get the right staff.

    Not sure if you can overcome that situation.

    If you want to run a successful business you site it where there is lots of qualified willing to work labour.

    brassneck
    Full Member

    We stay in Trawsfynydd normally when visiting CyB (which I know is at the other end of the country from Valley Cops), and that seems like a very similar village with people who are trapped & very little local work.

    Used to fish the reservoir there. Had to buy day tickets from the post office I think it was, and had a few loud comments passed in Welsh between them.
    Probably should have checked my dear old Gran, who was already pissed at being dragged ‘up North’ wasn’t browsing the postcards next to them.
    Not much funnier than little old ladies swearing like navvies in any language.

    footflaps
    Full Member

    and I am not sure why good jobs cannot be brought to the valleys and the West.

    Poor transport links and low quality skill set.

    1st world countries can’t compete on low skill manufacturing, so if that’s all your population is trained for, you’re a bit screwed.

    As for service based stuff like Amazon Hubs, it’s in the middle of nowhere with crap transport, so not suitable.

    There isn’t a simple solution, that doesn’t involve a lot of investment and people upskilling. Or people moving somewhere where there are jobs…..

    IdleJon
    Full Member

    i’m in London my limit is an hour’s commute. Fair few people around me with commutes longer than that

    How much do you earn? There aren’t many jobs advertised within 90 minute’s commute of Lampeter for more than £25k, and certainly not unskilled ones. More likely you’ll be earning less than £20k, possibly NMW.

    It’s like all the mobile (and static) deisel tuners at the moment, a few years ago they were raking it in as people took their 150bhp Golf to 250bhp for a few hundred quid….things must be slowing now and with deisel phasing out they’ll be looking for work soon.

    Are you really comparing the loss of the coal industry to engine tuning? 😆

    P-Jay
    Free Member

    I would add that the show only really represented the worst aspects of the Valleys – actually not the very worst, I duck in and out of Methadone clinics in the Valleys for work sometimes and I’ve seen worse than on Valley Cops.

    Lots of people work hard and do well for themselves in the Valleys, one of my mates is from Merthyr and spends his weeks flying between the UK, Norway and Sweden doing something highly skilled and well paid with Data Centres (lord knows what).

    Like others have said there are some great challenges facing young people in a lot of places up the Valleys, mutli-generational unemployment which makes having a job seem unusual, not the norm, little work close to you and a fairly hefty cost of living difference between the Valley’s and the 3 main Cities in the South means a long commute for a lot of people – great if you do well you can move a bit closer, but it’s a huge leap up.

    This was partly why I was amazed most of the valley’s voted ‘leave’ (wow, I know another thread derailed by the EU) but Westminster never wanted to invest outside of the South East, whereas the EU spends fortunes in the Valleys – a new road, or better rail links could transform the place in time, but I doubt it’ll ever happen.

    aP
    Free Member

    Trimix – Member
    One of the issues is company’s don’t want to relocate to places like Wales as there is a shortage of skilled staff there. So even if the council offer incentives, businesses cant get the right staff.

    Not sure if you can overcome that situation.

    If you want to run a successful business you site it where there is lots of qualified willing to work labour.

    Its not just in Wales that people put their head in the sand

    milky1980
    Free Member

    It was like watching the the turkey voting for xmas. It doesn’t take long for you to spot all the EU Directive 1/2/3 signs next to any new projects in Wales. The Heads of the Valley upgrade might never be completed, the second phase of Merthyr’s redevelopment has been halted and the few good jobs in the area are all in the EU offices that will now close.

    I’ve come to the conclusion that there are basically two types of people in Merthyr: those that work and those that don’t. The ones that work are decent people who work hard and help others when they can (see the recent crowdfunding for the little girl with cancer as an example). Then you have the ones who have never worked and never really plan to. The locals I have mentioned this to agree so it’s not just me being obtuse. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground! Seems to be similar throughout the Valleys.

    zilog6128
    Full Member

    we were also prepared to travel up to 90mins to get to work, that put us in touching distanceb of Cardiff…no problems then, but talk like that to locals and they think you’re mad.

    I think you’re mad tbh (and I live in the SE!)

    FuzzyWuzzy
    Full Member

    I lived in Merthyr for a while (early teens to early 20’s), parents still do. My experience was it’s mostly the women fighting but every local seems to box as a hobby (especially the scrawny ones) so best to avoid a fight if you can.

    It’s generally a bit of a depressing place, like the rough areas of a city but 90% of it is like that. On the plus side it’s on the edge of the Brecon Beacons and plenty of decent road riding and MTBing to be had so it’s not all bad.

    There used to be a pretty dodgy pub next to my parents, I spent many a night watching fights break out and police vans roll up, was usually more entertaining than watching TV.

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