A stanger to Cardiff might notice them, but when you live there you never think about them.They are everywhere, and when the weather is inclement, they come in from the sea and shore and fly over the rooftops, making their distinctive call which almost sounds like a warning that a storm is coming. The seagulls. Bigger than I have ever seen anywhere else. With big wingspans, zooming and diving, and soaring and gliding, flapping and walking.... they are everywhere. Once, many years ago when Uncle Maurice was working on the Docks as a HarbourMaster, Auntie Kitty was invited, and took me, to a reception on the paddle steamer which travelled to and fro between Cardiff and the English Coast and Ilfacombe and Steep Holme, I think, but my memory's vague......... I remember the huge gleaming pistons in the engine room and the polished brass sea instruments and clocks, and the ship's wheel, and the huge paddle wheels churning up the muddy waters. I also recall that Aunty Kitty had a huge holdall, which was empty when we came on board, but was somewhow miraculously full and clattering and clunking like cutlery and glasses when we left the ship............I know that my uncle was furious with her about something, but I wasn't party to the row !
About ten years ago, at the annual antiques show in New York, there was a stand of nautical paintings, portraits and instruments. There was a mahogany stick barometer, maybe 19th. century I thought and looked at the $28,000 price tag. Then I saw the maker's name on the faceplate : Reardon Smith, Cardiff Docks, South Wales. And I thought of all that polished brass on the paddle steamer and wondered whose walls in whose homes those instruments now hang.