Making tracks: Port Talbot Parkway

Jon Gower goes in search of the spirit of Port Talbot.

As you leave Port Talbot Parkway your eyes might be drawn to a brightly painted wall complete with slogan announcing the town as a colourful place.

That’s certainly true of nearby Bridge Street, which sits under the M4. It’s become a sort of open art gallery, its walls full of vibrant street art which is constantly changing.

One of the contributing artists is Steve “Jenks” Jenkins, from Llanelli, who trained as an electrical engineer but had been interested in graffiti at a young age.

He had long been inspired by the graffiti on New York subway trains and during lockdown turned his hobby into a job after being furloughed from work.

As a street artist he created many NHS appreciation pieces and soon started to get so many requests he felt he was at a crossroads in his life. “I was knocked sideways by the reaction,” he admits.

One of Steve’s later pieces, ‘Pray for Ukraine,’ sprayed on a wall in Llanelli, was seen online by people in Port Talbot. They duly asked when they were going to get their own version of a clenched fist, together with an alighting dove of peace, painted in the twin colours of Ukrainian flag.

“So I went there to create one there, illegally. The local Highways Team got wind of it – they were forever sending teams to whitewash over the graffiti. One of the lads from the team saw what I’d done and decided that’s not graffiti, that’s art and sent a photo to his boss who agreed with him.

“They got in touch with me to say they’d like to preserve my art work, so I said what about the rest of the wall.

“This led to them allowing other people to make art there. They gave us a couple of guidelines – there shouldn’t be anything offensive or political – and within three weeks 70 metres of wall was painted. It’s now become a bit of a hub for street art.”

The fact the most famous street artist in the world, Banksy also painted a work in Port Talbot, which in turn gave rise to the play by Paul Jenkins and Tracy Harris, ‘Port Talbot’s got a Banksy’ certainly underlines that the town has a great splashes of colour at street level.

Subsequently artists like Steve have been commissioned by locals in Port Talbot to generate new work, such as that on the theme of Dic Penderyn at the St Mary’s Church Parish Centre, which connects with the fact that the Merthyr martyr was both born and buried in Aberavon, his funeral attended by thousands of people, who followed his coffin all the way from Cardiff.

You can find plenty of local style and colour in the San Portalbo clothing range. It’s the brainchild of Nigel Hunt who worked in steel works for a decade, following in his father Len’s steel-toe-capped footsteps as he was an electrician on the blast furnace for thirty years.

Nigel explains how San Portablo – with its Twin Town references and homages to local artist Kevin Sinnott – wants to project a positive sense of the steel town: “Port Talbot was the butt of a lot of jokes for a long time, about Port Toilet, Port Tablet, Port Thunderdome and things like that. It does have a psychological effect on the town, because it’s been lambasted. But we’ve all known there’s loads of cool shit happening in the town, and always has been, really.

“With clothing, we’ve always been one of the best-dressed towns in Wales. San Portablo is a celebration of that culture. They say the name comes from Spanish sailors.  That’s what they used to call it when they came into harbour here.”

Nigel points out that they’re a cool Welsh brand too. “We celebrate our own area but celebrate Wales as well, of course.

“We’re a street brand, so we celebrate what’s around us.  We celebrate our customers really, so if a subject keeps coming up, if people keep talking about something, we’ll eventually create a design about it.”

The clothing also takes its cue from the town’s street art as well as Nigel points out: “Art isn’t about tomorrow, it’s about now, isn’t it? It brings people together, gives gratification, happiness, it gives them good mental health and a lot of it’s community driven.

“So somebody doing a painting on a wall makes lots of people happy in the street because all of a sudden they’ve got something new to look at.”

Former professional skateboarder Michael “Pancho” Locke takes a break from looking after the customers in San Portablo’s outlet in the Aberafan shopping centre to talk about the town.

He’s been involved with the brand for some ten years and thinks it reflects the innate creativity of the town: “It’s a bit of a melting pot and I’d say it’s definitely been a hidden gem. But now it’s really starting to come into fruition and people are starting to notice it.

“Street artists are coming down from Bristol which in my opinion is where street art began, with Banksy, Cheo. But not just that, people are starting to realise how beautiful the beaches are, the reservoirs and stuff like that. Port Talbot has definitely been sleeping, shall we say and now it’s really starting to come to life.”

Paula Humphreys runs a café and bakery in the town called Mamma’s Cwtch. “I took over from Tom who had been a baker for 50 plus years.  I worked for him when the boys were small and I always said if ever he finished, I’d like to take over.

“I managed the rugby club after that for 10 years. When Tom wanted to sell the bakery, I said, right, 100 % I’ll take it.  And he said you could call it Big Mama, taking the mick out of me.  And I thought, oh, hang on now.  There’s something there. We’ll call it Mamma’s. And then we’re always on about cwtsh, a hug, coz it’s a Welsh thing. That’s where Mamma’s Cwtch comes from.”

In Mamma’s Cwtch they tend to have nicknames for the customers, according to what they order to drink or eat. “We have “Latte Man, Two Sugars” and “Spinach Grill Man”, as the Spinach Grill was one of our top sellers, made up by Leanne.  She’s got a nickname, she’s called Tez. We call Claire, who works here, the Blonde Bombshell.”

Paula tells me how this nicknaming has sometimes led to confusion: ‘There’s one gent in the community, he calls me Mrs. Cwtch.  I think he thinks I am actually Mrs. Cwtch. Whenever he sees me, whether I’m in the middle of the street or in the shop, he insists on giving me a cwtsh.”

A Port Talbot name that’s becoming increasingly familiar in south Wales is Burger Boyz, a food outlet that first opened in the town and now has branches from Swansea across to Newport.

Founder Jack Phillips explains: “My father was a rigger in the steelworks and I was really good at mathematics so he pushed me towards being an accountant. I then went into construction for a little while, then got a job in the steelworks then as a rigger, same as my father, so full circle. I really enjoyed my time in the steelworks but didn’t quite get fulfilment out of it.

“I always loved cooking, mainly cooking at home and I got an “A” in GCSE cooking.  My teacher, Sharon David at St Josephs School said I was a brilliant cook, but I wasn’t very good cleaning up after myself.”

One of Jack’s friends in school was Marcin Sadlos. Together they hit upon the idea of running a food van. Jack wanted to do toasties, as he loves them while Marcin wanted to do burgers. The compromise was buying a burger van and they never looked back.

Marcin recalls the early response being close to overwhelming. “The plan was to get a van and find someone to work on it. The response we had was a bit mental, kind of surreal because it all our friends and family were saying how good it was.

The real breakthrough was opening in Newport market. We opened up there and random people were telling us it was the best burger they’d ever had and we we’re looking at each other like, what’s going on here?”

If you want to find the Christmas spirit in Port Talbot you have to go to the legendary pantomime at Taibach Rugby Club. It has been an annual and hugely popular fixture for well over half a century.

Oh yes it has. Tickets for shows such as Cinderella’s Golden Ball, Beauty & The Obese or this year’s Wonky Willy and the Charlie Factory are as rare as elf dust. They’re pantos very much for an adult audience, as you can tell from the titles.

Expect lots of double meanings, toilet humour and jokes at the expense of villages such as Goitre and local pubs such as The Bell. They all ramp up the decibels of laughter in an audience that believes that Christmas starts properly with the Taibach panto.

John Newman plays Abacus Crunch, Wonky Willy’s trusty accountant. It’s a long way removed from some of the jobs John’s done in real life: “I’ve been a mechanical fitter, working in the coke ovens at the steel works, which was hot and dirty. I have also worked in shipyards, petrochemical plants and on oil rigs.’

When he tells you he used to play rugby you don’t have to be Mystic Meg to work out he played prop forward, a fact confirmed when he asks me to photograph his best side as the other one has an earflap missing some flesh. “I got beat up a bit,” he admits.

Given all the hard graft in his life, it’s ironic that John describes panto as hard work. “It is hard work,” he stresses “but it’s indescribable when you get up there and all the crowd is laughing at you.”

John first trod the boards in Taibach in 1984, when the rugby club was celebrating its centenary. Since then – owing, no doubt to his sylph-like physique – he’s played Tinkerbell, Cinderella and Snow White.

This year it makes a change that he is playing a man, even if Abacus Crunch is the only accountant who goes around in shorts. John cheerfully explains it’s “because he’s not a very good accountant and he can’t afford long trousers.”

Bricklayer Paul Wagstaffe has been involved in the pantomime for around 10 years but missed the last two years owing to illness. He had a major operation recently but was straight into rehearsals for Wonky Willy two weeks afterward leaving hospital, playing Noodles, Wonky Willy’s mate.

Paul tells me it’s a panto without any obvious stars: “Everybody gets more or less the same amount of words, though one or two get a bit more than the others, because some people come across better on stage.  But we’re all part of it.  We’re all singing the songs together. We’re all involved in everything.”

Not taking yourself seriously is key: “You feel you don’t want to look stupid, but the more stupid you look, the more you get the laughter.  And it’s great.  You don’t over-emphasise or over-act your parts.”

There does seem to be something in the water in Port Talbot when it comes to creating actors, given that Michael Sheen, Anthony Hopkins and Richard Burton all come from the area. That Factor X is probably present in the beer at Taibach RFC.

Phil Waters is one of a quartet of the writers penning this year’s panto and has been performing in them since 2018. This year he appears as Mr Berni the sweet shop owner, based on a real character in Taibach from the 80s and 90s.

Phil explains “It’s not the most politically correct production. But we know where the lines should be drawn, we know where the boundaries are. We refer to current affairs and there are plenty of local references, to things that are happening in our community, whether it be the steelworks closing or rivalries between the area’s rugby teams, between Taibach and the Green Stars in Aberavon, Cwmavon and the Aberavon Quins.”

Aled Humphreys directs this year’s panto and also appears as one of the Oompa-Loompas.  It’s a long way removed from the time when he appeared, along with other members of Taibach rugby club, with Michael Sheen in National Theatre Wales’ staging of The Passion.

A bit like the members of the guard that protected Sheen in the weekend-long play, Aled explains how those involved in Wonky Willie refer to themselves as The Brotherhood. “We live in each other’s pockets for about three, four months every year, and for the week of the show, we hardly see our wives, our partners, our girlfriends.

We actually see more of each other for about eight or nine days than anybody else, in our little glorious shed, our little panto shed out the back, our changing room. The reason we call ourselves a brotherhood is that we all go through tough times. Whether it be work, like the steelworks closing recently, whether it be family, whether it be losses.  So, you know, a couple of people have lost their loved ones over the years. The brotherhood is one of those crutches that we can all rely on.”

Amanda Phillips is the musical director and for the purposes of the production describes herself as an “honorary male.” She did sound for a couple of years and this year is her fifth. Asked to describe where the panto sits on the spectrum between professional and amateur she chuckles: “It’s right in the middle. It’s professional in parts and very unprofessional in others! Now the mistakes and people arriving late on stage, that’s what makes the panto.”

Playing Oompa-Loompa Misshape is Mark Evans, known by everyone as Dipso, short for dipsomaniac, after an occasion when he apparently had one too many sherbets. Mark joined the panto brotherhood about 15 years ago. “They put me on stage straight away, and I think I made a few friends.”

I suggest he has a very good face for panto and Mark fully agrees, suggesting he does look a bit comical, like a comedian. “You can put me down as unusual character. You can put me down as a sort of Freddie Starr.”

Being part of the panto means much more to Mark than just having a laugh. “I’ve just been laid off through my eyesight, I’m now partially blind. I was a road marker, working on the white lines on the highways. The boys here in Taibach have done so much for me, but this year in particular they’re helping me out in different ways. From the point of my mental health, the panto’s done me the world of good.  Otherwise, I’d be in the house now, because my eyes are not as good as they used to be.”

On stage Mark pushes himself to the limit for the sake of entertainment. “I will go as far as I can.  I can and I do go overboard sometimes. If they ask me to do something, it doesn’t matter whether I shouldn’t be doing it, I will do it.”

It’s given Mark a confidence he didn’t know he had. “I didn’t realise I could go on stage. I thought my nerves would go, but these boys gave me the confidence. I say to myself every year, if I can make 200 people smile and be happy every night, that’s my job done.”

Another Oompa Loompa is Swansea DVLA worker Mark Thomas, whose dog Rosie, a rescue dog from Ireland is the calmest canine ever, sitting happily on his lap throughout rehearsals. Mark joined the panto in 2010: “I just sort of got hooked within the first year or two of being involved in it, on the buzz, the enjoyment. We’re a group within the panto within the community but the whole community comes together to watch it. You see people you may not see from one year to the next, but they’re there every year watching the show, with laughter on their face.”

Mark Miles, known by everybody as Bush, has an absolute allegiance to the panto and to the boys. “You’re bound to it because, you know, this is not a natural thing to do.  You know, that’s the understatement of the night. But, you know, I think for everybody, everybody kind of develops to a different level. We’ve got one boy in it who would never ever have gone on a stage and you see him now, you know, he looks like a professional actor.”

Audience member Juliet has been coming to the panto for “Donkeys years. I’ve been coming here for about twenty-five years, maybe more. The one who’s in the bed, Jason is married to my niece and one of her sons, Tom is the prompter and Owen, the one who’s playing the Indian boy has had to step in to the part and I’m just gobsmacked. I didn’t think he could perform like that.

“They’ve always got that element of being outrageous, which is wonderful: it’s a rugby club after all. Anyone who comes and expects it to be politically correct, well it’s not going to work is it? I was saying to my husband earlier that because we know the people in it, know members of the cast and when they’re making jokes about local businesses, we know them all. It’s all about community. That’s what it’s all about.”

Jon Gower is Transport for Wales’ writer-in-residence. He will be travelling the breadth and length of the country over the course of a year, reporting on his travels and gathering material for The Great Book of Wales, to be published by the H’mm Foundation in late 2026.