Friday, December 30, 2011

They have a dream ......



It's December 31st 1965 and the Labour government has just received a report it commissioned on the building of a new town in Mid-Wales. The report recommends a town of some 60000 stretching 17 miles between Llani and Newtown. It looks like the dream of various businessmen, council officials and local politicians is coming to fruition. Then in March a bomb explodes at the nearby Clywedog reservoir, followed in July by Gwynfor Evans' victory at Carmarthen .... the plan to extend the West Midlands into Mid Wales is quietly dropped.

Never mind there are other cards to play and in the meantime we can all enjoy Brumbeat legends the Applejacks ... the Honeycombs might have had a girl drummer but the Solihull group had Megan Davies on bass.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

would that have been Greater Newtown, Llanidloes Fawr or Caersws Major ?

radnorian said...

Caersws and Llanidloes would have been a bit of a mouthful.

Newtown New Town would have been a good choice.

Anonymous said...

1965? just after Beeching wrecked the Mid Wales railways, and almost exactly 100 years after the Railway companies reached Llangurig with one train and then were forced to give up by bankers .... Mystery is where were they headed? Aber?

radnorian said...

I expect you've seen this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llangurig#.27The_Railway_that_never_was.27

All news to me though.