Month: May 2025

Urgent need to bring back paper stars to our French windows!

In the beginning it was an Irishman running to post a letter home

knocking a Welshwoman off her feet…

she would remember him yje next time they met.

Saturday 21st June 2025 6.30pm. VoicesontheBridge @StoryvilleBooks, Mill Street Quarter, Pontypridd. 6.30pm

Greg Cullen’s first stage play premiered when he was eight.

He has since carried on to have another sixty plus premieres including a couple of award-winning short Films, a few dabblings in TV and many hours of highly regarded Radio drama. However, Greg has stayed true to first love producing theatre that spans across a vast range of forms from large scale site specific puppet shows, through Pantomimes, Musicals, through to deeply researched verbatim theatre pieces such as “Taken Out”, that exposed the coverup of the chaotic cock-ups that led to the deaths of 51 Welsh Guards in the Falklands/Malvinas War. Epic historical dramas such as “Frida and Diego”, a Magic Realist play with original music and traditional dance in which Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera retrace their personal, political and Artistic purposes through the first seismic half of the 20th Century and ask, “Which way now?”

In 1987 Greg founded and led for twelve years the Mid Powys Youth Theatre and Orchestra for whom he wrote eight large scale groundbreaking plays including “Tarzanne” in which twenty actors had specialist physical training to transform convincingly into a colony of Chimpanzees. MPYT became the most celebrated Youth Theatre in Britain winning twelve national awards and selling out the RNT with two productions. Greg went on to become the Artistic Director of the National Youth Theatre of Wales, revolutionising the reach of the organisation, touring a company of eighty across Wales in five sellout productions. Greg was presented with a unique Welsh Office award “For Making an Outstanding Contribution to the Lives of Young People in Wales”, which he’s quite chuffed about.

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Organised and presented by Rob Cullen of VoicesontheBridge – Greg Cullen will be reading with Patrick Jones, Sabrin Hasbun, Abeer Ameer, Mike Jenkins, Rob Cullen, Tracey Rhys, Leanne Evans, Des Mannay, Fiona Cullen, and Ben Wildsmith.

VoicesontheBridge is an evening of poetry, spoken word and song. This event is stacked with great poets & speakers book early to ensure your place!

Elizabeth Heath of RCT Palestine Solidarity Campaign will be speaking about the upcoming Palestinian youth visit to RCT and they will have a stall with info leaflets.

Menna Elfyn couldn’t be with us but has generously donated 20 copies of – Y Bachgen a’r Wal – The Boy and the Wall – a book creeated by the young people at Lajee Centre near the city of Bethlehem.

Three local artists have donated paintings to be autioned on the night Barabara Castle, Jenna Cullen.

Great news Gerhard Kress has donated £410 he raised from the sale of his art work!

There will also be food and music.

This event is part of The Pontypridd Great Big Community as Super Power Day.

The event could not take place without the support of the wonderful @StoryvilleBooks. Big thanks to Jeff!

Watch out for further posts with more information about the evening.

Tickets are £10 online – £12 on the door.

We hope you can join us and support the urgent need of the children of Gaza.

This is not a fundraiser for Hamas.

This is an event to provide funds to support the Children of Gaza.

All monies raised will be donated to UNHCR.

This is a formidable group of poets, writers, artists – Don’t miss it – Book Early!

My mother had the brown envelope containing Army Form D140 -83 telling her that (following the Battle of Anzio in January 1944) my father was “Missing in Action – Presumed Dead.”

His Army pay to my mother was stopped. And so, she was forced to get a job working nights in the munition arsenal in Bridgend soldering fuses into bombs and shells. It was dangerous work. Some mornings other parts of the works werent there following an explosion. She spent hours listening to the Radio reports of those missing, those no longer missing, and those prisoners of war.

My father eventually surfaced in a Prisoner of War camp and the news came back that he was alive. Recordxs show Rome Radio knew he was alive because they were announcing that he was an escaped prisoner of war on a motorbike. The War Office didn’t listen to Rome Radio apparently.

During the day my mother raised money for the Red Cross standing outside a chemist shop on Tonypandy Square. Due to complaints she was told to stand on the other side of the road. And it was there that my grandmother found her to let her know that my father was on his way home! My father was eventually released (under mysterious circumstances – he may have escaped again) from the largest POW Camp in Germany Mooseburg.

Liberated by the Russians, Dad came home long after VE Day. My mother waiting for him still.

The going away foto 1939. My dad looking spectacularly miserable. With reason.