Post by Administrator on Apr 1, 2020 11:24:57 GMT
Barry, Past and Present
Barry, South Wales is the setting for the opening chapter of my soon to be published new novel, Oriental Vengeance. Chief Mate Bill Rowden signs aboard an old tramp steamer loaded with coal bound for the furnaces of the Savona steelworks in northern Italy. The year is 1934 and Britain is emerging from the depths of the Great Depression.
In its heyday Barry was the largest coal export port in the world, taking the title from Cardiff in 1913 when it exported over 11 million long tons of coal to the latter’s 10.6 million long tons.
Yet in 1881, only 34 years before, Barry had been an agricultural village with a population of no more than 500. Situated on the northern shore of a tidal estuary, it sat opposite Barry Island, a rocky whale-backed outcrop home to the burial place of Dark Ages Saint Baruc and the ruins of his chapel. Access to the island was on foot across the sand and mud at low tide.
The story of the transformation of a small coastal village into the largest coal export port in the world.
LINK
Barry, South Wales is the setting for the opening chapter of my soon to be published new novel, Oriental Vengeance. Chief Mate Bill Rowden signs aboard an old tramp steamer loaded with coal bound for the furnaces of the Savona steelworks in northern Italy. The year is 1934 and Britain is emerging from the depths of the Great Depression.
In its heyday Barry was the largest coal export port in the world, taking the title from Cardiff in 1913 when it exported over 11 million long tons of coal to the latter’s 10.6 million long tons.
Yet in 1881, only 34 years before, Barry had been an agricultural village with a population of no more than 500. Situated on the northern shore of a tidal estuary, it sat opposite Barry Island, a rocky whale-backed outcrop home to the burial place of Dark Ages Saint Baruc and the ruins of his chapel. Access to the island was on foot across the sand and mud at low tide.
The story of the transformation of a small coastal village into the largest coal export port in the world.
LINK