Run Free: reflecting on change

Earlier this year I finished my first novel. The title is Run Free and it’s set in 1976, in the Newport I remember from my childhood.

I grew up on the east side of the River Usk where the majority of men, including my dad, worked in heavy industry. In fact, job opportunities in Newport were overwhelmingly dominated by the steel industry, e.g. Llanwern Steelworks opened in 1962 and employed up to 6,000 people by the mid-sixties.

The redbrick streets of my childhood were built during the late 19th and early 20th century to accommodate the families moving to Newport from the Midlands,  hence the naming of many local streets like Dudley Street, Walsall Street and Rugby Road. Like most of my friends, I lived in one of those terraced streets of two-up, two-down properties where neighbours lived on top of each other and everyone minded each other’s business! My parents added an extension in about 1971–72 to create a bigger kitchen and a modern bathroom.

The streets where I spent the first few decades of my life provide the setting for Run Free. The story unfolds within this confined geographic area and, whether it was the best decision or not, I chose to stick to real street names and locations.

After years of prevaricating, I finally finished my novel in June. Now though, I find myself questioning why I chose a setting I’ve hardly visited since my late father sold the house Magor Street house in 2002. I certainly never felt any fondness for the area – I couldn’t wait to get away! Maybe it’s because, as we grow older, we understand how much our childhood experiences shape our adult life: the decisions we make, the aspirations we have – or don’t have – and the lives we go on to lead. 

It was time to return and see how well I’d remembered my old haunts – the places where Trevor, Sylvie and Karen live their humdrum lives. I’ll admit, it was a strange experience and there were moments when I felt completely disoriented. 

The Orb Works

Trevor, one of my point-of-view characters, is a shift worker at the Orb Works. In the 1970s, continental shifts were a fact of life for many working-class men, with ‘doublers’ (sixteen-hour shifts) common. Then there was the ‘double back’ – when a steelworker finished work at 6am and returned for the afternoon shift at 2pm. I was careful to use real shift patterns to the plot’s advantage in Run Free.

A few years back, I interviewed a man who’d spent his entire working life at the Orb Works and thankfully I’d already written those early chapters when my memory stick died because, at that point, I lost all the notes I’d made. Thankfully, I’ve learned from that soul-destroying experience and I now back everything up on the cloud.

The transformation of the area surrounding the Orb Works began in the mid-nineties when the old cricket grounds were sacrificed for so-called progress, i.e. to make way for the construction of the Southern Distributor Road (SDR) and a new bridge across the River Usk. Clearly, having a river cut through a city will create bottlenecks as people attempt to cross from one side to the other. I understand the rational for the so-called progress, but the cricket grounds boasted trees and lawns, whereas everything built in its place was concrete and ugly.

The Orb Works itself officially closed in 2020, ending over a century of steel production on the riverbank site. The old stone gatehouses and pillars have been preserved, although they are so completely dwarfed by the modern apartment blocks immediately behind that their presence feels tokenistic and no more than a nod to the historical significance of the site.

Forty-eight years after the events of Run Free take place, I found myself struggling to imagine Trevor cycling past those gatehouses and into work.

Lysaghts Institute – the ‘Stute

One of the few remaining landmarks of 1970s Corporation Road, the ‘Stute features in Run Free as somewhere Trevor must avoid if he doesn’t want to run into his workmates on that fateful afternoon.

The building, named after the company’s chairman WR Lysaght, opened in December 1928, and originally boasted eight acres of grounds, tennis courts, a bowling green and ornamental gardens. Presumably, all these had disappeared by my childhood as I remember none of them. What I do remember was the ballroom, where my friend Kathryn held her 18th birthday party and met her now-husband Patrick.

The ‘Stute closed in 2001 and became derelict, however it was bought and refurbished by Linc-Cymru in 2008. Nowadays, the venue offers commercial, conferencing and celebration space. Oh, and it’s all fenced off, preventing me from getting anywhere near to take a photograph.

The lane where it happens

The ‘horsey park’ hadn’t changed dramatically, although the treacherous witch’s hat and cradle in the children’s play area had long been dismantled. A footpath still runs between the park and the reen, but there is a noticeable amount of change, mostly relating to housing. In fact, the fields where the horses once grazed have been completely given over to housing developments, rendering our childhood moniker meaningless. 

Then it was on to the lane – and my biggest shock of the day. To put it bluntly, the lane where key events in Run Free take place has simply ceased to exist.

I actually got a little disoriented after I’d crossed the bridge over the reen. By now on auto drive, I followed a short lane to my right which led to … a modern housing estate. Retracing my steps, I realised the line of the right lane still existed, however it looked so alien I hadn’t immediately recognised it as the place where Trevor puts his plan into action. The shaded, menacing thoroughfare I recall is now an open tarmac walkway with housing to the right. The thick vegetation where Karen was forced to hide is no more. All that remains is a strip of grass dotted with tall trees along its length. It was all very disconcerting, not to mention disappointing. The dense undergrowth and vegetation, the shadowy lane that Christopher is fearful of walk down … it’s all been lost in the pursuit of housing.

Needing confirmation my memory hadn’t been playing tricks on me, I walked the full length of the lane and was mightily relieved when I reached the far end and a familiar whitewashed cottage.

Magor Street’s reens

The pill I’d passed a little earlier runs from the River Usk and narrows to become the reen in Run Free. At low tide, the mudflats didn’t look so different from those we saw recently in Olhão, on the Ria Formosa. The Severn Estuary has the second highest tidal range in the world so growing up in Newport you spend a fair amount of time gazing down at rich alluvium silt aka mud. I can’t say I’m a fan – not here or in the Algarve.

This reen is important to my plot because Trevor has lied to Sylvie about working a doubler. He chooses to follow the footpath above the reen because he wants  to avoid bumping into someone who might mention it to Sylvie. The landscape looked much as I remembered it, although the idea of clambering down the bank to the water no longer appealed.

The reen at the bottom of Magor Street, so beloved of us local children during spring tides, has long been culverted – I think it probably happened back in the late 1970s or early 1980s although I can’t be certain. I only know my older daughters, born in 1985 and 1987, never got the chance to fish for minnows, cocky elbows and flat fish on my local ‘beach’.

Sylvie’s father’s dilapidated corrugated steel garage, a key ‘character’ in the novel, stood at the end of Magor Street in the exact same spot as my grandad’s dilapidated corrugated steel garage. I recall it looking as if a strong gust might blow it down at anytime. I can’t remember ever venturing inside, but I’m sure I must have done so at some point. 

Magor Street

I made my way up Magor Street, feeling no rush of warm nostalgia for my childhood home. In Run Free, the small community mindset suffocates Sylvie and Trevor, just as it suffocated me all those years ago. Generations of the same families lived side by side. Newcomers, like the fictional Nocivelli family, attracted everyone’s interest and tongues wagged … endlessly.

My grannie’s house was opposite ours, my Auntie Doll and Uncle Frank (my grannie’s youngest brother) ran the shop next door to us, her sister (Auntie Beat) lived opposite the shop and ‘Uncle’ Jack (and my ‘cousins’ Elizabeth and Stephen) was just up the street. Next-door-but one was my mother’s second cousin Chris and his family. My mother literally got married and moved across the street. We weren’t unusual. Our next door neighbour’s mother lived opposite him and his mother’s mother lived halfway up the street. The lack of inspiration and curiosity about the world seeped into every pore of those red-brick houses. I couldn’t imagine having such a parochial outlook that I’d remain in Magor Street when I could choose where I lived. Like my characters, I cannot remember a time when I didn’t dream of escaping.

Everything looked so different, not least the lack of any red bricks. In Run Free, an important scene takes place at the corner of Magor Street and the lane leading to the playing field. Sylvie and Trevor’s house, my old home that I’d ‘moved’ one house along, seemed too close. Would a real-life Sylvie behave as recklessly this close to home? Did it matter? After all, it was only I who had any inkling of the proximity.

My parents’ house was the last property that was back-to-back with another house, which meant we could leave our garden by climbing onto the waist-high brick wall and dropping onto the lane behind. In my novel, the Hardings have a proper garden gate through which characters can arrive and leave. I was shocked to see those same terraced gardens are now protected by high-level walls and fences, making it impossible for a child to ‘escape’ the way we did.

Hilda’s shop

My Auntie Doll’s ‘corner shop’ was undoubtedly the inspiration for Hilda’s shop. I think it was originally owned by Auntie Doll’s parents and called Hancock’s. Like Hilda’s shop, Auntie Doll’s enterprise spanned two terraced houses. The main shop occupied the left-hand side, while the front room of the right-hand shop served as a storage area for non-grocery items, including kitchenware, general household items shoes and stockings. I’m not certain of the details, but I think her uncle lived above the second shop when I was little because I can recall him wandering in and out of the shop, maybe suffering from dementia.

My Uncle Frank was a milkman until he retired. After that, he helped Auntie Doll with trips to the wholesaler and, perhaps less enthusiastically, with serving customers. The shop itself was a complete muddle. One Christmas Eve, Uncle Frank was taken ill and so 17-year-old me was ‘volunteered’ to help Auntie Doll out. It was near impossible to find anything, other than the cigarettes and chocolates which were always prominently displayed. The entire place was such in a muddle that nobody except Auntie Doll could find anything.

Auntie Doll was in her eighties when she finally closed shop. She encouraged us teenagers to rummage through the non-food section, allowing us to purchase whatever we wanted at the original marked prices. I can still remember the thrill of finding stilettos for under 50p and silk stockings for mere pennies. Soon afterwards, the adjoining properties were converted back to separate houses, marking the end of Magor Street’s ‘corner’ shop – a place where local people had gathered and gossiped for decades.

I very much wanted to bring my Auntie Doll’s shop back to life, which is why it features prominently in Run Free .

The playing field

The playing field for St Andrew’s Infants and Junior School must have arrived in the late 1960s. I know this because I can clearly remember the time when the open land between Magor Street and Cromwell Road was overgrown wasteland covered in brambles.

By 1976, the field was well-established – not just for school purposes but as a place for us local kids to hang out. After Easter, ominous white markings would appear, signalling that game sessions would be moving outdoors. For me, being cajoled into sprinting around a track and playing ball games was the stuff of nightmares. Nobody back then could have guessed I’d take up running in my forties and love it. 

The playing field was too exposed to be used as a location for any of my more intimate or dramatic scenes, however in Run Free I do have Sylvie using it as a short cut to Cromwell Road. The old Unigate Dairy building, where she emerges, is still standing but has been derelict for many years. While most of the field is how I remember it, a section on the Cromwell Road side has been fenced off and surfaced for parking for the school – making me wonder if that short cut would even be possible now.

The green railings encircling the perimeter looked like they hadn’t been painted in nearly sixty years.

Location, location … and the power of memory

Overall, it was an unsettling afternoon, albeit one filled with emotion and nostalgia. The landmarks of my childhood had mostly been erased. I had to keep reminding myself that 1976 was nearly half a century ago. Things change. I haven’t walked these streets in many years. Would walking them earlier this year have helped me to write my novel?

Living abroad meant that I had no option but to write the majority of Run Free from memory. Had I lived locally, I would undoubtedly have dedicated more time to ground research. And you know what? I think doing so would have ruined everything. I have a good memory and I can vividly recall the lay of the land in July 1976. After all, I walked those streets daily; it was in that lane I collected elderberries for my dad’s infamous homemade wine. I shopped in Auntie Doll’s most days (mostly for toffee logs!) and drank in the Black Horse pub. I made daisy chains in the playing field and went to the speedway where, like Karen, I worshipped Phil Herne. I even walked to and swam in the lido where Karen made her unplanned plunge.

Fifty years on, much of what I remember from my childhood has disappeared. I only hope that Run Free can capture the essence of the time and place I grew up in.