Dispatches From a Dilettante

by Paul Rowson

  My final encounter with him was in 2010 in Burnley where his charities have been making a huge and co-ordinated effort to reverse years of decline in the area. The Prince has been consistently caring and genuinely deeply committed in visiting the town to chivvy progress and action. It is clear that his intervention is working. What he had to smilingly endure in dealing with some of the Council there would have been beyond most people.

  The visit started off in the town hall with Council top brass and key business people gathered round a large square table. The self important Leader of the Council who was sitting immediately adjacent to the Prince and whose elbows were touching those of HRH, produced piece of crumpled paper from his pocket. Without making any eye contact with the Prince he stared at the paper and slowly read the following complex message, with the intonation of a nervous five year old proclaiming a line at the Christmas play. “Good morning your Royal Highness and welcome to Burnley.” He then solemnly folded the paper, replaced it in the pocket from whence it came and made not one single contribution to the rest of the day’s proceedings. No wonder the fucking town needed assistance.

  And that by, and large, is the Prince’s lot. He writes memos deep into the night, frets against the incompetence of the public sector, fawns at the so called expertise of the private sector, charms and irritates in roughly equal measure and would never pass for a man considered to be happy.

  If you ever find yourself in Leith and have some spare time, a visit to the Royal Yacht Britannia, which is permanently moored there, will tell you a lot about the Prince of Wales. The tour round the yacht is an expertly constructed experience which evokes the sights, sounds and lifestyle aboard of days gone by. There are many opportunities to glimpse how the Royals lived when sailing, from the separate beds for the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh to the modesty balustrade added to prevent the Queen, who always wears skirts or dresses, being embarrassed by swirling winds. Just before stepping onto the yacht visitors walk through a room of photographs, among which is a close up colour shot of the Prince of Wales at the decommissioning ceremony for Britannia. He is clearly in the most tremendous and angry sulk. His petulant and defiant rage could not be misinterpreted as anything other than a disgust that the Royal Family have had to give this privilege up. He believes that God meant him to rule. His outburst to Diana ‘but don’t you understand, every Prince of Wales has had a mistress’, while true is not ultimately the utterance of a man with much to offer.

  11.

  THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN – SOUTH WALES 1992-97

  High up in the Rhondda Fach, cut off from the ribbon terraced housing of the valley below, lies the Penrhys Estate. In 1992 it had three and a half thousand inhabitants, ninety three per cent of whom were unemployed. I’ll mention that again - ninety three per cent unemployment. It was originally built to house miners that were to be recruited from Durham but by the time it was finished (preparing the site for construction took ages as it involved slicing the top off a small mountain), there were very few miners left in the Valleys never mind Durham.

  The Full Monty starts with the actual footage of one of those self aggrandising Council PR films with celebrity voice over along the lines of, ‘Sheffield - city on seven hills ready for the challenge of the nineties’. Birmingham did one around the same time which was made even more bizarre by the fact that it was intoned with utter lack of conviction by Telly ‘Kojak’ Savalas). Rhondda Borough Council had one commissioned for Penrhys where a woman in a ridiculous English accent extolled ‘Modern living high up in the fresh air, with space to live’.

  The reality was that within months of the first residents moving in it became a dumping ground used by the same Rhondda Borough Council to deposit difficult families on a bleak hillside conveniently cut off from the rest of the population. The second phase development consisting of a library, petrol station, police station and youth club had been ditched with the result that facilities were virtually non-existent. A committed churchman, John Morgans, and his family, were single-handedly trying to bring out the humanity of the place, but the Council had long ago abandoned any semblance of commitment and fought a rearguard action while wasting millions in the process.

  The physical location and design, which was laughably on a Tuscan hill village model, meant it was very difficult to police. When officers were required in numbers they could be seen coming up the mountain and this gave criminals and drug dealers plenty of time to make themselves scarce. Council housing staff regarded a posting to Penrhys as a penal sentence and I heard one Councillor say ‘They should burn the houses down with the residents in them’. Predictably then there were all the usual challenges of poor housing, drug abuse, random violence and a plethora of other social problems.

  Penrhys regularly featured in the national press, who ran headlines like ‘Britain’s worst estate’ or ‘Murder shame of Valleys blackspot’. TV crews made numerous documentaries most of which were clichéd and judgemental cut and paste jobs full of emotive and simplistic solutions for complex problems. There were exceptions, with BBC2 giving award winning director Penny Woolcock the chance to make ‘Mad Passionate Dreams’ which was a considered and sympathetic look at daily life on the grey monotone microclimate that was now my place of work. As a direct result of a Business in the Community business leaders visit with the Prince of Wales I was appointed Director of the newly formed Penrhys Partnership and started on April 1st 1992 – an interesting date in view of what lay ahead.

  The ambitious remit was to construct a ‘village centre’ by converting existing derelict buildings, and to create jobs for residents in the process. We were to concentrate on Education, Health and protection of the vulnerable in the new buildings. That barely tells the tale or the scale of the challenges. There was some European money available but any attempts to build attractive dwellings on Penrhys had been given up years ago, so in excess of a million additional pounds had to be found. What commercial entity would want to run a shop on the ‘village’ street even if construction could be achieved in this hostile setting? It says something that when we had almost completed the build and had finished what was to be a brand new and fully equipped Doctor’s surgery we got precisely two applications from GPs and one of those was from a doctor who had only just been reinstated after being struck off. How would buildings be secured, maintained and run cost effectively? The then current youth club, run by third rate council employees, operated out of a metal box and offered nothing that would positively impact on disturbed young people. The list of physical and logistical challenges was endless.

  However the real agenda was about re-engaging significant numbers of disenfranchised people who ranged from the unlucky to the criminally inclined and all of them physically, emotionally and financially cut adrift from mainstream society with catastrophic results. Penrhys had health, employment and educational statistics that were beyond appalling and an indictment of the abject failure of local government to understand, commit and address major social issues on any sort of cohesive basis.

  As in any new venture, but particularly given the setting for this one, it was imperative to get to know as many people on the estate as soon as possible. Ivor was one of the first guys I met on walkabout and he was the goalkeeper for Penrhys United who had just won the local cup final in extra time. Minutes after I had first chatted to him I bought a copy of the Rhondda Leader and there, covering a quarter of the back page, was a colour picture of Ivor flying athletically through the air to make a spectacular save. Next time I saw him we had a conversation that explained a great deal about life on the hillside. It went as follows:

  ”Great photo of you in the paper Ivor, you’re a star”

  Instead of looking proud he looked almost suicidal.

  “Bloody disaster man”

  “Oh why is that?”

  “I’ve been on full disability benefit for two years”

  Journalists and particularly politicians often talk about the black economy in general terms as someth
ing reprehensible yet unavoidable. Whereas there are criminal abuses by the lazy and dishonest, much of the black economy on the Penrhys estate, with the notable exception of the drugs scene, was driven by the desire to get just a few of things that made life tolerable. ‘On the hobble’ is a lovely Welsh phrase used to describe anyone working illegally. This could be as minor an ‘offence’ as decorating a friend’s house and getting paid for it while signing on.

  Considering the pathetic standard of education on offer in a disturbing number of Valleys’ schools at the time, given also the complete disappearance of thousands of traditional jobs like mining and add to that the fact that third generation unemployment existed in many households on the estate, it says a lot for a good proportion of people ‘on the hobble’ that they still want to be part of any economy.

  The drug dealers on Penrhys were mostly minor criminals who were quite open about ‘nipping’ over to Amsterdam to get ecstasy and dope for the then burgeoning rave scene in South Wales. There was one notable exception who was making serious money from drugs and who I won’t name on the basis that I still value the use of my legs.

  When he was away for long periods on procurement missions he left a new Porsche parked outside his council house just yards from a couple of stolen and burned out wrecks. There was never a scratch on the Porsche for the five years that I worked on the estate. He had a vicious looking pit bull which he left in the care of his girlfriend while he was away, although she never got to drive the car which remained motionless, and parked in glorious defiance for all to admire but not touch.

  I had occasion to call round to the house in order to ask him to have a word with a couple of kids who were causing damage to a flat nearby. I never actually asked him what words were used when he had them, but they usually did the trick. At this point it is perhaps worth mentioning that I have never been good with dogs and was petrified of the horrific breeds that were regularly on display on the estate. If the dogs could smell fear, they must have sensed that I was reeking of it and with some just cause. They were used as casual weapons. Years later John Morgans was savaged in a flat on Penrhys by an Alsatian, and had to be hospitalised with sixteen serious bites.

  As I approached the house, his girlfriend was in the garden and invited me in. I sat down on the expensive leather settee in the living room, which I couldn’t help noticing contained very impressive and state of the art Hi-Fi and televisual equipment. The man of the house appeared with his dog. Both were small, stocky, powerfully built and quietly menacing - ostensibly calm but in reality unpredictable powder kegs who could explode with devastating consequences. He plonked himself down at the other end of the settee and the dog leapt up and filled the space between us. I could feel the quivering brute strength as it then readjusted its’ position and sat on my lap.

  The conversation from that point is a complete blank but went on for ages as I could not, and dare not, move. I drank a cup of tea and held it above the beast dozing on my thighs, and for a moment contemplated scalding the dog in the hope it would leap up and away. Abandoning that idea I watched as the animal languidly lifted a leg and licked his bollocks, thinking for one terrifying moment thought he might be turning his attention to mine which were in close proximity. After a while the drug dealer grew weary of my presence and got up to signify the chat was over. The pit bull followed as his master left and levered itself up by kicking me in the crutch, as a final reminder of the power dynamic in the room. After encounters like these I always felt relaxed later in life when in corporate boardrooms in so called pressure situations.

  Family dynasties abounded in a sort of low grade Mafioso way. One family had made the arbitrary and totally unlawful decision to extend their council house garden. They did this by simply appropriating adjoining land and adding additional fencing. As the Council were too scared or too lazy to do anything about this (probably both) the family kept on the expansion, and by the time I left ‘their’ garden stretched to about an acre. All of it was used as space to service cars - ‘on the hobble’, hold barbeques and in summer enjoy the above ground swimming pool that they had installed. As we were building a Health Centre on the estate and security was a huge issue during the build process I thought it prudent to legally employ one of the brothers to act as security at night.

  The biggest challenge was to persuade him that the wages on offer were worth his while. They weren’t but he took the job and pilfered away on a regular basis throughout the build process. Pragmatically this made both parties happy. The construction company would have lost treble the amount during this period with all the concomitant aggro. This way our security guard could earn enough ‘extras’ that, combined with his legal wage, made him better off than not working at all.

  I should add that we had initially tried employing guards from an external security company but two successive night staff quickly resigned in fear after ‘Our nights of terror on Penrhys’ as the local press ran it.

  What is critical to note as I sketch the worst of life on the estate is that while all these bizarre, illegal and often scary things were happening, the majority of people on Penrhys were decent human beings who had not had luck, education, role models or the opportunity to develop latent talent. They survived an often hopeless situation without rancour, and if not surprisingly many were already bereft of energy or ambition, they quietly and lawfully ground out the days.

  A journalist friend of mine was doing a sympathetic feature on Penrhys for the News of the World. She knocked on the door of a flat in one of the depressing grey ugly tower blocks. Apprehensively she announced herself as a journalist to the pale, bedraggled and clearly impoverished male who answered the door. She never got invited in but during the ten minute conversation that ensued he quoted the metaphysical poet Lovelace (‘Stone walls do not a prison make nor iron bars a cage’), made astute comments about the economic outlook for the Valleys and declared his contempt for the local Council, who for political expediency had just spent sixteen million pounds renovating other tower blocks on the estate which they were now going to demolish. With that he stated that the conversation was at an end as ‘he had to go shoplifting in Tonypandy’.

  Guile was not a characteristic that featured much in Penrhys relationships. A jilted boyfriend of a feisty female, who had dispensed with a long line of lovers on the estate, painted in huge letters on a prominent wall by a boarded up shop in the old redundant shopping centre, ‘Kelly is shagging Carl’. The next day Kelly, who was not remotely perturbed by this graffiti attempt to shame her, had scrawled underneath, ‘No I’m not, I’m shagging Bryn from the pub’. Not only was this refreshingly honest but it was also a considerable shock to Bryn’s wife, the ramifications of which took the form of a public slanging match between Kelly and her a few days later.

  The saddening frequency of funerals was depressing, yet they managed somehow to combine emotion with humour. On occasion they spilled into alcohol fuelled violence at the wake. Take as read that ‘Simply the Best’ was always the song played at the impressive modern chapel that had been conceived and built by the efforts of John Morgans. If a mother, young or old had died, it was invariably a huge and expensive bouquet forming the word ‘MAM’ that lay on top of the coffin.

  At one funeral a bunch of hoodlums from Cardiff had hired a stretch limo to take them up to Penrhys and make an ‘entrance’. The staged grand arrival was somewhat undermined by the fact that the lengthy limo got jammed in the small turning circle by the church and it took half an hour of their combined efforts in full public view, to free it.

  By far and away the worst fight at a wake started right at the beginning of one, when the drink had only just begun to flow. The cause of the argument was the future ownership of the scraggy dog that had belonged to the deceased. As the night wore on mourners were split fairly evenly in their support of the two protagonists. To say that a sense of proportion had been lost would be understating it as violent mayhem ensued after the heavy drinking took its’ toll. At t
he end of it all the dog had disappeared and was never seen again.

  It was an obvious tactic to try and employ local people in any of the positions created by the work of the Partnership. Initially I was given a flat in a tower block to have as an office. Later the Council ‘donated’ an entire tower block to the Penrhys Partnership for just a pound. This was good business for them as demolition would have cost thousands. The cleaner of the stairwells and what passed as a foyer was pleasant and bright and became the first employee when I took her on as my administrative assistant. Beveley proved to be as astute appointment as, apart from being excellent at her job, she was the institutional memory for the estate and the characters on it. She soon told me that she had nearly quit the day before I moved in when a drug dealer hung his pit bull over the stairwell and threatened to set it on her, purely for his own amusement at her palpable fear.

  The phrase ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ was just beginning to come into vogue and we gradually began to persuade senior executives from the few big companies in the area to visit. Their reactions, as ‘captains of industry’ were interesting. The chief executive of the Welsh Utilities giant Hyder and the MD of the British Airways plant in Llantrisant were interested, insightful and supportive. They understood the broad truth in the maxim that to have prosperous high streets their needed to be prosperous back streets. They were appalled by what they saw in terms of the poverty and social exclusion but were willing to become engaged in a long term attempt to provide some sustainable solutions.

  To that end, and very early on in the life of the Partnership, we had arranged a consultation meeting group for a small number of residents and external senior external business people who had shown interest in the Partnership vision ‘to enable Penrhys to become a place where people wished to live’. We understood from the outset that the initial get together would not achieve much, but hoped it might be the start of better trust, understanding and possible buy in to what was a radical attempt bring about positive change. To actually persuade a representative group of residents to attend the meeting was a major challenge. Understandably apathy and cynicism were the first reactions to an invitation.