Station Bridge

The crow's nest

More shots of the famous Station bridge that crosses the railtrack at Burry Port/Pembrey station. As I have written before on this blog, this was a very popular hang out spot for my friends and I from around 1988 until 1992 ish. The heart of the town, or the 'crow's nest' as I always thought of it.
Some notable places you can see from this bridge are Barrie's Plaice and The George on the left and the Portobello Inn over there on the right. Carry on up the right and you'll find The Hope & Anchor pub.
You can see now how conveniently placed the chip shops and pubs are in Burry. The merry drinker can almost fall into Barrie's for a rissole or pie after a session in the Port. Very handy!



This is a view of the bridge from the bottom of Stepney road. the big red building in the background is the Neptune Hotel. When I was a boy it was the Carbay club and was one of the first pubs I ever drank a Coke in. (Courtesy of my father). In my minds eye, I can still see inside as it used to be all those years ago, with the dark wine colour leather seating lining the walls and big set windows. Emotions can go a little haywire, especially when one thinks of all the times, good and bad, that have passed by since the Car Bay club closed.



This is approaching Station bridge from the harbour. The building to the immediate right is one of the old Jones Newsagents (or 'top shop' as my brother and I called it), and the place nextdoor (you can just see the red shutter) is Smartiland sweetshop. Every childs favourite place back in the day. Slush Puppies and red laces! In the 1970's it was simply called Ken Rees's after the owner.

The Train Station

Burry Port/Pembrey train station is where I, and many others, spent our teens (from around 16 to 19.) It was an ideal spot because it is in the center of the village, with the shops and chip shops close at hand. And of course there was a shelter. It saved all the hassle of going to call for friends one at a time, everybody could be found here. Well I say 'everybody' but it was more the place for the rebels to kick about in, guys like me who enjoyed beer and drawing on brick walls. It was cool believe it or not.

Old hang out

The photo above is a recent snap I took while visiting my hometown. The shelter didn't look like that when our crew held court there. It used to be solid breezeblock with a tin, corrugated roof. Inside the shelter was a 5" thick stone marble bench that would numb your behind in the winter, and a light with tough perspex casing which allowed us to count our cigarettes and scrawl a few more lines of graffiti on the wall.
Around the back of this legendary shelter was the 'toilet', if the weather was okay. If not we used to relieve ourselves against the inside wall so that the urine would pool under the bench and wash away the cigarette butts and bottle tops. You can get a fair idea of the 'unique' aroma that lingered when the lager was in full flow.
This is where we kept tabs on the gossip and goings on of the town. People gettingvoff the train from Cardiff, Swansea or Llanelli must have thought they were stepping into a kind of modern Wild West, getting welcomed by lager louts. But there was never trouble, we kept our minds on new heavy metal records and where the best magic mushroom spots were that year.
That area unofficially belonged to us and anyone wanting to catch a train to Kidwelly or Carmarthen usually waited under the old footbridge (where I took the above photo from.) We smoked there, drank, talked, went with girls, made our mark on the walls and occasionaly ran across the railtrack in a mad dash to look brave before an oncoming train. Whenever I look at the station either visiting or in pictures, I am always nearly drowned by the wonderful memories.