PRESENTING UNIQUE PHOTOS OF OLD CARDIFF FOR OVER 15 YEARS!

Who am I?

My name is Matthew, and I'm a 40-something born and bred Cardiffian with Anglo-Saxon roots.  I have worked for the private sector, energy companies, telesales, local authority, the civil service, and many charities, in a long and varied career.

I also occasionally volunteer for local groups involved with environmental projects, and have in the past been a leader for cycling and badminton clubs.  I enjoy gardening or just being surrounded by nature with my camera, visiting out of the way villages and exploring interesting structures in the middle of nowhere, camping, filming my trips on heritage railways, and most recently started re-learning video editing - amongst many other things.

In my spare time (which for large chunks of my life, has been non-existent!), I indulge in various hobbies and projects.  Most of them involve graphic editing, web-design, cartography, historical research, or digital archiving of some kind.

I dabble in electronics / mobile phone repair, enjoy reading science articles, and a bit of stargazing if I get out of the city.  I also have 30 years of experience with building and repairing PCs, using Microsoft Office or various bespoke databases.

I've learned how to digitally convert old documents, maps, slides, negatives, audio and video tapes.  I am proficient in restoring damaged slides and negatives of all sizes and conditions, using professional grade scanning equipment and software.  I also meticulously file and back up *everything*.

Always have more than one backup!

My interest in Cardiff's history.

I became interested in Cardiff's history when I was in junior school, and spent many hours in Ely library looking at the pictures in Stewart Williams' very popular "Cardiff Yesterday" series of books.

I realised that many aspects of Cardiff's past were quickly vanishing. I can remember so many things from when I was very young - such as;

• The smell of damp wood, and views of clanking wagons being buffered in the Splott storage yards.
• The smell of hops drifting across Central Square from the Brains brewery early in the mornings, mixing with the not so nice, tacky odour of the bus shelters.
• The sound and visual spectacle of huge machines in the old Industrial and Maritime Museum down the docks, which I watched for hours.
• The whirring, whining engine and juddering body of a 'Pick an Orange' double decker bus, with its colourful ticket machine, steep steps and solid back seats.
• The distant sounds of industry - booms, crashes, rumbles, droning, and squealing railway wagon wheels - all through the night.
• The smell of salty mudflats along the coast, whilst sat outside the Red House pub in Grangetown, watching the ships coming in to dock, and waiting for my Dad to finish his drink.
• The smell of warm beer and salted chipsticks in a paper bag, sat outside the Dusty Forge in Ely, watching the cars fly along Cowbridge Road, and waiting for my Dad to finish his drink.
• The night lights of the City Centre in the 1980s, when my Grandad used to drop my Nan off to Bingo, in what is now a large corner shop partitioned off from the rest of the Prince of Wales pub.

The more I write about these memories, the more I miss old Cardiff...my Cardiff.

The books I found in the libraries I could visit, and the hours spent pouring over reference materials, all inspired me to start collecting as much information, and as many images of Cardiff from days gone by that I could.  Unfortunately, I didn't have my first camera until a lot of the old city had been demolished and cleared away. In retrospect, I wish I asked for one instead of a model railway!

I didn't really know what I was going to do with all that material at the time - just hoped that inspiration would eventually give me the answer.

I certainly do not consider myself an educated historian or local expert in any way - just someone who found the history of his home town fascinating, and wanted to share it.

The Development Stage (2001-2005)

The idea for this website was originally conceived in 2001, when I was introduced to HTML.  By then, I had built up quite a collection of nostalgic images of Cardiff, in addition to lots of rare historical documents, maps, and unique out-of-print books.

I wanted to share these images and information with the world, and really wanted to learn how to code a website.  The two ideas came together, and I started writing v1 of Cardiffians in 2003.   The website launched in June 2005, on the 50th anniversary of Cardiff becoming a city, and 100th anniversary of becoming capital of Wales.

v1 (2005-2014)

Starting with just 30 images, the site gradually expanded to include pages on the history of the suburbs, profiles of the famous people from or associated with Cardiff, and an extensive timeline covering over 2,000 years.

The site underwent various undocumented design overhauls and updates, snapshots of which are available to view at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine

Back in the early days I had a lot of passion for the site, as it was simple to keep up to date. But I made things difficult for myself by adding more and more content - all of which needed monitoring for errors and changes.

v2 (2015-2018)

In 2005, Internet Explorer dominated the web, but coding for it became more and more cumbersome.  When I discovered Chrome and Firefox, they opened up a new world of shiny new possibilities in the form of HTML5, CSS3, jQuery and responsive, clean, semantic design.

These new browsers were updated frequently, 100% compliant with the latest web design languages, and rendered everything, even experimental code, perfectly.  I spent so much time trying to fix the site to work with Internet Explorer, that by 2013 I decided to completely rebuild the site, which was a huge amount of work.

I had been told at the time, that I should just give up the site and "share it all on Facebook" or "upload everything to Flickr"....but I didn't like these suggestions.

Although they are great sharing platforms, I simply don't trust Facebook (and I think my concerns have been justified).  I like Flickr, but I wanted full control over my creation, content and materials.  I wanted users to be presented with an accessible clean design, free of adverts, pop ups and intrusive tracking.

v2 started development in 2013, and included discreetly integrated social media feeds (Disqus and Twitter), was written using the latest coding techniques, and made fully responsive.  It went live in January 2015...almost a decade after v1 was launched.

v2.1 (2018-2023)

Though I had not updated the site for a few years, I was always acquiring new images, and adding to the huge list of updates.  In late 2018, I started rolling out all the new content, and brought the image count to over 850.

My Grandad had passed away in 2014, and I was gifted his negative scanner. This opened up a whole new realm of possibilities for collecting new images. Since early 2015, I had been learning how to use this exciting new facility, which meant I could now invest in, and scan slides and negatives. With retrospect, I wish I'd started collecting a lot sooner - as with having a camera.

In Autumn 2020, I took the forum offline due to it being hacked, and sadly I've not been able to get it back online since, though I do have a backup of most of the messages. The site was upgraded to SSL and security settings were improved at the same time.

Another sad loss was the clickable map on the front page, which had been working through various iterations since 2005, but had finally broken by 2021. One of my very long term projects includes creating a new Google API map to replace it.

Other updates in v2.1 included;

• Hundreds of photo title corrections and additions.
• References and links have been updated.
• Coding in the pages streamlined.
• New analytics added.
• Graphical glitches fixed.
• New GDPR compliant privacy policy.

v2.2 (2024-)

As with v2.1, other matters had taken over in my life, and I had to put the site updates on hiatus again. Although I wasn't able to find time to work on the code, I was always gathering new content ready for the next big update.

A change of personal circumstances in Autumn 2023 finally gave me a chance to work on updating the analytics and integrating a new cookie notification / tracking system, which laid the groundwork for all other updates to come.

After hundreds of hours of scanning and restoring the images I had collected, purchased, or that had been donated - some of the biggest ever image gallery updates started being rolled out throughout early 2024. Following this, all of the suburb pages were overhauled with long overdue corrections made, new code, and minor updates to content and images.

Another change of circumstances in March 2024 created the opportunity to throw everything I had at the website. By April, it had undergone its biggest update in a decade - though most of this, with the exception of the galleries, would be 'behind the scenes' code.

Other updates in v2.2 so far include;

• New image galleries.
• Improved image index with enhanced speed-loading previews, instant description search and area filter.
• Further streamlined code, with every page verfied as compliant HTML5 and CSS3.
• Improved htaccess image caching, script pre-loaders and refined primary css file all reducing page load speed by an average of 100ms.
• Swapping out of Google Universal Analytics to GA4.
• Revised media break points for dual 4K monitors.
• Revised DPA (2018) and UK-GDPR privacy policy and legal disclaimer.
• Many more photo title corrections and additions, bringing the image count to over 1,100.

Success story

This isn't just a website about the history of Cardiff anymore; it's a leading example of my ability to create rich, accessible web content.

It is a useful source of information for schools, budding historians and people who hail from this great city.  The forum has helped bring old friends together from across the world, and the photos have brought back happy memories.  When I've had the free time, I've also been able to answer questions and resolve mysteries.

I am proud of the positive impact I have made, and hope to be able to continue to build on it.

Thanking you for your support

I should like to thank the people who, over the past 19 years, have been so supportive of my endeavours.

Whether you've sent me a lovely, kindly worded e-mail or X (Twitter) message, you've contributed information or photos, or very kindly brought my attention to errors - I appreciate each and every single comment and contribution.

Have a pleasant journey...and thank you for visiting.

Matthew :-)

PAGE UPDATE HISTORY

03 April 2024 (Coding and content updates)
29 September 2018 (Coding and content updates)
15 January 2015 (Coding and content updates)
July 2014 (Page created)