Cardiff’s Wood Street and the Betty Campbell monument

New building above the proposed bus station in Wood Street, Cardiff, and a corner of the BBC Wales HQ

Although I live just a couple of miles from Cardiff’s city centre, I have been there only a handful of times since the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020.

I would usually visit the Queen Street shopping area but last week my bus dropped me in Wood Street, at the Central Railway Station end of town. The city has been without a main bus station since 2015 but a new one may open next year.

I knew the street was being redeveloped but I must have looked like a tourist as I turned around in amazement to point my phone camera in all directions…

Wood Street bus stops – the development is not quite complete yet

The new UK tax office – my own office used to be on this site when I worked for The Western Mail and South Wales Echo newspapers

Everywhere is white and glassy

One recent landmark I had read about but never visited was the Betty Campbell monument…

Award-winning statue of Betty Campbell

The Betty Campbell monument was unveiled in September 2021 following a campaign by Monumental Welsh Women, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to recognising the contribution of women to the history and life of Wales.

It won an award by public vote in the Public Statues and Sculpture Association (PSSA) Marsh Awards 2022 in November.

The subject of the four-metre high sculpture – which stands in front of the HMRC building (tax office) – is Wales’s first black headteacher, Betty Campbell, known for paving the way to equality and diversity in the capital and beyond.

She was born in 1934 in Cardiff’s docklands area to a Jamaican father and Welsh Barbadian mother and grew up in what was commonly known as Tiger Bay.

A representation of the children whose lives Betty Campbell changed

Mrs Campbell was headteacher at Mount Stuart Primary School in Butetown and taught her students about slavery and black history. Later she was among those who created Black History Month in the UK.

Away from the classroom, she was on the race relations board, a member of the Broadcasting Council for Wales, a member of the Home Office’s race advisory committee and a Cardiff councillor.

Among many accolades she was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list for her services to education and community life. She died in 2017, aged 82.

Then it was off to the shops…

The John Batchelor statue in The Hayes, with the usual guest gull on its head

This statue is a more traditional landmark, depicting John Batchelor (1820 – 1883), a prominent Welsh Victorian businessman and politician, who earned the name “Friend of Freedom”. He was a Liberal councillor, Mayor of Cardiff and campaigner against slavery. He was variously a timber and slate merchant and shipbuilder.

The Christmas market stalls in The Hayes

The festive beer house

In Queen Street there is a Santa grotto – and a giant screen advertising, on this occasion, expensive watches

My shopping completed, I caught a bus home to Canton…

Although it is nearly Christmas, there were still autumn leaves on the sycamores near my home

I must get out more!