This left all as drained as the arc itself, with your thoughts only focused on the next time this enormous tear of hope and splendour returns to fill the empty eye and yet again provide .This was our Swansea, this was our bay. These were the days when play was really work and done without complaint, to complain would have made you an outcast for here you had to fit in pull your weight or you did not share the spoils.

The bay was alive at all times with people fishing the tide in and winking, shrimping, cockling and dead lining the tide out. Large galvanized tin bathes became the container brimmed with the catch. Here baths were the norm in the terraced streets and all houses had one, some oval in shape some long enough for an adult to stretch out. They were the height of luxury and when not being used were taken into the backyards where they meticulously hung on a wall by their loopy carrying handles. The call to the table was this galvanized gong. It hung on that rusty nail that never suited the blinding white-washed wall, that same nail that on a big wash held the extra line.

Not far from this spot you would see the mangle that ate the clothes. Foaming from its greedy mouth that spewed constantly as it swallowed. So fit the muscular arm on its turning wheel took no notice as it excreted the clothes from its rear into the bath. Oh! I must not forget the main item of this amazing set the washboard this wooden frame that doubled as a cricket wicket and trebled in the skiffle. It swished, swashed and foamed in its original purpose with its corrugated brass or glass inset. It took the bouncers and googlys and it sang and rasped to the tunes. The recessed head that failed so often to hold the shattered carbolic soap that nervously shook free, to dive to the depths away from the mangle arms that searched eagerly before it became soft and useless to the board.

These were the items that took time to use where the day was industrious, the users so fit. For after this there were the lines where the wooden pegs like a row of soldiers waited to be introduced to the garments, usually via the wraparound pinny with its gaping pocket of a mouth at its front. This made mangle arms marsupial and like a walrus she was with two pegs between her teeth, and her arms spread like an eagle in flight, with white sheet wings that flapped and fought the wanted wind. What monster was this? That had the claw that clipped my ear, yet the bosom that was my couch! Here the wind cast its spell. It collected the moisture the mangle had missed, took it to the sky, then to work its magic yet again, and throw it back down, whistling, and laughing, as mangle arms collected her clothes and cursed, knowing that there would be a repeat performance. But never was there an encore from those that cursed. The lines sighed when relieved of their stress, as the pegs went to the pinny not back to the blaspheming mouth, the white-washed wall blushed grey and the greedy mangle ate yet again.