Mal's Memories 4

DO YOU remember Glyn Salmon?

The late Cllr T Glyn Salmon was Penarth’s Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths for many years and a long-standing Labour Councillor on the old Penarth Urban District Council. He was also Chairman of the authority’s Pier and Esplanade Committee.


One morning, just after I had got into the Penarth Times office, back in those days still at Arcot Street, I received a call from Cllr Salmon asking if I wanted to go with him down to Penarth Pier which had just been struck and damaged by a paddle steamer in heavy sea fog.

Brushing off the staff’s fears for our safety (“I am Pier Chairman, you know”) Cllr Salmon led me down the Pier in virtually zero visibility until we gingerly neared the seaward end and could see considerable damage to the side railings and decking.


Then, looming out of the gloom we could see the paddle steamer heading straight at the pier once again. There was nothing for it but to run shorewards to safety, and run we did as we heard the crunch of impact and the smashing of timbers behind us.

Now, anyone who knew Cllr Salmon will recall that he was a dapper little man who never went anywhere without his trademark bowler hat, bow tie and umbrella.


My abiding memory of Glyn Salmon is of him, complete with bowler hat and umbrella waving like an aeroplane propellor, fleeing for his life that fateful morning.


Of course, it was a serious and costly incident which resulted in the closure of the pier for some time, but it certainly had its comic aspect, and although I always got on well with Cllr Salmon I could never look at him in the council chamber again without chuckling to myself.