Opening 4 - My First Refusal!

By no little surprise I drove from Blackwood to Caerphilly via Pontypool on Saturday. Should you look at a map you will see that this is the equivalent to going from Earth to Mars via Venus. I failed to encounter Max Boyce. I'll talk more about this in my other blog - you know - the proper one . It did give me the opportunity to pick up my accidental guide for the afternoon, "Bebe" in a lovely pub* called The Unicorn and she would prove vital to the wellbeing of today's venture - namely to unofficially open the largest (and only) moated castle in Wales, which had its original official opening in the late 13th Century during the reign of Henry III. I imagine this to have been a slightly grander affair to what I had in mind, particularly as the building of the castle had been hindered by the unwanted raiding of the Welsh terrorist, "Llywelyn The Last" which had infuriated the sub-contractors as they were suppose to be off to put a conservatory on the back of the one at Conwy but eventually lost out to N&P Windows.

Here's Edwards The Latest proudly showing off his potential acquisition, Caerphilly Castle. The box of electronic switches in the bottom left corner of the photograph were a later addition to the original plans which were drawn up some time around 1268. Castles in Wales didn't become electrified until at least 1330, largely because the sparkies on sight had quite a long lunch break that day

I honestly expected this one to be a breeze. There's nothing a happy tourist or sightseer likes more than to be asked to take a photo or even be in one and I didn't envisage any problems at all when I got to the gate, ribbon and scissors in hand.

Wrong.

Bebe and I approached a friendly enough looking young couple, smiled and explained what was going on, that it would only take a few seconds, would be a bit of a laugh and they could even keep the ribbon. They told us that they would "Rather not as this is not something we wish to be involved with" and walked off huffily. Dumbfounded, I withdrew to the safety of the castle itself, stopping only to buy my mother a spoon in the gift shop. Quite clearly, if this bad boy was going to get unofficially opened, we would have to tread a lot more Caerphilly. The castle is brilliant by the way and has a selection of 13th century death machines within its walls that you can climb on. I enjoyed the mangonel and the trebuchet (Actually trebuchets are my favourites - don't tell the mangonels) but kept my distance from the ballista as there were already kids playing on it and I didn't want to be held responsible if one of them was suddenly shot into the moat. I resigned myself to having the castle down as my first fail but Bebe was having none of it. As we departed she espied two elderly ladies and set off in hot pursuit (They didn't take a lot of catching). By the time I had reached them she had already press ganged them into helping us. I said "thank you very much ladies" and one of them replied "Where are you from?" in that sinister I hate you way that can only really be done justice in a Valleys accent. It would have even scared Kelly Jones from Stereophonics if he'd been there, but he wasn't. I said simply (and quietly) "Hertfordshire". She smiled and said "Oh that's nice". I positioned them at the entrance to the castle and flash,bang, wallop - WHAT A PICTURE!

The lady on my left was the terrifyingly nice one. The other was just glad to be there hence her rather casual stance by the bollard. These were the first two (unofficial openers) who had at first refused to hold the ribbon tight and took a little bit of cajoling. 

So there we go - Caerphilly Castle unofficially opened! If you would like me to unofficially open something in your town, email me here . Thanks for reading, please do "follow" this if you haven't already and please do spread the word about Unofficial Openings!

*This reads a lot worse than it actually was.