THE
VALE & CARDIFF EDITION
OCTOBER 2025
Local Business Directory
Swansea and Bridgend’s newest private hospitals. Enhancing the lives of patients through quality care.
CASH BACK *100£
*Terms
Most people are still feeling the pinch of the rising cost of living and with this in mind we are o ering you £100 CASHBACK* when you join our Health and Racquets Club this Autumn. As they say every little helps and when it comes to your health and wellbeing we’ve got you covered.
SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE
•20m pool
•Cardiovascular gym
•Resistance gym
• Exclusive junior timetable
•Spin studio
•Free weights gym
• Over 70 classes per week
•Squash and tennis
•Whirlpool baths, sauna & steam room
•Outdoor functional fitness zone
• FREE body composition testing
•Crèche
•Day nursery†
•Wales’ largest spa†
•Bar and restaurant
•Exclusive member discounts throughout the Resort
Strange But True
In 897 CE, Pope Stephen VI held the “ Cadaver Synod”, where he dug up his predecessor Pope Formosus, dressed the corpse in papal robes, put it on trial, and then ordered the body thrown into the Tiber River after declaring it guilty.
Sea turtles can breathe through their butts, using cloacal respiration, allowing them to extract oxygen directly from water while they remain underwater for months during hibernation or long ocean dives.
There’s a type of fungus that zombi es ants, called Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, which infects the ant’s brain, controls its movements, forces it to climb to a high leaf, and eventually kills it to sprout a mushroom from its head.
Honeybees can recognize human faces, using a method similar to humans, scanning facial features in patterns and remembering them, which helps them identify intruders or friendly humans near their hives.
A day on Saturn lasts only about 10.7 hours, making its spin incredibly fast compared to Earth, so if you lived there, your “morning” and “night” would be extremely short, and a year would pass in a fraction of Earth time.
Humans can see ultraviolet light under rare conditions, such as after cataract surgery, because the natural lens normally blocks UV rays, but without it, the eye can pick up wavelengths beyond the normal visible spectrum. can conditions,
In 1518, a “dancing plague” struck Strasbourg, where hundreds of people danced uncontrollably for days without rest, and some reportedly died from exhaustion or heart attacks, an unexplained mass hysteria that remains one of history’s strangest medical mysteries.
There’s a species of shark that can walk on land, called the epaulette shark, using its ns to shu e across tidal pools and coral reefs during low tide, an unusual adaptation that blurs the line between sh and amphibian behaviors.
Some spiders can y using electricity in the air, releasing silk threads that catch tiny charges, allowing them to lift o and drift over long distances, a bizarre and elegant adaptation called “ballooning.”
Some trees communicate through underground networks, using mycorrhizal fungi to exchange nutrients and chemical signals, warning neighbouring trees about pests or drought conditions in a complex system often called the “Wood Wide Web.”
Sea cucumbers can eject their own internal organs to escape predators, later regenerating them completely, an extreme survival strategy that seems like science ction but is surprisingly e ective in the ocean.
In the 17th century, tulip bulbs were worth more than houses in the Netherlands, creating “tulip mania,” one of the earliest known nancial bubbles, a bizarre economic phenomenon based entirely on the value of owers.
There’s a phenomenon called “ball lightning”, mysterious glowing orbs that appear during thunderstorms, moving unpredictably and sometimes passing through windows or walls, a strange and dangerous electrical phenomenon that still puzzles scientists.
In Japan, there are “crying sumo” contests, where sumo wrestlers compete to make babies cry, based on the belief that crying babies bring good health and ward o evil spirits, a strange and adorable cultural tradition.
There’s a species of lizard that reproduces entirely without males, called the whiptail lizard, with females cloning themselves to produce o spring, a rare example of parthenogenesis in vertebrates.
There’s a species of frog that gives birth through its mouth, with o spring developing inside the mother’s vocal sac until they are ready to hop away, a horrifying yet fascinating reproductive adaptation.
Certain birds use humans’ phone vibrations to detect insects, adapting to urban life by listening for tiny signals, a strange example of animals exploiting human technology for their survival.
Some frogs can climb trees using suction cups on their toes, allowing them to cling upside down to leaves and bark, an adaptation that lets them hunt insects and evade predators in rainforests.
1930 Howell's 1924 Arcade Wharton Street
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We’ve been proudly designing beautiful bathrooms, ensuites, and cloakrooms across South Wales and beyond for over eight years and with so many transformations under our belt, we’re never short of inspiring content! It’s a true reflection of how much we love, love, love what we do. But for this month’s issue, we’re handing the spotlight over to our clients and honestly, we couldn’t have said it better ourselves...
Born In October - Pablo Picasso (25th October 1881, Málaga, Spain)
A visualization of what the hidden dog would have looked like, based on x-ray uorescence imaging spectroscopy
“Le Moulin de la Galette” - 1900
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TV GOLD - Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em
Pleasecallortelephone:
Toarrangeanappointment
Tel: Fax: Email:
BovertonRoad LlantwitMajor CF611XZ
01446795240
01446795014
mail@wyndhamhousedental.com
Yourroutineexaminationisnowdue
Werecentlycontactedyouwithregardtoyoursixmonthlyexamination
Wyndham House o ers expert dental care for all members of the family and provides a service that is patient focused, caring and professional.
Withcompliments, WyndhamHouseDentalPractice
We are now delighted to o er patients the opportunity to register on our Dental Maintenance Plan.
• Guaranteed routine appointments with your named dentist from January onwards.
• Additional 15% discount on routine dental treatment.
• Peace of mind with guaranteed emergency access.
• Further discounts for under 18’s, couples and the elderly.
Membership available from as little as 45p per day.
Please contact our friendly reception team for more information t 01446 795240 e mail@wyndhamhousedental.com Wyndham House, Boverton Road, Llantwit Major CF61 1XZ
Autumn Offer 2025 A Season of Better Hearing
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Graham Loveluck-Edwards is a historian, author and broadcaster and is available for talks, lectures and public speaking engagements. For more information visit his website at www.grahamloveluckedwards.com.
advertise call 07588 847231 or email enquiries@buddymag.co.uk
Cole..2024.
drab to fab
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The Magic of Rotary – Economic and Community Development
Do you ever reflect and ask yourself, ‘Where did the time go? It has been a busy year so far for the Barry & District Club, and having just held its very successful Summer Event at Romilly Park at the end of August, attended by an estimated 3000 people, the year is not yet over, with supporting Halloween events and Santa on his visits later this year. The fireworks display in November at Sully Sports is still to come; there will be no rest for our volunteers until Christmas!
The same can be said for Rotary International and the Rotary Foundation. Rotary quotes on its website, ‘No challenge is too big for us’. It continues to state that for more than a century, Rotary has bridged cultures and connected continents. It champions peace, fights illiteracy and poverty, helps people get access to clean water and sanitation, and fights disease. Rotary’s newest cause is to protect our planet and its resources.’
October is focused on Economic and Community Development for Rotarians. Rotary clubs worldwide collaborate with communities to promote economic and community development. Every community has di erent needs and di erent opportunities to serve. Clubs are encouraged to identify genuine needs in their communities and make the greatest possible impact with the time, energy, and resources available to them.
Our club’s Memory Café at Cadog’s Corner, held every Tuesday, is an example of what can be achieved. It provides a warm social space with refreshments, and organises games, talks, demonstrations and numerous other activities, all delivered with fun and laughter. You are welcome to attend. Transport can be provided.
The club also continues to support the installation of defibrillators in the community and can provide awareness training on defibrillators and CPR for small groups at no cost. Interested in volunteering in the community? Receive a warm welcome at Rotary. Contact us on Facebook, email barryrotaryclub@outlook.com, or use the QR code.
Until the next issue, yours in Rotarian friendship,
Howard
You can follow the local club on Facebook, email barryrotaryclub@outlook.com for information, or visit www.rotary.org. You are also welcome to pop along to our meetings.
Club of Barry
Romilly Park
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Story Behind The Song
Local Business Directory
Across
1 Emotions (8)
6 Observed (3)
9 Fittingly (5)
10 Neckwear (7)
11 Acrobat's swing (7)
13 Extra payment (5)
14 Someone who makes knives (6)
15 US island state (6)
19 Foolish (5)
21 Calmed with a drug (7)
22 Entreat (7)
23 Bring about (5)
24 Enemy (3)
25 Christmas time (8)
2 Take out (7)
4 US coin (6)
3 Non-clerical (3)
5 Right side of a ship (9)
6 Killed (5)
7 Stinging insects (5)
8 Derived from milk (6)
12 All people (9)
16 Amaze (7)
17 In fact, truly (6)
18 In addition (2,4)
19 Small light boat (5)
20 Become void (5)
23 Incision (3)
Local News - What’s On In Cowbridge
Cowbridge U3A celebrated its 30th Anniversary at the AGM on 10th September 2025. Around 70 people attended to see Mayor Geraint Baty present certi cates to seven of the founder members who had initially joined back in 1995. After the AGM formalities, presided over by Chairman Peter Carter, wine, Prosecco, and a fabulous cake were enjoyed, along with music from the Shantyjacs. (photographs attached courtesy of Mike Baker)
Monthly Talk - 8th October 2025 - 2:00 pm Cowbridge Town Hall
8th October 2025. "The Glamorgan Icarus: how a young pilot took o from RAF Llandow in 1941 and landed with the most famous American poem of the Second World War."
Tony Curtis, Poet, critic, essayist, and expert on Welsh Art, was born in Carmarthen, West Wales, in 1946. He studied at Swansea University and Goddard College, Vermont. He is the Emeritus Professor of Poetry at the University of South Wales, where he established and was Director of the MPhil in Writing for many years. He has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has toured extensively, reading his poetry to international audiences.
Monthly talks are held in the Town Hall on the 2nd Wednesday of each month.
Join or contact Cowbridge U3A - Cowbridge. If you would like to join us, please get in touch with the Membership Secretary.
The annual subscription is £15 per member. Day members are welcome to join us for a fee of £3 payable on the day.
Book Review by Tessa Blissett Tokyo Express by Seicho
Matsumoto
Yasuda is an eminent Japanese businessman who frequents the Koyuki restaurant in Akusaka, where Toki is his regular waitress. When he visits the restaurant one day in Toki's absence he invites some of her colleagues to tea before persuading them to see him off at the railway station. While awaiting his train he points out Toki boarding another train escorted by a male companion. Her colleagues are surprised to see her with a boyfriend but are happy for her...until they read of their apparent joint suicide at a lonely beach.
Doubting the verdict, Inspectors Jutaro from Akusaka and Mihara from Tokyo make their own investigations to reach their own conclusions despite their chief suspect having an apparently cast-iron alibi. After deciphering a series of railway and flight timetables, the pair compare notes to achieve the same result.
Was it suicide or murder?
This is a fascinating story involving determination and co-operation...and an introduction to the Japanese railway system.
Happy Reading!
History – Wheels of Change by Shirley Hodges
When the bicycle craze rolled into Wales in the late 19th century, it brought more than exercise and recreation, it offered women a brand-new kind of freedom. No longer confined to drawing rooms, they could travel under their own power, unchaperoned and at speed. For many cycling became a joyful symbol of independence. For others, it was a shocking threat to the old order. Barry was quick to catch the cycling bug. Clubs sprang up in the 1890s: the Barry Cycling Club, the Cadoxton Cycling Club, the Cadoxton Rovers, and more besides. Officially, they were male preserves, their meetings held in pubs and their officers firmly men. Yet alongside the “wheelmen” were undoubtedly Barry’s own “wheelwomen.” Middleclass women, in particular, embraced the bicycle for health, mobility, and the sheer thrill of escape. For the first time, a woman could ride out of town, speed across country lanes or head to Barry Island without waiting for a man to take her.
Much-photographed Edwardian stage actress Miss Mabel Love was also an enthusiastic wheelwoman. She told reporters she often rode to work by bicycle. She admitted to suffering from stage nerves but found cycling to be a splendid tonic. If glamorous actresses could be seen on bicycles, no wonder Welsh women were eager to follow suit.
Cycling wasn’t just about speed or style mechanical skill mattered too. Barry’s women quickly learned to fix punctures, oil chains, and tighten brakes. Mastering these tasks was another form of independence on two wheels, letting a woman rely entirely on herself, not just her bicycle.
The Bloomers Question?
The hottest controversy of all was what women should wear in the saddle. The Rational Dress League campaigned for sensible clothing but critics sneered. A South Wales Echo article of 1899 mocked a League ride to Reading, declaring the ladies in bloomers and knickerbockers looked “hideous.” In Barry, sightings of women in bloomers became local news fodder, faithfully noted in the press. The Edwardian equivalent of a Facebook group called “Bloomers Spotted in Barry.”
If new clothing provoked sniggers, the question of safety was rather more serious. By 1909 the Evening Express reported the arrival of a “cyclists’ pistol” designed with women in mind. Firing cartridges of cayenne pepper and lycopodium, it could apparently knock an attacker unconscious without lasting harm. Sheffield gunmaker Henry Stanbridge explained that many travellers feared carrying real firearms, leaving them at the mercy of “dangerous men.” The fact that such a weapon was marketed to women underscored just how far cycling had expanded their horizons. So armed with a bicycle, a pair of bloomers, and a pepper-loaded pistol, cycling sounded dangerous and rather exciting. The bicycle was more than a machine; it was a vehicle of transformation. From campaigns for rational dress to self-defence, Welsh women on two wheels redefined independence and a new era. As they discovered the freedom of the road, the world had little choice but to catch up.
AMBASSADORS
BARNARDO
CASTLE
CHALICE
CLAUDIUS
CORNELIUS
DEATH
DENMARK
DUEL
ELSINORE
FORTINBRAS
FRANCISCO
GERTRUDE
GHOST
GRAVEDIGGERS
GUILDENSTERN
HAMLET
HAUTBOYS
HORATIO
KING
LAERTES
MADNESS
MARCELLUS
MELANCHOLY
MESSENGER
MURDER
OPHELIA
OSRIC
POISON
POLONIUS
PRIEST
PRINCE
QUEEN
REGICIDE
REVENGE
REYNALDO
ROSENCRANTZ
SKULL
SWORD
THE PLAYERS
TRAGEDY
VOLTEMAND
WINE
YORICK
Louvre Museum, empty space due to the lack of the portrait of Monna Lisa by Giocondo, after the theft of 1911
Vincenzo Peruggia
O cials gather around Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’ upon its return to Paris.
Local News - Jane Hutt MS
My o ce can be contacted via jane.hutt@senedd.wales or 0300 200 7110, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
07588 847231 or email
Local News -Walking with Valeways
Valeways Strollers –October 2025
October Time Name of Walk Start
Wed 1, 15 & 29 1030
Wed 1, 15 & 29 1430
Thu 2,9,16,23,30 1430
Cosmeston Strollers
Llantwit Major Stollers
Wellbeing Strollers
Wed 8 & 22 1030 Barry Strollers
Wed 8 & 22 1430
Cowbridge Strollers
Cosmeston, Visitor Centre, CF645UY
Llantwit Major, Town Hall CF61 1SB
Barry Waterfront, Costa Coffee car park, CF63 4BA
Barry Cold Knap, car park CF62 6SW
Cowbridge, Physic Garden Fountain, CF717BB
Valeways offers 15+ stroller walks every month. These are designed to introduce people of any age to month the joys of gentle exercise, conversation and the possibility of making new friends. For information on Valeways walks, strollers and volunteering, visit www.valeways.org.uk
PROFESSIONAL
