Grey D Tut, tut, Port Talbot is where my mother's family comes from; and it's simply not true that the place is full of stunted nyctalopic troglodytes ...

I do have happy memories of my early years there. When I was five, the family moved to North Yorkshire, and for months I couldn't work out where the mountain that used to be at the bottom of the garden had gone, why the sharp tang of the steelworks (with occasional additions of ketones and aromatic hydrocarbons from the Baglan and Llandarcy refineries) had been replaced with a rather riper, more "organic" smell, and why I could no longer hear all night long the comforting "chug, chug, chug, clang" from the marshalling yards at Margam.

Some other places 'Catters may find interesting; anywhere on the Pembrokeshire coast path (with the possible exception of parts of Milford Haven); the mining museum at Ponterwyd (or LLywernog) near Aberystwith; the Vale of Rheidol Railway (runs from Aberystwith to Devil's Bridge during the summer months).