A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… Right. Stop. It wasn’t.
It was Cardiff, circa 1979. Yet in so many ways, it does seem so very far away and half a lifetime ago. It was a time of absolutes. The sun always shone, or the rain always fell. Margaret Thatcher was coming to power. Paul VI’s call to humanity in Humanae Vitae had caused the steady march of modernity to stall, if only for a moment. The anarchy of punk still hung in the air. Two Tone was poised to take the charts by force. Extremists of all hues marched on city streets. The battles between the trade unions and the government ebbed and flowed across the news. At the same time, we were only a few years away from St John Paul II’s visit to Cardiff and the sea of humanity that welcomed him at Pontcanna Fields (itself named after St Canna’s bridge). In a world of seeming hedonism and modern ideas, the call of the Pope to prayer and faith brought thousands out, just as it did later when Pope Benedict visited a ‘post-Christian’ UK only to witness the streets lined dozens deep wherever he went.
