MILF Rule in Pillgwenily Pt. 01

This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real people is accidental and unintended.

SOURCES

I have used 4 fictional devices

AN ANTI-HERO

Anti-heroes are known for using unsavoury methods to accomplish their goals. They are selfish, arrogant, and lack conventional heroic qualities and attributes, such as idealism, courage, and morality. My hero always acts in his own selfish interest.

LEGAL DIFFICULTIES

Charles Dickens in "Bleak House" used the fictional probate case of Jarndyce v Jarndyce progressing in the English Court of Chancery as his central plot device. Mine uses the Catholic annulment proceedings.

CLOCHMERLE

The anti-hero first gets to see the heroine over the proposal to decriminalise prostitution. It is akin to Clochmerle which was a TV series about setting up a public urinal in France. This is Pill's response to "a park of prostitution".

ROMEO AND JULIET

It is also my take on Romeo & Juliet. It has no (barely believable) magic potion that simulates death. I hope that my story is more credible than old William's flawed effort.

R & J DIFFERENT ENDINGS

Historically Shakespeare's play has been adapted. In 1748, David Garrick added a scene between Romeo and Juliet in the tomb. This was used by most productions for the next hundred years. It ends

Romeo: Fathers have flinty hearts, no tears can melt them:

Nature Pleads in vain -- Children must be wretched---

Juliet: Oh, my breaking heart!--

Romeo: She is my wife- our hearts are twin'd together--

Capulet forebear -- Paris, loose your hold ---

Pull not our heart-strings thus - they crack, they break--

Oh, Juliet! Juliet!

IT MAY NOT BE A TRAGEDY

And don't assume that this "a tragical tale". Following The Restoration (in 1660 of King Charles II) tragic plays were given happy endings.

SETTING

Pillgwenily (or Pill) is a real place

There is a real proposal (by Gwent police) to have.legal prostitution in Pill civil parish.

The redevelopment in Bristol is accurately reported.

There really is a £17 million Transporter Bridge upgrade.

SOURCE OF CONFLICT

A civil parish is the lowest tier of government in England and Wales. It is entirely separate from the Anglican and Catholic parish system. They deal with church matters, they have Parochial Church Councils (or PCCs for short).

A civil parish deals with secular matters like roads, housing parks and tourism and (for many Pill people the most important one is) the issuing of licences for pubs and clubs.

The 2 types of parish clash. As do the anti-hero and the heroine, (a staunch Catholic lady).

THE LAND

The patch of land (whose real ownership I don't know) is between the Usk Way (the A48 road) Church Road roundabout and the Transporter Bridge. Its far edge is the Mill Parade road. The proposed car park would be near the roundabout and the pleasure park further south.

There are 15 buildings on this site of varying sizes. I presume they are all associated with the long closed dock.

BRUNEL ST

The terrace of houses that are a key factor in my story are in Brunel St. This is named in honour of Isambard Kingdom Brunel who has lots of Welsh connections. He designed the dock at Neyland which operated ships for the route to both Ireland and the New World. Part of the guard rails above the waters of Milford Haven were made out of Brunel's broad gauge track.

LANDORE

IKB also designed the 37 span viaduct over the River Tawe at Landore in Swansea. Mentioning Landore, in 1873 the area had one of the world's largest steelworks. The industrial pollution inspired this doggerel

"It came to pass in days of yore

the Devil chanced upon Landore.

Quoth he:"by all this fume and stink

I can't be far from home, I think".

BACK TO IKB

Brunel designed a series of flying arches -- just like flying buttresses on cathedrals -- across the track at Llansamlet. Their intention was to prevent the flanking embankments sliding down onto the track in times of heavy rain or inclement weather. For extra stability, these arches were ballasted with high mounds of copper slag, an easily available waste product from the local copper industry in the Lower Swansea Valley. This was recycling on a grand scale.

He was also instrumental in designing the Taff Vale Railway, one of the main arteries for taking coal down the Rhondda to Cardiff. He was responsible for re-routing the River Taff away from what became known as Cardiff Arms Park. This helped cure some of the drainage problems from which the area always suffered.

INTRODUCTIONS

I am Phil Davies, 49, divorced from the sleep around that I was stupid enough to marry. Elsie got the nice house and half of my money. I am not pleading poverty I own a 7 bed tenement building on the Commercial Road. This may sound grand but it is also the offices of my firm. I bought it when it was "in need of modernisation". It still needs tender, loving care to 4 of the rooms. I kept the quirky black and white imitation slate bathroom. It divides opinion. Most people hate it. They think it's OTT.

I think it harks back to when welsh slate topped both Welsh and English houses, My house has a welsh slate roof.

(Editorial note - Although other roofing materials predominate, The Welsh Slate Company is still the world's leading supplier of high-quality slate. Over 500 million years old, welsh slate is widely recognised as the finest natural slate in the world).

Next door is a lovely picture perfect Wedgwood blue and white fronted tenement building with "MMXVII" (2017 in roman numerals). So in 2017 someone had a totally new frontage added. The house behind is a century older. Adding such an ornate frontage must have cost a fortune. It wouldn't look out of place in Amsterdam. It would give the Amsterdam Canal Houses a run for their money.

I live alone. It is a case of "once bitten, twice shy".

A MINI GODFATHER

My ambition is to be a multi-millionaire. You may have heard the saying "Behind every great fortune is a crime". Well I am not adverse to bending the law (and indeed breaking it) to become mega rich.

My greatest asset is owning lots of land in a run down part of Pill. In the UK land can either be valuable or practically worthless. Unfortunately my land is in the latter category. But by hook or by crook I want to ensure that my land becomes extremely valuable. And mentioning crooks, I should reveal that I have 2 partners in crime, Big Willie Scott and Wilma "Whiplash" Bryant.

BIG WILLIE

Big Willie is officially my bodyguard. Big Willie providing my physical protection is crucial. But so is his ability to "effectively communicate and resolve conflict". In other words Big Willie is the muscle who intimidates awkward people and the "heavy" to lean on the would be extortion gangs.

You've heard the saying "You get far with a few fine words, but you get further with a few fine words and a gun". Well Big Willie is more frightening than a gun.

Potential drug and extortion gang members know not to cross him. Let us say that Big Willie doesn't play baseball but he is pretty handy with a baseball bat. And his reputation is known around all of Gwent and beyond.

Big Willie is a major deterrent to any drug or extortion gang who wants to try to take over in Pill.

DRUG GANGS

The following shows the problems with drug gangs.

Earlier this year a Newport drugs gang got a combined 23 years in prison. Another man got caught trying to smuggle £2 million worth of cannabis. A number of raids led to arrests of people who had broken into empty buildings and stole electricity from the power grid to grow cannabis plants. Police then identified the most vulnerable kinds of properties. Council Closed Circuit TV teams monitor them.

WILMA

Wilma is into bondage and such like. She is a madam of a Newport brothel who controls many whores. She is like a mother to me (both my parents are dead). She is an astute business woman.

PILL CIVIL PARISH

I pretend to be a proud citizen of Pillgwenlly (known as Pill). I am chair of the Pill (Wales) civil parish council in the city of Newport. We have the Wales bit because there is a Pill civil parish in England.

Civil parishes date back to 1066 and the subsequent Norman manorial system. The 2001 census recorded 9 parishes with no inhabitants. The best known one is Chester Castle, which is in the middle of Chester city centre. It is an English Heritage site.

The largest civil parish is probably Salisbury with a population of 45,000. Our civil parish has a population of 7,000. It contains the Newport Docks and the western ends of the Newport Transporter Bridge, and the City Bridge and the George Street Bridge.

LAND VALUES

My derelict area is where a former dock now lies empty. Decay and vandalism make this part of Pill unattractive. It is the only ugly part of the footpath from Newport castle to the Transporter Bridge.

Redevelopment will greatly increase the price of my land. Once land is gentrified it's value can double, treble and even quadruple.

Thirty years ago you couldn't give away land in a similar area in Bristol. Then the developers came in. A decade later they sold their first £1 million flat. It made the headline in the Bristol Evening Post.

A PIRATE HISTORY

This name derives from the early part of Gwynllyw's life when he was an active pirate. Gwynllyw's reputation amongst sailors saw him adopted as the patron saint of Welsh pirates and smugglers including Sir Henry Morgan.

In honour of this, I want to redevelop some derelict land just off the Newport Castle to Transporter Bridge footpath and name it Sir Henry's Park. I intend to gift this land free to the civil parish council. That may sound generous, but a park will help to attract money rich people. It is a sprat to catch a mackerel.

As well as attracting the mega rich a park will boost walkers who trek along the River Usk to see the Transporter Bridge.

The famous landmark is soon to get a £17 million upgrade. Having a park ready for the TB's grand reopening would help people to see Pill in a better light. By people I don't just mean the middle income tourists, I mean property developers, with access to £millions and world class architects.

THE SUGGESTION

In July 2015, Gwent Police proposed a plan to develop a designated area for

prostitution within the boundaries of Pill. If Pill Civil Parish council oppose the Gwent Police suggestion, it is dead in the water. Wilma convinced me that it is in my interest to get the council to support it and a derelict site would have a new use as a modern Amsterdam or Newport's Soho.

First task - get the council to support the suggestion. So greasing palms and arm twisting of councillors will be needed.