There has been quite a bit going on at Past Port Tours, and I'm taking a moment to reflect on it while looking forward to what's to come.
A recent major highlight for me was attending the unveiling of Newport's newest artwork, the Statue for Lady Rhondda. Following a five-year campaign by the incredible Monumental Women organisation, Lady Rhondda was unveiled a few weeks back just over Millennium Bridge, by members of her family. Margaret Haig-Thomas was Newport's most active suffragettes, she went to prison for blowing up a post box and a blue plaque now marks the location on Risca Road. It was a wonderful celebration of a fantastic campaign to commemorate some of Wales' most important women.
The first Saturday in October saw the first of my Newport Hospitality Tours. It was a resounding success and 15 of us circumnavigated parts of the city to experience some of the highlights of Newport's food and drink offerings, it was a tremendous success. There is another planned for Saturday 6th December - tickets will be on sale very soon!
The Full Colour Maindee festival, WOW. Everyone involved with this should be extremely proud of themselves, it was a triumph, full of color (of course), music, and general good vibes. The artwork is literally out of this world (I really do love the Consumer Smith piece on the butchers!) and the legacy of the day will be long. In fact, I may have some news soon in relation to this. Stay tuned for that.
Last week I was lucky enough to go to the book launch of Solidarity Across the Severn and a fantastic talk was given by the author, Roger Ball, about the links between the communities of Bristol and Newport, particularly in relation to an incident demonstrating this in 1851. Roger, a true expert, was fantastic to listen to and I learned a lot.
This weekend was the wonderful Newport Food Festival. I have not seen that many people in town for such a long time, that in itself was wonderful, and the wealth of stalls selling anything and everything you could possibly imagine was absolutely terrific. I am already saving up for next year and considering the purchase of one of those tartan trollies to help with the haul...
In a nutshell, there has been SO much going on in the city. And there's so much more to come.
Don't forget the 185th anniversary of the Newport Rising coming up at the weekend!
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