Mumbles Pier has seen better days

My family has a long connection with Mumbles pier. My great-uncle Dan used to work on the skee rolls and, later, my grandfather was ticket collector in the pier kiosk. Even my great-auntie Connie worked there as a girl when, apparently, there was some sort of light at the end of the pier and she had to climb up it to light it.

Naturally I spent lots of time down there as a child. Because I was nervous about walking along the pier and seeing the grey sea whirling around underneath, great-auntie Gay would tell me: this pier could hold the Queen Mary! I'm not sure if that were strictly true and even today I tread carefully.

In fact today, or last Monday in this case, I was wise to tread carefully as, sadly, the pier has seen better days and is in a state of some disrepair. Not that it bothered these sea-gulls (or kittiwakes as we discovered them to be).


There were loads of fluffy baby kittiwakes huddled along the ledges just under the pier. Kittiwakes were described in the bird book as having benign faces and they're certainly less aggressive-looking than many of the ordinary herring gulls we see around the place.