Rons Rendezvous was more than a Cafe at Rotherslade Langland
The huge shelter was erected in 1926-7 by Swansea Council to shore up the cliffs above the bay. It included new steps down to the beach, proper refreshment rooms and a promenade where visitors could sit and look across the bay to the Bristol Channel. It was demolished in the 1990s when it became unsafe due to subsidence and became known as The White Elephant.
Ron's Rendezvous in Rotherslade. was a centre of attraction
A look back at the place to be seen in the 60s
By David Redding, South Wales Evening Post.
Across South Wales there are many couples who remember with nostalgia the hip place to meet in the early 1960s.
If you were young and with it the only place to go was Ron's Rendezvous in Rotherslade.
Rockers from as far away as Porthcawl and Cardiff bopped till the wee hours to non-stop sounds from the juke box set against the muralled walls.
Mike Bradshaw, of Brunswick Court in Swansea's Russell Street, sent in these pictures of the cafe in the Rotherslade Bay pavilion.
Now the building stands derelict and is waiting for the bulldozers to move in.
But in 1960-62 the cafe was the meeting place for youngsters from all over the area.
Mr Bradshaw wants to find out if anyone knows st who the jiving couple in the picture below are.
Rendezvous at Ron's-who are the jiving couple pictured above?
While above is a mural on a wall of the nightspot, with the juke box set against it.
Meanwhile, the Evening Post has tracked down the very same Ron, who is now a businessman in Llanelli Mr Ron Rosser, now aged 66, who runs a newsagents shop in Park Street, Llanelli.
"Ron's Rendezvous ran for three years and the place used to be heaving." he recalled. "It was basi cally the first spot in the Ron whole of South Wales to open late.
"I had a refreshment licence so I could open 24 hours if I wanted to and at 2 and 3am the place would be jumping."
Trend
Traffic would be tailed back all the way to Oyster mouth Square in the early hours and Ron used to be told off by police
"One of the superintendents said it was like a seaside summer Sunday aftemoon at three in the moming and it could not go on.couldn't go on."
Ron made his own ice- cream and had the latest trend from America, Coca Cola, brought in by the lorry load.
His bar at the Rendezvous was 35, long
"A lot of married couples in Swansea today met at Ron's Rendezvous. "I attracted everyone who was to become anyone," said Ron.
Emigrated
"A lot of professionals, solicitors, estate agents and so on will remember it well," he said.
The era of Ron's Ren dezvous finally came to a end in 1963, when Ron and his family emigrated to Canada, where he worked at a TV cameraman for the CBC the Canadian version of the Look.
The family returned to Wales in 1968 to set up as a newsagents.
Here we see owner Ron Allen and his daughter alongside what was allegedly the first Juke box in Swansea although owners of Valerio's also made that claim!
Ron's Rendezvous
Alan Sampson remembers -
What a wonderful institution it was! For a young teen' it was a heady eclectic mix of cafe-racers, art student/beatniks, rock'n'rollers and early surfies. The art student murals were magical; and what a soundtrack from the jukebox to enjoy summers - Peter Gunn, C'mon everybody, Summertime Blues, Beat for Beatniks and many more that I still enjoy. You were oblivious to the urine smell in the stairwells!! And of course jeans and T-shirts became the norm. A visiting older family member described it as "The teenage dugout"!! Ron certainly got it right!
Stuart BATCUP remarked in Chapter Ten of his book -
A Trek through old Mumbles and Thistleboon >
Needless to say we were attracted to Rotherslade and Langland Bays.
As puberty kicked in we also became drawn into what was going on in what had been the Beach Café at Rotherslade. It had become ‘Ron’s Rendezvous’ and having a Juke Box it had become a sort of shrine to Eddie Cochrane who was killed in a car crash as well as Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper who were killed in an Air crash in 1959. As a teenager I was mesmerised by the brilliant cartoons that had been painted on the walls by students from the Art College, including especially one of a man with a huge pair of feet which he was using as Water Skis. The spectacle of the to-ings and fro-ings of the Mods and Rockers who gathered there on their Scooters and 500 Norton Motorbikes showing off to their ‘Molls’ was not to be missed!
An Advert, 1960s