The Story of Ostreme

OSTREME - The Ostreme Community Association 

THE STORY OF OSTREME

How it all began and how the Village built its own Community Centre

and will celebrate 40 years in September 2020

By Neil Norman (assisted by a cast of thousands)

The name ‘Ostreme’ is I believe from the Celtic name for Oystermouth. ‘Ostreme’ as we know it was born in 1971.

Malcolm Philips, a talented, energetic artist working at BP Baglan Bay, had a dream of staging a Pageant of Mumbles History.

Malcolm discussed the idea with a number of people, one of which was Maurice Edwards, manager at BP Baglan Bay.

He told Malcolm:

‘If you can gather together a Fundraising and planning team, I will support it.’

Malcolm, was very enthusiastic, friendly and persuasive and gathered together a large team of Friends, neighbours and anyone else he could entice to join him.

It was a very successful team, that through a series of fund raising events, achieved enough capital by 1973 to arrange a nine day Pageant of Mumbles History.

It was a massive undertaking, with 47 different events.

Hundreds of people were involved, all ages, from Schools, Local Groups, Clubs, WI, RNLI, RAF, Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Army and Churches, as well as many Actors.

An estimated 85,000 people attended and enjoyed the events and activities.

I became involved, from 1971 to 1973, in the Planning Team, when Maurice Edwards found out that I could design posters.

The Pageant was an outstanding success and when it was all over, in October 1973, we held a meeting to decide what to do with the profit from the Pageant and plan for the future.

We finally decided to form The Ostreme Community Association and to register it as a charity. The main objective being the provision of a Community Centre for Mumbles, which it was decided to achieve in 10 years from 1973.

I was surprised to be one of four people who were elected as Trustees, and an unexpected result of my poster and advertising work for the Pageant was to be nominated and elected as Publicity Officer!

It was a huge challenge and responsibility as a two week festival was planned for the summer of 1974.

At that time, practically every village and community in and around Swansea were arranging Fetes, Galas and carnivals.  In my first approaches to the media, I had a job to convince them that The Ostreme Festival was different and NOT another village doing its Annual thing in the summer.

I did not know how best to publicise so many events and activities.

So I sought help from advertising professionals who were extremely helpful and encouraging.

They gave me one golden rule:

‘’If you don’t grab people's attention in the first five seconds -you are waiting your time.’’

They also told me that John Lewis, who founded the John Lewis Stores said,

‘’I knew that 50% of the money spent on advertising was wasted, but he never knew which 50% it was.’’

Anyway, we did get BBC TV and ITV to film and report.

We had very good coverage on BBC Radio and Swansea Sound and I was given my first experience of a Radio Station at Swansea Sound and of live interviews. Quite a nerve wracking experience!

I decided to become ‘’A Spokesperson,’’ so as to represent the very many people who were in the productions and events. One of the first recruits to the Publicity Committee was my good friend Ron Carke, who was to became very involved with Ostreme in later years.

Productions included :- Camelot, Oliver, Fiddler on the Roof.

The Western Mail and Evening Post were most supportive.

There were large crowds enjoying the shows in the grounds of Oystermouth castle.

Paul Chambert, a News Editor with The Evening Post was involved in the Planning Team for the 1973 Pageant and helped and advised with publicity and together we wrote the Mumbles stories during many meetings.

This Pageant included the very successful Arts & Craft Exhibition which was organised by Wendy Noel and her team, which went on to organise the exhibition each year of the Ostreme Festivals.

From 1974 the two week Festivals included:-

Fashion Shows, Fetes, Band Concerts, Talent Competitions, Shakespeare Productions, Musical Shows as well as the Arts and Craft Exhibitions.

We always included the popular spectacular musical The Bells of Santiago.

 The musicals were staged by a large, enthusiastic and dedicated group of people of all ages.

Malcolm Phillips and Graham Olliffe had the ability and infectious enthusiasm to involve the young and the elderly.

They called themselves:- Mumbles Open Air Theatre, shortened to MOAT.

Margaret Nicholls set up an Indoor Theatre and it is still operating in the Ostreme Centre, known as Ostreme  Theatre Players.

They still welcome people of all ages to join this friendly local Amateur Dramatic group, where younger members are invited to take part in the pantomime.

Many whole families were involved in the shows and events, including my three children, who were involved in many of the shows and events. When Oliver was staged our daughter made history by being the only known female Artful Dodger.

Apart from being a labourer and general helper in the Festivals, my role was to ‘Gain Maximum Publicity For The Lowest Cost.’

It was my job to create and deliver all the Posters and Banners around Swansea in 1970’s and one of the ideas to come from the Publicity Committee was to publicise Ostreme in a different way:-

We arranged a Poster Competition for the 40 plus schools in Swansea.

John Beale, the then Director of Education, was very helpful and encouraging

John Bunt was Curator of the Glyn Vivian Art Gallery, who offered to display all the Poster Competition entries in the new gallery to help us with judging and to stage the Prize Giving, where the entries were in four Age Groups.

The Prizes donated each year were given by local businesses:-

Alcoa, Howard Jones Printers, Gowerton Iron & Steel and Bowland Motors.

The prizes were:-

Large trophy to be held by the winning School for one year.

Replica cup given to each winning child.

Large Craft Kit for each winning school.

Poster Entries which are just a few of the hundreds of entries we received. In the 1975 Competition a young girl designed a pair of fun characters.  She named them ‘’The Mumbles’’.

In the same year another girl designed the TUT Rabbit. 

Using The Mumbles design we produced and sold. Pens, T-Shirts are sold in Mumbles Shops.

Alex Carter, a retired London Theatre props maker, produced many of the props for the shows.

-seeing The Mumbles figurines in print, he designed and made a pair of costume figures to be worn by children in publicity events.

The figure costumes were about three feet in diameter and each had movable Eyes & Eyelids. 

The Mayor of Swansea invited the Characters to meet him at The Guildhall. The figures we processed along Mumbles Road to The Guildhall on a float.

Barbara Steele was writing Children’s Stories each week in the Evening Post.

Paul Chambert introduced all to The Mumbles Characters.

Barbara took up the idea and wrote weekly stories around them and Nesta Thomas drew the cartoons.

I met with Paul Chambert on a number of occasions to devise names for relatives of The Mumbles, like Granny Nottage & Uncle Caswell.

As well as a lot of hard work, we all enjoyed what we did. 

Families, just as ours, were involved.

It was real to be a part of such a large group of wonderful people.

Each Ostreme Festival entertained an estimated 15,000 people in the two weeks each year. We also made a profit.

With our aim of providing a Community Centre in Mumbles, Stuart Batcup made a start researching possible sites, which was a long overdue process.  He produced ideas, gave up hours of his time and came up with four possible locations, one of which was:- the dilapidated, run down old Church School in Castle Road.

He started discussions with All Saints Church and in 1977 agreement was reached. Ostreme would lease the building and make it usable as a Community Centre.

The building on clear examination was in a worse state than we had realised needed a lot of work to make it usable, and we only had 6,000 pounds!

There were many sources for Grants to assist us with our project to make the building more usable for a Community Centre and one of these was West Glamorgan County Council.

Stuart Batcup and I were asked to go to one of their Committee Meetings to present our case. We were grilled for what seemed like ages. Then we were asked to wait outside for their decision and eventually called into a meeting with the Committee Chairman.

Imagine our surprise when we were told that the Committee liked our plan and that they would offer a substantial grant towards the projected Community Centre. WOW!

We were advised to return when our plans were developed to present to them.

Stuart and I had gone up the floors in a lift to the meeting, but we could have floated down the stairs on air!! In a dream.

We went from the building to view recently completed Community Buildings around Swansea as they suggested, to gather ideas and to see how the buildings were used.

In 1977 the Architect John Noel was chosen to draw up the initial plans, to change and adapt the Church Hall site into purpose designed Centre.

It was exciting to be part of the Trustee Planning Team, and eventually to see all the ideas incorporated into the final plans.

The renewed Arts & Crafts Exhibition, the shows, Fundraising Events and Festivals, were now more important, as we needed to raise funds. As when the plans were finally costed for our dream Community Centre, the figure needed was 110,000 pounds in 1977. 

This was a huge responsibility for us four Trustees and we decided to call the building The Ostreme Centre.

The design for the Ostreme Centre included:-

A Refurbished MAIN HALL.

A more usable STAGE - with side entrances.

An extended dedicated ART & CRAFT ROOM with its own POTTERY KILN.

A new MINOR HALL with its own refreshment KITCHEN.

An OFFICE for a Warden.

A fully equipped CATERING KITCHEN.

Extra TOILETS including a DISABLED one.

Extra STORAGE CUPBOARDS.

An upper floor for STORAGE, mainly for the costumes for the shows.

From the beginning of Ostreme Shows and the Pageant, all the costumes and props had been stored in many people’s homes and garages.

The costumes were made by a dedicated team led by Gwyneta Swales & Anne Winks.

When the Ostreme Centre was completed and opened in September 1980, we had exceeded our wildest dreams and achieved our aim to provide a Community Centre for Mumbles - in 7 years, that was 3 years ahead of our own target.

These are views of the Ostreme Centre, taken a few years ago: -

 Main Hall, Minor Hall, Arts & Crafts Room and Outside recently.

I was, during the period, working for Shell Oils, which had a Community Fund available to EVERY employee on the Committee of a Charity.

We could apply for Grants of up to 350 pounds towards a project for the Charity.

The Shell Community Fund provided with a number of Grants over the years towards:

A Notice Board in Newton Road.

Lighting for Stage Productions.

Chairs for Minor Hall.

Piano and money towards improving the heating.

The design and appearance of The Ostreme Centre won a Prince of Wales Design Award in 1982.

The Centre is well used for, Classes, Activities, Meetings, Exhibitions, Functions, Dances, and Theatre Productions, to name a few.

We celebrate all the hard work and dedication by so many people and they have created and run a successful Centre, over what will be 40 years in September 2020. (That’s worth a toast).

It supports over 30 classes, groups and activities on a regular basis.

It’s not generally known that The Ostreme Centre is:-

A Self Supporting Charity which is paying a full time Warden and a rent to All Saints’ Church and does not receive any financial support from outside sources. This is a continuing achievement, of which mumbles should be proud and due to the dedication of a small team of people.

It has been thrilling to have been able to play a minor role in the team that brought the Ostreme Centre to fruition and to see it develop into a valuable asset to Mumbles life.

Very soon, it is hoped to be able to add more pictures, which will show some of the large number of people who have contributed to the success of Ostreme.

The Oystermouth Historical Association, a section of Ostreme, was founded in 1981.

Oystermouth Historical Association (OHA) gathers and archives information about the heritage of (primarily) Oystermouth and Mumbles and is a forum for those with a general interest in history. 

Everyone is welcome to join.

Oystermouth Historical Association > (OHA) was founded in 1981 and is a society section of the Ostreme Community Association. OHA gathers and archives information about the heritage of (primarily) Oystermouth and Mumbles and is a forum for those with a general interest in history. Everyone is welcome to join.

Oystermouth Historical Association >  
Talks programme, Committee, Membership.