Steam Trains, Tea and Community Art

A few weeks ago, I trundled up the coast to meet Liz Porrett in Tywyn before continuing on to Llwyngwril to meet with the local art group. They have received funding from Transport for Wales (TfW) to create artwork at their station.

After getting off the train at Tywyn, I walked briskly down to the Talyllyn Railway, where I was meeting Liz. She is the General Manager of the Talyllyn Railway and also sits on our steering group. As our Chair, Neil, was unavailable, Liz kindly agreed to chair the panel for the Cambrian Community Fund. We have received a lot of very high-quality applications, but we only have £10,000 to distribute, so our meeting was an opportunity to go through the agenda for the panel meeting together. We sat down with a cup of tea,

had a productive discussion, and then Liz headed off to another meeting.

I still had a little time before my train, so I caught up with emails while gazing out of the window at the steam trains. There are certainly worse places to work.

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A couple of stops later, I arrived in Llwyngwril. Pam, the TfW Station Adopter, was waiting for me and we soon bumped into her friend, who had recently broken her arm. Pam was the person who first came up with the idea of creating artwork in the station shelter. Her suggestion led to me applying for a grant for Llwyngwril and a number of other stations and halts along the coast, and that is how 'Art on the Cambrian' was born. Pam is also a member of the amazing yarn bombing group that produces the wonderful wool creations

displayed around the village each year. Regular readers may remember some of my previous blogs about this fantastic community project.

Back to the present day. Pam had to dash off to take her friend to hospital, but before leaving we managed to enjoy a cup of tea and a biscuit while catching up with Bryn the dog again. He is such a handsome boy. Pam arranged for Tracey to collect me on her way to the Art Club meeting and, as if by magic, I soon found myself sitting in the village hall with yet another cup of tea and a biscuit in hand.

Although the group does not officially start meeting until October, several members had come along specially to discuss the project. Rosemary, Tracey, Tina, Graham and Shaun had already started thinking about the project, and we had a really enjoyable and exciting conversation about the possibilities.

Their idea is to create a mural celebrating the history of the station, with input from Arthur, a local resident who is now 92 years old, worked at the station and still lives in the village. The group also showed me photographs of a mural they had created for a local pub which, if you look closely enough, cleverly includes portraits of the artists hidden within the design.

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Hanging in the village hall window was a beautiful silk artwork created through a community workshop held in 2024, inspired by the Cofio Llwyngwril Book Project. The land map was designed by Lesley Thomas, while the sea was created by the village children, with the wider community helping to complete the piece. It was a

wonderful example of local creativity and collaboration.

I am now looking forward to returning at the end of October to see how the group's ideas have developed and to take a look at some preliminary sketches and see the project develop.

All very exciting!