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00:00 Sooner or later every child asks, "Mummy, where do your games teachers come from?"
00:13 And the mothers of Aberystwyth answer with a tale about them appearing spontaneously
00:17 under stones on late summer evenings, or they say they were brought by fairy messengers
00:23 and left on the doorsteps of childless women.
00:26 But the truth was nobody knew.
00:29 One summer I discovered the truth, but the knowledge came at a high price.
00:33 That was the same summer the Penguin Man came to town, and none of us will forget that.
00:39 The heat started to build early in May when after a long winter hibernation the doe-grey
00:44 cheeks of the old hag of the sky cracked and blessed us with a toothless smile.
00:50 It was a smile of an old dowager who had been surprised by the early arrival of spring and
00:55 roused before getting a chance to put her dentures in.
00:59 It was the sounds I remember most, the rhythmic clop of donkey hoof on hot asphalt, the ever-present
01:05 banshee wail of the prowl-car siren, and the cry over the rooftops of the muezzin calling
01:11 the faithful to bingo.
01:14 Or more faintly in whispers, the loose trollops in their stove-pipe hats billying and cooing
01:19 from doorways, trading that same merchandise that poor girls have always traded in the
01:24 great ports of the world.
01:26 Fancy a bit of tea, cosy sir, warm your spout until your ship comes in.
01:32 Welcome to Aberystwyth, town of broken hearts and broken cornets.
01:38 [coyote howling]