LET'S BE CLEAR about it then: Aberystwyth in the Eighties was no Babylon. Even when the flood came there was nothing Biblical about the matter, despite what some fools are saying now. I spent the years before the deluge operating out of an office on Canticle Street, above the orthopaedic boot shop. And you know what that means: take two lefts outside the door and you were on the Old Prom. That was where it all happened: the bars, the dives, the gambling dens, the 24 hour Whelk Stall, and Sospan’s ice cream kiosk. That’s where the tea cosy shops were, the ones that never sold tea cosies; and the toffee apple dens, the ones that never sold toffee. And that was where those latter day Canutes, the ladies from the Sweet Jesus League, had their stall. I saw a lot of things along that part of the Prom, but I don’t remember seeing any hanging gardens. Just those round concrete tubs of hydrangeas the Council put out so the drunks would have something to throw up in. I also spent a lot of my time at the Druid-run Moulin Club in Patriarch Street and I’m well aware of what the girls got up to there. Sure, you can call it harlotry if it makes you feel better; but I was there the night Bianca died and I’m just as happy with the word prostitution. And as for idolatry, well, if you ask me, the only thing men worshipped on a regular basis in the days before the flood was money. That, and the singer down at the Moulin, Myfanwy Montez. And I know that for certain, because although I never had any money in my office in those days, I did once have Myfanwy Montez…
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