YESTERDAYS 1987
THE contrast with the David Bowie concert was stark – there was no extravagant stage sets, unnecessary histrionics or polite hand claps for U2.
Adulation and sheer naked emotion were the order for the evening, the audience exploding into a mass of pushing arms and heads as the band walked on stage to a deafening roar of 55,000 fans yelling along to Stand By Me.
Before long, U2 were delving into the Joshua Tree album, with Trip Through Your Wires closely followed by I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, which incorporated a snatch of Bob Marley’s Exodus.
Every song became a shared experience as the fans roared along in unison with Bono, who strode across the stage like a demented preacher, arms outstretched and head held back.
The drama and emotion can’t be understated – one look at the rapt, smiling, even ecstatic, expressions on the fans’ faces lifted the show well above the tacky rock vaudeville performed by so many bands these days.
There was only one tacky moment: “This is to the people of the greatest singing voices in the world,” said Bono predictably, before launching into The Beatles’ Help, one of several ‘borrowed’ tunes.
The night belonged to U2, whose encore was the devastating high spot of their high-powered show.
Bullet The Blue Sky was sung with moving intensity, Bono putting the violent song into context with his “San Salvador” cry whilst the lights swept across the crowd like a scene from Apocalypse Now.
“This has been a special night and I won’t forget it – and I hope you won’t forget it,” cried Bono at the end. Two schoolboys, absent from a council-run home, “played dodgems” with 12 cars at a South Wales workshop, causing £40,000 worth of damage.
In a night of midsummer madness they also stole a 53-seater luxury coach, crashing it into a van and a lamp-post.
The 14-year-olds broke into TS Grimshaw’s workshop in Bridgend where the cars were kept.
They drove one car into another, smashing into fronts, sides and rears of gleaming panels, leaving a trail of twisted metal and broken lights.
One senior police officer who visited the scene said: “They broke in, started two cars up and played dodgems, that is about the size of it.” A pet terrier dog has been stabbed to death at a South Wales home – possibly while attacking burglars who broke in when the occupiers were away.
The Jack Russell terrier had been left in the house at Heol y Waun, Penrhys, while the owners went away for the weekend, said a police spokesman.
They had left the key to the house with a neighbour who was to feed it and look after it while they were away,” he continued.
“During Thursday night they heard it bark but did not think anything of it.
“Then first thing yesterday morning they went in but could not see it.
“They searched the house and found it had been broken into in the night. The dog was found in the bedroom and had been stabbed to death. When Winnie Stroud began pulling pints, beer cost three old pennies and the present licensing laws had not even been introduced.
And now, at the age of 91, and 77 years since she first served behind the bar, she has no intention of giving up.
“I dread that day,” she said. “I dread the packing up and having to go. I’ll just carry on as long as possible.”
Winnie – or as the notice over the door of the Butcher’s Arms in Llantrisant says, Mrs Winifred Zenobia Stroud – is believed to be the oldest serving landlady.
Day in, day out – and without help – she slakes the thirsts of her regulars at the town centre pub, a freehouse she has owned for 10 years.
The sign outside may read Butcher’s Arms, but after 23 years at the helm, the premises has taken on a new unofficial title. “My regulars don’t say the Butcher’s, they say Winnie’s,” she laughed.
Her life “behind bars” began at the age of 14 in 1910 when she worked at her father’s Cardiff pub, The Crown in Bute Street.
“You were allowed to work in pubs then at that age,” said Winnie. “I can remember Queen Victoria’s funeral but what sticks in my mind are the Johnny Onion men, who used to use the Crown as their headquarters.