What does Tonypandy mean? Ynyshir? Gelli? Llwynypia? And there are plenty more where they came from! John Geraint Roberts gets to grip with why they named places up and down the Rhondda Fach and the Rhondda Fawr they way they did.

If you grew up in the Rhondda, real Italian ice-cream and 'Bracchis' - Italian cafes - offered a taste of paradise, exotic and yet all our own. John Geraint Roberts savours the flavours of Caravaggi's vanilla and Melardi's espresso.

A trip on a train from Tonypandy and Trealaw station was always a treat for John Geraint Roberts. But there's one Rhondda rail journey he never made, and he's always regretted it...

A walk through Clydach Vale's Countryside Park prompts thoughts of the terrible Cambrian Disaster, and the price that colliers paid so that others could enjoy comfort and power.

The Mid-Rhondda Athletic Ground in Tonypandy hosted international teams in rugby union and rugby league, and boasted its own professional football club. But John Geraint Roberts remembers it for an epic cricket match in which he played an unexpected part.

The joys of living in a place that's NEVER flat and boring!

1978. Wales was about to get its first-ever dedicated national radio service. But BBC bosses wanted to pilot the new station, to see if it chimed with the audience. And there was only one place to do that: the Rhondda! John Geraint Roberts was just 21 - the youngest member of the launch team, presenting a show called 'Rhondda Rock'.

David Hywel Thomas - History's Most Eccentric History Teacher... and one of the best! 

John Geraint Roberts takes us for a busy walk along the retail wonderland that was Tonypandy's Dunraven Street in the 1970s.