‘Barry Island is on the up but it will never be posh’

When Gavin and Stacey announce their intention to marry in Barry, Gavin’s mother Pam is furious.

“Barry Island?… I’m not trawling the best side of my family to Wales to see my son, my only son, get married in some dirty fairground,” she fumed.

Gavin and Stacey’s final episode It will air on Christmas Day, 17 years after it first graced our screens.

In that time there’s no doubt that the sitcom has attracted huge numbers of tourists to the area – but has it changed perceptions about the south Wales seaside town?

“I think (Pam) was a little unkind to the city,” said BBC meteorologist and presenter Derek Brockway, who grew up in Barrie and still lives nearby.

“There are parts of it that some people might find a little strange but it has its own character.

“Barry’s is a special place… it’s definitely on the way up and Gavin and Stacey have helped that.”

Barry Island was once a popular holiday destination among South Wales miners, who visited there with their families during Miners’ Fortnight, usually the last week of July and the first week of August.

Derek, who grew up there in the 70s, remembers that when cheap air travel took away British seaside holidays and the town’s Butlins closed in 1996, vibrant Barry Island went into decline.

“You don’t necessarily want to go there, but since Gavin and Stacey it has put the town firmly back on the map,” he said.

“It’s a much more popular and nice place to visit and you’ve got lots of shops, restaurants and cafes open, it’s a popular place.”

Could a renewed interest in the seaside city lead to the development of civilization?

“I don’t think Barry will ever be posh,” he laughed.

“That’s probably a good thing. It’s a very ordinary town, lots of talented people live there, it will never be Pontcanna (an affluent Cardiff suburb) by the sea. It will always be Barry Island or Barbados as I call it. I say.”

Barry Island is actually a peninsula.

The island was joined to the mainland by the expansion of the city of Barrie following the opening of Barrie Docks by the Barrie Railway Company in the 1880s.

In the sitcom, Stacey and her mother Gwen live up the hill from the island on Trinity Street in Barrie, with Uncle Brian living right across the street.

Home Councilor Naomi Marshalsea is based in Illteed’s ward and remembers her children shouting the Nessa slogan “What’s happening” at tourists taking photographs outside Stacey’s house.

“There is joyous laughter every time without fail,” he said.

She grew up in Cardiff, 10 miles away but said she had never been to that city.

“It wasn’t viewed in a positive way but Gavin and Stacey have certainly changed that,” he said.

She credits the show with bringing “a positive feeling of happiness and warmth to Barrie”.

“It put it on the map,” he said.

She thinks Barry’s image has improved since Pam’s outcry over Gavin’s wedding plans.

“I think that’s probably a pretty old-fashioned notion,” he said.

As well as fairgrounds and amusement arcades, Barry is now known for its biodiversity, woodlands and country parks, he said.

Marco Zeraschi, who owns Marco’s Café on Barry Island, where Stacey stars on the sitcom, said it’s hard to overstate what the program has done for the resort.

“We are the envy of many seaside resorts across the country,” he said.

“People know who we are now, we are the world famous Barry Island.”

He said that this has also changed perceptions for the better.

He said, “Gavin and Stacey are always positive, funny, witty, happy, it shows Barry at his best.”

“It shows it in such a positive way – they see beaches and proms, people get curious and curiosity is the best thing for tourism.

“They come here, we get busier and we employ more people.”

Lewis Ross, who has run the Baribados gift shop since 2013, said he was amazed by the reach of the sitcom and that he got at least one fan from Australia every week.

He said that without the chain his business would struggle over the winter and that the closing had made the business its busiest winter ever.

“It brings people to Barrie, it’s definitely put Barrie on the map…it’s everywhere,” he said.

Keith Eber, manager of the amusement arcade which is home to “Nessa Slots”, said that despite the last episode airing in Christmas 2019, the series continues to attract crowds to the town.

He said it was up to visitors to “make up their own minds” about what they thought of the resort.

“It’s a typical British seaside town isn’t it,” he said.

Natalie Bolan, who has lived in Barrie all her life, sells greeting cards and posters inspired by the show from her shop Dimensional Art in the city’s Good Shades, a collection of street food, bars, independent shops and local businesses.

He said he has seen the city’s fortunes change as the show’s popularity grew.

“Barrie used to be a town that was only busy in the summer, now it brings people in from all over the year,” he said.

“Even if the locals don’t like Gavin and Stacey, there’s still a sense of respect for what they’ve done for the island.”

Ellie Jones, customer assistant at Marco’s Café, has lived in Barrie her whole life and is a big fan of the sitcom.

She said she enjoyed watching Gavin’s Essex-born and raised parents Pam and Mick slowly warm up to their hometown.

“As the show went on, they fell in love with Barry, they wanted to come here,” he said.

“They saw it as a beautiful place rather than some dirty place.”

In the first series in 2007, Pam’s reaction to Gavin and Stacey’s plans to get married in Barry was severe and her dislike of the town was exposed.

She shouted: “Where are you going to have a wedding reception? On log flumes? And what’s on the menu for the wedding breakfast? Hot dogs and candy floss?”

By the time series three aired two years later she was enjoying the thrill of the fairground, screaming with delight on the same log flume and chewing on the same candy floss she once made fun of.

While sunbathing on the beach with Uncle Brian, Smithy, Nessa, and the rest of the Shipman-West crew, she admits that maybe Barrie Island wasn’t so bad after all.

“Wow,” she says.

“It’s lovely.”

The final episode of Gavin and Stacey will air on BBC iPlayer and BBC One December 25 at 21:00 GMT,