News

Pembrokeshire put on fashion map

Published

10 years ago

March 1, 2016

Photos by Chris Floyd

LAST WEEK Esquire fashion magazine sent their style director to Pembrokeshire to see if he could find clothes he would sport on the streets of London, in the counties local shops.

Style director for the magazine, Teo van den Broeke came to “The nation’s least densely populated region with £200 and a simple instruction: go shopping.” The task brief out laid.

Teo set out to see if he could prove that it is possible for a young man to dress with style and finesse wherever they live in the UK, so to do this he chose to start in St Davids: “I was to spend a day in the middle of nowhere, scouring local shops for wearable, affordable and, yes, even fashionable clothing that I would willingly bring back to London and absorb into my everyday wardrobe.”

Starting in the nations smallest city, he visited a charity shop to find his first piece of clothing: “The charity shop is run by a pair of charming ladies, Grace Davies and Mary Trott. They told me that they’d recently dressed a 16-year-old local boy for a “do” for 50 pence.”

“In that spirit, I snapped up a chunky teal fishmerman’s jumper for the bargain price of four pounds.”

Motivated by the first purchase he continued, and asked Oliver Blakiston, the young manager of St Davids’ Cross Hotel,where he shops: “I never buy clothes from St Davids, ever. If I’m going away, or if I’m going to Cardiff, I go shopping there. If I need anything proper, I go to the bigger shops in Haverfordwest,”

Taking on board part of what Oliver said, Teo then took a trip to Haverfordwest where he met with Matthew Locke from Mathews Menswear where he was told that youngsters looking to get the latest trends of clothing have to shop further afield to get them.

He delved deeper into the Men’s outfitters and found a number of pieces he liked, but most out of budget he said: “With prices starting around £200 a pair they were beyond my budget, but still prove that Haverfordwest is by no means a dead loss in the style stakes.”

Visiting The Pines, further along the road, Teo spoke with store owner Kayleigh Rogers who he said: “shed some light on the way local men dress.”

She said: “It’s funny, when you go out you can tell who the younger lads are, because they’re the ones who get suited and booted. They want to dress like the Essex boys they see on TV,” she laughs. “But as guys get older they slowly morph back into the Pembrokeshire way and just wear scabby jeans and T-shirts out. My friend Adam is the only person I know who is into designer clothes, but he can only get that stuff in London. He even went up to Edinburgh to buy a coat last week. That’s how far you need to go for good stuff.”

After talking with these shop owners and not finding anything he himself would wear, he then headed back towards St Davids and stopped at Solva where he visited the wool mill, he explained: “Set on the edge of a tiny stream and enveloped by overgrown pine trees, the mill looked like the kind of place where your grandma would have bought clothes back in the day,”

He continued: “with walls made of wood, and woollen jumpers, scarves and blankets piled up to the (dangerously low) ceiling.”

At the wool mill he found a knitted wool tie, which he described as: “a snip at £14”, he also said that the tie: “wouldn’t have looked out of place on the shelves of Drake’s in Mayfair.

At the same mill Chris Floyd, Esquire photographer bought a knitted fisherman’s jumper for £40.

So he carried on: “With a more positive head on my wool-clad neck, I headed back to Haverfordwest on a lead that there was an army surplus store somewhere in town that I’d missed first time around.”

At Brewer Army Surplus on Bridge Street he found a number of pieces he liked and explained his thoughts when he began to search: “I felt what was left of the £200 start to burn a hole in my pocket.”

At Brewers he bought a cropped navy-blue RAF bomber jacket for £18, a ribbed, midnight blue jumper with elbow patches for £20, a pair of bleached denim Lee jeans which he described as costing less than a lunch from Whole Foods in London at only £14.

And finally he purchased an M65 jacket for £30 which he went on to explain: “the nip in the waist and density of fabric made me think of something I tried on in Saint Laurent a few years ago (though that jacket came in at around £800)”.

He compared many of the things he found to be similar to those in fashion shows he had recently attended, and said that despite a few panicked hours searching he thinks it is more than possible to dress well, even if you live in the back end of beyond.”

Crime

Woman stabbed partner in Haverfordwest before handing herself in

Published

25 minutes ago

December 4, 2025

Court Reporter

A WOMAN who stabbed her partner during a drug-fuelled episode walked straight into Haverfordwest Police Station and told officers what she had done, Swansea Crown Court has heard.

Amy Woolston, 22, of Dartmouth Street in Milford Haven, arrived at the station at around 8:00pm on June 13 and said: “I stabbed my ex-partner earlier… he’s alright and he let me walk off,” prosecutor Tom Scapens told the court.

The pair had taken acid together earlier in the day, and Woolston claimed she believed she could feel “stab marks in her back” before the incident.

Police find victim with four wounds

Officers went to the victim’s home to check on him. He was not there at first, but returned shortly afterwards. He appeared sober and told police: “Just a couple of things,” before pointing to injuries on his back.

He had three stab or puncture wounds to his back and another to his bicep.

The victim said that when he arrived home from the shop, Woolston was acting “a bit shifty”. After asking if she was alright, she grabbed something from the windowsill — described as either a knife or a shard of glass — and stabbed him.

He told officers he had “had worse from her before”, did not support a prosecution, and refused to go to hospital.

Defendant has long history of violence

Woolston pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding. The court heard she had amassed 20 previous convictions from 10 court appearances, including assaults, battery, and offences against emergency workers.

Defending, Dyfed Thomas said Woolston had longstanding mental health problems and had been off medication prescribed for paranoid schizophrenia at the time.
“She’s had a difficult upbringing,” he added, saying she was remorseful and now compliant with treatment.

Woolston was jailed for 12 months, but the court heard she has already served the equivalent time on remand and will be released imminently on a 12-month licence.

News

BBC apologises to Herald’s editor for inaccurate story

Published

2 hours ago

December 4, 2025

Staff Writer

THE BBC has issued a formal apology and amended a six-year-old article written by BBC Wales Business Correspondent Huw Thomas after its Executive Complaints Unit ruled that the original headline and wording gave an “incorrect impression” that Herald editor Tom Sinclair was personally liable for tens of thousands of pounds in debt.

The 2019 report, originally headlined “Herald newspaper editor Tom Sinclair has £70,000 debts”, has now been changed.

The ECU found: “The wording of the article and its headline could have led readers to form the incorrect impression that the debt was Mr Sinclair’s personal responsibility… In that respect the article failed to meet the BBC’s standards of due accuracy.”

Mr Sinclair said: “I’m grateful to the ECU for the apology and for correcting the personal-liability impression that caused real harm for six years. However, the article still links the debts to ‘the group which publishes The Herald’ when in fact they related to printing companies that were dissolved two years before the Herald was founded in 2013. I have asked the BBC to add that final clarification so the record is completely accurate.”

A formal apology and correction of this kind from the BBC is extremely rare, especially for a story more than six years old.

Business

First wind turbine components arrive as LNG project moves ahead

Published

5 hours ago

December 4, 2025

Tom Sinclair

THE FIRST ship carrying major components for Dragon LNG’s new onshore wind turbines docked at Pembroke Port last week, marking the start of physical deliveries for the multi-million-pound renewable energy project.

The Maltese-registered general cargo vessel Peak Bergen berthed at Pembroke Dock on Wednesday 26^th November, bringing tower sections and other heavy components for the three Enercon turbines that will eventually stand on land adjacent to the existing gas terminal at Waterston.

A second vessel, the Irish-flagged Wilson Flex IV, has arrived in Pembroke Port today (Thursday) carrying the giant rotor blades.

The deliveries follow a successful trial convoy on 25 November, when police-escorted low-loader trailers carried dummy loads along the planned route from the port through Pembroke, past Waterloo roundabout and up the A477 to the Dragon LNG site.

Dragon LNG’s Community and Social Performance Officer, Lynette Round, confirmed the latest movements in emails to the Herald.

“The Peak Bergen arrived last week with the first components,” she said. “We are expecting another delivery tomorrow (Thursday) onboard the Wilson Flex IV. This will be blades and is currently showing an ETA of approximately 03:30.”

The £14.3 million project, approved by Welsh Ministers last year, will see three turbines with a combined capacity of up to 13.5 MW erected on company-owned land next to the LNG terminal. Once operational – expected in late 2026 – they will generate enough electricity to power the entire site, significantly reducing its carbon footprint.

The Weather conditions were favourable for the arrival of the Wilson Flex IV, which was tracking south of the Smalls at midnight.

The abnormal-load convoys carrying the components from the port to Waterston are expected to begin early next year, subject to final police and highway approvals.

A community benefit fund linked to the project will provide for residents in nearby Waterston, Llanstadwell and Neyland.

Further updates will be issued by Dragon LNG as the Port of Milford Haven as the delivery programme continues.

Photo: Martin Cavaney