AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

For earlier Chapters and an explanation of this dreadful story, see blog: The Cardiff Grandma. WARNING: This novel contains fake Welsh.
In the previous episode, Wolfcastle and the fatal Librarian are under fire at the Ddwwchllyff residence. Now, Rhoda Crwys doubts the mythological nature of urban legends…

The Cardiff Grandma Chapter 41

Rhoda was originally enrolled at the Welsh University to conduct a research project into context-free inter-employability in atypical social groups and disadvantaged communities. That was the original intention but it wasn’t what she was really interested in. Her true love was that of suburban myths. What had begun as a hobby when she’d heard tales of alligators living in sewers, aliens making elaborate geometric patterns in fields of corn and politicians working for the good of the population rather than looking after themselves and their friends. From these early encounters it had grown into an ever expanding interest. So much so that she had persuaded her supervisor to allow her to change the research focus to include this area. It hadn’t been difficult, in his rush to end the appointment the Professor had agreed almost instantly and then ushered her out into the corridor once more, deadlocking his office door behind him before climbing out of the forth floor window, onto the drainpipe and clambering down the two floors to the new ground level.

Since then, Rhoda had uncovered large amounts of data relating to gossip, rumours and tittle-tattle about there being a series of networks of underground tunnels all under Cardiff and the surrounding vicinity. However, despite extensive research she hadn’t been able to find anyone with firsthand experience of the apparent underground tunnel networks. A similar tale existed about parts of Southern Belgium and northern Luxembourg (Belgium!). She’d even gotten in touch with a representative of the Luxembourgian government at one stage; he had flatly denied that anything was going on at all, certainly nothing suspicious. When she called back later the same week another official had refused to confirm the previous denial and only commented that he wasn’t able (or willing) to comment.

The innocent enquiry from an obsessive research student in Wales had caused a significant political storm at the highest levels of Luxembourgish governance. For a while it was feared that someone had stumbled over, if not actually into, their tunnel! The Luxembourg submarine tunnel would go down as one of the greatest secret shaft achievements never made public. A marvel of civil engineering concealment, it had been planned and excavated in just 14 months. The waste material had been carefully ploughed back into the nationwide expansion project. And so it was that Luxembourg became a Naval power – if only a secret one, and a very small one.

For Rhoda, calls to the Welsh government regarding the idea of underground tunnels were proving to be as fruitless as a butcher’s shop. For what they declared as ‘security reasons’ the government refused to publish any contact details whatsoever. Instead they had launched an extensive TV and radio advertising campaign with the slightly menacing tag line of ‘Don’t call us, We’ll call you!’. Since gaining independence the ‘authorities, as they liked to refer to themselves, had gradually eased themselves into a state of affairs whereby more and more power could be found to be resting with fewer and fewer people. It had been a long and bitter struggle to gain freedom for Cymru, they weren’t about to ruin it all by letting the public have a say in things.