Putting Montgomery on the map!

Montgomery has been enjoying the limelight over Christmas thanks to several residents who have been on prime time radio and television over the past couple of days.

Town Crier, Sue Blower, was a contestant on BBC1's Blankety Blank, hosted by Bradley Walsh, on Christmas evening and returned home with the coveted cheque book and pen (pictured)!

“It was a fantastic opportunity both to take part and to represent my home town of Montgomery as its Town Crier,” said Sue. “All the celebrities were very friendly and we had a lot of fun.”

Meanwhile, the town also featured on Radio 4’s Today programme with listeners asked to describe how they were helping to make the best of a difficult Christmas.  

Cyndy Humphreys was selected by programme researchers to explain how her Christmas would be different this year in the “reasons for cheer” segment.

She described how, instead of hosting family members in Montgomery as planned, she and her husband Phil would be leaving Montgomery in the middle of the night, to arrive in Cardiff before Father Christmas, and would be taking with them all the food already secured, in order to cook the Christmas meal for her daughter’s family in their own home in Cardiff, before returning to Montgomery the same day.

The next day, Montgomery teenager Catrin McDougal (pictured), who had planned and delivered a virtual advent calendar for the community throughout the run-up to Christmas, was interviewed about this project.

Catrin, and her mum Lydia, explained how the advent calendar had worked, who had contributed and how it had brought joy to people in Montgomery, and across the world.

Both interviews are available on BBC Sounds at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/b006qj9z  - episodes from December 21 (2:58) and December 22 (1:20).

The online Advent Calendar will remain available for viewing for a few more weeks at https://www.montgomery-wales.co.uk/christ/advent/advent.php