An old devil is helping a Swansea exile put her home city on the map across the Atlantic.
Sonia Kho, who left her homeland for the wide open spaces of Canada 35 years ago, is to have a story published in the British Canadian newspaper about the ‘Swansea Devil’.
The carved wooden figure keeps watch over Swansea from a vantage point in the busy Quadrant Shopping Centre and Sonia, back in the city to visit her dad, John Milton, for his 90th birthday, has sought it out.
She remembered her dad pointing the Devil out to her when she was a girl and she discovered it had found its way into the Quadrant Centre and decided to write a story about it for the British Canadian, a newspaper for the country’s two million strong British population.
Sonia said: “I had enlisted the help of my cousin, Maureen and her husband, Ceri, from Ystradgynlais, and they went to the Quadrant Centre and there the manager, Ian Kirkpatrick, and maintenance man, Greg Heaven, showed them ‘Old Nick’.
“I’m back myself now for my dad’s birthday. I love coming back here, it’s still home to me.
“Swansea has changed a lot but the new marina is wonderful and so is the Gower which is as beautiful as ever.
“I’ve actually written up the story of the Swansea Devil and it’s due to appear in next month’s edition of the British Canadian – it’s a fascinating story and it made such an impression on me when my dad told it to me as a child.”
The Devil was believed to have been commissioned by a local architect annoyed that he failed to get the job of designing the city’s St Mary’s Church – he put it up on a nearby property.
Sonia explained: “He purchased cottages opposite the new building, tore them down and built a redbrick brewery office. He then sculpted the satanic effigy, placed him in the eaves directly opposite the nave of the church to gloat and cast his evil eye over the congregation.
“Old Nick sat there, biding his time and sure enough, he had his wicked wish as the church of St Mary was bombed during World War Two.”
When the brewery buildings were torn down in the Sixties the devil disappeared only to be rediscovered years later in a garage in Gloucester and returned to the Quadrant which now stood where the old brewery buildings had been.
Sonia added: “Old Nick was boarded up behind a screen. He remained hidden until he was moved to his current dwelling place – thanks to the efforts of the Evening Post, the local newspaper, which responded to public demand.
“I now know where to locate and gaze up once again at Old Nick when I return home. More than anything, I will share the story with my Dad who was responsible for awakening my interest in the history and stories of Swansea, my home town.”
Ian Kirkpatrick, Manager of the Quadrant Centre, said: “We were delighted to help out when Maureen and Ceri called in search of the Devil and we’ve been looking forward to showing it to Sonia too.
“It’s a real piece of local history and something that very few people know is there even though it has been looking out over Swansea from the Centre for many years now.
“It’s quite something that its fame is now spreading as far as Canada and if it can help draw more visitors to the city then it will have made up for the bad luck it put on the old church.”
Sonia, now retired after a career in the UK and Canada as a language pathologist working with children with communication problems, was educated at Glanmor School, in Swansea.
Her parents, John and his late wife, Anne, used to run a council care home, Rose Cross House, in Penlan, Swansea, and Sonia worked in a children’s hospital in Ottawa and now lives in Toronto to be close to her daughter, Karagh, and grand-daughter Eve, aged six.
Her dad, John Milton, now 90, remembers the story of the Devil well and recalls it on the wall of the old brewery, opposite the church which was destroyed in three nights of bombing in the war.
He said: “I was in Swansea at the time. When I was called up I was very short-sighted and after my medical I was told, ‘Milton, the best thing you can do is go home and forget there ever was a war.’
“I worked in a psychiatric hospitals and on my 40th birthday I and my wife who had also been nursing were appointed to run the nursing home which was named after Swansea’s first ever female Mayor, Rose Cross.”
Sonia and her family celebrated her dad’s birthday celebrations last week and she is enjoying being back home before returning to Canada.
