Gerald Celestine Stevens was born and grew up in Cardiff central. He later came back to do a social sciences degree.

Cardiff Central Boys Club was on the corner of Bute Terrace. I can remember when I was very young you used to have to be 11 to join. The youth worker was Mr. Evans. It was a modern building, on the ground floor they had a gymnasium and because we didn't have gymnasium in school at St David's or St Mary's, we used to have our gym lessons in there once a week, Can you remember how gymnasiums used to smell of old sweat, well they had a shower there which was very important, almost more so than the gymnasium. Upstairs they had an art room, woodworking shop. The bloke that ran it became the landlord of the Golden Cross, which was quite notorious in those days because the ladies of the night used to use it. My mother always used to say don't go near it. One of the reasons my mum always wanted me to go to the central boys club was because of the showers. We didn't have a shower at home and the only place you could get a hot bath was at Guilford crescent and that was a Saturday morning thing, you would go in, pay your money, get a towel and some white heather soap or you could go down to the other end of Bute road, there was a bath house there. Anyway my mother always wanted me to go to the gym because if you run around in the gym you would have to have a shower.