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The Story of the Cairo Cafe

Olive Salaman was 15 years old when she moved from a small town of Penadrag in the Rhondda Valley to Tiger Bay. The reason she moved? Olive had falling in love with the boy she met, and whom she asked directions back to Cardiff City centre. His name was Ali Salaman, a young Yemeni who was chef in his own Café, the Cairo Café.

The Cairo Café as George discovers wasn’t simply a place to eat, but place for it functioned and became established as a social intuition for Tiger Bay’s mixed community. Olive became one of the town’s matriarchs, and café was at the centre of community activities. It brought a Cardiff mixed communities together, and became a place were this community for support and exchanged customs and traditional.

Dauod Salamon one of Olive and Ali ten children explains to George how his parents met, and what life was like in area when he was growing up as a boy of mixed Arab parentage.

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Duration:

2 minutes