Marching jazz bands are special part of our culture

Mal Pope is a songwriter who co-produced the film Jack To A King, about the 10-year rise of Swansea City FC

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CULTURE. Isn't culture wonderful. I expect as the nights are drawing in many people are thinking back to their summer holidays and marvelling at how lucky the rest of the world is when it comes to culture.

The Italians with their Roman architecture, their love of food and style and well... their love of love. The French again with their gastronomic delights and that 'je ne sais quoi' and their 'Joie de vivre'. Then there's the Greeks and Spanish. I bet as soon as I mention them, straight away you get a picture in your mind of their individual cultures. It's just a shame we don't have any?

That's the problem when it comes to recognising our very own unique cultural heritage. We don’t consider the way we live and act and spend our time as being anything other than normal. We don’t see our own culture very clearly because its so close to us. But we do have something special. I love it and try my best to champion it too.

When the new Swansea City owners come to town from the States they always head to the Railway Inn for pre-match drinks. Now you might think that's what every normal person does, and I expect people do similar things before sporting events around the world, but the atmosphere in the Railway Inn on match day is unique. It’s funny, colourful, loud, bawdy and the Americans see that as being special probably more clearly than we do.