For Joan Goldsmith everything in the garden is wonderful – the water feature, her barbecue, an adorned duck and the gigantic pillar that holds one of the busiest pieces of highway in Britain.
Every day thousands of people travel past the M4 that extends from west to southwest wales.
Maybe many of us will just walk along the highway to get where we have to be without thinking a lot.
Vier Joan's mother lives in Port Talbot, Zuid-Wales, where a 45ft high fly-over on the M4 goes straight above her backyard.
Joan said in her sixties: 'I call it my canopy, I have been used to it over the years. It's not ugly, it's just a part of the garden.
“It's great to dry clothes on the washing line, because when it comes to rain, they don't get wet.”
Retired social service provider Joan bought the end of the terrace with three bedrooms in Gyndwr Street 20 years ago.
She said: 'It was a bit of a shock when I was shown when I bought the house and was brought into the garden.
Every day thousands of people travel past the M4 that extends from west to southwest -wales
Maybe many of us will just walk along the highway to get where we have to be without considering the road much
Vier Joan's mother lives in Port Talbot, South Wales, where a 45ft high fly-over on the M4 goes straight above her backyard
Retired social service provider Joan bought the end of the terrace with three bedrooms in Gyndwr Street 20 years ago in Glyndwr Street
“But I bought it and I love the house, but I used to look out the window to the pillar and thought:” What a shame. “
'But if you don't look up, it's like a normal garden, you get used to the noise of traffic.
“There is a river at the end of the garden and sometimes I can hear more than the trucks and cars above.”
Joan looks forward to having her grandchildren in the area to play in the summer in the summer, not aware of the thousands of vehicles spinning above their heads.
She said: 'It is wonderful here in the evening, we can see the sun under the roofs of the terrace opposite. It can be really beautiful and warm here under the canopy. '
In 1953 it was announced that the bypass of Port Talbot would be built, which would be the first highway of Wales and the first part of what the M4 would be. Only in 1966 did the 4.5 miles long open.
It helped to reduce the travel time between Swansea and Cardiff by 20 minutes, but the futuristic -looking project was the city itself, because it saw the destruction of three chapels and more than 200 houses. It was known locally as 'the road on a city'.
The M4 is known locally as the road on top of a city
The enormous structure divides the city of Portbot in the middle
Three doors along the terrace is the care family where Mama Joanna spent her entire life with a concrete highway pillar in her garden.
Her husband, microbiologist Ritchie Care, 41, said: 'I used to live at the beach, so it was a bit of a culture shock that moved here 11 years ago.
“Jo has been here all her life, so she has never known anything else, but it took me a long time to get used to the noise.”
Ritchie says that the family has noticed more pollution, because the speed limit on the part of the M4 above their heads has been reduced from 70 mph to 50 km / h.
He said: 'We have to wash the terrace down more often and if you leave clothes on the line for too long, they can get a black layer of dust on it.
'It has gained absolutely worse since they lower the speed limit.
“But the advantage is that you can hang up washing when it rains and it doesn't get wet.”
More than half of Gyndwr Street were demolished together with 200 houses and three chapels
Sixty years later, motorists are not aware of the fact that they are driving on people's gardens
More than half of Glyndwr Street were demolished together with 200 houses and three chapels when the 4.5 miles overhead by-Pass was built in the sixties.
It became known locally as 'the road on top of a city', but sixty years later motorists are not aware of the fact that they are driving over the gardens of people.
New resident Rebecca Knight, 29, uses the gigantic pillar in her garden to hang her clothesline.
Rebecca, who rents one of the terrace-shaped houses under the highway with her truck partner Aden Parker-White, 26, said: 'We have been here for two years and we have just been used to it.
“We have friends for barbecues in the summer and one of the neighbors has planted a palm tree – you could be everywhere.”
