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They are proud of their rugby team in Pontarddulais, a modest town near Swansea. Today many residents talk of their internationally-renowned choir and the awards won by their St John's Ambulance crew.
It would seem that, despite its more straitened circumstances, Pontarddulais is the very model of civic society. Yet last Wednesday evening something extraordinary happened that suggests otherwise.
"If we get maybe four members of the public turning up to a council meeting, that's something," said David Beynon, one of the town's councillors. "But on Wednesday we got more than 200."
Locals were angry. A few days earlier, Peter Matthews, 56, had been beaten up by drunken youths after asking them to keep the noise down.
"People were trying to say there are no-go areas in the town," Mr Beynon said. "Well, that's rubbish. But if we could lift maybe 10 yobs off the streets and lock them up, we would have utopia."
It is a view that is shared by many in Britain. In the past fortnight, stories suggesting that yob rule is sweeping the country have captured the headlines, with commentators searching for explanations and politicians playing the blame game.
Garry Newlove, 47, died from a head injury after confronting youths outside his home in Warrington, Cheshire - a death made all the more tragic by his 12-year-old daughter Amy's valedictory tribute to "the best dad in the world".
On Friday, three youths from Gateshead were convicted after Lee Harris, 29, was beaten into a month-long coma. He had refused to buy a group of underage youths alcohol.
Evren Anil, 23, died last week after slipping into a coma from which he never awoke. He was punched to the ground when he remonstrated with a gang of youths who threw litter into his sister's car in Crystal Palace, south London. The attack happened at midday just 30 feet from the local police station.
Last week, a feeling that the fabric of society was unravelling and alcohol was to blame was propounded by Peter Fahy, the Chief Constable of Cheshire, who called for a crackdown on drinking in public, an increase in the price of alcohol and a rise in the legal age to buy drink to 21.
Graham Robb, interim chairman of the Youth Justice Board, which oversees the youth justice system in England and Wales, agrees that alcohol has fuelled much of the rise in youth violence but does not accept Mr Fahy's belief that changing the drinking laws would help.
"Widespread access to alcohol is a factor in offending but the biggest source of alcohol is the home," Mr Robb said.
These arguments are potentially damaging for a Government battling to refute claims that the liberalisation of the drinking laws in 2005 has seen a rise in violence. The drinks industry argues it has had little effect.
But some experts are convinced that urban areas are experiencing significant rises in violence.
"We have gone out of our way to create drinking zones in city centres," said Professor Dick Hobbs, a criminologist at the London School of Economics. "By focusing on the binge drinker, we blame the consumer but it would be amazing if once you group young people together and fill them with cheap booze you did not have problems."
It is not just the pubs and clubs that are under fire. Supermarkets and off- licences have also been attacked for selling alcohol to under-age drinkers.
The Government's response has been to introduce measures to control behaviour as part of Tony Blair's "respect" agenda. But statistics show that 55 per cent of antisocial behaviour orders are breached.
Several councils, exasperated by the Government's apparent inaction, have sought their own solutions.
In Westminster, central London, the council employs some 90 "city guardians", highly visible in reflective jackets, to patrol the West End.
In one ward, the percentage of residents who said they felt safe at night doubled from 33 per cent in 2003 to 66 per cent last year. Councils in Southwark and Camden have adopted similar schemes.
But such a solution is not an option for many cash-strapped councils.
-Observer
