I had a dawn bus tour of Swansea on 23 October.

It was too cloudy for a blinding sunlight to rise from the bay.

But Swansea at dawn stands up to comparison with any other UK city.

The bus collected me from the Dragon Hotel, whipped down to the Marriott at the Maritime Quarter and finally to Morgans Hotel, the conversion of the old port authority building.

The five-star hotel was the venue for christening parties by Swansea ex-pat Catherine Zeta-Jones.

I wanted to peer in to see the clever conversion.

Unfortunately, by the time we reached Morgans, the bus driver hardly bothered to stop.

His brief was to wait for five minutes at Swansea’s five top hotels to collect delegates for the WalesRegeneration Summit and to drive them the two miles to the summit Liberty Stadium.

He arrived at my hotel at 7.25 am with no passengers having called at the Premier Inn.

‘I expect they’re all having a lie-in,’ he said generously. ‘They’re waiting for my second run.’

We waited in silence while a disc jockey on the radio discussed the life and bad times of Kerry Katona.

Half an hour later, I arrived at Liberty Stadium the only passenger in a 50-seater coach.

I have no idea whether the coach was more popular an hour later.

Somehow, 300 delegates made their way to Swansea.

As with all conference these days, there were plenty of green statistics.

The irony of the coach was not lost on me.

How much had my shapely carbon footprint been elongated by being the only passenger on a 50-seater coach?

I am sure the Welsh Assembly Government, the organisers of the summit, has all its green credentials in place, turning off lights and outlawing standby buttons.

But before organising another shuttle bus at taxpayers’ expense, it should check with delegates to make sure they are green enough to travel by coach.

‘Always approach the opening day of a shopping centre like an agnostic regards Easter.’

I adopted that attitude twice at the opening of Highcross in Leicester on 4th September and Cabot Circus in Bristol on 25th September.

Don’t buy into the miracle of a wonderful building, rising out of urban dereliction, before peering into the empty shops that the new shopping centre has caused.

I walked up Broadmead, Bristol, counting the cost of Cabot Circus.

It was dawn, and no shop, new or old was yet open. As I scribbled: ‘New Look, Dorothy Perkins, Burtons – relocating – H&M trading both,’ I was interrupted by the ebullient embrace of John Richards, chief executive of Hammerson, developer with Land Securities, of Cabot Circus.

He was walking away from his creation, as I was walking towards it.

‘I’m going back to change,’ he said.

‘Into a clown?’ I asked cheekily, knowing that the opening cerebrations were to have a circus theme.

‘Into a tie,’ he replied, adding that when you do a very early BBC Radio Four broadcast, you grab the first clothes available. Now, he needed a tie for the rest of the day’s festivities that would run until the early hours.

It was his third shopping centre opening that month; Leicester, near Paris and now Bristol.

An hour later he was addressing civic and other dignitaries in the Friends Meeting House now incorporated into Cabot Circus as a restaurant, Brasserie Blanc.

Those in property at the Brasserie brunch ridiculed the naïveté of that morning’s radio and television interviewers’ questions to Hammerson and Land Securities bosses. The questions generally ran: ‘Why would you open a shopping centre in an economy like this?’

Didn’t these people understand……

All the speakers repeated the mantra of the 4,000 jobs that Cabot Circus had created. Then everyone congratulated one another on having 99 of 140 open in time for the big day. More than 90% was let.

It was time to walk from the brasserie across Penn Street to the new part of the development. The opening did not take place until the unusually late time of midday to give Bristol’s office workers a chance to join the throng.

We VIPs took up our positions outside the upper level entrance of House of Fraser and drank flutes of pink champagne.

Slowly, the barriers to the three street level entrances rolled back.

A tide of respectful humanity moved slowly along the three covered malls of Concorde Street, George White Street and Brigstow Street. These human tributaries converged at The Circus, below our vantage point.

The people could not have walked with more reverence if they had been in a cathedral. It’s hard not to be a convert to their retail beliefs when you are having an ‘Eva Peron’ moment, and they are waving from below.

Then acrobats performed barefoot on top of the glass roof and trapeze artists swung below them. It was difficult to sustain the awe.

Shopping started, and the real trick was to spot how many of the tens of thousands who had come, had a carrier bag from a newly opened shop.

My guess is one in 20. Everyone insisted the first day was not about shopping but discovering. This new place of worship will catch on quickly, if the economy permits.