Memories

Over the past year, we’ve been looking at so many places and people from long ago, I thought it would be nice to share some of the memories of a Whitchurch ‘local’ with more recent memories of the village

Gill (not her real name) was born in 1951, with parents and grandparents living locally. Both sets of grandparents worked at Melingriffith, and her mum was born in a cottage on Forest Farm

Gill was brought up in a terraced house on Tynypwll Road, which was rented from the Millward family (and who owned the whole terrace). Rent just after the war was about 7/6d a week. Gill’s memories of the house include:

Until I was about 14, we had a lovely coal fire and blacklead range, and Mr Merrey the coalman had to bring all the coal through the house as there was no lane. Eventually we had a Debonair gas fire

The kitchen was tiny, with hot water from a geyser plus a boiler and mangle for the clothes. The bottom part of the kitchen walls were clad in Melingriffith tin sheets to cover the damp

There was an outside toilet only with a wide wooden bench for newspaper and candles

We had a tin bath (hanging up), until we got a (freezing cold) bathroom extension as there was no central heating then

The bedrooms were also freezing, with lino and the odd rug

And the key to the front door was kept on a string hanging just behind the letterbox

All the decorating was done by an aunt (who often hung the wallpaper upside down!)

Rats! You could hear them in the walls as they had the run of the whole terrace roof

The back gardens were long and we kept 12 chickens and sold the eggs, and grew vegetables

There was a gas lamppost outside the house which was lit by ‘Aubrey’. A tiny man who arrived on his bike

When we finally had a phone in the house we had a party line, and neighbours would often come in to make a call. The operator would tell them how much to repay us for the call

We’ll catch up with Gill another time and learn a little of her memories of the local shops and social life in the village

If this little article has jogged a few memories, or if you’d like to tell us about some of your own family stories, why not send us an email or a photograph at awen.cymru@gmail.com. it doesn’t need to be a whole article, just a line or two. We’d love to hear from you

  Back