Pontypool’s big freeze of 1941

It was during a winter in 1941 that we had the big freeze. We had no warning as it happened so suddenly. One winter night it rained heavily, then, very quickly the ground temperature dropped massively causing every drop of rain that fell to freeze on whatever it landed.

Consequently, when we woke up the following morning we witnessed both beauty and tragedy. The branches, twigs and leaves on every tree were coated in a layer of ice; they looked as though they were in a glass casing. It was a beautiful sight that I shall never forget.

Unfortunately all the telegraph wires were also coated in ice and the weight of it made them hang down in great clusters. Some were so heavy that they snapped and were strewn on the ground in frozen bundles.

On that day I had to go to Pontnewynydd for some reason or other; I can’t remember what it was but it might have been either to take my mother’s grocery list to Wheeler’s shop or to visit Osborne Cottage (http://oldpontypool.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/osborne-cottage-at-pontnewynydd). I wrapped up warm against the freezing cold and set out. Naturally there were all sorts of frozen patches and puddles on the roads but I managed to negotiate them without too much difficulty. Wainfelin Road, being flat, was not too bad either, but as I turned the corner to approach the top of Merchant’s hill things became precarious and I started to slither about on the slope.

My journey down Merchant’s Hill was even more difficult and I had a job to stay on my feet as I walked around the frozen patches. But what a sight met my eyes at the bottom of the hill. From there to the Pavilion cinema is a large wide and flat stretch and evidently the rain falling on the hills at both ends had run down onto that area. Consequently it looked like a skating rink with thick ice all over it. It was quite impossible to walk around this area as it completely covered the road, so I was compelled to walk over the huge area of solid ice slithering all over the place in the process.

My return journey was no less hazardous, and climbing back up Merchant’s Hill was even worse than walking down. I was very glad when School Lane came in sight; it had been a very tiring walk.  When I was in sight of my house, Garfield, I walked past the hedge which still skirted the side of the field at that time. I tapped some of the twigs to see if the ice would fall off. But it didn’t, instead the whole twig just snapped off the bush.

When the temperature rose again the ice melted but it left behind an unbelievable amount of damage. It was weeks before some of the overhead cables were repaired, but it was a unique experience and I’ve never seen anything like it since.

The good people of Pontypool help the war effort

 

There were all sorts of ways we were urged by the government to help the war effort. As a young boy, after all the things Hitler had done to upset me, I was ever ready to join in.

When I was in the top class in Town School, the government, in an effort to keep all us kids happy and healthy, introduced free milk for all children - well, all those who wanted to drink it. I loved drinking milk so I decided to help the war effort in this direction. We all had a one third of a pint bottle every day, plus a straw. There was an extra spin-off for those of us in top class: Mr Petty had to appoint two “milk crate boys” each day to carry between us, in a metal milk crate, the number of bottles required around to each class. This was a job, if carefully handled, which could be stretched out to half an hour or more which meant missing most of a lesson. Later, we returned to collect the empty bottles. Also, someone was appointed as “straw monitor” to give out the straws for that day. The girls were also allowed to do this job, but, as it was done in a matter of minutes inside the classroom, it wasn’t such a popular job. I noticed that, as the eleven-plus exam drew nearer, Mr Petty was reluctant to appoint those of us “trying for West Mon” to be milk crate boys, which I thought was grossly unfair. In the winter months, when the milk was very cold, we were allowed to place the milk bottles near the stove to warm them. There was a keen sense of rivalry to try to get our bottle as near the fire as possible.

Mr Petty urged us all to fill every corner of our exercise books and the covers before asking for another. He stressed the fact that our sailors were risking their lives in merchant ships to bring the paper for the books. His pep talks touched our sense of patriotism so we really did fill our books to the limit. Mr Petty was also the teacher in charge of National Savings, so every Monday we took along some of our savings to buy sixpenny saving stamps. When we had saved up fifteen shillings’ worth of stamps on a card, this could be exchanged for a savings certificate. For those of us a bit short of the “ready”, it was possible to buy a red penny stamp to put on a smaller card. When we had six stamps we could exchange them for a sixpenny stamp. Thus we loaned money to the government. We didn’t buy battle-ships exactly but we all did our bit with the little we had. Announcements were made from time to time about how well we were doing with our savings and towns were asked to sponsor a naval vessel. I remember Pontypool sponsored HMS Kittiwake which I think was a small frigate or something like that.

From time to time a salvage drive would be organised by the government. All our unwanted pots and pans, buckets etc were taken to a large shop almost opposite the top entrance to the market in Crane Street. Volunteers sorted it all into piles of aluminium and iron etc. ready to be recycled and made into aircraft and other weapons of war. Some churches, householders and other owners of buildings sacrificed their railings for the salvage drives; many have never been replaced.

We were also urged to “Dig for Victory” by planting every inch of our gardens to produce vegetables and other food which meant importing less. Some people dug up their lawns, and Penygarn School even dug up sections of Pontypool Park which was near them. I remember wandering up to inspect their handiwork at one time when I happened to be playing in the park.

In the darker days when we thought there was a possibility of Hitler invading our shores, we were all warned not to spread rumours or speak out loud any war secrets we might know such as where our brothers were serving in the forces. The posters warned that “Walls have ears”, though, at the time I was unaware of any important secrets I might have known which would have been any use to Hitler. We were further asked to surrender all the maps we owned of the local area just in case Hitler’s soldiers found them and would be helped to find their way about the country. In retrospect, I hardly think the maps of the Welsh valleys would have been much use to him. On several occasions, when driving in the upper reaches of some of our valleys, suitably armed with an up-to-date map, I still get lost; and I live here and speak the language. I think we could have posted those maps to Hitler; he still wouldn’t have found his way around the Welsh valleys.

Osborne Cottage at Pontnewynydd

Osborne Cottage by Fred Hando 1960

 

Most people in Pontypool will know of Osborne Road; some of the older ones might remember Osborne Forge, but fewer will know of Osborne Cottage. If you walk down Mill Street in Pontnewynydd and turn left over the bridge, you will see Osborne Cottage to your right at the bottom of Church Lane, which is the old Roman Road which continues over the hill to Mamhilad passing near the Folly Tower. The river Avon Llwyd runs alongside.

I understand the name “Osborne” to be a curruption of  ”Osmond” which was the name given to an iron which was produced in Northern Europe many centuries earlier. A proclamation by Charles I in 1630 declared that, as English wire was made of the finest Osmond iron, the importing of foreign wire was prohibited. When the iron industry started in Gwent, Osborne iron was produced at Tintern Wire Works in 1763. This was drawn out of a furnace in thin square bars.

Osborne Cottage has a special place in my memories of Pontypool because for many years it was the home of my paternal grandparents and, later, of my aunt who survived them. Originally the building had been two separate cottages but, when I knew it, it was joined together as one. The fact that there was a staircase at each end of the building was evidence of this. 

My brothers and I often visited the cottage. You can imagine the fun three young boys would have chasing one another around a house with a staircase at each end. It was a glorious place to play hide-and-seek. Also, it had a very large garden where pigs, chickens and ducks were kept. Water ran into the garden from the hills behind  providing a small duck pond and a permanent “flush” for the outside toilet which led directly into the river.  There was also a spring which we called “the well” which supplied all the water for those living in the cottage. Of course it had to be carried up the path to the cottage in enamel pails. It was really pure water and very, very cold; after drinking it my throat would often feel frozen. But one good thing about it was that, even in severe drought conditions it had never been known to dry up or even reduce much in volume. The overflow maintained a constant supply of water for the watercress bed on the lower part of the garden. These wet conditions produced a large supply of blackcurrants, raspberries, gooseberries and loganberries. We were told by our grandparents to help ourselves to this fruit - so we did.

The other water supply was a very large butt of rainwater which you can see at the right hand side of the building in Hando’s drawing above. It was kept constatntly full from the guttering above. It was not pure enough for drinking but was used for washing garden tools and utensils and watering plants etc. My aunt always washed her hair in it and she had a wonderfully soft head of hair right into her nineties.

A few steps down from the cottage and to the left was the wash-house with a small coal-house at the rear. The coal was shovelled in through a small window facing the lane outside. My memory tells me that the wash-house was somewhat larger than the building depicted in the Hando drawing. As its name suggests, its main use was for doing the laundry and on wash-day it was a hive of industry. The water would be boiled on the fireplace in a huge iron cauldron and poured into a wooden washing machine which was divided vertically into three sections. The clothes and boiling water were placed in the first section and soap added. This had a lid which, when closed, enabled a wooden paddle to be agitated to clean the clothes. They were then transferred into clean water in the second section and the soap washed out. Finally they were led through a large mangle with huge wooden rollers into the dry third section. Sometimes I was allowed to turn the handle to do this job. The clothes were finally pegged onto a wooden rack which was hauled up to the ceiling to enable them to dry. This was a very early precursor of our present day washing machines.

Another use of the wash-house - every single day - was to boil the swill for the pigs. All the family kept our vegetable peelings and odd food to be taken to the cottage for the pigs. It was boiled in the cauldron, then a bran mash was added; I can imagine that wonderful smell even now. The pigs, in their stye at the bottom of the garden, would soon get a whiff of their food and would set up a continuous squealing until it was delivered into their trough. It was a source of amusement for us to see them put their feet in the trough as they ate the food.

From time to time one of the pigs would be slaughtered by a friend of the family who was trained in the job, and I remember seeing the huge sides of salted bacon hanging in the living room from the stout beams. We were often given pieces of this meat to take home for our own pantry at Wern Terrace.

One of my favourite sights was the collection of tiny chicks which were kept in a small wire-netting run with their mother hen on the little lawn in front of the cottage. I shall always remember one visit when my grandmother was cradling in her lap a cracked egg. Soon a little yellow chick’s head popped out to be followed by the rest of him. I was thrilled.

To the right of the small porch on the front of the cottage was a narrow border. One of the items growing there was a large fuchsia bush. When I bought the house I now live in, I was looking for bushes for my front garden and was given a piece of the root of this fuchsia. It’s still growing just outside my front door, and, each year, when it flowers, I have a constant reminder of Osborne Cottage.

West Mon’s “Spitfire”

 

As the war wore on into 1943 and 1944, the blitz was over and it seemed that the allies were gaining the upper hand. Consequently we heard the air raid sirens less and less and, even when they sounded, we just carried on in school. Few people continued to carry their gas masks everywhere and we were all a little more relaxed.

We had become used to the shortages of course and had learned to cope with the rations we were allowed. As we had more margarine than butter some people mixed the two together to make a slightly more palatable tasting substance. Also we were able to make our own small piece of butter by taking off the cream from the top of the milk bottle and putting it in a jar of some kind - we used a Horlicks jar; by continuously shaking this for about 20 minutes or so, which was a job I liked to do, we produced a pale version of “butter”. I suppose it was really clotted cream but we added a little salt and it helped out on a few pieces of bread.

We were continually told by the deputy head at West Mon, Mr Mole, who was in charge of stock, to use every single page in our exercise books; indeed it was useless to ask for a new book if you didn’t comply with this as he used to flick through every old book presented to see that all the pages were full. If they were not, you didn’t get a new one. The quality of the paper in the books fell off as the war wore on with the surface becoming rougher.

One thing I was terribly disappointed about was not being able to do any woodwork. When both my brothers attended West Mon they used to arrive home, from time to time, with a variety of items they’d made in their woodwork lessons and I just couldn’t wait until it was my turn. I just managed one single lesson before the stock of wood was exhausted. Then it was announced that there would be no more woodwork lessons. That was something else Hitler had to answer for!

Some time during the war, I’m not certain when, an Air Training Cadets group was formed at West Mon. It was not something which was widely advertised amongst the boys and I gathered that it was something to keep the boarders occupied. As the master in charge of the boarders, Gilbert Garnet, was also the officer in command of the cadets, that is quite probable.

We boys were very interested in aeroplanes and my best friend, Eric Smith, who sat across the aisle from me in 3A, and who lived next door to me at 8 Wern Terrace, spent hours drawing bombers dropping bombs, shells exploding near them and fighters shooting them down. One Monday morning we arrived at school to find an air of excitement about. Someone told us that there was a real aeroplane in the quadrangle at the side of the new building. Hardly being able to believe this we made straight over to investigate and, sure enough, there was a low-wing monoplane parked there. We could actually walk around and touch it and even get up to look inside the cockpit. We referred to it as our “Spitfire” though I don’t think it could have been as the Spitfire was a very new plane at that time. Still, it caused a lot of interest and excitement until it was finally removed and, I suppose, loaned to some other school.

I imagine this was an effort to get boys interested in the Royal Air Force as no one knew then how long the war would last. I distinctly remember some of the older boys, who were prefects when I started at the school, who were called up almost as soon as they had left and visited the school later in their forces uniforms. Two years after leaving West Mon I was in the Royal Air Force doing my two years national service, though by then the war was over.

 

When the sirens sounded in Pontypool

 

It was about a year after the declaration of war that we started to learn about the realities of the situation. The blitz by Hitler’s Luftwaffe  started on our towns and cities. London was one of the main targets but other cities were badly damaged also, Swansea being one of them.

Newport also suffered to a lesser extent and, as I had an aunt living there, I saw some of the effects of wartime when we visited her. I clearly remember the  circle of huge, grey barrage balloons surrounding Newport town centre. We lived in a house, Garfield, in School Lane, and many is the night we stood at the window of our parents’ bedroom which looked south over the playing field of George Street School and watched the searchlights over Newport sweeping the night sky. We could hear the thuds but didn’t know whether it was gunfire or bombs dropping. Occasionally we saw what looked to be fires. They showed up starkly in the black night as, of course, the blackout was in force then and, unlike today’s sodium light halo over most towns, all that was usually visible was intense blackness all around.

I can only remember two incidents of bombing near Pontypool. One day the grapevine vibrated with a rumour that, the previous evening a bomb had dropped on the Wheatsheaf Inn near the market. However, later rumours suggested that, as the damage to the pub was slight, it had probably been a shell cap which fell near it.

We had many warnings when the air raid sirens went off, so much so that, when nothing happened near us, we started to take little notice and carried on as usual. However, there was one evening when we had a real fright. I think it must have been about August or September time. My father, being a keen gardener and having quite a large garden devoted to vegetables, we had plenty of runner beans at that time of the year. I was in the kitchen with my mother watching her prepare the beans for supper when, suddenly, there was a terrific explosion. Everything in the house vibrated and the crockery in the cupboards rattled. I felt sure a bomb must have dropped in Wainfelin Avenue. As it turned out a land-mine had been dropped on the mountain much higher up the valley in the Varteg area.

When the blitz started in 1940 I was in the scholarship class in Town School. (http://oldpontypool.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/the-scholarship-class-at-town-school) When the sirens sounded we were all sent home. Most children lived fairly locally and so were able to go to their own homes where, in those days, mother was always home. But some of us lived further away from the school as I did, so arrangements were made for us to go to the home of someone else who lived near the school. I was partnered with Billy Wootton who lived near the top of the Bell Pitch at Coedcae in a little cottage with a small raised yard at the front of it. Billy had an airgun and we often spent the time when the weather was dry out in his yard shooting at a target. Mrs Wootton was a very generous person and would often provide me with refreshments. If the air raid was short-lived we had to return to school as soon as the all-clear sounded, but if it did not sound before ten minutes before our usual home-time, we didn’t have to do so. At home-time I was free to go home in any case. I quite enjoyed the air raids. 

Later, when I attended West Mon, we were so used to nothing happening during daytime air raid warnings that the practice was abandoned and we stayed in school.

 

Pontypool in wartime: the start of rationing

Adolf Hilter has many things to answer for, but, as a nine-year-old boy, I never forgave him for messing up my holiday in 1939. Not everyone had paid holidays in those days but my family some years managed  a holiday, by train of course, to one of the traditional holiday spots. 

In August 1939 we were spending two weeks in Weymouth. The weather was lovely but the news from Europe wasn’t. Germany had annexed Austria on 12th March 1938 and from then on it was all downhill. By August 1939 the British Government were openly talking about the possibility of war with Germany and what they would have to do if it happened. One thing on the cards was the probable bombing by the German air force of the main British cities in the south of the country. Consequently, during the last week of August the news bulletins on the wireless were talking about the government commandeering trains to evacuate children from the cities to the countryside.

My parents were most concerned about this and feared that we might be denied a train to get us back home. Therefore they decided to cut short our holiday by three days and to return home. Hence my intense dislike of Adolf Hitler.

We didn’t have long to wait to realise we were at war. I remember the day so clearly and, in my mind, I can see the picture in our dining room that Sunday morning. All the family were there and I remember the speech by the Prime Minister on our wireless as he said that, as he had received no message from Adolf Hitler to say he would withdraw his forces from Poland, we were at war with Germany. Being so young I didn’t realise the implications but I know a hush fell on the whole family.

At first people were fairly optimistic about the war and I heard many adults saying, “Oh, it’ll be all over by Christmas.” How wrong they were! The first thing I remember which affected me was walking down School Lane one evening with the rest of my family to George Street School and being given a gas mask in a little cardboard box. I clearly remember the panic which struck me as a man put one over my head. It had a terrible smell of rubber and I felt as though I could hardly breathe. I was very glad to remove it and return home. By playing around with it for a while in the house I soon got used to putting it on and being able to breathe fairly well. Soon after this the Government discovered that Germany had developed a new form of gas, so we had to return to George Street School where the wardens taped an extra part to the bottom of the mask to filter it out. After all this preparation we didn’t get a single gas attack.

We were told never to go anywhere without our gas masks and the little box hanging by string over everyone’s shoulder became a common sight. However, this fact is often misinterpreted in dramas about the war on television. Only last week I saw a scene with a group of elderly people all with the little cardboard box slung over their shoulders. Soon after we started carrying our gas masks, covers of all sorts were on sale in the shops and many people knitted or sewed their own box covers. This was really a necessity as a cardboard box would not have lasted long when we were out in the rain.

When the war started our merchant shipping was scattered all over the globe. Our merchant fleet was huge in those days and our ships earned a massive amount of money for the exchequer as they freely sailed all over the world, particularly amongst the countries of the British Empire. Consequently, as they had no Royal Navy escorts, they were easy targets for German warships and U-boats; we suffered huge casualties and a lot of food and other goods intended for the home market never arrived. Because of this the coalition government under Winston Churchill decided to introduce a system of “fair shares for all” food rationing.

Ration books were issued to everyone, firstly for food products but later for things like clothes and furniture. Butter, bacon and sugar were the first items to be put on ration in January 1940. Meat and preserves followed in March and margarine and cooking fats in July. Cheese was added the following year until, eventually, just about everything was rationed. We were required to register, with a particular shop of our own choosing, for our main food and, each week, the grocer would cut out the relevant dated coupons from our ration books. He would then have to exchange these coupons at the Post Office for vouchers to  purchase more food for the following week. Ministry officials were employed to check these coupons on a random basis. Although the war lasted only five years, rationing continued for 14 years.

The only fruit available was that grown in our own country, such as apples, pears and tomatoes. Items like oranges and bananas were not on ration, they were simply not available to the general public, though some children and expectant mothers could obtain them.

The things that my friends and I missed most were sweets. For these my family registered with Emma Truman who ran a stall in Pontypool market on Saturdays; she also had a shop on the upper part of George Street. By putting all our rations together we managed to fill a small tin with boiled sweets each week, and Emma was generous enough to sometimes put in a few extra sweets. At its lowest the sweet ration was down to two ounces per month so that we were reduced to buying things like cough sweets at the chemist’s. 

One good thing about rationing was that we were all very healthy and certainly had no worries about being obese.

The “Scholarship Class” at Town School

As I’ve already mentioned, classes in those days were not strictly arranged in chronological age, and as a result, I spent two years in what was called “The Scholarship Class”. It was when we sat the eleven-plus exam. It was sometimes referred to as the “top class”. I’m not certain whether there was any academic implication in the name or whether it was the fact that, physically, the classroom was at about roof level with the rest of the school.

Some of the other children I remember being in this class were: Billy Wootton who was quite a big lad and the only boy in the class who wore long trousers, a sign in those days of an “older boy”. Girls, of course, never wore trousers. There were also:  Jean Vaisey, Beryl Doe, Kenny Rice, John Harris, Dennis Virgin and two girls, whose surnames I forget, but were called Mavis and Myra. I’d love to hear from any of these, or any of their relatives.

It was the ambition of a lot of boys to go to West Mon and, each year, about 400 hopefuls would turn up at the school in fear and trembling to sit the three exam papers: English, maths and general intelligence. The girls, who wanted to attend the Girls’ County School at Penygarn sat a similar exam. The results of these exams, in order of merit, were always published in The Free Press. Approximately the top 90 boys would be accepted to enter the school and there were scholarships awarded to the five top boys in the exam; this meant that they did not have to pay fees. The rest of us had to pay fees, but they were reasonably small. After I had been at West Mon for a couple of years, all fees were done away with, I presume as a result of the 1944 Education Act.

The teacher in charge of the top class at Town School was Mr Petty (I think his name was Frank) who lived in Griffithstown. He was a slim, tall, angular man, with a very business-like stride and was a good disciplinarian. He was a member of St Hilda’s Church, Griffithstown. I recall some parents saying that, when the new head had been appointed, they thought Mr Petty would have had the job. In the event, J.P. Lewis was appointed.

Mr Petty was the finest and most effective teacher I had in the whole of my school days and I owe him a deep debt of gratitude. I marvelled at all he knew; no matter what the subject was, he seemed to know all about it. I was rather like the “rustics” in Oliver Goldsmith’s poem “The Village Schoolmaster” when he says of them:

“And still they gaz’d and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.”

Mr Petty gave me a real love of the English language and literature which has grown throughout my life. Some of the lessons he taught were quite advanced for children of ten and eleven. For instance, we read Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice”, parts of Dickens’ “The Pickwick Papers” and “John Halifax, Gentleman” by Dinah Craik. He also taught us the parts of speech and the structure of the English language and how to parse sections of the books we read. We spent hours sorting out the  subject, predicate and object of sentences and learning when and how to use relative pronouns etc. We also had a small class library where we could choose a book to read on our own when we had silent reading. I remember I chose H.Rider Haggard’s “King Solomon’s Mines”. Punctuation was also taught and I remember him reading a passage from “The Pickwick Papers” to illustrate how Dickens wrote really long sentences by using semi-colons. I was fascinated. Spelling of course featured very strongly in our lessons and Mr Petty would often organize a spelling B, which I loved.

Not only did we read a lot of poems, we had to learn some of them off by heart also. Mr Petty patiently explained how a poem was constructed and he would give us exercises in splitting the lines into feet with accented and non-accented syllables; he also explained about rhyming patterns. He then encouraged us to try to write our own poems. On 1st March each year we celebrated St David’s Day with a sort of mini-eisteddfod. We looked forward to that as we always had the afternoon off. One year he organized a competition to write a poem about Pontypool Park Lake. I remember spending hours trying to get the right meter and rhyming but, eventually, I managed to write two verses and was thrilled when Mr Petty awarded me first prize. It was a little paperback book about a mouse family. I remember the words of my first poem still:

I took this photograph in 1947, my last year in Pontypool

“It nestles in a leafy glade
Which nature in her wisdom made.
Upon its banks stand gnarled old trees
Whose branches tower amid the breeze.

Like sentinels they stand on guard                                 
As if most jealous of their ward,
And on its silvery waters cast
Their cool refreshing shade.”

That’s it! It’s not Wordsworth is it? But, I suppose, it’s not too bad for a ten-year-old.

Maths was the other important subject, although we called it “arithmetic”. Those were the days of “The three Rs”. It was a much more difficult subject then because nothing had been decimalised. There were 4 farthings in a penny, 12 pennies in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound. In length there were 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 22 yards in a chain, (where we get the cricket pitch length from), 10 chains in a furlong and 8 furlongs in a mile. Consequently long multiplication and division were a real nightmare. We also did mental arithmetic using short methods, many of which I still use today.

Lessons on general intelligence we had once a week and these were taught by the headmaster himself, Mr J.P. Lewis, who devised a set of rules which we had to learn and chant. These showed us how to answer some of the questions.

For our English lessons we used a few times a week a blue book containing exercises in English comprehension. Each chapter contained a section of a book, or perhaps a poem, followed by questions about it. Mr Petty was so keen on us doing well at this that he wrote out his own book by hand on wax stencils, ran them off on a Lion Menucator,* bound them in brown paper and fastened them together by punching all the sheets with holes and threading string through. He must have spent hours doing this. He produced over 30 books with something like 50 pages each. As we approached the exam time, I remember he arranged for those of us entering the exam, to go to school at 8.30 instead of the usual 9.00a.m. to have an extra lesson. Now that’s what I call dedication.

*  

Comics, magazines and other literature

Having two older brothers, there was always a plentiful supply of boys’ books and literature available for me to look at, apart from our weekly comic the Tip Top which cost 1d every week. I took to reading, like a duck to water, at a very early age, so I was able to read the speech balloons quite easily. Rupert Bear annuals were favourites of mine and had an atmosphere all their own. In recent years I’ve been reading them to my grandchildren.

The boys’ magazines were only a short step further and soon I was avidly devouring the Wizard, Hotspur, Adventure and Rover. My favourite was the Wizard and I marvelled at some of the superhuman heroes enclosed in its pages.  For some strange reason these magazines were often referred to by us as “books” and I was often asked, “Got any books to swap?” I remember we kept a cardboard box about two inches deep which was usually full of comics we’d read and were ready for swapping. 

There is a website which has a special section for boys’ literature where you are able to re-read some of the stories from long ago in the Wizard. If you would like to revisit some of your heroes of the past you can visit the ManKind Wales website at:http://www.mankindwales.org.uk  (Just click on the address and you will go straight to the site.) There is a special literature section advertised on the home page. Just click on that and you will be taken to a pile of books, at the bottom of which you will see one containing stories from the Wizard. Click on the book and you will be taken to the stories.

My father took a daily paper The Daily Mail in which appeared, on 5th April 1915, the first ever strip cartoon in this country, Teddy Tail which, as it was still being published then,  I always enjoyed reading. My father also took The People on a Sunday though at that time it was a much more serious paper and less trashy than it is today.

The weekly magazine we took was “John Bull“, a well-produced magazine with a variety of thoughtful articles and plenty of pictures. Later in its existence it produced some striking and colourful artwork on its cover. They were always offering competitions and coupons to collect for bargain offers. I remember my father winning a large Christmas hamper one year which was a most welcome addition to our Christmas fare. With his collected coupons he bought - at a bargain price of course - several sets of books and encyclopaedias; these included the works of Charles Dickens, H.G.Wells and Bernard Shaw. I remember spending many happy hours leafing through the twelve encyclopaedias and particularly the section for children in each entitled Things to make and do.

Having all this literature available was a great boon and I suppose laid the foundations for my love of the English language and literature which has played such an important part in my life ever since. I am a member of the Queen’s English Society and The Folio Book Club which produces some high class books well printed and bound. Apart from the bathroom, there are books in every room in the house.

Pontypool Boys’ Brigade - 8th Eastern Valley Company

One of the strict rules of the Boys’ Brigade, as opposed to the Boy Scouts, was that every company had to be sponsored by a church. Consequently most companies met in a church hall or similar building. Such was the case with the company I belonged to, the 8th Eastern Valley Company, which met every week in the schoolroom of Park Terrace Methodist Church.

Several years earlier, my brother Garyth and his friend, Glyn Cleaves, had joined the Boys’ brigade company at the Methodist Church in Freehold Land, Pontnewynydd which was led by Captain King. Both our families attended Park Terrace Methodist Church and, as it was a considerable trek to Freehold Land, Garyth and Glyn suggested that a new company be started at Park Terrace. Mr Jim Hamar was appointed as Captain and my brother, Garyth and his friend Glyn Cleaves, were his sergeants. The company soon built up to 20 or 30 boys and, later, had a drum and bugle band.

All this happened before I was old enough to join the Boys’ brigade but I heard glowing reports about their activities such as going away to camp, and I just couldn’t wait to join. Promptly at the age of 12 I did. By then, of course, the war had started and both my brothers were in the Royal Navy and Glyn was in the Royal Air Force. I also joined the band and eventually attained the dizzy height of warrant officer.

Another Boys’ Brigade rule was that all members had to attend the company Bible Class, or, as an alternative, attend a Sunday School. As I attended Park Terrace Methodist Church Sunday School until the age of 17 when we moved to Cardiff, that was not a difficulty. We also had a monthly company parade to the church, marching there with our band.

The above photograph shows the company assembled in uniform on the steps outside the main door of Park Terrace Methodist Church (which no longer exists) at one of the parades. Front centre is Captain Hamar, right front is my friend Warrant Officer Glyn “Mickey” Morgan and I think the sergeant in the front row is Ray Hurcombe, though I cannot be certain of this. Right in the centre of the back row is Royce Pritchard who, last I heard, was living at Trevethin. I am to the right of him. I remember all the faces so well but cannot recall any other names. If anyone recognizes themselves - or an elderly relative when a boy - I should be pleased to hear from them. (email right column bottom “Pages”)

One of the features at every weekly meeting was a short Biblical talk by Captain Hamar. He was a carpenter by trade and would often tell us of some of his experiences when he was a carpenter in the Canadian Royal Mounted Police. About 20 years after this photograph was taken I was working in the Nigerian bush at a teacher training college training African teachers. On one occasion, when visiting a school there, I was suddenly called upon, without any prior notice, to speak to a crowd of 300 children at a school. I was caught on the hop. Then, suddenly, I remembered one of the talks given to us by Captain Hamar and I used that. It got me out of a very awkward situation. Thank you, Captain!

Tragedy at West Mon

As I said on the “About” page - bottom of right hand column - I will not be writing this blog in chronological order. After all, some memories are more indelible than others; some even occur to me as I write. But one memory I have of my life at West Mon Boys’ School remains with me as clearly as though it happened yesterday.

At the time I was in form 3A. That was the classroom immediately on the right as you enter the hall from the main door. There was an extra door at the front of  this classroom which led out into the corridor. Immediately opposite on the other side of the corridor was another door which led into a small room. This became the new Form One. At that time there were about 80 boarders at the school. They were the same age as the rest of us but were exempt from having to sit the entrance examination. However, that year the governors had decided to start an extra class for much younger boys down to the age of six. We thought this a strange arrangement and, when we heard that they not only had to learn Latin but Greek as also, we were astounded; it sounded to us like child cruelty! This was the new Form One which was quite small having only about 12 or so boys in it. I’d often wondered why the youngest class was known as Form Two so perhaps this was a return to something which had existed many years before, but this is only supposition on my part.

It was wartime and a number of the younger masters had joined the armed forces. They had been replaced by mistresses. This meant we only had a few older men teaching us. One was “Toot” Stevens who taught us history. On the day in question we were having a lesson from him and I was sitting in the desk just a couple of yards from the main door at the back of the classroom. Suddenly it was flung open by a breathless boy who ran into the classroom and down the front to our teacher. He blurted out, “Please sir, can you come over to the baths immediately. There’s been an accident.” He then said something very quietly which I couldn’t hear. Mr Stevens looked startled and said to a boy in the front row, “Ask . . . (I can’t remember the name) for a hot water bottle and bring it over the baths”. The event took us by surprise as running in school was frowned upon; we were supposed to behave like gentlemen. 

Mr Stevens was a very talented man. He was reputedly able to speak five languages fluently and he was qualified in history and music, also being a pianist. He was an expert on Pontypool Japanware and, on top of all this, he was highly qualified in ambulance work and first aid. It was obvious that it was an urgent situation, as he dashed out of the classroom hard on the heels of the young lad. Immediately there was an excited buzz of conversation as we wondered what sort of accident could have required a hot water bottle.

Later we were all totally shattered when we were told what had happened: one of the little lads from form one, only six years of age, had been drowned in the school swimming baths. We were all horrified. The swimming baths was the place where the boys had fun. It was a heated pool and the poor ventilation system meant that you could hardly see a thing as you entered because of the cloud of water vapour permanently hanging about. But we splashed and shouted to our hearts content as we learned to swim. As we were all lads together, we swam in the nude. For this reason the female teachers who taught us  were not allowed into the baths. It was a sort of safe bolt hole for us lads. Of course for the swimming gala, when parents attended, swimming trunks were mandatory. 

R.S.Harrison, the Headmaster, spoke to us about the tragedy the following morning in assembly. It seemed so sad to us all that this little lad, so young, should die during a school lesson. Apparently he had dived into the baths and his foot had become trapped in the drain at the bottom. Gilbert Garnett, the sports master, had dived fully clothed into the baths in an attempt to rescue the boy but could not release his foot. Eventually he did, but, by then, it was too late.  

Some time ago I came across three others who wrote accounts on the internet about this event. I would like to have contacted them but there were no contact details given. One was Tom Bellgard who lives in Cooma, Australia. He had this to say:

“I have many happy memories of my old school, West Mon. The four foot deep snow fall in the late forties which stopped the trains and made it necessary for the boarders to take toboggans down to town, load them up with groceries (mainly bread I think) and pull them back up the hill to school. Jumping out of the first floor dormitory windows into the deeper snow where it had fallen off the roof into the gap between the rear drive and the lower ground floor windows and getting buried when another pile of snow fell off the roof. I never could work out why when they had made the roads and railway passable they sent us all home. The master who would attempt to quieten the talkative boys at assembly in the morning by shouting as one word “Quietinthecornerthereorgointodetention”, and playing rugby in the rain (it always seemed to be raining) on our playing fields between a river and a canal. Losing my best friend Peter Lafone when he drowned in the school’s indoor swimming pool.”

Nevile Robinson of London, having read the above account, wrote as follows:

“I remember the drownng in the school pool, too. The boy’s name was Robin Henry Lafone (not Peter). It was always suspected that ‘Lob’ (after lobster - he was red-faced) was not attending. His proper name was Garnett, the sports master who was more interested in his magazines as he sat in his deckchair and read, rather than supervise the boys in the pool. In those days, the rule was that the boys (it was a boys-only school) did not wear any swimming trunks, so this added seconds to Robin’s rescue, as the immersed body is more difficult to hold on to. The Governors ‘closed ranks’ and the tragedy was never investigated by the press, as it would be today. I started at West Mon in 1944, and am still in touch with a fellow student, Geoff Haines ‘of the same era’.”

The following comment by Lawrence Skuse , I have reason to believe, was written approximately 20 years or so after the event:

“Once the unheated, icy pool re-opened, all swimming was done in the nude. This was because some years before, a boarder had slipped back into the pool after the class had finished, then got his trunks caught on a grating at the bottom of the pool and drowned; rather than modify the grating, it was decided that no trunks meant no catching up on things. Being an all boys school, this didn’t matter too much.  Before I finished at West Mon swimming trunks were re-instated.”

It seems as though the heating system had broken down or was no longer used at that time. Mr Skuse was certainly misinformed about the accident for two good reasons. Firstly, the boy’s trunks could not have become caught in the drain as he would not have been wearing any. And, secondly, if he had been, it would have been relatively easy to slide him out of his trunks and rescue him, or cut them of with a pen-knife which nearly every boy carried at that time. It sounds as though this false information was an excuse, not a reason. Some time after the event we heard that Robin’s father instituted some sort of award at the school in memory of his young son. I can’t remember any details about it. Perhaps someone could tell me. My email address can be found on the “About” page.