Memories of Long Ago
by Muriel Hippard
Muriel Hippard has been reminiscing over past times and wants to share them with you.
I was born in 1920 in Birchgrove, the youngest of ten children. It seems such a long time ago now. We had nowhere to play except the back lane and there my brother and I used to play horses with a sweeping brush for a horse. We got black from head to toe and Mother bathed us in an old tin bath in front of the fire - not like the lovely baths we have to soak in today. Every Sunday, we went to Sunday School: we didn't go out to play on Sundays.
I started school when I was five. Like a lot of children I went to the chapel at the top of North Road every day to have my dinner; it was called the soup kitchen. To say that you went there was degrading but it was better to have a full stomach even if you were shouted at; after all it was the 1926 Great Strike.
With such a large family my mother had to work very hard with all the washing being done on the washing board and the whites boiled on the fire. The only joy my mother had was when she joined Stanley Williams' choir and went twice a week to practice. On other nights we had some members of the choir to practice their parts. My oldest brother played the piano for them. No wonder I loved singing. What happy days.
The year is now 1925. My friend Emily and I started school together, year by year going to and fro and our friendship lasted until her death in 1992. Every evening I spent with her and she was like my sister.
While we were in the infant's school, Thomas and Evans bought Porth Park. On the day that it was opened all their horses and carts were decorated; seats were put in and we children were lifted up to sit on little stools, given a bag with sandwiches, sweets, an orange and an apple and a little bottle of pop. We had a ride down North Road and so on to Porth Park for the service of opening by Thomas and Evans. What a day!. We were able to go and sit on the seats in the woods and paddle in the pools made for the children. Now, instead of playing in the lane getting black we could go there and always came home clean.
The year is now 1935 and sill in Birchgrove. The years are drawing on: still going to Sunday School but now in the church itself, sat in the front seat. Peggy was our teacher; no way could we walk from the hall into the church. We had to go back up the steps around the church down the hill into church because they were building an organ loft to place an organ there. Mr Brown was asked to play and his wife sang alto in the choir. On the morning he went to practice everyone stood in their gardens to listen to the hymns being played. It was like a wake-up call to come to church. It was lovely to listen to them ringing over Porth. Even when I could hear them playing all the way to Llwyncelyn. One wonders where religion is today. I was christened and confirmed in St. Paul's; I couldn't do without my faith.
In 1934 or 1935 the new bridge was opened which saved walking through Britannia. Then in 1936 I buried my mother. Also in that year, King Edwards gave up the throne for the love of Wallace Simpson, an Amedrican he loved, so began the reign of George and Elizaveth. Later in the year Porth Swimming baths opened and my friend and I were the first through the doors. Such a lot happened that year.
I am now going back to when I was a little girl. I had been in bed a few months with pneumonia. In those days we had no antibiotics, just careful bursing with poor food to eat. It is a wonder I pulled through but we had a constant visitor that was our Vicar Millard. He never missed a week to visit.
When I was able to go out, my father took me to visit my grandmother and aunts living at the bottom of North Road. So we went as far as Llwyncelyn Hotel where we stood lookingabout when all of a sudden he said there were no houses up there. Well, looking up all I could see were houses. He told me, he and his brothers used to stand at a wooden gate and in the field there were cows and sheep. I couldn't believe it but talking to some Uncles they said that he was right. Years have gone by: Leslie and Primrose Terraces were being built. If one goes up to the iron gate leading to Llanwonno there was a big wheel which was used to bring the stones down the mountain to build Lewis, Gethin and Nythbran Terraces.
After the houses were built there was to be a church built as there was nowhere for people to worship in Llwyncelyn. So the tin church was built. Then it was talked of building a stone church. What today is our hall was a garden and flowers and vegetables were given to the church for the harvest. When the new church was built there was a big choir there and Tom Morgan was the choirmaster. However, on the day of the opening of St. Luke's he was taken very ill. As the years went by people were talking about the boundary. I told them where the boundary started but I was laughed at but after a lot of searching they came to me to tell me that I was right. It dated back to the building of Primrose and Leslie Terrace right back to Llanwonno. Well, I think that I have gone right back to 1920. I hope I have given you all food for thought on the history of Llwyncelyn.
