.. Memory Lane continued ..

• Date 24th December 2007

Graham (Ianto)Skuse relates:

The `Eighties` as we called it, was a large pit at the bottom of Grange Road and alongside the railway line, we called it the eighties as it was reputed to be eighty feet deep although it was never proved, we would walk down the side of the railway line and jump some twenty feet or so into the filthy water and swim to the far side, if you go swimming down the `eighties`, my old Gran would say," you will catch a disease!", well Grannie, "I am now 66 and well built" so another myth goes begging.

 

As the pit came to the end of it's days it became a rubbish tip with the lorries coming in from opposite the cemetery in Llantarnam road; but by swimming at the Grange Road end we made our 'pool' last a little longer.

 

With that area gone we looked in the direction of Whiteheads clay pit which, we could access quite easily from Fields Road where we were now living; cross the railway line or go under the tunnel and there it was, equally as dangerous but equally as exciting to a 13 year old and his mates, unfortunately the council in its wisdom (miserable lot) again turned our swimming hole into a tip (where did all that rubbish come from).

 

I well remember returning home to 144 Fields Road to be asked by my mother, where have you been, "paddling in the brook" would be the answer, I wonder if she ever believed me, somehow I doubt it.

 

Tommy Bodenham, John Thomas and his brother Gary? Algie Jefferies are names that come back to me from those days and I think the Thomas brothers might have had a brother called Timothy ....  age might dim the memories when names are involved but the memories of those long hot summers (can anyone remember rain in school holiday) will last for the rest of my life.

• Date 25th October 2007

Richard (Dick) Donovan relates:

 

Having stumbled across this site by accident I feel compelled to contribute.

 

I was brought up in Cwmbran until I left in 1971 to head off to University in Liverpool.

 

I was born in Cefn Ila in 1953, my father was Dick Donovan (as was his father!) so it was inevitable that by christening me Richard, I was always going to be called Dick.  Mum was Christine Donovan nee Compton and we lived at 64 Two Locks Road although it wasn't called that originally - it was 12 Cocker Avenue but for some reason the council decided to rename it in the late 50's (early 60's?) and no's 2-12 became part of Two Locks Road.   My grandmother, Rachel Compton (nee Sly - Auntie Atch to many of the extended family) and her husband Augustus (Gus) moved to 12 Cocker Avenue (from Brick Row) just after it was built in around 1925 when Mum was about 2 and they raised 6 children (Ivy, Gus, Elsie, Cliff, Ron and mum) with 3 others who died in infancy which was almost par for the course in the early 20th Century.  So we had 3 generations under the roof when I was a kid - me, my sister Janet, Mum, Dad and Gran - Grandad had died before I was born.  Mum lived there for nigh on 80 years until she died in March 2006 and the house was sold.  It was tough closing the door on that house one final time after nearly 80 years of family history and memory - it was my only real solid "root" left in Cwmbran.

 

The area around us was called Hollybush Corner and during my childhood it was surrounded by fields over the Garth to Ty Coch, the Pentre, Coed Eva and beyond.   Hollybush Corner is at the confluence of the Dowlais and Sandy Brooks which then continued down past the Brickworks and Wireworks to Oakfield.  Eva Price lived at Hollybush House and ran a small general store on the corner - it was basically a large wooden shed selling basic supplies  - which for a kid was sweets in glass sweet jars!   She and Gran had regular daily meetings and would chat for ages.   Dando's Farm (Glan-y-Nant? Farm) was over the bridge towards the Garth and the (original) Mill Tavern was around the corner on the old road to Henllys - Ton Road led up to Coedeva and Fairwater.    That was my world when I was a kid - we either played on the green at Hollybush (trying to climb the big beech tree), in the local fields or in the brook - often coming home to tell my mother "Mam, I got a wetter!" after water had come in over the wellies.   There were trout in the brooks in those days (plus sticklebacks and bullheads) but they all died out with pollution from the house building that went on up in Coedeva and Fairwater in the 1960's.  The barn at Dando's Farm went up in a big pall of smoke in the early 60's and all the run off water from the fire hoses went back into the brook depriving the fish of oxygen - it was only then that you realised how many trout were in there as they surfaced for air - and how big some of them were.  Normally we could never catch them though despite best efforts "tickling" for them under the weir.

 

A major local feature - and it's still there - is The Incline which was used to transport quarry materials from high up on the mountain to the Brickworks on a tramway system although this had been closed down by the time I was born so I never saw it in operation.  But the Incline led us to wider pastures up the mountainside - on hot summer days we would head up the mountain and swim in the reservoir that was there amongst the old building works.  They've all been knocked down now and the reservoir filled up probably on safety grounds.

 

I went to St Dials Infants and Junior Schools and was taught by the likes of Reg Smith and Mrs Page-Jones.  Reg had a sister who lived a couple of doors up from us and Mrs Page-Jones lived directly opposite us on the other side of the brook so I'd see them both regularly outside school as well.   I have to thank Mrs Page-Jones for my reading skills as, if I was off ill from school, she would drop off a variety of books for me to read.  I seemed to get ill with tonsillitis regularly until one day our family doctor said to me after one nasty bout of septic tonsillitis "Once more - and you're having them taken out" - I never suffered again!!  I'm sure doctors and teachers in those days had more influence on our well being and education than perhaps we give them credit.

 

As I grew older, I played with friends in the Park - on the playground, putting green, tennis court (grass - very posh!) - cycling back and forth up Cocker Avenue. Playing "King of the Castle" on the park slope and rolling through a huge pile of dog mess which made for a not pleasant bike ride home - especially as it was on my bum!  I'm sure I can still smell it when I remember the incident.  Eugh....

 

Pen-y-waun Chapel which my family attended (and where many members are buried - my grandmother being amongst the last in 1977 aged 95) played a fair part in my childhood - and I came to hate Sunday School with a passion!!  It was coming back from a Christmas concert at Pen-y-waun on Boxing Day 1962 that it started snowing - and so started the big freeze of 1962/63.   We didn't go back to St Dials for 8 weeks as the school was frozen solid; 30' snowdrifts up the mountain with Henllys cut off for a few days; and the electricity pylons that snake over the mountain making a photoshoot on the front page of the Daily Mirror (?) as helicopters were deployed to remove ice from the cables before they collapsed.

 

What a winter!!   No school so we used to go sledging every day.  I bought a wooden sled kit for "half a crown" that Dad had to nail together and we used a hula-hoop cut in half around the circumference as sled runners.  My Aunt Elsie lived in Orchard Place and before they built Keats Close there was a open hillside there that we turned into a sled course - every day I would sled in the morning, come home for dinner, get changed out of wet kit, put dry kit on and head back for more sledding.  Winter seemed to go on for ever - what joy!!  The canal was also frozen solid so you could slide and skate on it - despite all the warnings not to do so - the ice was so thick you could have driven on it!!

 

Then came the 11+ exams which I missed first time as I developed a bone infection so spent 3 weeks in the Royal Gwent getting that sorted out - and 6 months in plaster.  So I took the exams in the following February and passed - and chose to go to "Croesy" Grammar.  It was odd how it turned out as of the 4 of us who took the 11+ late, we all passed and went to Croesy, 3 of us ended up in the same class, and 2 of us went to the same University together (I went with Mary Rowe).   I loved my time at Croesy and look back on it as my halcyon days - as a rugby school it developed quickly but with PE Masters like Geoff Whitsun (Wales no 7 - who left to manage Cwmbran Stadium when it opened), Dai Nash (Wales and British Lions no 8 - left when he got elected to the "Big 5") and Ivor Berry (Wales B fly half) it really couldn't fail.

 

As I entered my later teens I started testing various pubs in the town - despite being under age, it never gave me any problems.  I had my first illegal pint at the Mount Pleasant aged 14 - through the serving hatch at the back!   Places like the Greenhouse and the Crows Nest became regular haunts and by the late 60's everyone from the valleys seemed to be congregating at Cwrt Bleddyn for weekend nights out - it was like the whole of Cwmbran, Newport and Pontypool youth was there at times.  Great memories.  The Mill Tavern started my passion for a Sunday lunchtime pint as I used to go there with Dad from the age of 16 - the dog needed a walk didn't it??  If Dad was working shifts, I'd take the dog on my own and was welcomed by the locals as my own "man".   When it was redeveloped it lost it's character big style.

 

It's odd in many ways as I didn't really like Cwmbran when I was growing up as it was changing beyond recognition with all the houses being built and the Town Centre was a windy concrete expanse of poor shopping.  There wasn't an awful lot in Cwmbran in the 60's to keep a teenager interested.  I was desperate to get away and did so when I went to University  - but kept coming back regularly to visit family and inevitably as time went by, for family funerals.  But as time passed I came to realise that Cwmbran's perhaps not as bad as I remember as a teenager - maybe the later housing developments and redevelopment of the Town Centre has given it something extra now.  But I think the main thing to Cwmbran that I have recognised is it's privileged location - you don't need to travel that far out of town before you are in some superb countryside and I guess that's what I remember more from my childhood - all the open space to play in that then became housing estates and ruining my memories.  On later visits and when we had our dog, we'd take her up the mountain and look over the expanse of Cwmbran and see it in a different light - it looks very different from on top of Twmbarlwm and I guess it always has but I just never realised it as a kid.

 

Cwmbran for me will always be a home - maybe not my main home as I've lived away for too long - and a place that formed my personality and character.  It has given me many lifelong memories that this site has brought back.  Just reading some of the other contributor stories and looking at the old pictures brings those memories back.   I've probably forgotten more names than I remember but it would be interesting to know what happened to the likes of

 

Glyn Appleby and Colin Howard from the Crescent; Dickie Barrell and Steven Rogers from Hollybush; Godfrey Waters and Gareth Wilde from Waun Road who I went to Croesy with from St Dials; Russel Hawkins who I sat next to in my final year at St Dials and went to West Mon; many names from Croesy, some who I have remade contact with through Friends Reunited.

Richard (Dick) Donovan further relates:

What is it about tunnels and kids???

 

At Hollybush, the council culverted part of the Sandy Brook - about 200m - with concrete pipes which became a challenge to go down.   As an 8 year old it takes an enormous amount of courage to enter a long dark wet tunnel - you're surely going to meet the Bogey Man!   But it had to be done so after a while of waiting and daring each other we finally decided it was time to go - wellies on, torches in hand, we gingerly made our way into the tunnel - and not that long later we came out of the other end.    What was all the fuss about??  It was easy - until the time came when we dared each other to do it without a torch.

 

That just scared the pants off us as we couldn't see a damn thing for most of the way and we stumbled through the darkness, sliding off the concrete pipes into the water and getting soaking wet - and getting the rollocking of my life off the folks when they found out what I'd been up to.  I was told never to do it again - and guess what??  Of course I did it again....well you have to don't you??   You're only a kid once.

 

They put security grills at either end eventually so kids can't do it now - a great shame in so many ways.   They don't know what fun they're missing.

• 10th October 2007

Graham (Ianto) Skuse  relates:

I well remember Coronation Road and a few People that lived there, Miss Jinks, (I was scared of her ) not long before she passed away she spent a holiday here on the island of Guernsey, how can I ever forget the phone call that went, "Hello Mr Skuse do you remember me? I am a former teacher of yours my name is Miss Jinks", Miss Stone of St. Dials school lived on the island although I did not know and she came along as well, I was terrified even though I was in my forties.

 

When we finished school we had to pass along Coronation road to get to Grange road where I lived and Brian (Spud) Waters, now deceased  and usually ran as fast as we could past the Catholic school because we were scared, later on in the evening we would be playing with them in the fields that are now the New (ugly) Town.

 

Can anyone recall the `Burma Path` and the `New Path` that Grange road residents could use to get home, I used the `New path` to hopefully catch a courting couple under the Oak tree by the stile which I firmly believe is now the John Fielding Public House; indeed I used the tree myself in later life.

 

Also on Coronation Road there was a family called Hopkins (Welsh schoolboy Cap perhaps?) and a family called Petitt living opposite, finally is my memory playing tricks on me? or was there a printers shop opposite the Burma Path?

 

`Spud` Waters, Tommy Bodenham, Mansell Jones, Russell Baldwin, Lennie Mancer, Dai Fields, Gareth Hughes and his brother Maurice, Norman Wormsley and more names than I care to remember used that `Burma Path` with me .... names that still come back to me when the Malt is in full flow.

Great days long gone and never to return.

Ex Grange Road, Ex Fields Road, ex Pen Y Parc Ex St Dials and Ex Llantarnam

Graham (Ianto) Skuse not quite 66 now residing on the beautiful island of Guernsey.

•     23rd September 2007

Graham (Ianto) Skuse  responds:

Thank you baby brother for reminding of the thick head the morning after the Friday night in the Oddfellows, you appear to forget that there was a pub called the Kings Head at the bottom of the village and the British Legion opposite, being of older stock I well remember the Forge Hammer, although that was as far South as we travelled on that particular crawl.

 

When we went really far field we would start at the Mount in old Cwmbran, they always had a piano there, usually coming from or going to St Gabriel's Hall, a quick pint in the Halfway, down to the Rose & Crown, over to the Rifle Club and then, if you could, down to the Drill Hall.

Aye good days but not only has the Ale disappeared so has a lot of the characters in the village, but that's another story

---

• 13th September 2007

Lawson Skuse relates:

I recently mentioned my first drink in a pub, the Bridgend above G.K.N. on the canal bank.

On Friday the 7th of September I was having a drink with my older brother Graham, over here from the Channel Island of Guernsey.

We, along with our Cockney cousin, Roy, arranged to meet an old friend of Graham's at the Pontnewydd Workingman's Club.

I commented that there was no real ale in the club and suggested that we go to the New Bridgend for a pint and explained to the chaps that it was the first pub I had ever been served in with beer.

We went but we were saddened to find that there was no real ale there either!

We walked along the canal bank to the  Old Bridgend.

No real ale!

We went to the Oddfellows in the village.

No real ale!!!

We were about to go into the Pontnewydd Inn to try our luck there but the start of a fight was just spilling out onto the street so we remained in the safe but ale free environment of the Oddys where a local kindly informed us that there was no real ale there either!!!

What the hell is going on here?

Have we regressed back to those terrible times after the invention of Watney's Red Barrel, Double Diamond (Never worked a wonder for me!) and Allbright and before the formation of C.A.M.R.A.?

As someone who adores decent pubs and a decent ale I was truly shocked to find my old pubs in such a sorry state!

 

I remember Saturday's in the 1960's thus: Meet the boys at lunch time for a pint in the Yew Tree, a game of three card brag and a shilling in the juke box.

Next, the Queen for a pint and a pie followed by a walk to the Bush for a pint and a game of darts.

After this one we went up the Mountain Air for a pint, a pickled egg and the juke box (2 songs for a tanner there!!).

 

Now this is where it got silly.

The Mountain Air closed at three but the Lamb was in the Pontypool licensing area so it stayed open until four.

So it was a trek along the mountain road and a pint in the Lamb.

A couple of pints there until chucking out at about four thirty and then we slowly walked back to the Yew Tree for five thirty!

A decent real ale in every pub and we walked off the lunch time effects and we were fit enough for the evening session in the Yew Tree.

(change from �2 if you were wondering about the cost!!!)

Friday's was always the Old Bridge, the New Bridge, GKN's club for a game of snooker and finish up in the Yew Tree for last orders.

Again, a decent pint in all of them.

 

I have probably drank in every pub in Cwmbran (Pontnewydd, Croesy, Llanyravon, Henllys etc) and I remember each of them as welcoming watering holes with a supply of decent ales for the thirsty man.

I admit that I am a grumpy old man but I think I am grumpy because of the death of decent boozers in Cwmbran.

 

Does anybody else have a memory of regular pub crawls?

 

Let me finish on this sad note:

 

The Pub With No Beer
(Parson)

G                            Am
Verse 1: It's lonesome away from your kindred and all
                   D                                        G
By the camp fire at night where the wild dingos call
            G                              Am
But there's nothing so lonesome so morbid or drear
                        D                   Am          G
Than to stand in a bar of a pub with no beer

Verse 2: Now the publican's anxious for the quota to come
There's a far away look on the face of the bum
The maid's gone all cranky and the cook's acting queer
What a terrible place is a pub with no beer

Verse 3: Then the stock-man rides up with his dry dusty throat
He breasts up to the bar a wad from his coat
But the smile on his face quickly turns to a sneer
When the barman said sadly: 'The Pub's got no beer'

Verse 4: There's a dog on the 'randa-h for his master he waits
But the boss is inside drinking wine with his mates
He hurries for cover and cringes in fear
It's no place for a dog round a pub with no beer

Verse 5: Old Billy the blacksmith first time in his life
Has gone home cold sober to his darling wife
He walks in the kitchen she says 'You're early my dear'
But he breaks down and tells her 'The pub's got no beer'

Repeat Verse 1

Does this bring back any memories from your `school days`?

Pontnewydd Junior School  - Mrs. Garrett's Class of 1965

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