大象传媒

I was an evacuee and was in Wales for 2陆 years, and feel that it had a large effect on my future life.

My sister and I were dispatched, with many others, to Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen. I was told by my mother that we were not to be separated, and that I was to take great care of my sister. I was 10, and she was 8 years old. It proved difficult to billet us together, and my sister was billeted on a farm just outside G-C-G in Cwmgorse. I was two fields away from her on a small chicken farm.

The people I lived with were very quiet, Chapel people, and I can only remember that they were very kind to me. Mr. and Mrs. Morgan Jones had two children of their own. Both at grammar school, a girl called Janice and. a boy called John, I suppose John must have been about 18, and Janice a few years younger. They too were both kind to me and I never was made to feel in the way, they often let me tag along with them.
Mr. Jones was a carpenter (I believe) although most men in G-C-G were miners. It was a thriving mining community with an anthracite mine, the miners used to get free coal, but as we were not a mining family, we did not, but on Saturdays, I used to enjoy going up the 鈥渢ip鈥� with Mrs. Jones, and a couple of buckets, and filling them with good coal which was tipped in small amounts with the slag. We also used to make coal dust bricks, with a gadget, and damp coal dust, for the fire.
All of this was new lo me, and I reveled in it! We were a good way from the village, and lived very much alone, going up the road to the mountain. This, I think, was the main thing, which affected my life. I must have always been able to amuse myself, but I came to love my own company, and living in utter peace, and privacy. I went down to the village to school, but not to play.
I have a family now, but apart from my family, I have always been a loner, and have never needed other people around. Also I hated London when I returned. I never liked town living after my stay in Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen, and knew that I would move away from the noise and hustle of London some day.
Of course, where I live now is getting built up a bit, but I think my stay in Wales made me self--sufficient, and I am grateful for that.

I passed the scholarship in Wales; I must have been rather cocksure of myself, as I sat half the paper in Welsh. After I passed the scholarship, I went to Northampton to where my local grammar school was evacuated.

My Welsh was quite good when I lived in G-C-G, as most people spoke Welsh, and as it鈥檚 frustrating not to be able to listen, I soon learned. I can remember some Welsh now, but not as much as I once knew. I remember some Welsh hymns quite well, as I sang solo in the Chapel, and really enjoyed it.

I loved every minute of my stay in Wales and have been back in recent years for holidays and have visited my Welsh home. It has now been bought by reasonably comfortably off people, I should think. The 12 inch thick stones which made the walls are gone, or cemented and plastered over, or whatever it is they do to these old buildings. There is a smart gate, and a large dog, which put me off from going in. I would have loved to have a look out the back, to see if the pump was there still. All our water and often, my baths were taken from there. The cottage named Cwmbach, backed onto the local cemetery, and I went up there to see the church (which incidentally had been vandalised and burnt) and to see if I could find the graves of Mr. and Mrs. Jones. A local person I spoke to, who knew about these times, told me that Mr. Jones died a few years after I left, and Mrs. Jones much later. Janice she said was a schoolteacher, and John was a lecturer or professor at University,

This is all a bit of a jumble reading it but everything came tumbling back, and I just put it down as it came. I don鈥檛 know if any of this is of any use to you, but in any event. I have enjoyed putting it down. Thank you.

Yours sincerely

Valerie Newsum (Written on 8th May 1979)

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