大象传媒

OUR FIRST CHRISTMAS AWAY FROM HOME:

Both brother Eric and I had mixed feelings on the approach to our first Christmas away from home. On the one hand it was wonderful to see all the snow all around us. The wonder in our little minds of what we were going to get on this Christmas day.

On the other hand we both missed being at home with our family and friends, especially at this forthcoming festive season.

The lead up to Christmas was quite exiting, aunt Phylis, aunt Dora, brother Eric and I enjoyed making up the paper chains.
They were made up of coloured strips of paper, inter woven into various coloured rings by the use of a paper glue.

N.B. In those days I cannot remember the existence of selotape, but if it was, it surely would be hard to find.

When the paper chains were finished uncle Bill would attach them criss crossed from all four corners of the ceiling. We used newspaper strips and draped them over the paper chains, just as people of today would use tinsel.

We had no Christmas tree, no lanterns, no coloured lights, no Christmas crackers, no imitation snow. The use of cotton wool on string would prove a terrible waste.

BUT CAME THE DAY:

Aunty Phylis and aunty Dora had knitted us a pair of gloves, a scarf and a balaclava for each of us. Uncle Bill had carved out of wood an aeroplane and a ship for both of us. Eric and I were over the moon at these presents, I cannot vouch for the thoughts of brother Eric, but I held the thought that aunt Phylis was in fact my mum.

Aunt Phylis produced two large parcels, we learned much later that our mum had sent them earlier and aunt Phylis had kept them hidden for this special occasion. They were just ordinary looking parcels with no special coloured wrapping paper on them, not like today.

What a lovely surprise when we opened them on Christmas day in order to avoid any arguments we both received the same presents.

Two pairs of socks, two pairs of pants, two vests, one pullover and two shirts, a bag of marbles, pack of playing cards, colouring crayons and a colouring book. The comics were Chips, Beano, Comic Cuts and some others that I can't remember, 1/4 oz. of Dolly Mixtures, some Aniseed Balls and some Wine Gums.

Eric and I were over the moon to get all this in one go, I'm sure this was the first time I had seen brother Eric smile since we had arrived in Wales, we were so happy.

N.B. I must point out that none of the family wore pyjamas in those days and we had never had such a thing as a toothbrush to use, hence our teeth got rather bad.

THE UNCLE BILL:

Uncle Bill was a very quiet man and the only time he engaged in conversation was when we approached him in connection about his garden.

At the back of the house was a very large garden uncle Bill had always maintained a large vegetable patch. He grew various vegetables such as cabbage, carrots, runner beans, parsnips sprouts and potatoes etc.

He also had an allotment across the lane where he grew apple trees and plum trees and bushes of (goosegogs) gooseberry bushes and rhubarb plants.

During the harvesting season aunt Phylis would cook and make jams and preserves and keep them in the pantry. There were no fridges or freezers in those days, but the pantry was always quite cold.

Most people in the area after taking their required needs, would take the rest of their produce to a central point in the town (I cannot remember where this was).

Meetings were held in the local pub where it would be agreed on which produce would be grown in the forthcoming year.

A SORE SUBJECT.

There was no toilet paper for the use of, the use of newspaper would be cut up into squares and tied together by string, then hung on a hook.
This use of newspaper after a while proved to be quite painful.

This was created from the print and caused soreness to the posterior.
Thank goodness for aunt Phylis to rescue us introducing light bathing and applying Vaseline Cream.

THIS MAY BE HARD TO BELIEVE.

We were playing in the playground and this girl, Lena Calaghan was playing the game of kiss chase, she was another evacuee from somewhere in London.
She was kissing all the boys.
Then she chose me, I ran away I thought I was safe.
Then I was called to the head masters office.

The head master told me that he had a complaint that I had pulled the hair of a young evacuee schoolgirl named Lena Callaghan.
It didn鈥檛 take me long to find out that what ever explanation a boy told, was that a girls story would be taken in preference.

In truth she lied but though I denied, I was tried, my punishment was no playtime and I was to sit in the corner of the classroom with a dunces cap on my head.

N.B. Can you really understand what this humiliation did to a Londoner?

From this day forth t'was a decisive point, all hell would brake loose if anyone stood on my toes.

While I was walking back home along the lane, Lena and two of her friends approached me, Lena said she was sorry and explained that she was so angry and didn鈥檛 want to be away from her home.

For some reason this was the second of Ray's positive thinking, so then I gave Lena a challenge, she must take the trial of the Angel or Devils ladder.
If she was truly repentant she would choose the Angels ladder and I would exercise my right to exonerate her.

THEN CAME THE DAY.

Lena stood at the base of the Angel's ladder and she was terrified, all of a sudden a vision came to me.

I cannot subject a girl to do penance on a misdemeanour, so I told the council that I would be willing to carry out her task.

The council was angry but had to forfeit the right to a former Angel Ladder
participant, but they insisted that it would be of a trial by the Angels ladder.

I was determined to make it to the top and I carried out the task which took me fifteen minutes. The girl was exonerated and I was then subjected to the dismissal from the club.

The fools, they didn鈥檛 know the Ray.

ANOTHER DAY.

I was sat out on the pavement playing marbles with myself and Johnnie approached me, he had found out that uncle Bill had un-be-known to us made us a sledge to play with.

Johnnie told us that if we used candle wax on the under shafts of the sledge, it would travel faster down hill over the grass.

From his approach I knew that he wanted to re-instate me, but even at my young age I held a trump card. If he wanted in, then it had to be agreed by everyone.

CAME THE SPRING.

We were now allowed to climb the mountains, the only restriction was that we were never to cross the railway lines and go up the mountain on the other side.

For two reasons, the first that it was covered in ferns taller than us and that we could easily be lost and secondly that we may find poisonous snakes.

We always looked up to Johnnie, never, ever did we believe that he was a bad influence at least towards us.

Then one day he reminded us of the story of 'Swiss Family Robinson' and their adventures and how they were able to survive.

We had all agreed to meet on a Saturday by the railway bridge, there was Johnnie, Lena, Eric and I.

Then Johnnie told us the story of the magic mountainside spring and this could only be found by crossing the railway and climbing the forbidden mountain.

This to us was too good to be true and everyone in turn agreed that this is one adventure we could not miss.

We crossed the bridge and began to climb the mountain, onwards and upwards we encountered gigantic ferns that were to us like great trees.

Then all of a sudden Lena cried out that she had found a snake, everyone was scared at the time accept for Johnnie. He pointed out that Lena had simply found the skin of a snake.

Apparently a snake sheds it's skin and grows another one, we carried on climbing in spite of this terrible ordeal.

When we had all reached the top of the mountain we had to descended on the other side but the further we went down the path, the path began to rise, then Johnnie told us that this was an ancient path and this was the path to follow.

This path lead to the West then changed towards the South, what question could we that we now of downward trend, could exercise our right to criticise?

Johnnie told us that we must keep our bodies close to the mountainside on our left and not to look down to our right because of the sheer drop.

Down and down we went until we reached about thirty foot from the roadside, then it appeared from out of the blue, the mountain spring.

Johnnie told us that we must just take a sip, because this was purely spring water and that it would be ice cold.

When we had finished taking our drink we realised that we were in Maerdy just about one mile from our home in Ferndale.

Our venture was to prove in fact that we had travelled a complete circular root though hazardous we arrived safe and well.

We all made a pact, we had all been playing in the quarry, we so enjoyed the game we lost track of time.

N.B. We were children, doing childrens things.

You may remember the episode regarding the large snowball that Johnnie and I rolled down the mountainside and how lucky we were when it broke up into the ditch, before it reached the fences in the valley below?

On many occasions we took the sledge that uncle Bill had made for us to the edge of the quarry. Two of us would go up to the quarry and two would remain at the bottom near the ditch.

There were four of us, Lena, Johnnie, brother Eric and I, one of us would come down the mountain on the sledge, then one from the ditch would pick the sledge up and carry it back up to the quarry.

This way everyone eventually had their turn so there were no arguments, frequent use of the sledge meant that we had to use the candle wax several times on the shafts.

This was a very dangerous game to play, but we had tied a thick rope to the two front sides and had to hold on tightly until we reached the ditch.

Just before the sledge slid into the ditch we had to roll off one side of the sledge, our timing got better and better each time we used it.

When our game was finished and we decided to return home, the sledge would be hung up on the wall in the outside lavatory.

THE PIPELINE.

We were told never to go anywhere near the pit because of the dangers, however one day Johnnie told us of a pipeline that ran alongside a rivulet, well to Eric and I this sounded like quite a good adventure.

Aunt Phylis asked us where we planed to go this day, we told a little white lie, we told her we were going to play with the sledge.

Johnnie, Eric and I walked up towards the little bridge and hid the sledge underneath, we had to walk under the bridge and climb the bank at the other side of the road.

Suddenly we heard some workmen's voices and footsteps coming towards us, quick as a flash we all dived for cover hiding amongst the large ferns. Hoping of course we didn鈥檛 find any snakes, we were as silent as lambs.

Eventually the workmen had passed us by and we continued walking along the path, we saw lots of rusty old machinery and derelict buildings. When we got to the end of the path we had to cross the railway line that ran towards the pit.

We went under this big archway and arrived at this rivulet, it was more like a river at least 30 foot wide, the first thing we came across was an old railway engine laying on it's side across the river.

Many years later I learned that these small engines were referred to as Pluto's, we all had great fun this day, the little engine didn鈥檛 quite reach the full width of the river, so we had to find some way of getting across.

Eric found an iron poll and it was agreed that in turn we would each poll vault to the engine, then throw the poll to the next person so that we could all play on the engine.

The good thing was that by using this method none of our feet would get wet, we played on the engine for quite some time then eventually we began to get bored.

I then asked Johnnie where this pipeline was and he told us that we had to vault over the other side of the river, it was a long walk but we got there in the end

Eric and I were amazed at the size of the pipe, it was black and on stilts and must have been about six foot in diameter, it seemed to stretch for miles you couldn鈥檛 see the beginning or the end.

The game was to climb on top of the pipe and walk along without slipping, mind you it was very slippery which added more fun to the game. We all had great fun but soon became exhausted, then we realised that we had this long walk home.

Even at our young age Eric and I had various chores to do, like helping aunt Dora to peg out the washing on the clothesline and sweeping the back yard. Helping uncle Bill with the garden such as weeding, gathering in and washing the vegetables for storing.

One of the more pleasant tasks was to go windberry picking, these were to be found on the mountainside in small clusters, they were similar to blackcurrants.

Another task was to collect windfalls of apples or pears, one of our favourite foods was when aunt Phylis baked apple and windberry pie, aunty Phylis was a very good cook. She also made up various jams and preserves such as plums, rhubarb, gooseberry, blackberry and sometimes cherries.

Uncle Bill grew potatoes, carrots, cabbages, cauliflower and sprouts, there were many others that I cannot remember them all. Aunt Philis did most of the cooking while aunt Dora, Eric and I would help by making the pastry for pies or tarts.

Eric and I had never seen such a variety of different fruits and vegetables and certainly never tasted them all before. Most of the produce from the allotment and the garden were either made into jams and preserves. The vegetables were cleaned and stored into boxes and placed in the pantry, there were no freezers or fridges in those days.

The remainder were to be taken to the market and exchanged for other items that uncle Bill didn鈥檛 have, such as eggs or rabbits, lettuces, radishes etc.

Most days we couldn鈥檛 wait to get home from school to help uncle Bill, aunt Philis and aunty Dora, sometimes far better than going out to play. It makes one realise how lucky we were than most people, we were too young to consider the hardships our family at home were going through.

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