大象传媒

My family evacuated to New Tredegar from Watford Hertfordshire during the war around 1943. My father at the time was in Eygpt a Desert Rat, I was later told. My mother brought my sister, brother & myself to New Tredegar to live with my aunt & uncle. There had been a lot of bombing in our area and my mother thought it would be safer for us to live here. My earliest memories are going to Eliotts School, and other children making fun of my accent. Also I can remember being afraid of the siren, when they use to sound it in readiness for the men to go to work in the pit. It reminded me of the time we use to hear the sirens warning of the bombings at home.
Later on we were able to have a place of our own, my father was still away in the war, we had letters and photos from him often. My mum use to make all our clothes for us, and she also learned my sister and myself to knit, this was a big help as clothes and materials were on ration, and very hard to come by. I also remember sitting with my aunt making hair ribbons, you couldn鈥檛 get any thing for your hair like the children of today can get, so you had to make your own. They use to make lots of items for the home also, we would spend some nights cutting all the odd pieces of materials into little strips so my mum could make a rag rug, when they were finished they were all sorts of colours and looked lovely.
As we grew older my sister and I would go to the local cinema, there was always a special children鈥檚 showing on a Saturday. We were given 9pence (old money) and for that we could have a bag of sweets and entrance into the cinema. Some times you couldn鈥檛 get in unless you had an adult with you or was over 16, my sister was older than me, but I was much taller than her so I use to get us both in.
As children we played outside a lot, there were no cars on the streets as there is today, so we were able to play games, such as skipping, marbles, kick the tin, hide and seek, with safety.
Because, there wasn鈥檛 many cars around, the local bus service was really good, so the bus or train took us anywhere we wanted to go. During the summer time we use to have annual trips to the beaches, such as Barry, or Porthcawl. These days were looked forward to with great eagerness.
Food being on ration at this time, we all had school dinners, I always loved mine, we didn鈥檛 have Pizza or fish fingers, we had good home cooked dinner, such as steak and kidney pie and mash potatoes with roly poly and custard to finish, all the dinners were
on the same lines.
When the war was over, and my father came home, he had to find work, he was a builder, a bricklayer, unlike all my friends fathers, who worked in the local pit. He eventually found work on a new housing estate being built at Fochriw.
Also after the war, we were in school one day and the headmaster told us that we were going to have a special visitor coming through the village. We were all taken out of school, and lining the pavement, when Field Marshal Montgomery came riding through the village in an open top army vehicle, we were all cheering and waving as he passed.
With all the excitement the end of the war created, there were many street parties taking place, this for us children, was wonderful as we were able to stay up really late, and every body was singing and dancing.

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