大象传媒

My memory can go back to when I was about five or six years of age, I was the youngest of a large family of twelve, so times were particularly hard in wartime.
We kept chickens at the bottom of our garden so there were eggs (about four) per day if we were lucky, so when it came around for my turn to have one, I was very excited, and took as long as I could to eat it, and by then it was freezing cold.

School dinner times was greatly looked forward to with Corned beef pie, peas & gravy, jam roley poley was my favourite, (what a difference from today鈥檚 school dinners,)
I remember my mother who worked at Glascoed Munitions Factory telling us about one morning while going to work on the train, packed with other workers when an enemy plane followed the train down the valley, hoping to find out where the munitions factory was situated, to drop bombs on it. My mother said the train driver stopped under a tunnel for a long time, until the plane passed out of bombing range. Being young I thought it very exciting.

There was a railway sidings, where the coal trucks from the old Elliots Colliery used to stock the coal waiting for the main line train to take them to all parts of the country.
I used to spend hours watching the trucks being shunted back and forth by the little loco train.
The drivers name was Jack, he used to wave to all us kids, and we thought that was great.
Thinking back now, how things have changed in our village, gone are the Whitsun Sunday School Anniversaries, we used to take weeks learning our recitations to recite at theAnniversary in front of a full Chapel, scared in case we would forget our lines.
Our parents were so proud of us kids.

Then Whitsun Monday the two Chapels and the Church would parade around the village dressed in our Sunday best clothes, the Church was always in the front leading the march with the cross and banners.

In the school summer holidays, the sun always seemed to be shining, we spent the whole of the holidays playing on the mountain side, camping out, roasting potatoes on the camp fire until they were as black as coke, (they tasted great). 鈥淥h what happy days鈥�
The Saturday visits to the cinema, 鈥淏ud Abbot & Lou Costello鈥�. Then out to spend what was left of my two shillings pocket money and the train home.

I still call them 鈥渢he good old days.鈥�

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