Annwyl David

 

Having enjoyed reading your site for some time, I thought it time to contribute.

 

Our family left Caernarfon December 1953 for Wallasey, Cheshire.  As I was only just 10 years old then, I doubt anyone would remember me but I had two older sisters.  The three of us were born in Rhoslan, 11 Gelert Street.

 

My father was Charles Henry Jones, brought up in 37 Eleanor Street. He worked at the County Offices but his main interest was breeding and showing birds.  During the war, he was in the Observer Corps. One of his brothers was Sam, a fireman and I have seen his photograph on a couple of your pages. His son Gwyn became a policeman and another son, Alan followed his father and rose to become chief of Gwynedd Fire Service.

 

My mother, Jane, came from Morfa Nefyn and Trefor and that’s where we spent all our holidays with so many aunts, uncles and cousins.

 

My sister Glenys Eifl Jones was born October 1933 so had all her schooling in Caernarfon.  She was captain of the hockey team at her school.  She left Caernarfon in the early 1950s for the Foreign Office in London and thereafter travelled a lot, being posted to Berlin, Singapore and after marriage, to Karachi, Moscow, Singapore again and Istanbul.  After the end of her travels, she trained as a teacher and taught in the Northampton area, also having a year’s teaching in Florida on an exchange.  Sadly, she died of cancer Christmas Eve, 1988.

 

My sister Enid Wyn Jones was born in June 1938 and our move to Wallasey happened at a bad time for her, being just a year from taking her O levels. Not only was the curriculum different but so was the language.  Enid went on to teacher training college in Leicester and taught in Leicester until she took a teaching job with the army in Rheindhalen, Germany, then taught in Lincolnshire where she still lives, retired and widowed.

 

I was born December 1943 and had to adjust quickly to English as the Scholarship was coming up fast. My main memories of Caernarfon are of immediate neighbours, friends Ilid Owen and Christine Pritchard, as we were all about the same age.  Ilid’s father, Trevor Owen was a baker and sometimes on Saturdays Ilid and I would ‘help’ him at the bakery and go with him to deliver cakes to the Home in Bontnewydd.  Christine of course, has been an actress for many years and lives in Cardiff.  Fond memories too of summer days at Foryd, complete with tent and a kettle; learning to swim at the baths; disbelief when my dog never won a prize at a show; the joy of the circus coming to the football field; the search for treasure in the Roman ruins of Segontium.  Less happy memories of having to clean out my father’s aviaries, feeding his many birds and carrying them to the train station when they were to go to a show. Joy was in leaving the school before I made it to the ‘top’ class where the head taught. Her reputation was of being quite awful. 

 

Chapel was Caersalem with its Sunday school and Band of Hope.  Sunday school outings to Rhyl and Colwyn Bay remain quite clear, particularly once when I tasted my first banana.

 

School was at Twthill and I, like another of your contributors, remember with shame the taunting of the pupils of the Roman Catholic school. Sorry. I was paid back though, being a Welsh speaking oddity at my Wallasey school.

 

After living abroad for many years, I’ve now settled in Morfa Nefyn and enjoy day trips to Caernarfon where I can soak up the nostalgia of a happy childhood.

 

I have many photographs and will send them separately.

 

Hwyl,

Gwerfyl T Gregory