New Years Eve And Blaen Infants School

A Memory of Blaenllechau.

Born and bred in Princess Street, Blaen, stayed until the family moved to Maerdy and from there I went to East Glamorgan Hospital to train as a nurse. Now in Bangkok working as a consultant to a large general hospital, haven’t been back to Blaen for about 20 years or more but must get there next time I am in area.
One of my earliest memories is of New Year’s Eve in the mid-1950s, I was five or six, my mother and father got me up from bed to hear the whistles of the trains in the siding blow at midnight. We stood on the door hand in hand, the night was cold and the sky clear. The stars twinkled and shone like mercury on velvet. When the whistles fell silent we went inside and my father had a beer, my mother probably a sherry and I had a glass of home-made ginger beer.
Who do I remember?
Neil Jones, Dai Mason, Robert Harris, Byron Lidbury, Alex Petrovich, oh so many more. Teachers at the infants school, I remember Miss Diamond, who died fairly young I think, a tall dignified lady.