Childhood In The 1950s In Caerau

A Memory of Caerau.

I was born at 87 Victoria Street in 1945. My father was a miner and worked all his life in Caerau colliery. My mother came from London with her brothers and sisters, they were evacuated to Caerau after their house in Stepney, London, was bombed in the Second World War. At the age of 3 we moved from Victoria Street to Bryn Terrace with a lovely view of Caerau and the Llynfi valley.
Looking back, my childhood was spent most of the time outdoors in all weathers and the long hot summer days of the 1950s seemed to go on for ever, every day was an adventure. We all wore short trousers in the 1950s and spent all our time running over the mountains, making dens and flying home made kites.
I can remember as a small boy walking through Victoria Street and looking at all the milk bottles placed outside the doors and some of them had money left in them, in those days you would buy an orange disc from the Cooperative store, if you left out two discs then the milkman would leave you two pints of milk, if you had no orange checks left then you would leave out the money for the milk. My friends and I never had two pennies to rub together yet we would never ever dream of taking that money. It was a time of respect and honesty.
I have such happy wonderful memories that I cherish. I can remember walking the mountains with the skylark singing in flight, and the whinberry picking all day on the mountain, filling your box of whinberries it was pick one and eat two, our lips would be purple by the time we filled the box and then there was that delicious whinberry pie that your mother made.
I still live in Caerau. I have seen many changes in my life, and I often think back about how we made our own fun like 'kick the tin', one boy would kick the tin and give us enough time to hide. I can also remember wearing knitted bathing trunks. We all went to Porthcawl with the church trip, once you went into the sea the knitted bathing trunks become wet and heavy and hanged down, and it was all we could do to walk holding them up.
In Victoria Street two of the houses had made their front room into a shop, Elises and Jenkins. I can remember shoping for my mother and using a war ration book if you wanted to buy some food. We had a lot of repect for the elders of the village. It was a time when you left your front door key hanging on a piece of string in the letter box. Everybody knew each other, the neighbours had a sense of belonging and there seemed to be a genuine air of humility among the people. Although many found it hard to make ends meet, there was a clear spirit of generosty with the people of Caerau.

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