Memories Of Dan Y Parc

A Memory of Dan y Parc.

Many of the things that happened at D Y P were taken as normal. During the winter we ran around in the snow without shoes on, and why? because we did not have a second pair of shoes. The only pair we had were school shoes and they were not worn after school and there were so many times we got home and our feet were numb from the cold, but in truth we did not notice the discomfort. It seems strange now that we accepted such a thing. How strange that a country with a massive empire would allow it's people to be so deprived of what should be regarded as normal entitlements. Looking back it is obvious that such wealth was for the privileged and wealthy and it is also obvious that such a condition is still existent. Its worthy of thought that the countries that were so damaged and destroyed, Germany and Japan are now very successful and prosperous countries. I do not doubt that they also suffered in those years after the war, so good luck to them. The Germans are, after all, exactly like we British and the only difference is that they speak in a different tongue. All my life I have wondered why we were at war with them??
By and large we were unsupervised in our activities around the camp. Our parents had to work to put food on the table and did not know what we got up to, and if they did, they would have got grey hairs a lot sooner than they did. We thought nothing of trespassing on the Sandiman Estate and stealing anything that was not nailed down. Its fair to say that we did not wilfully damage anything, but bows and arrows just begged to be lifted and were great fun until one boy got an arrow embedded in his rear and required surgery to remove it. The Sandiman estate was an absolutely fascinating place to explore. Admittedly the game keeper (a Mr Millet and his two useless Irish Setter) tried his very best to stop us from invading the property - usually to no avail - becoming so desparate that he resorted to shooting at us with his 12 bore shot gun. The shotgun shell contained rock salt and if it stung like hell it was no deterrent to us children. In the late afternoon he was so inebriated that he fell asleep and we simply walked around him. Dan Y Parc house was an absolutely treasure trove. To itemise all the things that we found and had access to would read like a bible. Looking back, if we had known what we had access to and purloined it, we would have been quite well off today, but of course we never stole anything of value. One might say we borrowed it ?? Perhaps the biggest thing that we found at the Sandiman House was the cellars. We found a set of stairs that led to the lower levels of the house and a corridor that was seemingly blocked by a very large barrel. At first this obstruction defied all attempts to bypass it. We dumped it, we applied all manner of pressure on it and yet all it required to open it was a gentle pressure on the right side of it and it swung open and we were in the cellars and a regular Pandora's box it turned out to be. All manner of artifacts and huge bottles of wine - some as tall as a yard in height and containing Champagne or so I was given to believe in later years. We imparted the info of our discovery to several people on the camp and they no doubt pillaged it at their leisure. We sampled one of the red wine bottles and it tasted horrible but I have no doubt the more seasoned drinkers found it to suit their palate. One of the things that we noticed . was a fairly wide path that led up to the top of the hill behind the main house . it seemed to stop abruptly in the middle of nowhere. and did not make any sense . so we just excepted it . It was 1 yr later that someone noticed that there was a very short section of footpath leading of the path and into a very over grown area . we battled our way through this growth all day and at its end was a large wooden door . secured by a padlock . our young and excitable minds soon had visions of treasure trove etc . It took us several days to get it open and we were greeted with a tunnel . very dark and damp . and we found it difficult to pluck up the nerve to go in . but the lure of treasure was to strong . There was no treasure .in fact there was nothing to be found . just small cells and a deep pit at the end of the tunnel . greatly disappointed . we left in disgust and never went back to it . all that work and nothing to show for it !! I found out in later yrs that it was a ice cellar that all large houses built to keep ice frozen during the summer .
Dan Y Parc was a fascinating place and I loved every second of living there . I visited it in 1997 and there is nothing left that is recognizable from those times 57 yrs ago . I did not get any feeling of nostalgia or sadness . but neither did I feel any regret that we were forced to live in such places . I could write a book about the things that happened in D Y P . Dark and funny things .But better left unsaid .

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