Memories of Llandybie

Llandybie as a child

I was born in Llandybie in 1945 at number 9 Woodfield Road.  My mother and father were Bronwen and Harold Owen and I have two sisters and one brother.  The only neighbours names I can recall are Mr and Mrs Tudge(?) although I don't remember them.
My father was a miner in the Pencae pit as was my grandfather Tom Owen of Pentregwenlais.
Across the road from the house was the playing fields and the river where apparently I spent quite a lot of time trying to catch tiddlers.  The Miner's Hall is where we would go to watch films on Saturday mornings and beyond that the bowling green where my Uncle Eirwin would play. The rugby pitch was also located close to the Hall and that was my favourite place, watching the games.  At the corner of the main road and Woodfield road was a farm which I think was owned by the Lloyd family whose daughter I used to play with.
My other grandparents lived in Blaenau, Tim and Martha Evans.
As was common amongst the mining communities my parents kept pigs in the back garden and I can still remember seeing the large pieces of meat hanging from the ends of the clothes airer which was suspended from the ceiling in front of the fire.
In the early fifties my parents moved to Wellingborough, in Northamptonshire, where my father helped lay runways for the Americans.  I attended John Lee Secondary Modern school.
During the holidays my sister and I would get coaches from the Midlands back to Ammanford and then to Blaenau to stay with my grandparents. Often we would walk down through Pontlash to Llandybie to visit our uncles, aunties, cousins and friends.
The church in Llandybie was always an inspiration to me.  I loved the style and material and the smell inside.
Sadly my mother, Bronwen, died a few years ago and I have not visited the village since.
I hope to pass on to my children my memories of Llandybie (not Llandebie) in stories, maps and photographs and of my love of being Welsh.