My Home Village

A Memory of Llansamlet.

I was born in bonymaen in Myrddyn Gardens, I was brought up by my grandparents Mrs and Mr Tantram. I can still recall a very bad winter, I think 1947, when being woken by my gran, no school that day...11 foot of snow! After it cleared it was found 15 people had died of cold, there was no central heating only wood or coal fires. Grandad worked at the foundry as a foundry man, he later worked at Mond Nickel works. I remember the anti aircraft guns down the field off Jersey Road and the sweet shop struck by lightening and Jack Curtis grocery store with ham joints hanging with sawdust on the floor. Jack Curtis was my mother's first boyfriend, he was a wonderful man and very kind to my family and myself - the shop is now gone. The times grandad took me for a walk that always ended in the Jersey Arms pub. My old girlfriends; Sandra Fetherstone and Pat Prescott lived close, they where very dear to my early years, I still wonder how they are. I have been home a few times but it's not the same. I had an aunt in Heolas, my grandmother's sisterm she was very strange and scary to myself as a tiny child...now I am 70 plus. My memories of Bonymaen are good. I recall the Bonymaen stone seeping blood which as I discovered later in life was only rusty water. My aunt Hazel Barnes still lives in Jersey Road she was so sweet, old Sid the barber up the top of the village was quite a strange old man, very eccentric and always a soap dodger! Well that's me, I loved Bonymaen but sadly its not the same. David from 11 Myrddyn Gardens, Bonymaen..