Happy Childhood Holidays

A Memory of Llwyngwril.

I say 1950 for the year my memory relates to but in fact my memories cover from around 1946 to 196
I've only just found this web site for "Memories" although have looked at the site before and what nostalgia it has evoked in me.
My memories are all childhood ones; it's been too long since I visited this dearest of villages, although from what people who have visited since I was there say the place has changed but little which is heartwarming. One day I hope to see it again.
When I was a child my cousin and I spent almost every school Easter, Whitsun (as it was known then) and Summer holidays there. We were fortunate that one of our aunties married a Welshman and lived there all her married life. She began her married in the cottage known as "Troed-y-Rhiw" at the bottom of the road I always knew as "The College"; I've seen a photograph of it as it now is (the only thing externally that seems to have changed are the windows and the rather unsightly wheelie bin outside!), but in time they moved to "Tegfan" No. 14 Council Houses, on the main road leading out of the village towards Towyn. They were a
Mr and Mrs Baden Jones - my Auntie's name was Nellie and she originated from Birmingham; one of her sisters as my mother, Grace, and my cousin's mum was Ethel. There was also a "maiden" aunt who came with us sometimes - our Auntie Evelyn, I think everyone thought she was a bit of a dragon but we loved her dearly and she spoilt us rotten.
Both these relatives are no longer there but anyone reading this just might remember them - would be interesting to know just how many people or their descendants are living there still.
Memories of holidays such as my cousin and I were fortunate to have are very precious, and we probably didn't appreciate or realise how lucky we were until we grew up. During the summer ones especially we spent most days on the beach, it didn't matter to us that it was full of pebbles and rocks, just one main stretch of sand, but what an interesting beach. Auntie had a dog - Snowdrop - who accompanied us just about every day (except rainy days which were put aside for going to either Towyn or Barmouth on ye olde steam train to buy presents for people back home in Birmingham) and round and round those little pools she would go with her short stumpy little tail wagging excitedly looking for those elusive fish; she never caught any but she lived in hopes. When she wasn't fishing she was up the "cliff" faces burrowing into rabbit holes and coming out with a sandy coloured face.... guess she had as much fun as we did.
When we weren't on the beach there were always good walks to go on, up the College and onto the "hills" behind those houses, leading to all sorts of places, - and when Auntie moved to "Tegfan" we used to take Snowdrop for an evening walk up the "Glen" as we knew it.
The people we knew there watched us grow up I suppose - whether they actually looked forward to us going there I don't know; visitors bring trade to these places but can be disruptive perhaps - I hope we were never that. I remember the old Post Office in its tin shack as we called it, and Mrs. Wilkes who kept the draper's shop on the main road just beyond the bridge going out towards Towyn; remember Mrs. Roberts who kept the paper shop and sweet shop just behind the bridge almost on top of the river; it seemed little more than a wooden shack, and the noise when the river was in full spate was quite spectacular.
I know the bridge as I remember it is no longer there, think they have put railings and a proper footpath there, probably necessary in these years of so much traffic going through the place.
Mrs. Jones kept the grocer's shop on the other side of the bridge, and further along on the other side I THINK it used to be a MISS Jones who kept another grocer style shop.... and eventually Mr. Warne opened his mini supermarket, which was quite something, probably the main shop in the town, and for a few years my
Auntie Nellie was one of his assistants.
There are SO many memories that come flooding back as I write these words, most of them wonderful happy ones. The saddest I suppose was when I was 15 and my father had his first major heart attack down there which I guess the entire village knew about at the time, and of all places right at the top of a mountain walk one Sunday evening when we had gone collecting mushrooms.......... a memory that lies buried but still horrifies me. No mobile phones in those days so it was a performance getting him back down to the village - he recovered from it and lived a good many years after that but it is perhaps the one blot on happy memories.

A beautiful little village - may it be standing for ever and give more pleasure to lots more people, but never ever let it become spoiled or commercialised.

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