Growing Up In The 70's

A Memory of Pantymwyn.

I moved to Pantymwyn in the 70s when I was 4. I have wonderful memories of growing up there. So much so that after 20 years of travels and adventures I have once again returned to live in our beautiful village.
One time I remember jumping on the back of Gareth Rich's tractor while he was bailing in the field behind my parents home. After a while there must have been 6 or 7 of us hanging off the trailer. He didn't care a bit and seemed to be having as much fun as the rest of us.
There seemed to be more kids around back then. Often we would gather in Hatch Green, opposite the pub. There was an open mineshaft and we'd throw anything we could get our hands on down it trying to find out how deep it was. I never did hear anything hit the bottom! We spent most of our time hanging from the trees like a troop of baboons. Regularly being shooed off when the racket we were making got too much for one resident or another.
Our favourite game for a number of years was for half a dozen or so of the kids to climb the same tree right to the very top. Then we would begin swaying back and forth until the tree would bend right to the ground. After which, all but one would jump off, thus flinging an exhilarated child through the air at a rate of knots clinging on for dear life. We eventually gave up this entertaining sport after several mishaps resulting in several bruised bodies and a number of thick lips. Common sense may have prevailed eventually but 35 years on, this is still one of my best memories and I still giggle at them from time to time.
It was only years later that I learnt that Hatch Green was an old industrial site, long forgotten. One part of an all together different era for the village. I wonder what the old miners would have made of our use of it.

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