St Mary's Church c1955, Risca
St Mary's Church c1955, Risca Ref: R328032
Memories of St Mary's Church c1955, Risca
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Risca & local memories
Read and share memories of Risca and Gwent inspired by Frith photos.
I Miss my Family Home
This picture is of my family home just under the quarry to the left. My father Glyndwr 'Pancho' Parry was one of the council machine drivers that had to fill in the canal between the Darren bridge and 'the now' cycle path entrance. He did not enjoy doing that as it was so close to home for us and we missed the scape of things! Other than that I loved living there and thought I would live there for the rest of my life, unfortunately when my father 'passed' my mum wasn't well enough to stay alone in the house so had to sell it, it is now back on the market but beyond my 'means' unfortunately... The day the new owner came to view I was there; he didn't see me, it could have been my own father stood there at the fence, taking in the views; same build, flat cap, everything including his demeanor was 'Pancho'. Mr Vaughn will never know how good that made me feel..?? And... Read more
Memories of Risca
This shot brings back a hell of a lot of memories. We used to play on the canal bank here and fish for sticklebacks in the shallow bit under the bridge. I even had had my first real snog in the graveyard (nice!) over the bridge on the left. You can just see the Prince of Wales pub through the arch. The gate in the hedge on the left was the back gate to my garden.
Playing on The Canal
I spent many happy days here with my brother and sister. Playing in home-made boats made from corrugated tin, catching tadpoles and skating on very thin ice in the winter. I lived in Woodview Road and my grandparents lived in Mount Pleasant.
Telephoning
The public telephone in this picture of Tredegar Street was outside my father's butcher shop. There were only two buttons to press: button A and button B, but people were terrified of pressing the wrong one. My father, Gomer Mumford, used to do the phoning for lots of people. Sometimes coins would jam in the mechanism so he would release them using a butcher's knife and pocket the money!
Next door, to the butcher shop my mother Adelaide opened a flower shop just before the Coronation. Bit by bit we added plants, fruit and vegetables. When sweets came off ration we also sold confectionery. Such was the pent-up craving for sweets that I remember selling fifteen 7 lb jars of Sherbert Lemons in a day. People queuing for the Palace cinema used to buy sweets and cigarettes from us. All the family would be on hand to cope with the tremendous rush of trade. We had a side window devoted to sweets for children. At lunchtime we would be pressed... Read more
Channel View
I've seen this photo in several places and it's always captioned as being 1965 - it's got to be before that because I lived in Channel View from 1960 to 63 just below those garages on the right of the photo - and in this photo the building hasn't even started.
I can remember playing behind those garages - even creating a little "graveyard" there for my deceased pet white mice. There's a path up to the canal from behind the garages (which is where this photo is taken from) and there was a great tree-swing with a death defying drop if you swung all the way out from the bank - I imagine there were quite a few injuries, if not broken bones as a result of that swing.
Happy days
Memories of A Childhood Past
My first memory is of being carried by my mother Bettie "welsh fashion" in a lovely thick shawl,from Constant row,where i was born up the Moriah hill over moriah bridge and the canal to the quarry,where my Grancha Holder would be sat outside his greenhouse watching the world go by smoking his pipe,i still remember the smell of that pipe smoke.Running around the quarry playing ,chasing the geese ducks and chickens,eating the freshly picked tomatoes out of the greenhouse,how sweet they tasted and how wonderful they smelled.
The sound of the quarry siren on the other side of the valley at danygraig before they blasted,of my granchas dog laddie,a black mongrel,galloping up the canal bank past the Prince pub to just past Kears house and he would stand there howling until the siren stopped,then trot off back to my granchas house on moriah hill.This happened every time the siren went off every day several times a day.Mental dog!!!
My days as a child were unlimited happiness,of freedom,playing and wandering where... Read more
Home
Risca, was the town where I was born, under the shadow of Tymbarlm. I could see the fields leading to the mountain from my bedroom window, in Fernlea. The canal bank was where I would ride my pony Silver. All my memories of Risca are very happy ones, it was home and my childhood.
