Moving To Aberbargoed
A Memory of Aberbargoed.
My parents (Eirwen & Haydn Williams) moved to Aberbargoed from Gilfach to take over the newsagents in 1967 next to the New Duffryn pub when I was 11. Being a Bargoed lad I was very apprehensive about moving over to "the other side" and we lived above the shop for many years. When we moved in the September I was just moving from Primary to Secondery School and having failed my 11+ I was sent to Aberbargoed Secondery Modern school in Ty Fry Road, no friends, not knowing what was infront of me, went on my first day there with the strange brown uniform (with short trousers) and there formed frendships with Keith Thomas, Wayne Gibbings, Clive Thomas, Dawn Price, Susan Thomas, Julie Jones to name but a few.
My parents had bought the business off Ewert Davies who was the brother of Cliff Davies who had the other newsagents, the two brothers were arch enemies and not only did Dad buy the shop unknowingly he taken over the bad feeling as well. dad had been working in Aberbargoed for twenty odd years and had starting there on the Co-op milk round, being known as Haydn the milk. sadly he passed away in 2011. It true to say that over the years I did every paper-round there was from the shop, often having a call up the stairs say about 7.30am that so-and-so had not turned up for his round. but hey ho off I would go. Many Memories both good and not so good!!
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Just came across this - over nine years later! - but have signed up specifically in order to add a comment :-) .
Just wanted to say that I loved calling into this newsagents as a kid. In the very early 70s, DC comics (Marvel not around much those days) were just a bob, or 5p. The comics were always on the lower shelves toward the back of the shop on the left, and often when I turned up, coin in hand, Haydn would know my intended purpose, and tell me there were new ones on the shelf before I got there :-).
He was a friendly bloke who didn't talk down at me just cos I was a kid (unlike another newsagent in the area). Another odd image that's popped into my head is of Gareth helping me fit the batteries into a toy I'd just bought there - so if you're reading, thanks Gareth! :-)
Other memories include the expansion of the shop with the building's middle wall being removed; and the weekly tradition of Haydn driving around the village to sell the Sunday papers and magazines (and yep, comics) in the back of the car.
As I got older, I'd call in for a newspaper on the way to school, buy the odd book off the middle shelves (I still have a few) and even do the coming-of-age thing of buying keys in boxes for everyone for their 18th birthdays.
I moved away not long after that, never really to return, so don't know what happened to the shop - but just thinking of the above (and a few more) memories of those times from my early years puts a smile on my face...