Pontypool Town Centre

A Memory of Pontypool.

I lived in Upper Bridge Street and remember a few of the shops in town, I think! On the corner of Upper Bridge Street and the Bell Pitch was Franketti's fish shop with an awesome Art Nouveau till and free chips if you took them newspapers for wrapping, and opposite was Cliff Powell's fruit & veg shop with Baggot's little corner shop further down. Walking down Upper Park Terrace from our house you passed the Working Men's Club where my dad was Sports & Social Secretary for many years, with Crane Street Station and the Wrington Arms opposite, later Jakey's ice-cream factory. Mr Lucas's coal yard on the High Street and just before the railway bridge a tiny dark stationer's shop. Top of Crane Street was the Three Cranes Hotel with the Globe Hotel opposite. Johnny Gould, a local successful ballroom dancer, had a tiny shop next door, and there was a menswear shop on the corner opposite top Fowlers - where money sailed overhead in little canisters on zip wires. In a tiny flat above Dewhurst's the butchers my mum visited the butcher's wife who was a friend of JB Priestley and wore a sort of mob cap.
The market was full of country people with veg stalls on a Saturday, and my particular favourite was Truman's sweet stall with their fabulous hardboiled sweets called Emma's made in a tiny factory in Lower Bridge Street. Mrs Truman was very glamorous and her husband very handsome - their sister Kitty was a staunch member of St James Church choir. The large fruiterers at the bottom was called 'Under the Clock' because it was, and at the top end was a wet fish stall whose name I've forgotten.
Opposite was Sidoli's chip shop and further down was the Octagon library where my nan bought me colouring and reading books. Next door was a dry cleaners with a lady sat at a machine in the window making invisible repairs to nylon stockings. Opposite was Daniels the grocers with a fabulous smell inside, later discovered to be fresh ground coffee beans - we still had Camp coffee at home. Bottom Fowlers was on the one corner with Commercial Street and Pegler's grocers in the other.
Opposite, on the Cross, was Winterhalter's jeweller's shop and further along, towards George Street, was the Home & Colonial grocer's where my mum worked before she married. I remember sugar packed in blue bags with neat folds at the top, Nizzam tea, big metal boxes with glass lids for biscuits to buy by the pound, and slabs of butter in greaseproof paper. And not forgetting Woolworth's where I worked Saturdays despite being censored by my Headmistress at school. Further up George Street was Cyril Sharp's (Sharpies), a tiny dark shop piled with sports stuff for repair. I took my tennis racquets there to have them restrung and they often seemed to come back with a nick in a string that broke again very quickly.
Fulgoni's cafe near Market Street was a regular for coffee in school dinner hour - after a quick sprint down Penygarn Hill and back again - we could beat Peake's buses on a good day. Pontypool library was a favourite as a child, I was terrified of making a noise and being told off. Opposite was the Town Hall where I went to Children's Balls organised by the NSPCC where there was dancing and food too. Next door was St James Church where I was confirmed and married and, depending which boys were there, sang in the choir. Opposite was the fabulous Pontypool Park where I spent many happy hours jumping the stream, fishing for minnows, exploring the tunnel alongside the Afon Llwyd, playing on the swings and later on the tennis courts. The bowling green was dug up by vandals one night and it was years before the shadows of the holes disappeared. This might be a trick of memory, but I recall as a child standing around the ornamental pond with its fountain at the grand opening of the Italian Gardens and a child falling into the pond and delaying the opening ceremony? A wonderful childhood in Pontypool.
Sandra Waters