The Charles Family Home At 39 Cwm Road.

A Memory of Waun Lwyd.

39 Cwm Road in 1946

The family home, at 39 Cwm Road, was on the ‘cellar side’, which was deemed to be an advantage, since the houses were three-storeyed and sported an extra kitchen, scullery and pantry, not present in those opposite. The front doors of the cellar terrace opened onto the middle floor. From the narrow passage, the doors to the left took you into the Parlour and the tiny Middle Room. At the end of the passage a staircase went up to two little bedrooms. But the hub of the house was DOWN another staircase and through a door immediately at the foot of the stairs, which led into the back kitchen. This wonderful room was home. Mum and Nana Charles were always there, fussing around the old dining table under the window, seeing to the blackleaded range, which was always hungry for illicit coal, brought back from the pit by Grandpa Charles.
Hours were devoted to filling the tin bath, which served the whole family. Grandpa always had priority treatment in all things, including the bath, and Nana invariably referred to him as ‘your poor Grandfather’, though I never understood why. My father was given second priority after Grandpa, presumably because he was a married, family man with responsibilities. I can see now that this must have galled my mother’s younger and only brother, Wyn, who after all, was the son of the house. Wyn returned from two years in the R.A.F. to find his sister married, and a brother-in-law and niece in residence.
Mum talks of those early years with great affection and says she and Dad were never happier, despite a lack of money and space. We officially occupied the parlour and middle room of the house, using the middle room as a bedroom for the three of us, the parlour as a living room. There was no running water in either room, as Mum always mentions when reminiscing, but my memory is of the whole family using Nana’s kitchen, so I don’t believe it really mattered. The house, in common with most others in the village, had no inside lavatory, and I was quite used to using a chamber pot at night. The pots were emptied first thing each morning, and I have fond memories of my ladylike grandmother ‘emptying the slops’. She would cover the pot with a cloth, and walk through the kitchen, then the scullery, and out to the lavatory at a steady pace and with the expression of a butler engaged in silver service. She must have borne the slops down two flights of stairs, since she and my grandfather slept in one of the rooms on the top floor, whilst Uncle Wyn occupied the other little room.
The pit and the steel works, which so dominated life in the valley, provided more than wages and coal. It was also possible to pick up good quality wood no longer needed to prop up the mines. Grandpa and Dad made my potty chair and doll’s house from such gleanings.
Grandpa [Norman] Charles worked at the pit, and was on shift work. He was not an easy man and was much affected by the disruption of shifts. His footsteps on the stairs down to the back kitchen instantly changed the atmosphere from cosy chatter to apprehension. He breathed audibly through his teeth, and would emerge into the kitchen with his braces flapping around his knees and one hand grasping his baggy trousers. Usually he continued straight on through the scullery to the lavatory, and was not seen again for some time. Mum and Nana would exchange meaningful glances, and the chatter would resume.