Born On The Graig

A Memory of Graig.

"It's only wind or powder on the stomach"my Mam had said as she walked home from the ammunition factory on a cold Autumn evening.
The "wind" or "powder" was born on the 2nd December 1942. I, Colin Gronow, had arrived, born in the middle of a war!
I was the third child born to my parents, Mam, who worked in the "arsenal" at Bridgend, and Dad, who was a coalminer. I had a sister June,and a brother Creighton. My brother was ten and June was eleven. I've always wondered why there was such an age gap, I suppose the war had something to do with it, because during an air raid my Mum and Dad took shelter in the coal cellar under the house, and well, they had to do something to take their minds off the bombing!
So here I was, a little boy, born on the Graig, ready to face the world. The Graig is a district about half a mile from the centre of Pontypridd, a small town in the coalfields of South Wales. I lived in Phillip Street, one of several long terraced streets perched halfway up the side of a mountain.
The houses were built of stone to house the miners and their families, and were very basic, two rooms downstairs, and two rooms upstairs, or if you were posh like us, three down, three up. Downstairs consisted of a "Front room" "Middle room" and a small room called the "Back Kitchen" which puzzled me as there wasn't a kitchen at the front. The middle room was where we mainly lived, ate, and played games in the evenings. Also this is where my "Nan" lived. The "front room" was kept for best and was out of  bounds to little boys, reserved only for Sunday evenings, "courting" and in most houses for funerals, as the front window was the easiest way coffins could be carried to and from the house!
There were no luxuries such as an indoor toilet or bathroom, and the only water tap we had was located on the outside wall of the house on what we called the "Bailey" now called a patio.
From the bailey, which also served as Mam's utility area, that is, a tin bath to wash clothes in, a steep flight of steps led down to the garden, and a small stone built toilet with no lighting and squares of yesterday's newspapers pushed on to a nail in the wall. I remember sitting on the toilet on cold dark evenings with only the light of a torch and the spiders in their webs looking down at me.
Soon the day came when I had to go to school. I developed every illness a child of five could have, but Mam had heard it all before. "You are going to school even if I have to carry you" she said, then carrying me in her arms as if I was a log of wood, marched along Phillip Street, down Walters Road, passing the Graig Post Office, (where I almost managed to grab a drain pipe) until we reached the top of Factory Lane, a small hill overlooking my destination, Maesycoed Infants School.
I remember little of my first day at school, except a terrible feeling of loneliness as I peered out through the iron bars of the school gate crying as I watched my mother disappear around the corner. Then someone rang a bell, and teachers herded us into a line and marched us off into the school. We were shown where to hang our coats, and were then given a small cup of orange juice, perhaps school wasn't going to be so bad after all. We were then led into an assembly hall, and told to sit on the floor. The teachers introduced themselves, told us a little bit about the school, what we could do, and what we could not do. Around the assembly hall were small classrooms, and I remember in the corner of the hall was a glass case containing a stuffed fox with a rabbit in its mouth. The fox seemed to stare at me with its brown glassy eyes, and I made a point of not looking at it from then on.
I think the first lesson we had was how to tie our boot laces which took me about half a day to master. More of my story can be found here:
http://www.colinswalestourism.co.uk//welsh-childhood/4533625945
 

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