Hill Street Pontnewydd

A Memory of Pontnewydd.

Hi. My name is Iris Elliott (nee ) Poole. I was born in Hill Street Pontnewydd in 1930 to Daisy and Tom Poole. I had a brother Mervin. Everyone knew my father Tom who was quite a character. He was a very big man and worked in the Tin Works at Pontypool then Avondale Works Pontnewydd. My mother worked at Mrs Smiths in the village and cleaned for Meakers Fish Shop and finally Holy Trinity Church. I was a pupil at the school. The headmaster was Mr Hill, a lovely man.
I used to play “Stool Ball” in the yard which no one seems to have heard of today. I was at school with Pat Donovan and remember Alan & Russell Jones, Ralph Jones, June Miller, Joyce May and many more. I left school at 14 which was common in those day. The headmaster wanted me to stay on to be a teachers helper but my father had already paid for me to go to Pagefield College. I worked at Alfa Laval in Cwmbran for 10 years. I got married at 23 in Holy Trinity Church and moved to Newport in rooms for 18 months. Tommy Hill was building houses in Tymynydd and we bought our first house there in 1955. They were just starting to do the new Town.

As a child I have such fond memories of my childhood.

I remember all the names of the people who lived in Hill Street. The shop at the end of Hill Street was “Hawkins”, run by Mr & Mrs Hawkins and their son Malcolm. They lived behind the shop and I was often told to get behind the counter and serve whilst she went to see to the saucepan on the fire.

We had a field at the side of the house which went down to the canal. It was called “Nutty’s Field”. There was a large rock there called “Granny’s Rock” where we would make mud pies.

Evelyn Reynolds (I am still in touch with her) lived next door and Phylis Hurley lived opposite. My grandparents lived in Nightingale Row where my gran, a formidable strict woman ran a shop. People would come in for 2 candles for a penny or a penny's worth of sauce. During the war when when we were on sweet rations, I went in and ate all the chocolate dates which were already weighted and allocated to a Mrs Whatley up the row. I ran all the way home in terror. Later my gandmother told me that I would have had a good hiding if she had caught me!

In the village Stan Pritchard had a cobblers with his dad and eventually it became a shoe shop. Next door was Tremares Fish & Chip Shop. There was Carmarthen Stores. I used to wait outside for them to open to get sausages during the war before going to school. Mrs Smith had a dress shop next door. Bert Poulton had the butchers . There was Hale’s the drapers where Margaret Carpenter worked after leaving school. There was Whitcombes sweet shop and Morley’s. There was the White Rose Cinema. There was no misbehaving in those days as everyone knew your parents. I have been living in Cardiff for the last 60 years. My brothers family still live in Pontnewydd.