School Memory

A Memory of Tirphil.

I remember traveling to new Tredegar by train from Bedwas, changing trains at Pengam to let Lewis girls off. I remember police keeping Lewis girls in the front corridor coach to stop us mingling. They tried it with compartment coaches but as the train turned up the valley, boys would walk the running boards on the blind side of the driver to mingle. Also, now and again as the train passed my great granddad and his brother's cottages we would pelt them with train light bulbs filled with water. I loved looking out the open window as we passed through Cwmsyfiog and the forest of pipes and steelwork of Lewis colliery. With regard to Lewises and while I loved school dinners and the school sec taking the orders up the stairs, the pit canteen did a tasty bread pudding. It had a little more cinnamon than Navigation Colliery bedwas, but not as filling. I hated sports - one field up in the clouds the other down behind the station and a girl, Beatress??. Never met her, hid in a shop once, had to buy lolly, hate apple juice to this day. Loved the annex and those geology and other lessons. Saw a chap drop dead from that play ground. I was looking down the banking to where a man was stacking oil drums, he raised one above his head, dropped it, then fell on top of it. We called J Stanley but it was no use. I liked phys hated chem though I was apprenticed and worked around 24 yrs in that type of industry.I loved to extreme that little room between the 2 labs.the dark room. I used to stay behind after school dev and print film. Used get home after 9 pm, getting train from Tirffil to Caerphilly, then walking home. This had an effect on my later life, working with an agency training us troops - Vietnam days. Also some years later, built a house with its own dark room. At 151/2 I decided I had enough of school. I left on Thurs, travelled to Bedford on Sat, started work Monday in engineering thanks to the workshop at school. I had an accident some months later, came home, and while attending Caerphilly miners hospital, met Mr Thomas (woodwork) with a finger tip cut off. I also saw him some months later in hospital - did same thing again so he said. I can't remember what the badge was like or the way the black and amber stipes went on tie. I have been told the fall is different for UK and US stripes.

---

---