Upbringing

A Memory of Aberkenfig.

I went to school first at Tondu infants and then to the Primary school, I remember when we had the school photographs taken in the play yard (where are they now?). I had a really great and happy childhood there living with all the family at 15 Dunraven Street, and friends nearby. It was a great occasion when Franky Vaughn visited the boys club there and when the fair arrived at the field by the welfare hall.
There used to be a truly marvellous scapyard around behind the old police station, I think it belonged to the Baker family who also had a shop at Bridgend road. If my memory serves me right, we had a street party at Dunraven Street, but that's quite a vague memory now. Also I remember when my father - Johnny Warner - worked on the railway at Tondu, as my elder brother did, and my father used to ride his pushbike to and from work, I would know more or less the time he finished work and would walk up to the station to meet him. it was with great joy when he put me on the crossbar of his bike and we would come down the hill into the village and if there was a policeman on duty at the square would wave us up into Dunraven Street. Further up the street there was an old gent who I think was the father of Bronwen Davies, and I would listen to him talk about times past. I'm in tears as I write this, it makes you think of how things were then and how different the world is these days. Next door but one to the Davies's lived the Kendalls and the father used to arrive home on his old motor bike and bump up over the kerb and in through their gate. I had several motor bicycles while I lived there and opposite was a small shop owned by Mr. & Mrs. Hayter, they had a BSA bike and sidecar, I thought that was marvelous.
When I was at Tondu Boys school I used to work evenings and weekends at Evan Thomas the Ironmongers at the square, they had a yard down the lane alongside Hayters shop where they kept thier Ford pickup and we used to do diliveries in the local area. My fist job when I left school was when I worked up at the NCB workshops at Tondu repairing hydraulic pitprops, after a while I started my apprenticeship as a Carpenter& Joiner with a firm at Sunnyside Road, Bridgend.
Memories, yes memories.

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