An English Boy Going To School In A Welsh Village

A Memory of Gellilydan.

My mother brought me aged four and my brother aged one to a farm on the outskirts of Gellilydan in 1940 to escape the bombing in Coventry. I can remember my mother taking me to the village school to see if they would let me attend lessons. I was allowed to go even though I was only four years old. I did not speak any Welsh and the children there all spoke Welsh (and as far as I could tell no English). However, the lady teacher was very kind and did her best to settle me into the class, though I can remember being rather lonely at playtime, when I was left to play on my own.

Because the farm I stayed at was a little way out of the village, my mother found it difficult to take me to school, especially as she had to leave my one year old brother at the farm. Eventually it was arranged that I went to school in the van which visited the farm to collect the churns of milk. It was a three wheeler with one wheel at the front and I sat at the back of the van with the milk churns.

After a few weeks, my grandmother came from Coventry to visit the three of us at the farm. She asked me what I did at school and found it amusing when I put my hands flat against each other in front of me and started to speak in a lilting way a lot of meaningless words. Eventually, she realised that I was attempting to say my prayers in Welsh!

Memories are a little vague but I do remember my mother walking to another nearby village/town, possibly Maentwrog, with my brother in a push chair and me walking beside her holding onto the handle. I do know I walked quite a long way for a four year old and my mother did not repeat the walk, at least not with me with her.

Soon after this, my mother decided to return to Coventry, even though the bombing of Coventry was still ongoing. She told me later, that she wanted to be with my father, who was in a reserved occupation in Coventry, working for Courlaulds. Also bombs had badly damaged her parents' home in Coventry and she felt they needed her support.

Prior to staying near Gellilydan my mother had stayed in Barmouth for a few weeks with me and my brother. I went to school there as well. I think we moved from Barmouth, because the two elderly ladies that we stayed with found us all too much of a handful, especially my brother who was prone to crying a lot at the time.

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