More Memories Of Rhostyllen

A Memory of Rhostyllen.

Just a few of my very fond memories:

Village shops – Turner’s, Vicarage Hill; Top Post Office; Mrs Jones, opposite the Swan; Mrs Jones from her front room at the end of Blacky Row; Humphreys Newsagent from their front room in Church Street; The Co-op, Trinity Street, Goodwins, High Street, the shop on the corner of Trinity Street and Ruabon Road, which had many uses, the veranda did too.

Evans the Bakery, The Rosary. Evelyn, the daughter was the baker. Her weekly bake, on Wednesday, of rectangular shaped steak and kidney pies, still make my mouth water at the thought. The flour was delivered by Peake’s of Oswestry on a steam driven lorry. ‘Den the Milk’ with his horse and cart which he stabled in an old building in the Praish Hall grounds. Prior to him, Mr Blake from Esless Farm delivered the milk, dispensing it from a churn. The Crisp Factory on Wrexham Road which sold massive bags of broken pieces for a penny halfpenny.

The American soldiers camped at Erddig, invading the village in the evening in search of entertainment(?) and handing out chewing gum to we little beggars. Old Time dancing in the Top School, to the music of Jim ‘Fat’ Williams and Len Wakelin, Dorothy’s dad. Plays in the Parish Hall by the Drama Group in which Mervyn Roberts was usually the star. Philip Yorke riding his penny farthing in the carnival, and entertaining us with his ‘musical saw’, and us singing Casey Jones to his banjo accompaniment, at the Sunday School Christmas Party. The Sunday School trip to Erddig Hall, Wow!

Albert the Barber dispensing unwrapped sweets with Brylcream scented hands having just come out of salon. The candle on the counter for the miners to light their one cigarette which they bought before going to work. The lady at the bottom of the Ddol, selling toffee apples. I remember she had a large goitre. The Harper family, of some 15 or 16 children, who lived in the Old Mill, Esless.

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