My Early Chidhood

A Memory of Talywain.

I was born at 32 Pisgah Road which was the bottom end cottage of a row of three opposite Pisgah Chapel. The cottages had no back entrances. There was a pathway running in front of the three cottages with an outside toilet opposite each front door. We were five in family, my dad, Fred Smith, was a miner and worked at Blaensychan Colliery. My mother, Nellie Caroline, had, at one time worked at Jones and Porters at Talywain Cross. Brother David was born in 1939, I was born 1941 and sister Vera 1944. Next door were Maggie and Johnnies Flynn who were at that time quite old. The top cottage nearest the chapel was occupied by Cliff and Eunice Davies. This one was really tiny and consisted of one room up and one down. Next door down to us were the Franklins living in one of a pair of semi's which still stand today. I remember some, but not all of the people living in the cottages up the hill from the chapel. One of the pair of cottages next up from the chapel was lived in by the Steadman's. Will Steadman's was a local businessman and seemed to own half of Talywain. He had an office a bit further up the hill where, I assumed, people used to go to order coal, or a taxi or a removal van or something in connection with his many businesses. just up from the Steadman's was number 10 which, I think, was occupied by the Underhills. I am told that my grandparents, Walter and Kate Powell, had at some time lived at number 10 and raised all their 6 children there. Higher up we're the Pearce's. Christine was my age and we were at Garndiffaith School together. Further up was local magistrate Mrs Tudgay, who gave me my first reference when I left school. I still have that reference (written in copperplate handwriting) . I have very vague memories of old Mrs Hooper, who lived a door or two up from Mrs Tudgay. Mrs Hooper was extremely ancient, and still wore the traditional Welsh white blouse and black skirt. The red brick house at the top of the street was occupied by the Hillier's. Then there was the Greyhound pub. Opposite were two railway cottages with the railway line running down to the sidings behind. The Beale's lived in one of them. Wallie Beale was a little older than me. Down from the railway cottages was a field fronted by a stone wall topped with large blocks of shiny iron slag. There was a gateway into the field where there were two wooden garages, one of which was rented by my dad, and in which he kept his BSA combination motor cycle, and the other one contained an Austin 7 car which was owned by Vicar Davies of Talywain Church. At the bottom end of the field was, and still is, a large detached house, Hillcroft?, where Auntie Ann, the oldest of my mother's sisters, had been in service when she was 14 years old. I wasn't too familiar with the lower end of Pisgah Road, except for Pisgah Square, which had two rows of adjacent terraced cottages and a single detached cottage on the top side nearest to the chapel graveyard. The square had a rough stone surface and there was an ancient piece of iron railway line implanted in the ground adjacent to the roads! My friend Terry Saunders lived in one of the terraced houses with his parents, and his brother Roy lived in the cottage on its own. Pisgah Road was my playground and full of excitement. Me and my pals whiled away our non-school days playing photos or marbles or hopscotch or whip and top or bat and cattle, or hide and seek in the graveyard or climbing on the gas lamp outside our house, or paddling in the river Stinkey (Frwd) at the bottom of the hill. As I got older my playground expanded and adventures got more daring, but that might have to wait for a later memory.