School Years

A Memory of Ynysboeth.

I also remember my first day at Ynysboeth Infants school, and unceremoniously being dragged there by my mother for the first time, because I didn't want to go to school. However, as I was happily greeted by the teacher on entering the classroom for the first time, I also saw this wonderful huge rocking horse directly in front of me with one seat fixed at the front, and the other at the back of the horse. What I loved most, at that very tender age was making animals out of the plasticine, especially elephants. Even to this day I can still smell that plasticine. But there was a smell I hated, which was having to drink from the small bottles of milk after they were heated on the radiators in the classroom during the winter months.
I also, like you John Williams, went up to the junior school, and then on to Abertaf Senior School. I left Wales when I was 17 years old when I joined Her Majesty's Service, and returned for a brief spell, before moving off again.

Just as a matter of interest, perhaps to you John Williams and those of our era, click on to Rhondda Cynon Taf Libraries where they have several photographs of Abertaf School and the teachers of that time. That will bring the memories flooding back!!

Royden Jones......5th.March 2011

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