Dilys Paes
From this flat we moved to a farm. Dad had no work and was unemployed and we lived in part of the farmhouse. I remember a big bedroom, a small bedroom, a small bathroom upstairs, and downstairs we had one big living room and a small kitchen. In front of the house was a small orchard. The farmhouse was attached to the big house where the farmer and wife, Mr and Mrs Davis, lived with their daughter Ceinwen who was about the same age as us. We all played with her. It was wonderful at harvest time because Mrs Davis would make a big basket for the sandwiches and flasks of tea. She would have to take this about midday into the nearby field for Mr Davis and the hired men to have for their lunch, and she would put a sandwich each for Ceinwen, Gwyn and I. I can still smell that hay. I can still taste that homemade bread. It was absolutely fantastic.
Quite an adventure happened while we were living there not far from the farm yard to which we were not allowed to go. Mr Davis would not take any responsibility for us if any accidents happened, but he had the cowshed and the pigsties there, and he would say “If you step out of the farmhouse, you must not go into the farmyard”. We did however manage to get through and there was a muddy pool there with watercress on the edges. I knew my mother loved watercress because sometimes she would pick some, she would wash and clean it, and it would be part of a salad or sandwich. I thought I would give her a surprise and pick some watercress. It wasn’t a huge pond but unfortunately as I put my foot forward, I lost my balance and stepped into this muddy pool. I got stuck there, Gwyn got upset and came to try and get me out and she too stepped in, and we both up to our waist yelling and screaming! Ceinwen, the farmer's daughter was paralysed with fear not knowing what to do until she realised she had to go for help. Mr Davis and big brother Bill came and tugged us out and rushed us into the house where my mother had to wash us. She washed us in the kitchen and it was a case of washing us, hugging us and then giving us a slap for being naughty girls. Never ever again did we go near that watercress, Mum just had to go and get her own.
We had this huge field in front of the orchard and to go to school, we had to cross this field, go down a country lane and crossover a very busy road. Then we went up the well Hill, Holywell which was “Treffynnon” in Welsh, the town of the miraculous well of St. Winefride, and our infant school was halfway up. So, we had to walk up this hill and down again for lunch and then walk back again for the afternoon. A big treat was that Mum made some sandwiches for us to have lunch at school. Things were very hard but we didn't realise, and we never went hungry. Dad couldn't get any work and Mum used to take any jobs, helping at the local cafe in summertime or doing anything she could. She had made some nice friends in there.
I remember getting some really nice clothes to wear, not realising of course that they were given by people in the church, who gave them to Mum and other people who were in need. At this time, we were expecting the coronation of King Edward VI and Mum wanted us to wear dresses for special party, so somebody had given her a bolt of a green silky material, that she could make two dresses out of for us. Now Auntie Liz, her sister, was a seamstress and she said she would make two dresses for us. The party was coming nearer and nearer and nearer, the material had been sent 6 weeks before the party but there was no sign of them coming. We had no telephone, so Mum wrote a letter.
Shortly after she sent the letter, a small parcel arrived which Mum assumed would contain our dresses, but unfortunately all that Auntie Liz had done was to cut out the pattern of those dresses and hadn’t stitched all the pieces together, so Mum had the awful job of stitching this material together, without a machine, to make our party dresses. Of course, in the end there was no party because we didn't have a coronation ceremony.
I remember someone had given us a huge teddy bear, and it was so big you couldn’t really play with it so we put it to sit in a little wooden chair which we had. It was so dilapidated that in the end brother Bill had a huge bonfire in a place which had been declared safe by Mr Davis the farmer. And who was Guy Fawkes? Big Teddy of course, well and I did cry because, although we didn't play with him, we did think it was terrible to see poor Teddy dressed up and bursting into flames.