Page 8 Reunions and more stories

The world became my oyster, driving around in my little runabout. I'm afraid poor Ted was forgotten for a while , especially my promise to him. I was having fun, and intended to milk it for all its worth. I was for ever getting into trouble with my parents for being late in at night, and once or twice, dad even threatened to take the car keys off me if i didnt start coming home by 10 pm, but I was head strong, and didnt really pay much attention to the threats. That is until I got up one morning, and found the keys were missing. No amount of crying worked on dad. He was adamant that he would not give me back the keys, so the car stood idle, and I was given more than a fair share of work around the farm. My pleas to my mother that it wasnt fair, fell on deaf ears. Also, for once she was right behind dad in his ruling. Unless I started to pull my socks up I'd not have the car again was all she said. So, to prove my good intentions, I put my shoulder to the wheel. Any dirty work I got, all the mucking out fell to my court. I was up to my knees in muck, and didnt come out smelling of violets either, but in the end, dad relented. I was given the keys on the strict understanding I'd be home every evening by 10 pm.

        The boys in the village were calling me the long distance runner. As soon as i'd had a drink bought me, i was gone.    One evening, i remember my sister and i persuaded our mum to let us go to a dance in the village.   I didnt take my car because i didnt want to have to stick with one drink or maybe two and, dressed up to kill. Away we went.   It was a rugby dance, and we were having a ball when my sister said ive got us a lift home.   Oh great, i said as she pointed out two men standing at the side of the dance floor.   We danced the night away, and now it was time for home.   Getting into the car, i said you know where we live boys ? No but you can show us they replied.   When we reached the cemetary on the corner, i said ok boys we live in that house pointing to a little cottage on the corner.    Ok they said, stopping the car, how about a kiss then ? I smiled my sweetest smile, and replied, you should have asked earlier boys we got to go now, Dad is watching for us and out the car we jumped. As soon as the car pulled away we were running through the cemetary leaping over the graves to get out the other end. We still had a mile or two to go. On rushing through the bottom gates of the cemetary, lo and behold, the damn car was stationary there and a mans head pops out the window and says we knew you didnt live there girls.    Jesus, now was we in the brown stuff with out a shovel?   They crawled along the lane behind us,  taunting us.   All we wanted now was our dad to make an appearance. Then the cat would be amongst the pidgeons.
        Getting to our farm gate we rushed through it, waving good bye and praying it was good bye too.   Last time i'd be taking a lift home, and there parting shot was we'll be in for a cup tea in a minute    They'd get cup of tea alright. If they knocked on our door in the middle of the night, but i dread to think how we would have fared if they had.
Well after the rugby dance fiasco,   I was treading more carefully   , no more strange men in cars for me , but I still had visions of them calling for a cuppa. My mother was telling me I'd better get out and look for a job,   as I was shirking the work on the farm in favour of other things. Its funny what being engaged does to you.  I now had thoughts of my own house,   where Id be boss,   and queen of the heap, and not the dung heap either.  I started buying bits and pieces for my bottom drawer,   in other words playing house.    Ted came home on leave, and was soon in deep conversation with my father. My sisters and I were up against the door trying hard to catch the conversation going on between the two of them , but we did hear my father say 'shes a little like a skitish horse Ted, you can try to tame her but you'll never hold her. Im not in agreement with this, but if its what she wants I'll not stand in her way'. Ted came out grinning from ear to ear, and my sisters and I were all giggles. 'Before I go back off leave', said Ted, 'we will fix a date', but fate can some times play real bad tricks on you, and it was about to pull a master stroke on us.
        Ted had a very bad accident.   He fell off a loading bay and struck his femur on a rail track . He was hospitalised for 6 months, and on coming home his leg had been locked, he'd never be able to bend it again. He had a bone complaint that meant his leg   was withered, and all muscle died in it. He'd always have to swing that leg to walk , and would never be able to do much work again.  Now the pressure was on me to end the engagement. My parents could see a very hard life in front of me, as Ted had been left with a shunte in his leg that would always weep and need dressings on it every day of his life, but I was pig headed,  and would'nt even listen to them .
        Looking back, I believe the saga of how I felt about the foxes as a small child was the same as how I was feeling now. Ted too, fair play for him out lined all the pit falls, but I could tell it would break him if I decided to call it a day so the wedding date was fixed.
March 31st was the date set for the wedding , and meanwhile I persuaded my parents to let Ted stay with us for xmas.  Looking back, my parents were wiser then us, and could see the pit falls that lie in wait for us, but neither of us would be told.  Ted couldnt stand up for long before he was in dreadfull pain, and we lived out in the wilds. There would be lots of walking and standing if we were going to reside there after the forth coming wedding.     Lets face it, where else would we be going.
        We decided on a very quiet wedding, and a small reception,   and mum said we could have the back bedroom, and live with them. Looking back, we went like lambs to the slaughter.  I didnt really have a clue about married life, and Ted had more misses then hits, but the job was done. Now as my dear mother told me the day after, 'you've made your bed my girl, now you lie on it'.
        We drifted along, me saving the goose eggs for Ted to build him up, and scooping the cream off top of the churns of milk for the same purpose.   We'd been married fourteen months before the first baby came along, a little boy. We decided to call him Geoffrey, but when he was six weeks old, Ted was taken into hospital again for an abcess that had formed in the sinus from his leg.   He was there around two months, and came out so thin and weak.    We both knew work of any kind for him was out of the question, so our roles were reversed. I'd go to work he'd look after the baby with my mothers help.
First Job
My first job was as a factory worker, making sweets.    I went off on my first morning, feeling very sorry for myself.    I was leaving the baby, and felt the world and all its armies were against me.
On arrival at the sweet factory. I was given a job in the bottle wash room.   This was washing all the glass sweet jars and taking off the old lebels. I had never been in a factory before, and felt like a fish out of water, but surely nothing could go wrong just washing sweet jars.

There were about six women working in the bottle wash, and soon we were chattering away, nineteen to the dozen, boyfriends, husbands and sex was main topic of our conversations. The laughs were in plentiful supply. After a few days, i well remember a dirty jar coming down to the washer with a label marked "Brandy balls, two for a penny" written on it.    Now, was I wicked ? Of course I was, and prompty washed the label off and as a supervisor passed me, I gently stuck the label on her back. Off she went, right through the factory with the afore mentioned label stuck on the back of her overall. Of course, I was doubled up laughing and soon the laughter spread right across the factory floor, and Grace, who was so thin, if she stood sideways, you would miss her, was looking around to why we were all creased up laughing, when the foreman pulled the label off her back.   Grace was burning up mad as a march hare to find out who had made her a laughing stock.  It didn't take long to point the finger at me. "Well, my girl, you think you're so clever" she said, "Let's see what Mr Norman has to say about this".
Mr Norman, being the General Manager. I was promptly ushered into his office.   "So, you think it's funny, to make our supervisor a laughing stock, do you?" he said, "This is a factory, not a playground, you're paid to work, I'll give you one final chance, you're going on the sanding machine, that should keep you busy" .
Now, let me explain, the sanding machine was a belt that continually flashed past your eyes, loaded with sweets that were covered in castor sugar, which dropped on them as they flashed past.   Your job was to keep the sugar flowing and watch the belt didn't get congested.   After half hour on there, I felt sea sick, sick as a pig, queazy wasn't the word for it.    What had I done to deserve this torture ? I asked myself.    Sweets were going by on the machine so fast, and my tummy was turning over and over, even faster if the belt blocked the sweets at the end, the sweets would drop on the floor instead of into the bag, and as Mr Norman informed me "A sweet on the floor, was one less going into the bag"
He was the meanest, most miserable man I've ever met, and it wasn't long before we both agreed, it was better we part company.
The final day I walked out of that factory, I leapt in the air with joy, but, I'd have to now search for another job.

.

JOB IN THE CORSET FACTORY

I well remember, my next job was in a corset factory.

Now, I had never used a sewing machine and never needed a corset, but they made bras and knickers as well.

I was put on a treadle, 5 needle machine and looked at it like it had arrived from outer space. A piece of material was put under the needles and i was told to move my feet over the pedals. I kept telling myself I'd never get used to this and had several lucky escapes with my fingers nearly under the needles, but at last I did get the hang of it, after a tough week.

We were on piece work, the more you made the more you got paid. Some women could do massive amounts of work, but I just managed to keep my head above water. If i rushed, i got half my work back, when the girls on the inspection line received it then you'd have to start all over.

There were a great bunch of women working in the corset factory and I had plenty of bras and knickers off the seconds line.

Next door was a huge bakery, so swaps were being done all the time. I soon worked out a good method. Every Friday, a bag of seconds of bras and knickers made to size were left outside the bakery door and a very large bag of cakes, bread etc were left for me. My motto - fair exchange, no robbery. It's a wonder either place ever made a profit, the rate of exchange that was going on, but all was fair in love and war, according to us girls.

Things only started getting out of hand when a Waterford crystal factory opened up the road. I, like most of the women had never seen Waterford crystal. So, we had to get our grubby little hands on some of that. Scouts were sent out to test the girls working there on the exchange rates. Seems the rate was very high in knickers and bras for a piece of crystal, but deals were done and carrier bags were being left everywhere.

On a Friday, I'd run from my pickup at the bakery to my next pick up at the crystal works. I'd go home loaded up like a pack mule. "How come you are getting all this stuff?" would be the question asked at home, but, MI5 had nothing on me lol. I was turning out bras and knickers at the rate of two for the factory and one for me. We had our own form of piece work, a piece for them and a piece for the bakery and a piece for the crystal works. I bet, after all the many years that have sped by since then, there will still be an odd carrier bag left lying in the undergrowth if one only looked.

I worked there for two years before I had to leave to make preparations for my next baby that was shortly to be born, but that's one place I really enjoyed working in. I had a very nice little business running there.

                                            Babies.
My second child was born, another boy.
"That's it" I told myself, "No more babies for me". Geoff my first born wasn't too happy about it either.    What, with two babies and trying to earn a few shillings, i was weary.
After three months I decided to look for work again.

My next job was as a cook in the Cricket Club.   It was seasonal, so if i didn't poison the team, i'd try, when season ended for work as a cook in a hotel.   I enjoyed the whole cooking experience and although I say so myself, there was no complaints, and once lunch was cooked, I had most of the afternoon to watch the cricket. I had never before been interested in the game, but on a nice sunny afternoon, i enjoyed being a spectator.
Although I did get work in a local hotel, as breakfast cook, I always went back to the cricket club once the season started.   This kept me going until the kids went to school, and I stumbled along making ends meet.
For a number of years, Ted continued to go in and out of hospital. Different operations were tried, to improve his condition, but non were ever successful and relations between us were frayed, to say the least.
He felt he was not doing enough to help me along, and I thought i was doing too much.
Were my fathers words about to come true, when he had said, "You'll never hold her Ted?", but, there were two little ones to think of. So, where do you go from there?.
                                              Christmas
Christmas was loomimg and i had to get work , so i went to the local big farms to do feathering, which is   cleaning all the feathers off birds as they are killed for the christmas table. On some huge poultry farms , you'd be feathering from 8am til it was dark. Soon up to your knees in feathers as crate after crate of chicken, ducks, and geese were killed. In the end, your fingers bled, but each bird you cleaned was worth ten pence intodays money , and each ten pence was a step nearer a pound. Turkeys were kept till last,   because you got an extra three pence for doing them, and the added bonus was you got a free bird , for your table at the end.   So i was first there at 8 am and worked through for ten days.   Till they were all done, then the farmer would tally up how much you'd earned and pay day arrived.

        Then the mad rush to get your christmas shopping done , another money earner was to pick loads of holly and mistletoe.   Tie it into bundles, and take it down the local market about a week before Christmas. You could earn a few shilling doing that, and i was wise to all  the gimmicks,   to gather the money in. I had been paying a few coppers into our local sweet shop every week for months, so now i'd go and spend it.   Mr Barney always put a couple extra sweets in for me.   He was a dear old gent that ran a very busy old type sweet shop, and i can still remember the smells  of that shop.   Sherbert by the ounce,     and broken chocolate squares.   You could get it all at Barneys,   and believe me i did.   No such thing then as sell by dates , so Christmas came and was enjoyed by all.
         A new year was dawning ,   a new time for every one . Will it get better this coming year i asked my self?     Dont ever tell your self it cant get any worse , because it generally does then.
        Then the mad rush to get your christmas shopping done , another money earner was to pick loads of holly and mistletoe.   Tie it into bundles, and take it down the local market about a week before Christmas. You could earn a few shilling doing that, and i was wise to all  the gimmicks,   to gather the money in. I had been paying a few coppers into our local sweet shop every week for months, so now i'd go and spend it.   Mr Barney always put a couple extra sweets in for me.   He was a dear old gent that ran a very busy old type sweet shop, and i can still remember the smells  of that shop.   Sherbert by the ounce,     and broken chocolate squares.   You could get it all at Barneys,   and believe me i did.   No such thing then as sell by dates , so Christmas came and was enjoyed by all.
         A new year was dawning ,   a new time for every one . Will it get better this coming year i asked my self?     Dont ever tell your self it cant get any worse , because it generally does then.
                                    We are moving.

We were excited we'd been given a council house, and was looking forward to all mod cons.

The day we moved, i pushed the pram to our new house complete with two little ones, a cat in a basket, and all sorts of bobs and sods loaded into the pram. Ted went in the back of the coal lorry with the rest of our home which was on a small estate in a cul de sac. Most of the other houses were still being built, but like ours there was a few with sitting tenants. Id never lived in close contact with neighbours, so this would take some getting use to. The cat managed to escape half way there, and i was calling him and trying to catch him for ages. Poor cat was scared stiff but he wastn on his own, so was i. Eventually, i manged to persuade the cat he was better off sat back in the pram and we proceeded to our new home, arriving not long after the coal wagon. Our bits and pieces were installed in our new home and the poor cat released to take pot luck on his new surroundings The first thing my small toddler son did was pull up next doors flowers in there front garden. It put my neighbour on the wrong footing with me as he proceeded to call my son a destructive monster, how could he say that to my little blond haired angel.

A slanging match was started. Thus being my first insight to the friendly natives, id never get use to this i told my husband as we lay in bed that night, exhausted from the long hard day we'd had, only to have to listen to my next door neighbours argueing in their bed. I hate you she said, not half as much as i hate you, was his reply. I sighed, and said to Ted, do you think if we turn over in bed we'll find them in the same bed?

The walls were like paper. Half the time when the flush was pulled i didtn know if it was their flush or ours. Id been so used to space, wide open spaces, that opening my back door and nearly stepping into their kitchen and there domestic arguements was too much. The children around there seem to multiply by the hour. My son came in one afternoon and calling his little brother a bastard was just about the creme dela creme. i cant stay here i kept saying i want to go home but we were home and we'd just have to start getting use to it.

Moving.

Get use to it we did, although the path was stony.   The kids settled quickly, and soon it was like they had never lived any where else. The cat took a little longer but he too soon started bringing the field mice home again   as the daily offering. i enrolled Geoff into the local convent school , and he could rough and tumble with the best,   but i couldnt get used to being in a gold fish bowl and yearned for the green green grass of home.
        We started getting the garden into some   order, but as fast as we dug, the more rocks and stones we unearthed.   Seems the rubbish from the building of our home had been buried in our garden and i feared nothing would grow there,  so finally we gave up and just grassed it all. Every thing inside was painted cream and we were told we couldnt decorate for six months to allow the plaster to dry out. id be out of there hope fully by then i kept telling my self,   but we were to spend ten years there before fortune smiled on us.
        Ten long years of living a roller coaster life with more downs than ups.  Good thing about it, looking back was every one seemed to be in the same boat as us not down and out but down and broke. i remember one year deciding id back a horse in the national and win big time.   i put ten pence on every horse to win    im bound to come up trumps with that i thought,  but no, although i had the first four placed horses  i barely broke even so that was my gambling days over, back to the grind stone for me.
        Teds health still gave us cause for worry,   but we were a family,  and pulling together was name of the game.

We started getting the garden into some order, but as fast as we dug, the more rocks and stones we unearthed. Seems the rubbish from the building of our home had been buried in our garden and i feared nothing would grow there, so finally we gave up and just grassed it all. Every thing inside was painted cream and we were told we couldnt decorate for six months to allow the plaster to dry out. id be out of there hope fully by then i kept telling my self, but we were to spend ten years there before fortune smiled on us.

Ten long years of living a roller coaster life with more downs than ups. Good thing about it, looking back was every one seemed to be in the same boat as us not down and out but down and broke. i remember one year deciding id back a horse in the national and win big time. i put ten pence on every horse to win im bound to come up trumps with that i thought, but no, although i had the first four placed horses i barely broke even so that was my gambling days over, back to the grind stone for me.

Teds health still gave us cause for worry, but we were a family, and pulling together was name of the game.

Pulling Together

Living on that council estate taught me alot of things. Survival being top of the list. We had little in the way of material stuff, but we were not alone by any means. Every one was in the same boat. When a baby was due we all looked for what we could hand over to the new mother, and when a accident happened we all rallied to baby sit or comfort a very close knit little community grew there and looking back i think i grew to like living there too.

i had a nice little number now, driving, and with the kids in school it suited me. Ted continued with bad health but he was a very stablising influence in the childrens lives and could fashion great wooden toys for them, and they still remember with pride the toy wooden guns and bows arrows he made for them. If you went out it was in the summer months and we'd take the kids down the river for the day. The river ran around the town and we'd arm our selves with a tin of beans, a pound sausages and off we'd go. Kids would play in the river and soon became good swimmers we'd build a fire cook the beans and sausages and didnt they taste good, as we sat around eating in the sun. We'd stay there til sun went down then head home quite content and happy. Those days were our holidays. We didnt look for more. Kids play out all through the summers and would wander for miles no thoughts then on the dangers that lurk today for children so by and large our children grew happy and content if a little wild. Todays children miss out on so much by the way society as changed and not for the better either.

I remember Geoffrey acquired a hamster and we christened her Daisy. Daisy was a very friendly hamster and was free much of her time but Geoff came in one day to say his friend had a boy hamster and if he could leave it in the cage with daisy to make baby hamsters . Geoff had visions of selling the babies to make money so the boy friend was put in with Daisy and we hoped nature would do the rest, but low and behold when we woke up in the morning it was to find daisy deader then the dodo seems Daisy too was a male hamster and theyd fought poor Geoff took him along time to forget Daisy and to forgive his playmate who'd brought the fighting super star there, but time is a great healer and soon he and his brother had other pets like the little jack russel terrier they were given as a puppy which they called Cindy , and that dog was a super star too she never left the kids side and would go down the slide in the park as often as they did and enjoy it to Cindy remained with us to the ripe old age of nineteen and the day she died both kids now fully grown into men cried like babies.

All Grown Up.

Now my family are all grown up and I've grandchildren, which i daily thank the good Lord for. My only regret is that Ted didn't live long enough to enjoy the younger ones, which were born after his death.

When my mind goes back in time to my childhood days, and I see todays kids growning up, I know they will never have the wonderful childhood I enjoyed. Todays children put so much value into material things, and we as adults pander to that. My pleasures were all such simple things, but, I think I had far more enjoyment from them.

I've written this mainly for my children and my grand kids, but, in saying that, I hope all who have read this or will read it, will relate to the wonderful time I had, and enjoy the simple pleasures life has to offer.

This story is my families silver, which has to be polished daily and preserved, and it can be your families silver to treasure life, live it to the full, enjoy every second, you don't get a second crack at it. Sit down to a good Sunday lunch together, as a family, and as you look around your family sat around that table, whisper, "Thank God, I'm truely blessed" and believe me, you are.

MORE FROM FFYNON-Y-GWEAD

William John Hemmings, my father, was a pioneer of his time. He scratched a living from the poor soil of the mountain top and from the bowels of the earth   in the pit, he fought all the elements to provide a living for his family. He had little besides his wife and children, but he was a happy man, a man who gave all his love to his family, and we soaked it up like a sponge never realising what both my parents were struggling to achieve for us.
There was little in the way of aid from benefits, so if you didn't have any cash,you just went without, but I can never remember a day when i was hungry. Mum always had a hot meal on the table, ready for us all.   Mostly chicken or rabbit stews, but God, didn't they taste good?.
My father trained all of us in the art of catching rabbits, we had rabbit nets, plus a ferret, and the art was netting all the rabbit runs where they went to ground. We'd spread nets over the holes and put the ferret down the remaining one, the rabbits would bolt for the surface right into our nets and hey presto, rabbit stew for dinner tomorrow.    That's how we all lived and grew strong. That together with the eggs,the chickens plus fresh milk was our daily diet and fat bacon from the pig that we killed twice a year went with the eggs.
So, by and large we ate well,there was "No, I don't like it" cos if you said that you just went without.   So, we liked everything that was put in front of us.   Same with our clothes.   We had best which wasn't worn any other time, and work clothes.    Our clothes were passed from one to the other as we grew out of them, so the youngest had the worst of the bargain.    It wasn't a bit of use saying "I don't want to wear that" because it was all you had. That's where, i think we go wrong with todays children. There's far too much choice and we pander too much to them, but again, I think, Thank God, for my wonderful parents.   Gone but never, ever forgotten. They were dearly loved.

There was little in the way of aid from benefits, so if you didn't have any cash,you just went without, but I can never remember a day when i was hungry. Mum always had a hot meal on the table, ready for us all. Mostly chicken or rabbit stews, but God, didn't they taste good?.

My father trained all of us in the art of catching rabbits, we had rabbit nets, plus a ferret, and the art was netting all the rabbit runs where they went to ground. We'd spread nets over the holes and put the ferret down the remaining one, the rabbits would bolt for the surface right into our nets and hey presto, rabbit stew for dinner tomorrow. That's how we all lived and grew strong. That together with the eggs,the chickens plus fresh milk was our daily diet and fat bacon from the pig that we killed twice a year went with the eggs.

So, by and large we ate well,there was "No, I don't like it" cos if you said that you just went without. So, we liked everything that was put in front of us. Same with our clothes. We had best which wasn't worn any other time, and work clothes. Our clothes were passed from one to the other as we grew out of them, so the youngest had the worst of the bargain. It wasn't a bit of use saying "I don't want to wear that" because it was all you had. That's where, i think we go wrong with todays children. There's far too much choice and we pander too much to them, but again, I think, Thank God, for my wonderful parents. Gone but never, ever forgotten. They were dearly loved.

More from the Farm

Ffynon y- gwead the beautiful farm i grew up on now stands empty a shell of its former self deserted left to slumber with its memories no longer does it dance to sounds of childrens laughter mothers pleas to keep noise down Dad bringing cows up to be milked the bark of the dogs and bleating of the sheep chicken scratching in the yard or Oscar lurking waiting for his next victim today its in ruins walls falling down nature claiming back what was hers for many a long year but yet as i stood in amongst all this i was quickly whisked back to my childhood yet again back in the salad days of a child hood ive tried to show you all the old house seems to shiver and take on a new life as i stand in that old yard is that my sister i see there being pursued by Oscar can i see dad and his neighbour dancing like shadow boxers in that yard and me scrambling up through the skylight to get best seat in the house for the show can i hear my mother calling us all in for tea and is that baby foxes toddling across a yard that abounds with chicken as i look around me i realise nearly half a century has flown by and only ghosts remain to mark the time talk is of a luxury home going to be built on the ruins of my memories if planning permission is granted but i had to make one more journey into my past before this just for that hour ive brought my family alive again my sister my two brothers and both my parents are gone but today i felt there warm breath on my face heard there laughs seen the love laughter and sadness we all shared up there in our top of the world wonderland and as i close the gate of the farm i seem to be closing the gate to the best years of my life as i read the sign on the gate with a sigh i smile to myself please do not enter buildings are dangerous and unsafe i shed tears as i stand there remembering but i realise my tears will never wash away the memories i hold dear i was lucky so very lucky to have had them and may be who ever dwells there in future will lay the ghosts to rest and have there own gold memories id like to think they will

More from the Farm.