Wandering about the area above the large concrete area one day, just below the Marine Drive, I dislodged a large roundish stone, about 2ft. In dia. It gathered speed as it crashed it’s way through the gorse, suddenly it deviated to the right, heading straight for the home of the Suttcliff’s, I was petrified, but just at the last minute it turned to the left and disappeared over the wall onto the concrete. The Suttcliffs had some cages at the rear of their home, where they kept/bred white Mice, the boulder would have demolished them and anyone who walked out of the door. What a fright! I quietly slunk home.
Christmas time had mixed emotions, as on the one hand we were isolated from any events down in the Town, but on the other there was a community spirit amongst the residents, that I have not experienced since. One Christmas, Mrs Barr, who lived in the Nissen Hut below our house, invited all the children to a party, where we played games such as ducking for apples in a bucket, trying to take a bite out of a home made toffee apple hanging on a piece of string and seeking sweets hidden around, outside and in.
We spent ages making Christmas decoration from crepe paper and tinsel prior to Christmas eve. My father made toys for us and they tried to make Christmas as special as they could.
Frank Tyldsley, a local builder who lived on Llys Helig Drive, just before the Gunsite, invited all the children off the site to his daughters birthday party. She normally wore her hair in a long plaited pigtail, which came way below her waist, but on the party night it was loose and flowing, right down to her ankles. I thought that it was amazing. His generosity was much appreciated. ( For Festers benefit, I found out years later, that he was a Freemason. ) he put on a spread that like that none we had ever seen before. We played hide and seek around his large house, I found myself in one of the bedrooms and hid in a wardrobe. I must have been in there for ages, because they all came looking for me. Finally Frank himself found me, just as I was about to step out, the base of the wardrobe collapsed. I don’t suppose he was too impressed, but he said nothing and sent me back downstairs. We all left the party with a Gift. Brilliant.
One day I returned home to find my mother all excited, she had a letter which she kept looking at. When the time came for father to return home from work, she kept looking out of the window for his arrival. When he did arrive there was tears all round.
We had finally been allocated a new Council House, on the Tre Creuddyn Estate.
An estate that coincidently had been built by Frank Tyldsley. We went to view it on the Saturday, it was not quite ready, shortly later we moved in. The pavement had not been completed, but one morning two workmen arrived and started laying flagstones. They looked like Laurel and Hardy, one a large bloke and the other small and slim, but boy could they lay flagstones. They worked their way down the street and back up the other side, you could roller skate along the pavement and hardly feel the joins. Brilliant. A while later some workmen arrived with a truck full of lamp standards, yep! You guessed it, they dug up the pavement to lay cables and erect the lamp posts. The pavements were never the same again. I think it’s called Council Planning!
My carefree life changed after that, I started working as a carry out boy for the Co-Op butchers shop, which is the little shop next to the Computer shop, by the traffic lights on Trinity Ave. It’s currently an Antique Shop.
Later that year I started in John Bright’s Grammar School, time to get my head down and get stuck in.
I don’t regret my time on the Gunsite, they were happy care free times for me, I think my parents probably saw it in a different light. But it taught me to appreciate what you’ve got and to be self sufficient.
I’ve always seen my father as a good provider, he taught me many things as a child on the Gunsite, such as how to ’fish’ and gut the catch, rake Crabs from under the rocks, to shoot a Rifle and 12 Bore Shotgun, to shoot or snare rabbits, then gut and skin them. Stalk Duck up the Conway River, then pluck and prepare them.
I often wonder if some Major Disaster strikes the Earth, how many people would cope with having to catch their food, instead of going to a supermarket, or if the squeamish could skin and butcher a Goat ? A rabbit even.
Later, when I was 14. I exchanged a small steam train, an electric train and some tracks for a B.S.A. three wheeler car, that required renovating. It was from a guy down the Rd. and with help from friends pushed it home. I returned for the engine, only to find it in bits in an old tin bath.
I dragged it home and showed it to dad. He told me to clean and lightly oil all the parts. That done he showed me which parts to start putting together, that done, the next parts and so on. I eventually I completed the build, one or two small errors on the way, but HEY! I did it. I’ve built many others since.
I trust that I’ve given the reader a taste of life, during the war and my times as a Squatter on the Gunsite, with all it’s trials and tribulations. The incidents described do not follow a strict chronological sequence but they all happened. There must have been many other incidents during my five years there, but sixty-one years on, the memory is not what it was.
On reviewing my times there, I’ve amazed myself at the difference between my youth and to-days cotton wool protected, scared of litigation society.
Hey, you have to take responsibility for your own actions, to watch for dangers and problems, then deal with them. If it goes wrong it’s maybe your fault, not always someone else’s
FIN.