From the Beginning

It all started for me in the infirmary, Saint Tydfils Hospital, Merthyr Tudful/Tydfil, South Wales, Cymru/Wales, on August 3, 1951, from where after roughly 10 days I was moved to No. 30 Trevethick Street, the house of a  Mrs Lydia Pugh, where miss Sylvia Pugh aged 8 also resided, as did at this time Mr Fred Walters, Mrs Phyllis May Walters and Master Maldwyn Kenneth Walters aged 4; whilst there I slept in one of the drawers of a chest of the same, there being not a lot of room. During the just under two years that I lived there I began to learn that Phyllis & Fred were mammy & daddy, that Maldwyn was my brother Havard, a name I'd picked up on hearing and misinterpreting the name of his infant school headmistress, Sylvia was my cousin, and Lydia my maternal grandmother, also that Uncle Elfyn, Aunty Cassie and cousins Marion & Denise lived four doors down at No. 26, there was another Marion one door up at No. 32; Apparently because of the lack of space 'daddy' went to see a certain Mr Tal Lloyd, from thence there was a move to No.9 Heol Bryn Man, Gellideg, a brand new council estate on the Swansea Road. We and the Richards's were the first families in the street, I used to sit at the window sucking on the lead paint of the window sill ledge watching the bulldozers and the houses on the other side of the street being built, including that of Frank & Joyce Harrington and their son Francis. My first friends in life were; Frances & Michael Vaughan; Shwnny (Sioni), Dai, Pat & Christine were their elder siblings and Philip came along later; Gareth Richards; Stewart was his elder brother; John Woods who lived on Heol Tai Mawr; Francis Harrington when the family moved in and my cousin Howard Davies followed by his younger brother Malcolm who lived on Georgetown Square between Joseph Parry's cottage and the skinyard, the skinyard or tanyard stank. I used to go to sleep in a cot with a rag doll, which I used to undress to see what was underneath, and a golliwog, sharing the bedroom with my brother Havard, or Maldwyn. Francis Harrington used to have a red tricycle with a boot, mine didn't, and a train set upstairs in the box room, he had little grey trousers and I wanted the same and got, and because he had birthday parties so did I, they stopped when we moved away. My favourite toy was a little peddle horse which for some reason my parents took away from me, I still don't know why, perhaps because a road passed in front of the house; one day a child came down the road on the back of a similar one with his father which I took to be mine, I ran after him and tried to grab it back. In the house we had a little dark cubby hole where my brother and I used to turn a film to watch Micky Mouse and friends cahorting about on the wall. We all had great fun playing in the sand of the construction site which was the shops and I remember one day falling out with Frances Vaughan with the result that she scrammed my face; Frances died very young, being found unconscious in her bedroom. As there weren't any shops, the Harp Inn at the top of the road served to buy crisps and chocolate, while the Walls van came around the streets selling ice-cream in the summer. Just below the houses the Tâf Fechan ran under Cefn Viaduct, this was our swimming pool until one year there was a polio scare.My first swimming costume was a girl's cut down to fit me, my second that lasted years wasn't a proper one and embarassed me no matter how often or hard I pleaded, I was always being big headed or never satisfied, yet I  had to do with the lowest common denominator, when it always seemed to me that they got it right for my brother.  From the street I could see a castle in the distant woodland that I would admire from afar, where my mother would take me for walks in the pram and later I would play on the cannons. When we left the house to go shopping or to visit my grandmother, for I only had one, and no grandfather, I couldn't leave the house without my harness or reins, I've never seen another child wearing them. On my visits to my gran I made friends with; Christopher Jones; Martin Weaver; George, Susan & Leslie Quirk;  Joyce, Eileen & Ronald were their older siblings and Colin & Hadrian yet to be born; Billie Doe was older; Malcolm Evans & Alan Watkins; Raymond and David Adler yet to be born; Valerie Brace; Frank Price and his cousin Joanna. I remember going up to the top of Trevethick Street with my mother on the way to Penydarren and wondering when it was going to end. My cousin Howard went to Georgetown Infants aged four, as did everyone else my age, I wanted to go as well but by the time I went I was a year behind everybody else, I wanted to go on the bus with all the other children but my mother insisted on coming along, I don't remember anything except standing in assembly a row and year behind my cousin Howard, and going down the steps to a gate and looking out, and it was here I met my cousin Susan Woods: then I was five, moving to 20 North Street Penydarren, and to this day I have always considered Heol Bryn Man my home, we moved into a mouse ridden old house lacking in all the modern facilities we had in Gellideg, no hot water, no inside toilet and no bath, it was traumatic for a five year old who'd already suffered the loss of his favourite toy, and my toy pedal car was immobilized so I couldn't go on the road, it's no wonder that I started wetting myself. My mother gave me the choice of schools, Penydarren, which was down the road or Queens Rd. where all my Trevethick Street friends went but further away behind my grannie's street over the back of an ironwork's tip between Penyard and Twynyrodyn; I chose Queens Rd. and my mother made arrangements with Sandra Owens from across the road to take me and bring me back, I joined my friends in the second year and met Paul Jenkins; Mark Powell; Elisabeth Protheroe; Vincent Price; Lilian Richards & Carole Anne Harris; Cynthia, were you in Queens Rd.? Carole was the best reader in the class, but I like to think that I caught up with her before going on to Penydarren Juniors. I don't remember being a strong reader previously, although I had an interest in books due to my father reading childrens classics to my brother that I caught on to, I mainly remember the Hans Christian Andersen stories, then one day my parents questioned me on the pronunciation of a word that seemed to trigger something in my brain, from then on I became a prolific reader and an under age member of the Carnegie Central Municipal library in town, my happiest time as a child was looking through the treasure trove of books in the childrens' library, I spent so much time there with good memories that on returning there as an adult I couldn't get over how small it was. Another place I seemed to habitually go was the Hollies Clinic for poultices and somesuch, often I used to run around and got to know the faces and the smells, but for the life of me I can't remember why because as a child I was never ill, except for a bout of mumps and I had warts for a short time; same thing, I remember often going to young Dr. Thomas's nearby, both in the town centre. I wonder if Carole remembers an instance that she and Lilian got wrong, with the result they ended up laughing at me; one day I was one of the last to leave the school, not before going into the cloak room to collect my coat, it wasn't there so I picked up a similar one to wear home, although it was patently a girls coat with the buttons arranged differently, I could see by a sewn in label that it belonged to Carole, so we took it to her house in Darren view and swapped hers for mine, the following day they were laughing at me because in their mind I was the one got them mixed up, but it was you Carole who had earlier left with mine. I don't remember much about the school except that there were two Mrs Davies's; that I wet myself and had to go to the staff room to dry out; there was a sand pit we never played in, catkins in the grounds, and that it had a flat roof; that in jumping over a bush I badly cut my knee, after it started to heal I picked the sore which all my schoolmates took for stitches and counted them in the toilets; Paul Jenkins broke his arm; slapping someone on the back in assembly making a great noise and being moved to the girls line as punishment; going with Mark Powell after school to the Brunswick pub down the steps past the synagogue into town which his parents ran instead of going home with Sandra, thereby unnecessarily worrying my parents, I don't remember how it worked itself out, my parents not having a telephone; laughing at one of my classmates because he didn't believe in God; Peter (Snobby) Horrel's nose was always running, walking down to Rudman's corner shop with a girl who was wearing a tartan skirt attached with a big pin, and learning the days of the week in Welsh as well as phrases such as 'Bara 'Menyn' and 'Bara Chaws' (Bread & Butter and Bread & Cheese). My brother who had regained his name Maldwyn by this time was a pupil in Abermorlais Juniors, or Primary School, and that is where most of my friends went after Queens Rd, except for the ones who went to Twynyrodyn, and Paul Jenkins, Valerie Brace, if she was in Queens Rd.; Lilian Richards; Carole Anne Harris; Cynthia if she was in Queens Rd. & myself who went to Penydarren. Abermorlais was known to have a higher success rate than Penydarren at 11 plus, with even the Bs passing, in Penydarren not all the As passed, nobody in the Bs. For some reason we all went into the Bs, with Paul early on being transferred to the A stream. I learnt to write properly, the multiplication tables to 12 x 12, the months of the year in Welsh, we had our own little library which contained Beatrix Potter's Brer Rabbit stories, and were regularly given reading tests which were their guide to our abilities more so than mental arithmetic. I was put on the top table and before the end of the year Carole and myself were transferred to the As ready to start 2A with our new friends. In our first year we had various teachers, I mainly remember a Mrs Raspbridge who taught me a lot, I have always reacted more to the teacher than the subject, otherwise it was noticeable that outside the A stream there was not a high standard of teaching because the children weren't expected to go far in life and the teachers and the headmaster were mainly Labour Party hacks. We were very fortunate in that in years two & three we had two of the best in Miss Anita James & Mr Kenneth Adams Morgan, neither of whom were members of the Labour Party, they must have been good because they were both given headships relatively young, when normally 'members' were the first to be moved on. There was a Miss Lynwen Rhydderch , our resident 'Welsh' teacher who taught us songs in the Welsh Language and got us to sign up as members of 'Urdd Gobaith Cymru', the Welsh League of Youth, not surprising perhaps that someone with a name like that should be so involved, although it wasn't her coming in for half hour a day? to teach us Welsh, it was an elderly lady and I hated every second of it. One day she invited me on a coach trip to the Urdd camp in Llangrannog on the Cardiganshire coast, when I asked my mother permission she refused, leading to a ticking off on the monday because waiting for me made them late starting off. Our teacher in year four was a pipe smoking  Mr Davies M.A., can't say I remember much about him, an easy going sort of person, perhaps I preferred them stricter with direction, always neede a bit of direction, my mother used to leave me in bed in the mornings, I was always going to school with the excuse that I'd slept late, she didn't see the need for education, our 'caste' left school at fifteen, it was for others to get on and be looked up to, it wasn't our place, too much reading gave one ideas, which is what I had, and it was bad for the brain. My memories include three for Linda Treharne; a little disagreement with Gillian Connor; her singing voice which beat Carole every time in the annual school eisteddfod; and being regularly told off by the teacher for forever asking to go to the toilet after coming in to class from playtime; Carole had the voice of an angel, but perhaps didn't have the strength & resonace of Linda's to carry across the school hall. If there was any trouble out in the school yard it was put down by Frank Price, usually it was started by a boy by the name of Graham Price, not the future rugby international from Pontypool,  a bit of a trouble maker who came in to his own later on in Vaynor & Penderyn; there wasn't much point in messing with Frank; another good hard boy was Derek James, Degas or Degsy. At the end of year 4 and the 11 plus results we all got split up with Derek leading his team to Castle and Frank his to County. Susan Regan and Richard Grey were always top in marks, both went to Cyfarthfa, although such was the quality that neither were in the top classes. I mentioned earlier that I related more to the teacher than the subject: I wasn't any good at Maths under Mr Barberini, under Mr Warrender I was top in all the tests, geometry & algebra; with Mrs Goodall I was average to not good in History, with young Miss ? I was in the top three; I was good in French when taught by Mr Davies, not good when taught by Mrs Thomas; I was always bad in Science because I was always taught by Tommy Test Tube, in my opinion the worst teacher in the school for putting his subject across. On moving to Penydarren my new close friends were; Geoffrey Palmer, my next door neighbour; Vivian Jones, Geoff's cousin who later became Dunlop and lived 3 doors up, and Robert Lloyd down the bottom of the street at No. 8. Most of my playing was in Trevethick St. with happily many sorties still to Heol Bryn Man because Uncle Tommy, Aunty Lydia with cousins Howard & Malcolm had moved up there, that reattached my link with the Vaughans and John Woods, gave me new friends, friends of my cousins were my friends, namely Bernard Popp and Narrow; reinforced my link with Francis Harrington, which hadn't been broken due to his having an aunt and gran in North Street where I lived. I also went often to a family of friends round the back of Nantygwenith St. when visiting Aunty Mary in Georgetown, but I lost touch with them many moons ago and don't even remember their names. My playing areas were vaste, Merthyr is surrounded by countryside, in the centre it's slag & waste; we have to rely on grassed over dross or natural aesthetics because anything of value built by man has either been Knocked down or is in a decrepit state and falling down, but as we broaden out there are some of the most scenic views in Cymru/Wales. I wouldn't have wanted to be brought up anywhere else. I could play on at least 7 different football pitches within walking distance; 4 different tennis courts; two parks; there were 7 cinemas; innumerable tips, which to us were hills to climb and slide on; the clean tributaries where we could go swimming which lead to the dirty Taff; railway tunnels; long walks following the rivers & railways, and dangerous ones avoiding mineshafts; the highest hills in South Wales, Pen y Fan, Corn Du & Cribyn; one weekend myself and a few of the Trevethick St. boys went up to Penyfan & the Neuadd Reservoirs to enjoy the wilderness without a living soul near us, tickling trout from the stream and cooking it over the camping gaz, although we had axes to cut wood; Chris & I had never done this before, but Martin was the all action experienced outward bounds guy, so imagine our surprise when a car pulled up on the Roman track at the top of the hill and Martin's parents got out bringing him food. We had trips to the seaside, Barry Island at Whitsun and Porthcawl in the summer; my brother took me to the ABC Minors, full of adventure films and prizes for birthdays, so some children used to go up every week to claim them. My parents took us to the public swimming baths in Gwaunfarren, where, because my brother used to constantly splash and tease me I was timorous of going in deep, preferring to stay on my feet, and in order to encourage me my parents got me a plastic life belt, with a duck's head! I didn't learn to swim until Cyfarthfa School when our P.E. master, a hard rugby man by the name of Dan Jones made me jump in to sink or swim; Not many of us went on summer holidays, except for excursions, the running joke was; Q: Where did you spend your holidays? A: Remainya.Every summer Uncle Harry, my father's brother who was in the army in Burma and never came back to home to Cymru/Wales to live; Aunty Mary; cousins Dorothy & Glyn would catch the train to Cardiff General, change to Merthyr, John St. to catch our only black sedan taxi to disembark at No. 26 Trevethick St. Aunty Cassie's, she the family coordinator who kept in touch with everyone; often I would join them to visit the family, go to the seaside or a restaurant in Caerdydd/Cardiff. One day we were all sitting in an Italian restaurant near St. John's church next to the Old Arcade when on nearly finishing my soup I tilted my plate towards me and lifted the spoon & soup to my mouth, whereby working class cousin Glyn from Lancaster laughingly berated me for not having followed etiquette by which I should have tilted the soup plate away from me, not having been taught that in Merthyr, however, now living in Brittany, I feel more comfortable with everyone doing it my way. My father worked in a toy factory that every year organized a christmas party for their employees children, which was something to look forward to, but why did my parents on that one day of the year hve to smother my hair with vaseline? Many of my friends went fishing, especially Martin Weaver, so I went to the local sports shop, told my mother the price and didn't get it, therefore I couldn't join in with cousin Glyn when he brought his rod with him from Lancaster to go fishing in the Goetre Pond, which has since been cleared for house building, a large part of the Cyfarthfa Park perimeter walk was cleared for a road to those houses. When my friends went fishing I found new ones. Trevethick St. was built on the remains of the old Penydarren Ironworks, it ran lengthways following Trevithick's track that carried the world's first steam locomotive to run on rails in 1804; there my brother taught me to ride Martin Weaver's bicycle when I was seven, finally getting one put together by my father at ten, and a proper one at eleven for passing my 11 plus. We played behind the gardens, sometimes walking along a narrow pathway high in the side of the tip, one day I slipped, fell narrowly missing the iron spikes of the garden railings, and certain death by inches, after that my father barred the way so we had to go right back to the top of the street to get onto it again. Carole's house was on the top of the tip behind my gran's and in the weeks leading up to Guy Fawkes there was war between all the surrounding streets whilst collecting for the respective bonfire. Back to school and the 11 plus examinations, it was tremendously nerve racking as I waited for the results declaring that I'd passed and was on my way to Cyfarthfa Castle Grammar School because I'm a 'W' Walters, one of the last names to be called out. If I hadn't gone to Cyfarthfa all my dreams would have been shattered. C.C.G.S. on the blazer pocket surrounding Saint Tydfil. 'Castell Cyfarthfa, Caer i Ddysg a Hêdd'. In the junior school it was basically my reading ability and what I read, together with my common sense that got me passing exams, I never did any homework, my ideas would have to radically change in the new school, things were obviously expected of me because they put me in the fast stream with all the top scholars, it was the proudest moment of my life, but alas, I was soon filtered out, I didn't belong to the same culture. In Penydarren, Susan Regan & Richard Gray always had top marks but such was the academic level here, percentage wise they didn't reach the same heights. For some reason we had to wait a year before we could play rugby, I remember in our first year with a rugby ball in hand our sports master coaching us on the top field next to the Bryn Cae Owen pond, but in later years he'd stay in the staff room for a smoke, before which he'd throw us a ball, telling us to keep out of the gym and off the football pitch! I never joined in or felt part of anything, which wasn't my initial aim, I wanted to be head boy, reading the service in assembly, not to be, I wasn't in a team, didn't take part in any extra-curricular activities, never met my class mates outside of school, except for Trevethick St., in short, I never moved on; when I joined the local rugby club, my mother told me I was too big for my boots, when a rugby shirt became too tight and I wanted it changed my father called me big headed, and they kept me in short trousers until some of my friends started to go out drinking, refusing to replace them because my mother knew a woman whose son was wearing them, which reminds me of the duck headed life belt, the girl's swimsuit, when I finally did get my long terylene trousers I had to wear them to the beach, to town on a saturday night and to school. At a factory christmas party I got the wrong present because my father had given the organizers a younger age, with good intentions so that I could continue going, but without discussing it with me, no that would be adult and I was only a child, making a fool of me again and again in front of my peers when I could witness my class mates being groomed for adulthood. I started going around town in my early teens with Blair Evans & Byron Jones, we'd go to the cinema, down to the new Caedraw flats to play in the lifts and generally hang around, this is how I met Susan James, I'd bump into Paul Lewis and Gerald Rees, who later worked at Ebbw Vale, I remember being offered a violet sweet by Jane Beynon outside the town hall and once or twice we'd call in Adam's café, but we weren't dressed to join in with the trendsetters. It was somewher around this time that I took to helping Peter Mendez sell his Football Echos on his regular stand outside the Theatre Royal cinema on a saturday night, another time I was wandering around the town centre with the Trevethick St. boys when we encountered a gang from Georgetown, my friends ran off, and I was beaten up, twice, returning home with a black eye. Although I didn't join in with things in school, in Trevethick Street we formed a football team, never joining a league but going around playing friendlies. David Roberts was my best friend for a while in the street, I liked his sister Carole, but they moved to Caerffili/Caerphilly and he left me his stilts, I did go down once or twice to visit them. In Penydarren David Showers moved into Urban St. he was a prize winning athlete and had a little cousin Derek, who was a prolific scorer in his school teams and later played for Cardiff & Cymru/Wales; Dai and I used to run around the tracks in Gwaunfarren and do a bit of shot putting, he came from the bottom of Dowlais and was always returning there to see his old mates and family from Walter St. so his mates became my mates: Noel Davies from County and the O'Brian brothers, one summer I helped them deliver shoes from the cobblers on Pant road, or we'd get off with the girls in Urban St. Richard & Sheila Gray's sister was particularly nice; with neighbours Geoffrey & Vivian we'd make arrangements with the opposite sex up in Pant where we'd go on our pushbikes. Our bikes took us on many journeys, usually limited to Brecon. I became friends with Alan Pembridge and his lovely wife Wendy Miller, going up to their house at least once a week, until the sad moment there was a fatal car crash with Eric Williams driving and his front passenger Marlene Morgan allright, but Alan & Wendy in the back killed outright. Cousin Denise got married to Ronnie Muscles and I was always following them around their houses; one day I was leaving Ronnie Senior and Adeline's house in the Mush, Gellifaelog, and it was cold or wet or both and Ronnie Jr. gave me his leather jacket to wear home and his set of chest expanders to train, that was a proud moment for a 14 year old because Ronnie was the leader of the pack, and I looked up to him for his strength and speed. Shouldn't say this, partly because it's the wrong section, but one day a few years later, we were in Sands and it was circulating that there were strangers from Swansea in the hall, a fight started, Ronnie got hit in the face and fell down, whereupon a great smile came over his face knowing what he was about to enjoy. Friends at the time in school were: Colin Treharne; Stewart McIntyre; Stuart Bartz, the four of us sat in a row at the back of Vincent Lee's English class getting up to things that made girls like Pat Harris & Elaine Bracey look under under the desks towards us; Paul Lewis; Godfrey Lewis, no relation; Geoffrey Matthews; Robert Harris; Richard Powell; Ewan Park and his cousin David Walker, friends from Penydarren, David played violin in the National youth Orchestra of Wales, Ewan moved away to the English south coast but came home every Christmas with his new girlfriends, we'd meet in Tiffany's or/and I'd sign him in to the rugby club, so I was shocked when I heard in Paris a few years ago that he'd passed on. Anthony started to lose his sense of feeling, I don't know what became of him. I took to missing lessons, going out through the toilet windows, through the woods, Huckleberry Finn & Tom Sawyer style, up the river or hitch hiking to Brecon mainly, but also to Abergavenny and even to Hereford Cathedral and always back by 4 o'clock to catch the school bus home, this lasted a couple of years until I once again took up the thread of school life, joining in, albeit on a lower level, making new friends, particularly at this time ; David James; Graham Adler; Anthony (Bonehead) Watkins; strengthened my friendship with David (Dai Fat) Davies, we went back a long way; David (Little Dai) Davies, I think he's winning medals as a Territorial Officer; Philip Adams; Selwyn Regan, Peter (Greg) Griffiths; Peter Lewis, Paul's brother and most of all Maxie Howerd, to the extent that he used to often come to Brittany and stay with us. Anthony began to get numbness in his back and lose his sense of feel, I don't know what became of him; Peter was a throwback because he was one of my original first year friends with Anthony (Antos) Jones, the three little ones of 2D, which was intrinsically 1D but we didn't have 1s, we had; 2; 3 ;lower 4; upper 4; 5 & 6. Philip Adams used to live in the grounds of Guest Keen Sports & Social Club, we used to play each other on the tennis courts, later Philip, Selwyn Regan, Peter Griffiths & myself used to meet up every tuesday evening to play snooker on the club's tables, a beatiful building built as a memorial library to John Guest, M.P. ; iron master, founder of the conglommerate Guest, Keen & Nettlefolds, and who's wife Lady Charlotte Guest translated the Mabinogion into English, we werewatched over by an elderly gentleman who used to keep them up to standard, a Mr Churchill I think. I even took to supervising the younger pupils in games down the gym, but I never made prefect. It was Maxie Howard from school who took me to the Loco to meet the boys; Mike Jones (Meic Merthyr in Caerdydd), Gareth Davies, Kelvin O'Neill, Neil Quinlan, Stuart Pound, Peter the Lamb, & Gary from the pet shop, also Mike's cousin Malcolm and his school mate Wyn Richards, who went on to become a champion bowler and 'ENGLISH!!! international; Wyn was the person who initiated me into the rugby internationals, and I initiated Maxie. Wyn went to college in Portsmouth, one weekend in August I visited him at the flat he shared with his girlfriend Marion, she never liked his friends influence on him, anyway I celebrated my birthday at an all night beach party on Haylings Island, it was magnificent. Back to the boys; we were to meet every friday night in the lounge, there I spent the best days of my late teens. Susan James was the daughter of the house with her group of friends with whom we intermingled  ( I met Susan & her best friend when I and my friends used to go wandering around the town centre in our early teens and they waited for their bus home down the valley, behind the huge market hall now knocked down), listened to Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, played cards till sunrise in Tony's flat on the bottom of Twyn with Cynthia McDonald's sister in law (Tony's sister), her dark haired friend and boys from down the valley, there was a test of strength whereby we had to grab a chair leg at its base then lift it off the floor, sounds easy, but only Bill, the landlord, a brickie friend of Susan, and myself were able to do it. Susan's lot and myself went to the Bath Festival, but I got picked up 'en route' near Newport after being stuck in the wind & rain, everyone was squashed in the back of a Ford Transit; Peter took me to the Lamb between hours and introduced me to his father John the landlord and his sister Cheryl, but it was Maxie who took me there drinking, where I was introduced to the patriotic element; Harri Webb, Ivor Davies, Ronnie the Brigadier, Neil the Colonel and perhaps Cayo, after they heard me arguing with him about Owain Glyndwr. The Imp was where it all came together, and where I spent the best years of my early twenties, met Susan McCarthy, Valmai & Diane Parle, (I don't know whether Diane remembers my running buses to Top Rank or not), it somehow became my base and many is the time that I stayed behind being taught Politics by mine host 'Skip'. There used to be trips down to Top Rank Caerdydd/Cardiff organized by the Spina Bifida charity to which we used to go but as they weren't often I began running my own, to Top Rank, Cardiff, Top Rank Abertawe/Swansea and to Mecca, Bristol. At one time in Cardiff I was dancing with Valmai when the compere asked whether anyone with a hole in a sock to go up on the stage, not being very sophisticated I found a hole, when in fact every boy there had two holes.; another exaple was in a restaurant in Swansea, we ordered steak & chips, the waitress asked how did we want them, Georgie Quirk looked up at her bewildered and replied "on a plate". On a trip to Bristol we called in to a nightclub with strippers and a game of roulette on Whiteladies road, I played and got worried when I started losing because I had the bus money, fortunately for me I came out on top and a good night was had by all at the ballroom, only for me to wander off and get lost; luckily at about 3 o'clock in the morning in the middle of Bristol the coach rolling slowly with everyone on the lookout eventually came across me nonchalantly walking along, picked me up and drove home. There must have been an overlap between the Loco & the Imp, but in my memories they rest distinctive; in between we drank in the Vulcan, nothing to say for it except that it was popular, we were young, the beer was rubbish. Merthyr High Street is about two miles long, and arriving at the age of 17 or 18 there was: The Penydarren End; The Nelson; The Owain Glyndwr; The Morlais; The Imp (Tiger); Ye Olde Express; The Anchor; The Vulcan; The Brunswick; The Belle Vue; Narrow Gauge; Red Cow; The Lamb; The Kings; The Great Western; The Eagle; The Loco; a normal saturday, and that was after some of the pubs on Castle Street had been knocked down. After school I got a summer job at Lines Brothers, Triang Toys with Johnnie Webber & Peter Churchill, then Kelvin O' Neill, one of the boys, got me an interview at Ebbw Vale Steelworks with John Gaydon who employed me at the Central Engineering Offices, meeting up again with schoolfriends Philip Adams; Stewart Mcintyre & Godfrey Lewis, who by this time was Brian, which makes it pretty unfair when years later he brought his college friends into the Anchor and introducing them to me; I asked them if they were all friends of Brian, they laughed, and he never spoke to me again, how was I to know? It was at the works that I met Kevin Viney and Hedley McCarthy, not forgetting Roy Beynon our union rep amongst many others. John Gaydon was secretary of the town rugby Club high in the echelons of the sport in Wales with Arthur Lewis becoming captain of the National team. Many of the players were employed at the works and Denzil Williams a record breaking forward was often to be seen in the office picking up or handing over items relative to the club, mostly, as far as I could see, raffle tickets; one day about twenty years later I found myself standing next to him in the Parc des Princes where I reminded him of it, he wasn't in a good mood because his ticket number hadn't guaranteed him a place. Each passage has it's moments to which I relate differently; I remember Babs Evans, Carole Anne, Lynette Chidgey, Marilyn Morgan, Marion John, Sarah (Sally) Watkins & Susan Westcott from school; Sue James & Cynthia McDonald's sister in law were the Loco;   Susan McCarthy, Valerie & Diane Parle, they were the Imp; the boys transcended most, even going on holidays together to Blackpool, where I took advantage of its nearness to Lancaster to hitch hike with Meic up to No. 10 Green St. to see my aunty Mary, Dot White's mother and Gareth Walters's grandmother; but one by one they dropped out with our lives evolving differently, 'till there were Gareth & Mike who stayed on the political side and Maxie on the non-political. Whilst still in school I met Kelvin's cousin Lynne Davies, nothing came of it, but I took her to a New Year's dance in Sands, walked her home, and every now and then I'd go to see her at her parents home just up the road in the 'Mush', all the time keeping a personal diary, one day my mother surprised and astonished me by recounting my writings to my family, that was it with both parents, we were the children, they could do what they liked so long as we were in their hose, if or when I happento say that something belonged to me they would reply that as far as they were concerned if it was bought by them it was theirs, I wasn't too happy when they gave away my/their Arthur Mee encyclopaedias to my cousin Beth. In 1970 there was a lot of excitement going on in the town, the Labour M.P. S.O. Davies had been thrown out because of his age, well into his 80s, but no known date of birth, he had represented the town since 1934, and was Mayor in 1945, so this did not go down well withe the populace. The 'Party' chose a leading Trades Union leader, Alderman Tal Lloyd, father of my friend Kerry, it was seen as a sad moment and a sure thing for the Alderman. The intrepid SO stood as an independent, won nearly 17,000 votes, Tal Lloyd; 9,234, E. Jones, Con; 3,169, and Chris Rees, Plaid Cymru, 3,076; it was my first vote, and it went to Chris. I was fortunate enough to have been present at the result inside the town hall. Two years later S.O. was dead, leading to a by-election where there was even more excitement with American style cavalcades. Emrys Roberts, on the left wing, republican side of the party, which for years had been at odds with Gwynfor Evans the Party President, had arrived as the Plaid Cymru candidate on the back of close results in the Rhondda and Caerphilly. The Labour Party, shaken by what was going on around them chose an outsider, a very young Edward (Ted) Rowlands), already a junior minister, who had just lost his seat in Cardiff North; both he and his wife Janice were Welsh speakers. For weeks there was a carnival atmosphere, and on the day it was : Ted Rowlands, 15,562; Emrys Roberts, 11,852; with the Conservative, Communist, and Liberal way behind. After everything had calmed down Maxie & myself went off hitch hiking around Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany landing at Oostende. I was in a bar in Amsterdam and happened to be watching the television when the news came on about the terrorist attack on the Munich Olympics, it was Sept. 5 1972. When I returned home I seemed to gradually drift away from my old friends except for Maxie, Meic & Gareth but developed a never ending host of new ones, and became a sort of disciple to a hero of a new generation of Merthyr voters in a newly shaken up and re-organized constituency Plaid Cymru which was to launch the political careers of Dafydd Wigley, Gareth Foster & Bleddyn Hancock, and eventually led to the Party taking control of the Town Hall a few years later. I was brought up Labour; Red Flag, Red Dragon; but the Dragon in the sixties had disappeared from Merthyr it had become an anti Welsh microcosm; we knew where not to tread, until Ted turned up and later Bill Morgan; it was run by the McNamaras, the Mahoneys, the Donovans, the Reddys, and right on the top were our own Albert John (hope I won't lose a friend here) & Tal Lloyd; any mention of Cymru/Wales was anathema to them; I went through three Trades Unions; help your fellow man, solidarity to the working class, so long as it follows Moscow's rule and the workers aren't too Welsh, nowhere and at no time in either local politics or local Trades Unionism was Wales ever mentioned, except by the ousted MP many years previously causing him 3 times to be ostracised by his party, he was the last of a long line of Independents including R.C. Wallhead going back to Keir Hardie to whom Cymru/Wales meant something, before he eventually lost the plot and was finally asked to stand down. When I was still twenty one years old in 1973, I stood for Mid-Glamorgan County Council against Terry Mahoney, the future Chair(man) of the Authority, on my leaflets was written 'Bernard Walters,  B.S.C.' referring to my work place 'British Steel Corporation'  it wasn't meant to mislead people into thinking that I was a Batchelor of Science, but anyway I came second out of three with a respectable 800 votes, the third candidate being Gerard Kiley the journalist; around this time I met Peter Davies. The patriotic element mentioned above had become a constant in  my life and in relation to which, I had met or was to meet within the year: Richard Hicks; Marc Phillips (at school), Geoff Thomas (school); Brian Thomas; David Williams; Terry Rees;  Cherry lewis; Gareth Westacott; Emrys & Margaret Roberts; Dafydd Wigley; Gareth & Linda Foster; Malcolm Llewelyn; Hywel Davies; Glyn Owen; Bleddyn Hancock;Wynford Griffiths; Gwyn & Anne Griffiths; Trevor & Lilian Jenkins (Flooks); Lindsay Whittle; Syd Morgan; Alun Roberts; Dafydd Williams; Vaughan Roderick & Peter Meazey.