{DOCUMENTING OUR PAST}
Here you will be able to read throught the local stories that have been submitted by the public or society members.
While returning his sweetheart home, a miner in the Garw Valley, Glamorgan, was suddenly seized with a fit of madness, and pulling out a revolver fired twice at his fiance and then turned the weapon on himself with fatal consequences. The deceased was Leonard Penton Beavis, 31. of Pandy. Bettws, and for nearly seven years…
By Roy Davies There was a quietness that sat in the streets of the valley in those days. We would squat on the kerb of the main street in the hot Summer days poking pieces of stick into the hot melting tar between the chippings and making patterns in the soft, rubbery surface with our…
‘Capten’s the cob with the white star on his forehead’, said Morgan. ‘He’s Bryn’s horse.’ Morgan’s older brother, Bryn, was a haulier in the pit. It was his job to lead the horse, hitch him up to a dram full of coal or timber, and bring him back and forth all day.
by Ron Davies
The big difference between now and then – the war years and just after – is that Christmas never lasted so long as it seems to these days.
Bonfire night took much longer and had much more going for it: the excitement of collecting and storage, the fear that rivals might steal your best stuff, the incredible tension of lying on top of mounds of combustible rubbish listening for sounds of approaching marauders while the valley winds whistled through the many cracks of wall and roof.
The Garw Valley Heritage Society are proud to present a story by Roy Davies, remembering his early days in the Garw. In the weeks leading up to Bonfire Night, we are printing one part per week. The following is an account of the author’s boyhood in the Garw Valley when gangs of boys collected anything…