Outdoor Pursuits

Years ago an elderly Betws gentleman, sadly no longer here, was well-known for his wealth of stories about what he used to get up to as a boy. He used to tell tales of rabbit hunting down on the old Port Talbot railway line, where he would snare them on both sides of the old…

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Rag, Tag and Bone Tales

This particular story does not relate to the Garw valley, but to an earlier childhood memory of mine. I must have been 7 or 8 years old and because of the housing shortage, my mother and I  were living in my paternal Grandfathers house in 225 City Rd. Cardiff. I remember it being and sort…

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Lockdown Walks- a poem

Rona Cracknell, Summer 2020 My solitary walks are in the local cemetery. I read as I start walking – there’s a plaque beneath each tree: “Aged 21”, “Killed on the Somme” or he was “Lost at sea” Beyond this avenue of trees commemorating strife Are further texts remembering a loving family life: “Sacred to the memory of a beloved wife” The graveyard’s on a hillside, the…

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