Luther Stephens was born in 1888 in Llanelli. His father was a Brewery Dray man.<\/p>\n
Luther became a student teacher and got a job as an assistant teacher at Blaengarw Boys School and took lodgings\u00a0 at Victoria St, Pontycymer.<\/p>\n
At the outbreak of WW1 he was the regular Garw Correspondent for the \u2018Glamorgan Gazette\u2019. Under the pen name Lloffwr Arall, he had his own column called \u2018Garw Gleanings\u2019 which gave out news and humorous local gossip. These items provoked many a comment up and down the valley as everyone tried to guess, if they didn\u2019t know already, who the miscreants were! During the 1914-18 war he also recorded the losses of the men from the Garw.<\/p>\n
Here are some of the more light-hearted \u2018Gleanings\u2019; perhaps they relate to a member of your family?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/b>Terror at the Cinema?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n A realistic moving picture of lions that was shown at the Hippodrome the other evening gave one young lady in the audience such a terrible fright that she clasped the young man next to her in a tight embrace.<\/p>\n The Germans Have Arrived!<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n A young man had such a fright at three o\u2019clock in the morning that he was heard to shout loudly, \u201cThe Germans have arrived.\u201d What happened was that the legs of his bedstead had given way and he was left in the middle of the room with the bed having turned turtle.<\/p>\n Our Brave Police Sentry.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n It is freely stated that that one of the police men on sentry duty near a powder house in a local colliery had an exciting experience the other evening. He heard a noise and after challenging three times, \u201cWho goes there?\u201d with no reply, but still hearing the movement, the police sentry fired his gun. On examination he found his dead alien was a SHEEP.<\/p>\n Blaengarw Whistling Competition.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n The winner of the whistling competition in Blaengarw was awarded a packet of birdseed.<\/p>\n Increased Ticket Sales.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n There has been considerable increase\u00a0 in the sale of 1d. platform tickets in Pontycymer. Most of them being bought by young men. Is this due to the new young lady selling the tickets?<\/p>\n Husband Wanted.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n Who is the lady who emigrated to the Garw Valley tin search of a husband? If it is true she comes from a neighbourhood where there are a number of eligible bachelors.\u00a0 She must be hard to satisfy!<\/p>\n A Disappointing Ending.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0We sympathise with the local shop assistant who wore his new overcoat and hat to visit a local performance in order to sit near a certain young lady and was absolutely refused permission to escort her home.<\/p>\n Prohibition For The Garw<\/span>.<\/b><\/p>\n A local gent said he was in favour of total prohibition.Of course he was fully justified in having the courage of his conviction but why was he carrying a a bottle of beer under his coat?<\/p>\n The Longest Day.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n A young scholar of the Garw upon being told by\u00a0 her father on Monday\u00a0 was the longest day of the year replied, \u201cI thought we were a long time in school today\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Luther Stephens was born in 1888 in Llanelli. His father was a Brewery Dray man. Luther became a student teacher and got a job as an assistant teacher at Blaengarw Boys School and took lodgings\u00a0 at Victoria St, Pontycymer. At the outbreak of WW1 he was the regular Garw Correspondent for the \u2018Glamorgan Gazette\u2019. Under…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[113,138,137],"class_list":["post-2200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-stories","tag-garw","tag-gleanings","tag-newspaper"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garwheritage.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garwheritage.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garwheritage.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garwheritage.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garwheritage.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.garwheritage.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2201,"href":"https:\/\/www.garwheritage.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2200\/revisions\/2201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garwheritage.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garwheritage.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garwheritage.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}