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Date Posted: 19:28:43 03/02/11 Wed
Author: Gilly
Subject: Re: Prestatyn, New Quay and Blantyre
In reply to: BB 's message, "Prestatyn, New Quay and Blantyre" on 00:53:38 03/02/11 Wed

Grandad lived in a crescent of bungalows on the shorter curve of the crescent. There were bungalows on the other side of the road and behind them was a railway line, but when I google mapped it the railway line has long since gone. There was a bing that the Wee Yin and I used to play on and get shouted at for getting so clartie, although I'm sure that wasn't the word used but is one I have used to my children and is probably broad Yorkshirein use. At the bottom of the bing was a tenement block in which there was a bakers, and we used to get sent down to buy baps. If there any silver sixpences in the change we were allowed to keep them, so we always asked for a silver sixpence in the change. If we turned right out of Springfield Crescnt and went under the railway bridge towards the park there was another row of tenenment buildings, albeit not as hig, where my aunt and her husband lived with the twins they adopted. She died soon after though and the bairns had to go back as Jim wan't allowed to keep them on his own. They slept in an alcove in the kitchen which had a curtain over it, in fact is was a combined living room/kitchen with a tiny bathroom, and I must admit I was horrified as by the time they moved into that we had moved into a 4 bedroom detached house in Englefield Green. We would walk down into Low Blantyre down Stonefield Road sometimes, past the church that the family went to, typical John Knox sort of blood and thunder church, I hated it the minister frighened the wits out of me. Again if we turned right once we got down the end of the road, e could walk down to where David Livingstone was born, lovely parkland with the buildings set into it, and you could walk into the room where he was born. Dad was born in a tenement building on the ther side of that road, within view of David Livingstone's place. I really don't know where everyone slept when we went to Blantyre as it was only a 2 bed bungalow, Nanny & Grandad were still alive, 2 of Dad's sisters (grown up I hasten to add) still lived there, or at least there would be 2 if Betty came home but most of the time she nursed at Hairmyres Hospital (not too sure of the spelling there) and then there would be me and Mam & Dad as well, and sometimes John would be there as well. Certainly not a lot of room. When I was very small (Mam & I went to live there when I was only a couple of months old), Dad was still in the army as the war was still on, but there was Mam, me, Cathy (John's mother), John, Mamie & Jean, so that wss 3 of Dad's sisters, and his parents as well. We bairns were obviously still in cots or something, but I really don't know how everyone fitted in, but then Mam came from what was baically a 2 up 2 down in Newport and was the eldest of 9 with 3 half siblings older than her, mind there was also a loft with a proper staircase so maybe they had beds in the loft as well. There was the kitchen/living room and the front parlour that was only used for very special occasions, an outside toilet that you had to go down into the cellar and then upt the outside stairs to get to, with a big tin bath in the cellar and old fashioned copper for boiling water. At least the bungalow had a proper indoor bathroom, and a huge garden where Grandad kept chickens and rabbits and grew all their veg. Because he was a miner he wasn't in WW2 but he was in WW1. Welsh Gramps was a docker.

The bing has long since been flattened and there are benches on it now, and where the tenements were and we used to go to the bakers there is what looks to be a small shopping parade. There was a small shop in Stonefield Road that we would go to, but any serious shopping you had to get the bus into Hamilton. John's mother worked on the buses as a clippie so he travelled free and had a special pass, and usually if I was with him I would go free as well, as he would introduce me to the clippie as his wee cousin from England. Gran died when I was about 13 and Grandad died when I was in my 30s, somewhere in the late 70s. We last went there in 73 so he could see his great grandchildren. Rachel went out and sat in the coal hole and then came in and immediatel climbed up onto the white leather sofa in her very sandals with big buckles. When Jean and I went to grab her we were told very fiercely to let the bairn alone so she happily climbed up in all her muck. She was only about 18 months old, and a total little madam.

G

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