Re: Prestatyn, New Quay and Blantyre -- Scottish Ex-Pat's Blether Bar & Grill

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Date Posted: 20:09:43 03/03/11 Thu
Author: Gilly
Subject: Re: Prestatyn, New Quay and Blantyre
In reply to: BB 's message, "Re: Prestatyn, New Quay and Blantyre" on 01:00:52 03/03/11 Thu

I don't think my grandparents ever met. Gramps died when I was only 3 and Gran when I was 6. Dad came home on leave in April 45, married Mam in Newport as that was where Mam and I were, I would have been almost 2 months old, and then Mam virtually went straight up to Scotland, certainly without Dad as she said that she travelled in a train with a lot of troops in it, who must have been home on leave, and they apologised for leaving her to stand (or rather sit on her suitcase) but I was apparently cuddled for most of the journey by one squaddie or another and slept well. Dad finally came home in 46 because he covered the Nuremberg trials in November 45 and then went to Israel in 46 but came out of the army after he was sent home wounded, right the way through the whole of the war as he joined up in 32, to be stabbed by a Jew in Israel in 46, which he was quite indignant about as he was one of the first British squaddies to go ino one of the concentration camps and had to send back details to the athorities on his morse set. The rest of the family met quite often and all got on quite well, and if they didn't understand anything would ask for it to be repeated. Do you know Newport at all BB? I lived within sight of the Transporter Bridge, could see it from the bedroom window. Railway on the other side of the road, thn scrub land and then the river, all stinking oozing mud. Gramps used to work down the docks (obviously as he was a docker) which was only a 10 minute walk from the house but had retired due to ill health when I was little, not much use for a docker with only one arm, but he would walk down there most days for a chinwag with his mates, and when we were there Mam would walk me down to meet him, expect that I screamed blue murder one time when I saw a man unscrewing his head and taking it off. Still very vivid in my mind, one of the divers had been in one of the docks sorting out something to do with the gates, and when he came up wearing his diving suit he was helped off with his helmet, but I wasn't even 3 years old and very impressionable. Doesn't look anything like now though. The docks have been changed into a very upmarket marina, and our part of the street has long since been knocked down to make a decent road, so no more long rows of houses with scrubbed front steps where the women would sit whilst the bairns would play in the street. I had an uncle who lived not far from there and their street actually had a very small railway line in it, complete with the stops for the end of the line as parts of trains from the docks that weren't needed for a while would be shunted into that street and then taken out again when needed so I would imagine that the bairns used to play on them as there were no railings around the line, just the buffers and a bit of a wall behind the buffers to stop the train going any further. All that has long since gone as well.

G

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Replies:

Re: Prestatyn, New Quay and Blantyre -- Dave in Kg., 19:26:53 03/06/11 Sun

Re: Prestatyn, New Quay and Blantyre -- Gilly, 20:49:18 03/06/11 Sun