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Marilyn Agardi
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- Tucson, Arizona
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Americymru Quiz Group
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50 members
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Welsh Recipes
51 members
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Grand Slam 2010 Group
27 members
Marilyn Agardi's Discussions
The Male Mid Life Crisis explained in simple terms.
Replied Nov. 18, 2008
CAN ANYONE SPEAK WENGLISH?
Replied Aug. 2, 2008
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- Relationship Status:
- Married
- About Me:
- I grew up in Brithdir in the Rhymney Valley. Left home to work in London and after a few years moved to Oxford. To cut a long story short, I married a GI but divorced after many years and moved to Okahoma City. After being a single mother of three daughters and living and working in Oklahoma City for 16 years, I recently got married again and moved to Tucson, AZ.
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Blog Posts
Christmas Musical Bonus - Hear 'Nos Galan' ( Deck the Halls ) Played on the Crwth
Posted by Ceri Shaw on December 25, 2009 at 6:30pm — 1 Comment
Any Welsh Copper Smelter Workers in Your Family Tree?
Posted by mona everett on November 29, 2009 at 9:30am — 1 Comment
An Interview With Rhys Hughes - Part 1
Posted by Ceri Shaw on January 31, 2009 at 10:30am
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Comment Wall (18 comments)
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Sorry to hear you broke your wrist but at least it will give you time to ponder and put your thoughts down on the good old days.
Today’s children certainly do not have the healthy fun we had in our days. I’m glad I lived through the fifties and sixties; I would be bored to tears if I was growing up today. We manufactured our go-carts from bits of wood and old pram wheels with rope guides and no brakes; making our sledges and polishing the runners to make them go faster. How we didn’t kill ourselves is a miracle. I was talking to a friends son just yesterday how we would make a kite from two pieces of stick, brown paper and newspaper bows for the tail and play for hours up the mountain watching it climb up into the sky. This was after he bought a shop-one for his little girl and not being able to keep it up in the air and giving up because it kept crashing to ground.
Life was so much easier in the old days, the mountain, welfare and river banks were our playing fields, camping out all summer long, building fires to cook our flour bread. Parents only saw us when it was too dark to play anymore or when we ran out of food. Mind we didn’t have the perverts that are around today. I’m afraid the do-gooders and politically correct mob have robbed today’s children of their childhood, it’s a pity they wouldn’t turn their attention to the drug pushers and the anti-social behaviour of today’s youngsters who have no respect for law and order, the elderly or their parents.
Thank goodness for the memories!!!!! Swinging from a tree as if we were Tarzan the apeman. Yes, I can recall messing about in the barn of the ‘haunted house’ at the top of the mountain until Jack Price chased us away. I also remember getting our own back on him when he came around with the milk cart. He would always stop on Brewer’s corner, get off and walk around knocking on doors, neighbours would come out with their jugs for Jack to ladle the milk out of big milk churns before moving off to his next stopping place and this he would do throughout the village. Well we boys would lie in wait and when he was far enough away knocking on doors, we would step on the back of the cart, old Dobbin thinking it was Jack would trot off to his next stopping place. Many a time old Jack would be running after him calling us all sorts of names.
Yes I do remember old Roffi selling cigarettes, I can see him now breaking open a new packet to sell one or two or how ever many you asked for. Wouldn’t happen today; everyone is so concerned about making mega profits.
Do you remember Mrs Britton [top house in Wellington Terrace] making and selling toffee apples? Perhaps a little before your time. Bonfire night was always a shared experience, my friends and I would be collecting bundles of dried ferns for weeks, storing them in garden sheds with any other old rubbish we could find. Then near the time building a community bonfire usually in the lane between Salisbury and Tennyson Terraces. They wasn’t bad old days, we were all poor but we never knew it, everyone shared and everyone helped each other. The characters are not about today either such as Ruth Garner, Maggie Place, Terry Wheeler and Bill Hyatt. Life is so serious today.
Now I know what sort of age group you are associated with. I recognise most of the names but the one that jumped out at me is Gary Woods; he died recently. I remember Gary as a small boy when I was about 14; mainly because my girl friend at the time was Sandra James, sister to Olwen the mother of Gary and Gail. I know the Winstone girls, again I was friendly with their elder sister Jan and of course I know the parents. Likewise, I knew Gary Way’s parents Beryl & ‘Tot’ Way, but I’m afraid I don’t know anything about Anthony, the choirboy of television fame; can you enlighten me!!! Marilyn Cartwright is the girl stabbed to death, by her boyfriend, Raymond Oliver, both were my age group so remember the incident well. Yes, Malvyn and Colin Brewer are my cousins.
The premises that was Roffi’s shop is still there operating as a general store but Leno Roffi and the family went back to Italy years ago. Just thinking of old Roffi’s does conjure up happy memories. The jars of sweets, row upon row, making it difficult to choose which ones to have and the ice-cream; Bargoed may have had the best rissoles but it was Roffi’s for the best ice-cream. As teenagers, my friends and I would call in most evenings, a cup of hot oxo while listening to the hits on the jukebox. The institute was going well in my days too with regular dances in the hall.
As soon as I read 'the BEST rissoles! I know exactly where you mean and you are right they certainly were the best. Can't remember the name though, but I don't think you are far off. Those were the days, a good film plus a 'B' movie and the 'Path News' not forgetting the trailers; boy we had our monies worth then. Spoilt for choice between the three cinemas and then a bag of rissoles to eat on the way home. Many a time we would walk home via the 'trip' with the hot rissoles keeping the cold out.
Miss Williams was the head teacher when I started at the Infants in about 1949, Tommy Davies was my class teacher at the Boys department.
From there to Bargoed Boys School, left school in 1959, began a five-year apprenticeship with the NCB in 1960.
I remember the 'youth club' with Emlyn Foward, Anitia Goode and Dorothy Jones in the days of 'skiffle' 'rock & roll' and 'teddy boys'
The mention of Skiffle takes me back a bit; Keith Bennett on tea-chest, Billy Bennett on washboard, myself on guitar and Malcolm Windmill with his long girating legs out front belting out 'Pick a Bail a Cotton' and 'Jailhouse Rock' happy times!
I've just realised I am writing this as if you would know those named, do you? Who were your friends?
What a coincidence both of us named Smith, likewise I don’t recall anyone else with the same name whilst I was there. I was born in 1944; my parents were both based at Shoeburyness Army Barracks during WW2; my father was in the Royal Artillery and my mother in the ATS. Sadly a few years into the marriage my parents parted and my mother returned to the family home in Brithdir when I was two years old. The family home was at 1 Wellington Terrace; we lived with my grandmother, Mrs Margaret Brewer; and I was raised surrounded by my mother’s brothers and sisters. Then when I was eight my mother re-married and we moved to Charles Street. If you left Brithdir in 1969, we must have been there at the same time!!!
I left Brithdir in 1966; on marrying my wife Jen and moved down the valley to Caerphilly where I have lived since but I still regard myself as a Brithdir boy. Being raised in the close knit community of Brithdir during the 1950s has helped to form my character and I am proud to say my roots are firmly planted there. Although most of my friends were of similar age to me [now 64] I knew many of all ages who lived in the village from the ‘Buckets’ to ‘Ivy Row’. Many of my friends still live there, others have moved to neighbouring villages.
If you haven’t been back since leaving in 69 then you would not recognise much of the old place. Brithdir the village is virtually the same although there have been a few additions and some changes over the years. The biggest change within the village has been the loss of the three schools. The Girls school has been demolished and replaced with a new brick building built in its place which now operates as an old people’s home. The Boys school demolished, and a small community garden put in its place. The Infants School is now a private house. The structures outer appearance is still much the same but not so the inside which has been sympathetically changed by the owners and is now a very beautiful home.
The greatest change around the village is the disappearance of all traces of the coal industry. The only think left of Elliott’s colliery is the winding house which has now been turned into a industrial museum. The large ‘tip’ that used to threaten the village from the mountain ridge above has been flattened and for the most part, out of site, although in truth it has simple been spread out over the surrounding farm land and looks a bit like a lunar landscape.
The stone buildings of the ‘Station’ gone and replaced by a single bus-stop like structure. Trains still operate but not the service it use to be. The small chapels no longer exist, all gone. The church that used to be the tin building on the tump behind Ivy Row is now situated in the row of buildings at the bottom of Charles Street where the old co-op and Jones Henry’s used to be; the old church being destroyed by fire in the 70s.
Well that’s it for now,
Roy
A Brithdir boy through and through says hello and willing to share memories of the Rhymney Valley.
Regards
Roy
I've started a blog on my page with some details as they appeared in the British Press
In my husband's family it is the month of May that is bad.
I wonder if the fertility and gestational periods begin matching up in families to cause the same birth patterns (i.e. getting pregnant and having births around the same time). LOL!
It's good to hear from someone who hails from the valleys of my youth. Congrats. too on the newcomer. Reading the various comments,I see Bargoed mentioned and have vivid memories of the great Anuerin Thomas band who used to play at "The Cafe" dancehall, particularly the drummer Ray Thomas, and of course Pontypridd where a colleague and I found and managed our first major star singer. As far as job choice, we have real estate assets but are unable to liquidate them, so I'll give serious consideration to most jobs.
we're both scorpios!
:-)
deb
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