(Part 4 Continued)
I started to reminisce; I always sat in the back pew. I thought about the times going to chapel and making our way back to Tancwarel. The war was a terrible thing but to me it didn’t exist, I loved being evacuated. Coming out the chapel I locked the door behind us and then had a look around the cemetery. It was a small cemetery and it didn’t take long to find the grave where the three Morgan’s where buried, Moses, Elizabeth and John (Aunty’s brother). They all had died in their eighties. I was told that when Aunty died that all contents of the farm were auctioned to pay for the funeral plus the headstone.
We made our way back to the house to return the key; the home help was still there. She asked us what we where doing for the rest of the day. I told her that we would be going back to Aberystwyth. I asked her “What was the transport like for going back”. “Don’t worry, you have plenty of time. Come home with me and have a tea and a sandwich,” she said. We did. It was a ten minutes walk. On the way there she told us her name was “Jano” and that she was the caretaker of the chapel and came to Bronant a few years back. She and her husband John had a farm outside the village and that John suffered with arthritis and he couldn’t do any manual work so they gave up the farm and moved into a council house that had just been built and she told me that Aunty had spoken about Ron and me many a time. At the house she made us sandwiches and a pot of tea and while we where there, in walked David Jones. We talked about old times. He told me that his younger brother had become a doctor and had gone to live in the States and that his sister now works and lives in London, no mention of any other member of the family. I think I was the only evacuee who turned up in Bronant. Most of the crowd at the University must have been evacuated in and around Aberystwyth.
The time was getting on. I said to my wife that we’d better make a move. David asked us “where are you going”? I told him “Back to our hotel room”. Like Jano he said the same, “Don’t worry, I will take you back”. I told him that it was a thirty mile round journey. It made no difference, he insisted.
Jano phoned Sian and John Davis (sister and brother) who lived at Tancraig, not far from Tancwarel and told them that I was at their house. Sian was the girl who cleaned Tancwarel whenever visitors came. Jano told them we were going to the Bont, the one and only pub in the village and to get there around nine o’clock because she had to wait till John came home who was visiting some friends. We spent most of the day in Jano’s. When John did turn up, Jano told him who we were. We all then headed to the Bont. Sian and John were already there. David drank orange juice and told us that he never touched any kind of alcohol.
I never put my hand in my pocket all night.
We made arrangements for the next day. Jano and John told us that they would be taking us for a meal. I said “ok but we have to see Tancwarel before we went back to Liverpool, then we left with David, our chauffer.
The next day we caught the same bus but got off the stop after Bronant. It was a Hamlet called “Paddington”, it stopped outside the school, the school I was removed from and ended up in Lledrod. We walked along the lane, the one that very first night in nineteen forty that Ron and I walked with Aunty. We passed the farm where the two brothers Moses and John lived. It was now a holiday home. We turned up the lane running along side the farmhouse until we came to Ffonfelen, home of Marie Evans. She knew me straight away, “Ello Richie Bach” (Bach means little). She told me that the tree was still there, the one I hammered a nail into when I was at Tancwarel with Ronnie Bach. She said that she “missed Liza” (Aunty) and our visits and that nobody ever calls now, only David and he comes by car because it is too far for him to walk now. She made a pot of tea and some cheese sandwiches. We stayed for about an hour talking of this and that, mostly about the hay season when it was a get together with all the neighbours. We told Marie that we had to go and that we where meeting Jano later on. After hugging and kissing her we left. I left with a lump in my throat.
We made our way to Tancwarel, nobody was at home.
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I took Ivy (The Wife) to show her where we used to let the sheep graze, it meant climbing a bit of a hill and when we reached the top, you could see for miles. We sat on the grass for a while then carried on. We past over the quarry and came out further down the lane that led into the quarry. The water hole was still there. The water hole we had to go to when the well dried up. It was still overgrown with alga. The quarry was a shock, what was once a wonderful playground for Ron and I and sometimes the Morton’s, once a place full of wildlife, once a hunting ground for the two dogs Mott and Judy was now a dumping ground. It was full of old wagons and cars and all kinds of rubbish. I never thought that I would ever see anything like this in Bronant. Liverpool and other cities yes but not Bronant.
We walked further along the lane until we reached David Jones’s farm. He was home and invited us in and showed us what changes he had made to the farm. The grandfather clock still stood in the corner, I remember seeing it there when I was a child. He told me that the clock was three hundred years old. We didn’t stay long, he knew we had a date with Jano and said that he would see us in the Bont that night. We made our way back the way we came and called at Tancwarel. I knocked on the door and a gentleman opened it. He said his name was Trevor Jones and invited us in. It was a different house than the one Ron and I knew. Hot and cold water, electricity, toilet, bathroom, modern fireplace. It might have looked nice but it wasn’t cosy and warm looking and homely. The only thing that was original was the Pig Iron Gate that led to the hayfield. We told him that we had an appointment with Jano and John and that they where taking us for a meal. So we said our goodbyes and made our way back to Jano’s house.
As we got to Jano’s they were waiting for us in the car. I had no idea where we were going. I sat in the front with John, the two girls in the back. John pointed things out, like who had lived on such a farm and the one he and Jano once had.
We finish up outside a restaurant. Y COB CYMREIG – The Welsh Cob in a place called Llanrhystud. I told John that I would pay for the meals. He said “Alright”. At the end of the meal I went to pay the bill. The chap on the till said, “It’s already been paid”. I told John that he shouldn’t have done that; I wasn’t upset I was annoyed. He had to pay for petrol and wear and tear of the car. Back at their house, the same crowd as last night turned up and we made our way to the Bont. I asked them what they were drinking; I gave the order to one of the staff “don’t take any money from anyone only me and I will square the bill up at the end of the night. At the end of the night after having a good time I squared the bill up and then we all went back to Jano’s for supper. I took a couple of photos and told them that we had to leave and get back to our hotel in case the door gets locked. We hugged the ones who should be hugged and kissed the ones that do get kissed.
David kindly took us to our hotel and wouldn’t take a penny for petrol.
We had two days left and they where spent in Aberystwyth. We have all kept in touch by phone, Christmas cards and to wish them BLYDDYN NEWYDD DA (A Happy New Year).
One by one they have dwindled down. Jano’s husband John died, then Marie and Sians brother John. Last Christmas day 2006 I tried to phone Jano but got no answer. The same thing happened when I rang Sian and David. A couple of days later Jano rang. She told me that Sian had taken bad the day before Christmas Eve and that she passed away Christmas day. That leaves just David, the only one out of all the people Ron and I knew from the forties. I only got to know Jano from the evacuees reunion in nineteen eighty nine. I told Jano that we would try and get to Bronant again in the near future.
That’s my childhood memories, My Holidays and of the great life I had in Bronant.
THE END
R. H. S
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