PART 3
Moses Davies called one night. He told Aunty that John (his brother) was sick. I don’t know if I was asked to go but I joined them and we made our way to the farm. John was stretched out on the couch. He had the hiccups. Moses said that he’d been doing that all day. (I was beginning to understand the Welsh language better everyday). Aunty said something to John. He didn’t respond, he just lay there. It was very quiet and all that could be heard was the Crickets clicking away in the fireplace and John hiccupping. John passed away in the early hours that morning. Aunty couldn’t do anything as she had to get back to milk the cows, feed the hens and other things. Uncle wouldn’t do anything to help out. Ron and I would clean the cowshed, the pigsty and the hen shed. Aunty had another weekly job and that was making the dough for the bread that would last all week. She would mix the flour, water, salt and yeast, knead it in a big earthenware bowl and cover it with a pillowslip. Then she would leave it in front of the fire overnight. Next morning after it had risen it was placed in the pillowslip and slung over her shoulder then taken to the village bakery and picked up the next day, four loaves over a foot long. I don’t suppose she had that many to make before Ron and I came on the scene.
In the summer evenings the three of us, and the two dogs Mott and Judy would go visiting some farm. One farm in particular we called at (Tancraig) had four children. One was my age and one was about Ron’s age and the other two where a little older. Ron and I sometimes use to go on our own and play with them. David, he was my age and he always had a bandage on his head and the reason why was he had Ringworm. Like Ron and I, he never went to school.
Another farm we would walk to wasn’t very far from Moses and John’s farm – Fronfelen. Marie Evans lived there alone. She and Aunty would sit outside having a cup of tea while Ron and I (and the two dogs) carried on walking hoping to catch a rabbit or two.
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One night a stranger called at Tancwrel and said something to Aunty. She lit a hurricane lamp and went outside. Moses, Ron and myself followed them to the hay shed. The stranger threw a rope over a girder then made his way to the pigsty. Next thing we heard was “Porky” screaming like hell. The stranger tied the back legs from the rope hanging down from a girder and hauled him up. Porky was hanging upside down still squealing. From his belt the stranger took a knife out and slit Porky from its breast to its throat. Ron and I cried our eyes out. This was the pig we knew as a piglet and gave us rides on his back. We watched the man cut Porky in half. He carried half to his wagon and then left. Aunty poured kettles of boiling water over the other half then shaved it. When this was done it was rubbed with salt and left hanging there until the next day, then brought in and hung on a bar from the living room ceiling. That was our bacon (and the Bluebottles) for a year.
Every time we had bacon Aunty had to stand on a chair and cut some off. Each year she would buy a hen turkey that had already been with a cock turkey and she would lay fertile eggs. The trouble was when she was like this the job was finding the eggs. She laid them everywhere, the field, cowshed, barn, pigsty etc. We kept the eggs until the time came when she wanted to sit on them. Aunty would put some false glazed eggs on the floor in the hen shed and she would sit on these until Aunty put the genuine ones under. When they hatched (about a dozen) there was a problem. Some chicks would die, others became sick. Aunty would put capsules (like Cod Liver Oil capsules) down their throat. Did that cure them? I don’t know but for a number of years after the war Aunty sent a turkey to Gloucester Place for Christmas. There where no fridges in those days and it was still fresh when it arrived.
One time Mam arrived on her own. The reason: She came to take us back home. I told her that I didn’t want to go home. Ron, Aunty and I where crying. In the end she let me stay and said that she would be back for me. I was still crying when Ron left. I don’t know how long I was after Ron, about six months I think but I missed him. The Morton’s had well gone before Ron so I was the last one of the evacuees. Mam came again months later, It was just like the last time, the crying and not wanting to go. Aunty gave me a pen and pencil set plus the New Testament that she gave me when we first arrived at Tancwarel. I’ve no idea what happened to these gifts, like some other things they got lost. Ron and I where much closer to Aunty than to Moses because she looked after us and if she went anywhere we would be right behind her. If one of us got hurt she would give us a hug and say, “come here my love” in Welsh. Our own mother would never have said that, it would be more like “Don’t be a cry baby”. Ron and I spent three years with Aunty and Moses, we saw them all day and most of the evening. Mam and dad about six hours a day bar the weekends, Saturday after midday, Sunday all day. No wonder we where closer to Aunty and Uncle. The reason Mam wanted me home was that I was coming to the age of leaving school, fourteen and ready for work. I cannot remember leaving Tancwarel, I was too upset thinking of never seeing Aunty, Moses and Mott and Judy and everything that I loved on the farm. I was being taken somewhere where I never wanted to go. Tancwarel was my home.
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