A wartime Childhood, Mumbles, 1940-1947
by Larry Owen
After fifty years memories start to fade and mine are now a kaleidoscope of fragmented recollections, based mainly on the limited area encompassing Rotherslade/Langland bays, Underhill Park, the Castle fields and Oystermouth School.
My earliest memories are of the Infants' Section and the teachers, Miss Oriel and Miss Brightman. Like many of my contemporaries I still remember the famous rocking horse, to which all the new five-year-old pupils were introduced in Miss Oreal's room;
Larry Owen, 8 years
But my first real experience of school discipline was in 'Dappy' Rowland's class, where minor misdemeanours were punished by a quick rap on the knuckles of both hands with a ruler. Even now I feel it was a perfectly effective, harmless way of maintaining discipline. I have been reminded by female classmates of that time, that 'Dappy' only rapped the boys! My schooldays were relatively happy, and I never experienced, or heard of, bullying although it was wise at the time not to upset the "hard men" such as Georgie Way, Mike Drury, David Griffiths (Gruff), Joe Rogers, Mike Blewitt and Aubrey Bowen (Bott-Bott). Many of us still remember the Boardman, a paid council official who visited the homes of truants.
A number of memories centre around 'Dolly' Robinson's scholarship class of 1946/47. Some of my fellow pupils were John Pickard, John Prickett, Les Harris, Bruce Plummer, Roy Ackerman, Mike Timothy, Garnett Davies, Neville Lewis, Peter Sutherland, Wendy Williams, June Culverhouse, Elizabeth Barter, Jill Noel, Josephine Richards, Barbara Wilkie, Pat Palmer and Margaret Reynolds. Some of the other teachers at the time were Miss Lang, Miss Jones, Mr Gibbs, Mr Williams, Mr Bradshaw, Mr Richards. They were all good teachers and, compared with today, were not predominantly female. Also, most of the female teachers seemed to be spinsters!
Oystermouth Infants School
'Dolly' Robinson was in friendly competition with Miss Cox in the fields of music and recitation and I can remember playing King Oberon, with Wendy Williams as Titania and Les Harris as Bottom in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' at the Baptist Church Hall. I also represented Dolly's class against Gilbert Dauncey (Miss Cox's representative) in a recitation contest – ‘Drake's Drum’. However, neither Gilbert nor I can remember who won!
Two student teachers arrived in class one day—Bert Harris and John Kettle. Whereas Bert was able to maintain discipline, sometimes at the expense of his brother, Les, who was in the class, John Kettle, who had a volatile temperament, always responded adversely to taunts of "don't blow your top, Kettle".
I also recall that our school dinners were eaten during the war in a pre-fab building located at the far end of the playground, adjacent to the lane leading to the lime kiln. This building no longer exists. Even now I can remember my tongue getting tired trying to cut the gristle between two pieces of scarcely edible meat!
In 1946, when I was ten, I gave my father a tip for the Derby, a rank outsider named Airborne. The grey subsequently romped home and as a reward my father bought me a complete cricket set, which a close friend, Gilbert Dauncey and I made good use of. In later years I played for the school and Gilbert played first class cricket for Glamorgan. In 1947, the under 13's school cricket team was captained by Billy Rideout and organised by Mr Bradshaw. My fellow players were Les Harris, John Prickett, Gerald Jefferies, Johnny Davies, Joe Rogers, John Wright and Geoff Phillips.
Pressdee Grocer & Bakery, Queens Rooad, with son Ben
The school's sporting heroes were the two Jim's—Pressdee and Barry. Both played for the Welsh schoolboys in cricket & football, and Jim Pressdee had until 1947 won the ‘Throw the cricket ball’ contest easily in the annual sports day. However, that year, much to the surprise of the whole school, my non-sporting friend Roy Ackerman actually out threw the great man to win the contest.
Out of school, my first memories during wartime, were of playing marbles with Bruce Plummer and Roy Ackerman, one marble each, along the kerbs of the 'square' i.e. Langland Road, Queens Road, Stanley Street and Newton Road. This was no problem in the virtual absence of traffic at that time. Fencing was a very popular male pastime then and a mop handle combined with an adapted Corn Flake packet as a hand protector (guard) made a suitable sword.
I spent happy hours on a steep wooded slope in Langland Villas, behind our house, swinging from the trees on ropes like Tarzan, with John Parton and his younger brother, Geoff. Twin brothers, who shall remain nameless, were well known for swinging naked from trees in Rotherslade Road. The last of my leisure memories involves the famous winter of 1947, which, with 1962, ranks as one of the coldest on record. A youth nicknamed 'Bull' worked for Pressdee's bakery in Queens Road and that winter fitted metal runners to the bottom of a builder's ladder. He then took the ladder to the top of Kings Road and a few of us climbed aboard. By dint of terrific effort, we managed to toboggan down the hill and over Stanley Street to the gates of the school. A unique experience!
That same year, I became one of the most popular footballers in Mumbles when my aunt in America sent me a football which could be inflated directly like modern balls. This was in contrast to British footballs of that era which required the tortuous process of forcing the nipple through the thick laces of the inflated ball. All invitations to play for local teams were accompanied by the proviso that they used my ball!
Like a number of other boys, I was a cub. Our leader, of the 3rd Mumbles Troop, was Denise Porter, and we met in the Scout shed off Queens Road. I and Hugh Porter, Neville Lewis, Bruce Plummer and others had good times, including camping weekends where we learned to cook, track, sew etc., in order to obtain the numerous badges on offer.
Two well-known characters at the time in our road were Sadie, who is now 98 and lives in Holt's Field in Murton, and 'Dave the ref', who was so obsessed with football refereeing that he permanently walked around in referee's kit, with whistle, hoping to be asked to referee a match!
The indoor Morrison shelter still haunts me. During the war I periodically slept in it, feeling like a caged animal as three of the sides were metal, the fourth side being wire mesh.
My memory of the war years, shared by my contemporaries, was of the Home Guard firing at targets in the early morning off Langland point; the targets were small metal bowls suspended from miniature red silk parachutes. A number of us would clamber over the rocks to retrieve the parachutes before school, and had great fun throwing the targets from high places and watching them float down on their distinctive red parachutes.
In the 1940's there was a large reservoir in the first field (i.e. adjacent to Langland Road) and during the terrible winter of 1947 it froze over, and I had to rescue our border collie who had fallen through the ice;
After four years of wartime austerity it was a tremendously exciting time for us eight year olds to experience an invasion of friendly, generous American troops in smart uniforms and a surplus of rare 'goodies'. The familiar cry of all UK children at the time when they met the soldiers was ‘got any gum, chum?’ and Gilbert Dauncey and I were no exception. We had our first encounter with the Yanks in Underhill Park, their recreation area, and received teaberry gum, a tin of cinnamon and tins of syrup.
Gilbert had an airman staying in his house and still has the uniform epaulettes. When the troops left for the D-Day landings John Pressdee proudly displayed in front of Pressdee's garage an actual landing craft (DUKW known as ‘Duck.' Where he obtained it is still a mystery to me. One of the original pre-fabs built for the soldiers, is still in the park, adjacent to the pavilion;
My best story of this period involves my mother's family, which had emigrated to the USA in 1927. My mother was the only member of the family to return to the UK when she married my father in Swansea in 1934.
When the Americans entered the war in 1941 my mother's brother, Harold Henry LOTT, joined the US Navy. He trained as a radioman and was sent to Comnaveu in Grosvenor Square, London. In June 1944, Harold was sent to France during the first week of the Normandy Landings, to set up the Naval Communications Portal, with the Army Signal Corps on the beaches. After Paris was liberated late in 1944, he was assigned there as part of the resident allied forces and came to visit us on a week's leave.
My mother caused quite a stir in Mumbles when she was seen frequently arm-in-arm with an American in naval ('doughboy') uniform. I had to ask certain classmates to tell their parents that, contrary to their gossip, my mother was not having an affair during my father's absence in the Merchant Navy, but was entertaining her brother!’
2012 was another busy year, and I inspired a team from Newton Village Hall, to create the Memorial to the American GIs who lived and trained in this area, before D Day.
Soldiers in Mumbles from ARP to Yanks: four short memories
.Larry Owen recalls that, ‘After four years of wartime austerity it was a tremendously exciting time ...
Larry Owen, July 2012
I served on HMS Exeter by Gwynne Hodge
Sunk by the Japanese on Saint Davids DayRecollections of a Japanese Prisoner of War by Gwynne Hodge
One of the few survivors of the Macassor death camp.
Larry Owen and the the Editor noted :-
This article is dedicated to - All those who fought a daily battle to survive