A Mumbles Girl in the 1960s - here by fate not heritage by Sarah Monks
'My childhood was spent in the wonderful location that is Mumbles and Langland.'
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A Mumbles Girl in the 1960s here by fate not heritage
I was born in 1954 probably in Stout Hall Nursing Home, Reynoldston, Gower and my childhood was spent in the wonderful location that is Mumbles and Langland. However, it is fate rather than heritage that allowed me to have such a fantastic start to my life. The reason for my early life in Mumbles was down to Albert Ridgway, my maternal grandfather, who was born in Watchet Devon. His family worked in the paper mill there and as farm labourers.
I suspect Albert started out as a carpenter, judging by the dining table made by him upon which all our family meals were eaten. He must have travelled the country with his work, by 1920 he was with building companies, in 1921 he married my grandmother, who had been born in Mickleton in Teesdale. They were married in Keighley, where her family then lived to work in the mills.
A few years later, my mother was born in Manchester, they then moved to Cardiff to join the rest of The Ridgway siblings and Albert was employed by Turners, the building company. Soon, Albert was sent to Swansea to take charge of the building of Cefn Coed Hospital. Along with his wife and now three children, they lived initially in one of the houses constructed, for the builders, on the plot before the hospital was built. Hence the family had arrived in Swansea.
The next project for Albert was the building of The Guildhall, mum remembers sitting in the boats at the top of the tower during its construction.
The Ridgways had moved to Sketty and later to 56 Queens Road Mumbles and it is in the Mumbles area that they stayed. The family consisted of Albert and his wife Monica, daughter Jacqueline, my mother, and her brothers, Arthur and George. Mum attended The Bible College and her closest friend was Joan Ely, whose family lived in Dunns Lane. The war broke out and Albert was sent to build a hospital in West Wales.
Jacqueline was 17 at the outbreak of the war and remembers going into Swansea to the Art College and finding next to nothing left of Swansea after the blitz.
Jacqueline then became a trainee nurse, but this was curtailed when the psoriasis on her elbows was considered unsightly for such a position.
Please contact me if you know any more names?
Jacqueline joined The Land Army and was sent to The Trawscoed Estate, near Llanafan, east of Aberystwyth. Mum can be seen front row second from the left.
Please contact me if you know any more names?
Also from Jacqueline's service, while at The Trawscoed Estate. Mum is on the left of the front row, and the lady behind here is Joan Harrison from Ammanford, I think, they became good friends
One day, the girls had become aware that a young man was in the village and would need company. His name was Ivor Pugh, and he was convalescing with his parents in the house next to The Post Office. Ivor had lost the lower part of his leg whilst training for active service in the army in The Brecon Beacons. His extended family hailed from mid Wales, but his parents ran a dairy in London, as did so many Welsh in the nineteenth century. Retired, his parents had left the bombs of London for the peace of the wider family in Wales and their son had joined them to recuperate.
The land army girls took him under their wing, romance blossomed between Jacqueline and Ivor and after the war, Ivor decided his future was to be with Jacqueline and he moved to Swansea, taking up digs, working in Burgess and Company and getting The Mumbles Train to ‘court’ my mother.
At the end of the war, much of Swansea centre was in ruins, including St Mary’s Church. The next project Albert Ridgway was asked to undertake was its rebuilding.
At thIn 1946 there were two family weddings in Oystermouth Church. The first was Arthur to Elaine from Alltwen and they settled in West Cross. Two weeks later my parents, Ivor and Jacqueline Pugh (née Ridgway), married on a rainy August day, the service conducted by Rev. Wilkinson. They began their married life living in Queens Road with Albert and Monica. f Swan
Meanwhile in Higher Lane, new houses were being built around established ones that had been there for years. A number of bungalows were constructed at the Langland end and Ivor and Jacqueline waited the completion of their house, perfect for Ivor, the property had no stairs.
I do not know the actual date that they moved in, but they had been told they would have open views of the sea only to watch houses being built between them and the sea. They named their bungalow ‘Crosswood’ after the place where they met in mid Wales. In 1952 they had a son, who tragically died aged 2 months, a cot death.
In 1954 I was born and spent my childhood in Mumbles and the local area, this was my world, my reference point until I left in 1972 to go to training college in Didsbury Manchester. By the time of my birth Albert Ridgway and Turners were working on St Mary’s Church. Stones can be seen outside the French windows, burnt stones, from the church, they were turned with the burnt side hidden to create a terrace at the back of our house. A swing was erected in the garden, identical to the one for my cousins that still stands to this day in the house in West Cross.
Meanwhile in Southend, these two pictures, a map and photograph above, show the location of Ponds Steps, older readers may remember these properties located at the bottom of Village Lane above Rockhill. It was on that spot that Turners constructed a house for my grandparents. My late uncle told me that the lady who owned the land offered it to my grandmother, why, I have no idea. My uncle remembers the garage being built first, no roof on it and from there the building materials were hauled up to create the house.
My first memory of the house, High Nook, was as it was being built in 1959, I was being carried up the ladder by Grampe to the upstairs.
We also had a snack standing in the bay window, admiring the fantastic view, the bay window was remarkable in that it was behind the fire place, unheard of in those days.
Originating from ‘up north’ and having lived with little wealth, my grandma insisted that an outside toilet be built. Naturally, she created the toilet paper from newspaper. Attached to this toilet was a washouse, complete with large sink, possers, a washboard and mangle. In the kitchen, despite a modern cooker, Grandma boiled water using the open coal fire and a copper kettle made by my grandfather.
Two weeks before they were due to move in, Albert Ridgway suddenly died of a heart attack in his house in Queens Road, he never had the pleasure of living in his ideal home, Grandma moved in as a widow with her youngest unmarried son.
It was always said that the last project that Albert had worked on was too stressful, there were many problems, St Mary’s Church. As a 4 or 5 year old, I remember standing in the church before it was completed with my family, and my grandad explaining the problems that they had had to solve, some parts having to be demolished and redone.
Here I am in 1959 at the front door of High Nook, new house on Village Lane, an old damaged door from the church. I have been to the house in the last 20 years, thanks to the kindness of the then owner, and saw that then the door was still in place.
It was up those 39 steps that I ran in my lunch hour from Year 4 in Mumbles Junior to tell my mother and Grandma that I had passed my 11+ in 1965.
There were 39 steps to reach High Nook House, the letter box being up the first 12 to save the legs of the postman. The views were, and are, spectacular.
This was my normal, every Saturday night I slept there so mum and dad could have a night out. Even the side bedroom at the back had views over the bay. In those days in the 1960s, I could see the red glow of the Hancocks huge advert in Swansea. A spike had been concreted on the wall above Rockhill and on it we could place a huge telescope giving us even more detail of the bay.
There was no central heating in those days of course, only coal fires in the kitchen and lounge, later storage heaters were fitted, my bath was 2 inches deep, Grandma was not one for luxury. The house was called High Nook, Grandma had spent the first years of her life in a property in North Yorkshire called Low Nook. She was a grafter, creating a garden for vegetables at the side of the house on The Mumbles Hill. I loved playing up the steps on the small part of the hill accessible behind the house. I spent hours alone there being an only child.
Mumbles around 1910, includes The Kursaal Entertainment Hall, The Figure Eight and Devon Terrace
It was up those 39 steps that I ran in my lunch hour from Year 4 in Mumbles Junior to tell my mother and Grandma that I had passed my 11+ in 1965.
Occasionally, I spent some time playing in the park at Southend, in those days it was two roundabouts and slide up the other end, opposite the Carlton Hotel. On some occasions I was joined by the children of my parents’ friends. The adults had a drink in The Antelope whilst we played. At least it was more interesting than hanging around the back of The Rock and Fountain in Newton.
From High Nook, I loved to watch the water skiers in the bay when the tide was in, jumping over the ramp. One memorable event was when Southend was flooded, the black and white shelter on Promenade Terrace was in a few feet of water. Sadly, I cannot find pictures of this, but I remember looking at the view out of the window of High Nook whilst seeing it on The News. I walked past the shelter today and could not resist taking a photo of Grandma’s old house and the shelter, the latter looking like it needs some tender loving care.
Whilst High Nook played a large part in my childhood, so did my home in Higher Lane. Until about 1970 we had no central heating, there was a square rug in the middle of each room and lino around the sides. In the kitchen was the fire that initially needed lighting each day, that was the main source of heat for the family, and it heated the water. Outside, constructed at the same time as the house, was a coal bunker.
Mr Anderson and his mate would carry the heavy sacks of coal from the lorry and tip it into the bunker. A separate door at the bottom would allow us to fill the coal scuttle. I cannot imagine who carried the coal up the 39 steps at High Nook. Keeping the fire lit was crucial to the warmth of the family. Each day the cinders from last night’s fire would be removed and placed on newspaper. The ashes went into the metal ashbin, my dad continued to call our rubbish bin the ashbin years after they became plastic and not suitable for ashes.
Paper was scrunched up at the bottom of the fire, then spills. Now in our house these were wonderfully created paper constructions made by dad whilst watching the television in an evening. He would tightly roll up one page of newspaper, they were broadsheet in those days, then wrap it round his hand twice then wrap up. Completed, it would be thrown over his shoulder to be gathered at the end of the evening.
Spills, [other people would use kindling, small pieces of wood], in place on top of the scrunched paper, next the cinders, the better ones, then new anthracite coal. Once lit, by lighting the paper at the bottom, the whole fire would be helped on its way by the use of newspaper to help it draw. This always sounded quite fierce, the fire roaring behind the paper, once removed calm fire would be behind. We did have a metal sheet with a handle that was safer. The kitchen at the front, north, of the house became the main focal point of the home as it was warmest and we would huddle round the fire on cold days.
We may venture into the lounge at the back, south facing, in the afternoon, usually making do with the electric fire for the evening. If having visitors, or at weekends, the fire was lit in there too. In the afternoon the paraffin heater would have been lit to take the chill of the lounge. Paraffin was bought from Cash Hardware, then delivered on a regular basis. This heater could be placed anywhere in the house and looking back the act of carrying it to a different room when lit was an extremely unsafe practice. It was in hall in the morning and placed in the bathroom on the days when a member of the family was to have a bath, mine was Saturday.
Twin Tub Washing Machine
At the beginning of my mother’s life as a wife and mother, washing was done by hand, or once a week the boiler was turned on in which the sheets were boiled. As technology moved on a twin tub replaced the boiler in the kitchen. I never used a front loading machine until 1983 when living away from home. It was my 9th birthday in 1963 when the first fridge arrived, before then everything had to be bought fresh and put in the larder, or pantry, a cool cupboard with a tiled, [marble ideally], shelf.
My mum made most of the clothes I wore in the 1960s using her trusty Singer Sewing machine, she learnt these skills from her mother Monica. Back in the 1910s Monica’s family had had to move to Keighley to work in the mills, Monica escaped that fate as she had skills as a seamstress, and was subsequently able to impart those skills to my mother. Mum would eye up items in Marks and Spencer, find similar material and create the garment herself, my delight one Christmas at receiving two M&S nighties I had seen in the shop, was not deflated when I saw no labels and realized mum had created identical ones.
On another occasion, as a teenager, my mother was furious that a friend of mine had bought the same jacket as me. I was not allowed to wear it out one day, I was not happy, but on returning a jacket had been created in the same style. Around the room was newspaper, used to make the templates of each piece. I was lucky too, my dad had worked in ‘Liberty’ in London, in the silk department before the war. His best man still worked there, and every year fabric was given to my mum to create clothes, usually for me. I still love Liberty print, but cannot afford it. This jacket, Mum made, was floral Liberty print, and the remnants made a good skirt, mini in 1972 needing little material. Kemps was therefore a regular haunt and even better, the remnants from Nelsons in Swansea.
In 1970 High Nook was sold as the steps were becoming too much for my Grandma. She came to live with us in Higher Lane until the death of my mother in 1982. At the beginning of that year, 1982, the snow, seen from the kitchen window out to the road was particularly heavy.
This house, Crosswood, no longer exists, my mother died in 1982 and Dad sold it to buy Tony Macari’s house in Newton as it was divided into flats. After some years, Crosswood had hardly changed since the days of my parents, and was demolished and replaced with a new property using the footprint of my home where I had so many memories. It is now called High Tides, the name ‘Crosswood’ having no meaning to its new owners. As the house was demolished, I walked past the foundations of the new house and saw an old door on the drive still with the name ‘Sarah’s Room’ as the label, my bedroom door from the attic, very moving .
In the summer, from the house I would trot down the cliff path with my mother to Langland. There we were based at The lifeguard hut as my uncle was one of the volunteer lifeguards under the leadership of Arthur Goss. This picture here shows some of the people that frequented ‘the pit’ below the lifeguard hut.
Mum is seen here in the 1960s next to her old childhood friend Joan Ely, over from Canada, where she lived with her husband Colin Orr.
In the 1970s The Ridgway family are photographed outside the Ely house in Dunns Lane.
My little world was about to change dramatically in 1972 when I moved to Manchester and began training as a teacher. In the summer of 1973, I was placed in a school in a challenging part of Oldham trying to teach Biology to 11 to 13 year olds, many Asian, whose names I could not pronounce. This was not like my life in Mumbles.
I still live in Stockport and have come to realize just how lucky I was to have started my life in Mumbles. I love the north and the friends I have made there, but appreciate how my homelife was luxury compared to some friends whose home had had no bathroom and the views in their environment were grim. Having family and friends here in Mumbles and my parents no longer here, we bought a holiday chalet to enable us to visit whenever we could, a few times a year. Ironically, when we bought it, it could only be a holiday home, 10 months occupancy, now we feel we are one of the few who do not live here permanently and out of step with the area, who knows what time will bring.
This is part of my recollection of my childhood in Mumbles. I have tried to explain the history of my connection with the place which does not go back generations, but was the only home I knew. I have used family photos as well as those I have been lucky enough to collect over the years from other sites that post on facebook, and to those people, who posted them, I give thanks and hope I am not breaking copyright. Over the years of collecting these pictures, it has allowed me to create folders of scenes of Mumbles and the Swansea area over the years as I am fascinated by the history of the place. I would love to communicate with anyone who can elaborate, or even correct, any of the information I have shared.
© Sarah Monks January 2023