Living above the Shop, The Dunns 1916-1950
by Sylvia Bagley
My memories of growing up in Mumbles are such happy ones. I was born and brought up at Number 8 The Dunns, in a large four-storey house, just opposite the garage, on the seaward side of the road.
In our basement was a huge printing press; the shop, C.E. Tuckers, was at ground level and behind it there was a second print-room. Above, were our living quarters, with four large bedrooms. This was the home of the Tucker family and of The Mumbles Press, of which my father was the Editor.
The land at the back our house belonged to South Wales Transport, and my father had to pay them rent for the use of the two steps that gave us rear access.We had no garden: the beach was our ‘garden’, and we had wonderful times there. There was always so much going on! On Bank Holidays, donkeys met the trains, to carry passengers to Langland and to other beaches. We Tucker children, and our friends, played in the railway trucks at the back of our house.
Our shop sold cigarettes, tobacco, stationery, postcards, as well as seaside equipment like buckets and spades. We also offered a library facility: those borrowing books had their names and addresses noted down, but I cannot now remember how much they paid. As we grew older, we helped our Mother more and more, in the shop.
We earned our pocket money by going to all the B&Bs and hotels in the area collecting the names of visitors. Their details were then published in The Mumbles Press. This was a good advertising technique because the visitors, always anxious to see their names in print, bought their own copies of the newspaper.
Smells evoke memories of that time, for me – especially of fish, and of Christmas puddings. In the sea behind the Station there were long fishing nets staked out with pockets at the end of them, to catch the fish. The fishermen would come, with horses and carts, to collect the fish, keeping the prime fish and throwing away the smallest. Those were the ones we collected, and Mother cooked them – a wonderful smell and taste.
Mother used to make six or seven Christmas puddings. We had, however, no facilities to cook them all at home, so we would take them on the Mumbles Train to Blackpill, where there were some huge black cooking-ranges. We would come back to The Dunns surrounded by the wonderful smells of those cooked puddings.
The Dunns was a very lively and active place in which to grow up. Pleasures were simple, and cheap – the beach, carnivals in Castle Square, ice-skating at the Pier, and of course the Regent and Tivoli cinemas. (see Working at The Regent and the Tivoli cinemas )
What a good time that was.
Sylvia Bagley is from West Cross