Reflections - A Trek through old Mumbles Village by Stuart Batcup

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A Trek through old Mumbles Village
and Thistleboon by Stuart Batcup

Reflections

Serendipity

Serendipity is a funny old word. It was coined in about 1754 by Horace Walpole, suggested by The Three Princes of Serendip, the title of a fairy tale in which the heroes ‘were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of’. As a mass noun it means ‘the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy way’. It has certainly been in play as I have been making this historical journey. In particular it was there:

o When John Powell put up Rod Coopers’ coloured extract from the 1844 Tithe Map as a screen saver when he gave a talk to the All Saints Men’s Fellowship in the Summer of 2019. It had been created to pinpoint the position of the old Thistleboon Pound, but its mention of the Hilly Field brought back happy thoughts of my childhood

o When I started to rationalise the family photo Album which had so many photos showing Thistleboon House in the background. More happy thoughts were stimulated, and the thought that as it was no longer there, it and Thistleboon Farm were well on the way to being forgotten.

o When I remembered that a number of those photos had been loaned to Wendy Cope to help her with her work on the three Articles she had written for the Gower Journal in Journals 46, 53 and 57

o When I re-read those Articles and Gerald Gabb’s Article’ Limeslade to Rotherslade: a Few Surprises’ in the 1997 Gower Journal which was based on that 1844 Tithe Map.

o When standing in my son Tim’s Bookshop when he was on the phone one day to see on his rare Welsh books Section a copy of ‘The Lordship of Gower: Surveys of Gower and Kilvey’ a work started by that great Swansea historian George Grant Francis FSA and completed by Charles Baker FSA in May 1870. The earliest was an extract from a Survey of Landewi taken in 1326, with all the others ranging between 1583 and 1689. I was particularly taken by Oliver Cromwell’s Survey of 1650, so after suitable negotiation I bought it

o When next standing in the same spot I noticed J Roland Phillips 1874 work on the The Civil War in Wales and the Marches in two Volumes. This, with its fascinating documents, including the Instrument of the Surrender of Raglan Castle, filled in many gaps in my knowledge of the turbulent years between 1640 and 1660 and their local impact

o When I re-read the Facsimile copy of the Parish of Oystermouth Vestry Minute Book held at All Saints and the Parish’s own copies of its many Registers of Births Deaths and Marriages going back to those times

o When I dug out the photo of the Thistleboon Slaughterhouse and the Milking Bank that had been given to me by Sid Smith of St Ives over thirty years ago

o When Dr John Harkness gave me a copy of David Webborn’s hand drawn Map of Thistleboon Farm in 1946

But most of all serendipity hit me hardest when Kate Jones, as Secretary of the Oystermouth Historical Association kindly loaned me its considerable archives on Thistleboon. What was not quite so serendipitous, but gave me the time that I had never had before, was my wife having to go into residential care in November 2019 which enabled me to publish Part 1 of the Trek in January 2020. Enforced retirement and coronavirus in March 2020 gave me all that much more time that I needed to complete the Trek by July 2021, and to make it a much more comprehensive history of a place that I love.

I have the unusual distinction of living just a few hundred yards from where I was born, grew up and worshipped. Although I have travelled far away, hiraeth has always been there and pulled me back. In Christian terms, it is never easy to witness to our own people, but sometimes ‘home’ is where we are called to be, and we should not underestimate the opportunity or devalue such a calling.

Wherever God has placed us we can tell how much the Lord has done for us. When I embarked on this journey, I knew that I would discover many links between this place and our Parish Church: I had no idea just how many, and how importantly they impacted on myself, my lovely wife and my three children to whom this work is dedicated.

Some Characters

Although only a transient character mentioned in this Trek, I will not keep my readers in any further suspense about Madame X and her husband’s trial for her murder:

Thomas Jackson was put on trial at Glamorgan Assizes on July 1^st 1929. He described his late wife as very well connected, well educated, speaking several languages, and said that they were very happy together until the embezzlement case in 1927.Occasionally she would receive anonymous letters. Apropos, a Mrs Morgan testified that she had seen Mrs Jackson receive letters – in at least four different names – containing postal orders or Treasury notes. Once she had thrown a handful in the air saying “That’s what comes of being clever”.

The prosecution alleged that Jackson had beaten his wife over the head with a tyre-lever. They cited bloodstains on the back door of “Kenilworth” as evidence of where the murdered woman’s head was touched, and produced a tyre-lever discovered under the “dunny” (lavatory) seat. His motivation? He had a violent temper and was tired of supporting her, was their best effort.

There seems little doubt that, from whatever cause, Kate Jackson was a frightened woman. A letter which she received may shed a little light: “How many more men have you blackmailed until they have to pinch money to shut you up?” Food for thought.

Mr Justice Wright gave a hostile summing up, but as was so often the case with West Wales juries, the jury had their own ideas. To cheers and clapping they brought in a verdict of not guilty. Thus was the case officially laid to rest…. But, needless to say many thought that he had been lucky to ‘get away with it’!

Next up of the more respectable characters are Charlie and Kitty Boyd, who are not generally associated with Thistleboon. However, the photo now produced with a fine view of Thistleboon House in the background was taken in my mother’s front garden in the Summer of 1940 when they were courting. Kitty, then Batchelor lived with her family across the way at the top of Thistleboon Road.

They married in 1941 and the whole family moved from there to Overland Road to what is still the family Home. Jeanette came along in 1943, Billy in 1945 and Julia in 1948. The family has long been associated with All Saints with Charlie a life-long Sidesman, ‘Jetta’ a long serving Sunday School Teacher and Julia one of a very successful team of youth leaders. The sisters still serve the Parish faithfully as Gift Aid Secretary and Parish Treasurer respectively.

Charlie was the Form master of Class J4B at Mumbles Junior Mixed School, and his passion was Rugby: never was a round ball allowed there. This gives me the perfect excuse to reproduce this photo of the Mumbles Junior Mixed School, 1955-56 Rugby Team which was given to me by Graham Piper a year or so ago. Although I am in it I can’t for the life of me remember it or playing rugby as I had sustained a nasty injury to my right leg a year or so before, and wasn’t very sporty. I can readily recognise Kit Jones the Captain with the ball and in the back row me, Winston Rogers, Mike Long. David Dance, Charlie Billings, Robert Cooper: middle row; Glan Thomas, Andy Goddard Jones, Graham Piper, ‘Nipper’ Studden, Stuart Radcliffe: and in the front; Keith Pritchard and Adrian Jenkinson, but the rest must have been from J3. The Head Mr Albert Williams always looked the same, and Charlie had hardly changed in 25 years…even the suit looks the same!

Among the other characters from the 1950s and 1960s are the Charles family of Thistleboon Gardens. The grandly named George Hemmingway Charles, George his wife Marjorie, and their son Frederick George Charles, Freddie were living with Marjorie’s brother Cyril Seacombe and his family at 9 Higher Lane in July 1941 when they took a tenancy of a house called Beechwood at Upper Church Park. They were to stay until July 1948 when they moved into 13 Thistleboon Gardens newly built by Picton Developments (incidentally named after Picton Place in Swansea where its offices were before the Blitz).

George and Marjorie Charles were very well known around Mumbles and Swansea as entertainers, for they were at the heart of the Dance Band called the ‘Keskersays’ an attractive and slightly exotic name reflecting the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers glamour of the 1930s. The band was for many years the resident band at the Langland Bay Hotel and the photo of them now shown was taken there in those days

o Fred Seacombe (senior) lived in St Thomas and had two sons, Fred (junior) and his younger brother Harry. When Harry became famous through the BBC’s ‘Goon Show’ as ‘Neddie Seagoon’, his surname altered to ‘Secombe’: after a stunning career in comedy, professional musical theatre and as a fine tenor soloist, he was the one to earn a Knighthood as ‘Sir Harry Secombe’, to the immense pride of his Thistleboon cousins.

Freddie and Marian Charles continued in this tradition when they joined the Church Choir in 1986 as a Tenor and Alto respectively, and their son Mike is a well-known village piano teacher. What is not so well known is that his sister Melanie also plays the piano and clarinet and was a talented Ballerina.

Thistleboon’s present day very well-known performer is another Melanie, namely Melanie Walters of New Villas. Melanie caught the hearts of the nation with her portrayal of Stacey’s Mum in BBC’s Gavin and Stacey frequently producing Omelettes and a Cwtch to placate the ups and downs of her daughter’s love life. Both Melanie and her fictional daughter Joanna Page live in Mumbles, as well as Robert Pugh and are all very much part of village life. Not seen quite as often is Catherine Zeta Jones whose Swansea home is in Thistleboon, as well as Sir Ian McKellan, if rumour is to be believed. My grandchildren are very excited at the prospect of seeing ‘Gandalf the Wizard’ wandering over the Mumbles Hill if he is the new owner of ‘Le Boulangers’!

We can’t leave Thistleboon without mentioning Mr E.D.Price of No 5/150 Higher Lane, a champion of the residents, self-appointed guardian of the community and frequent correspondent with ‘authority’ in the 1980s. He was for fifty years a committed, hands-on member of the congregation at All Saints, a grass cutter who with his carpentry skills was responsible for furnishing the Choir Vestry, moving the Choir Stalls and crafting the display cabinets for the Books of Remembrance. His daughter describes him as an ‘indefatigable correspondent to the PCC’: he was certainly a thorn in the side of Vicar Geoffrey Thomas and quite vocal at Easter Vestry Meetings. As Vicar’s Warden at that time, it became my job to placate him, but I did it with affection on the basis that criticism is healthy, what he had to say was always constructive, and I liked him!

This man was of course Sergeant David Price of the Swansea Borough Police, known to the villains of the Town as ‘Iago’ Price and feared by them as a formidable Officer. He was not a particularly likeable character in those days, but he was brave. During the Second World War he was a police constable working in the St Thomas and Docks area of Swansea. This appeared in The Great Western Railway Magazine of 3^rd March 1941.

In retirement he continued to live on Higher Lane with his wife Mattie and became a good neighbour to many championing local concerns. He was the one to stand with a clip board checking on the regularity of the new public Mini buses which went through Thistleboon for the first time; he also took up the cause of our Post Box in the wall of Thistleboon House which was removed when it was demolished in 1976. The Post Office had no plans to replace it until they were barraged by David, the complaint being that it would be too far to the next post box. In the face of this barrage they relented and as a show of ‘own back’ installed the replacement right outside his house!

He became an active member of the Ostreme Gardening Club and lovingly tended to the gardens around the Ostreme Centre. It was fitting that after his death in 1996 a tree was planted there in his memory.

In reflecting on our Coronation celebrations in 1953, I mentioned a number of the characters involved in the fun. I should also have mentioned Len and Doreen Knight of ‘the Camps’. Len was a larger than life character who drove lorries for the nationalised British Road Services; when he was able to bring one of the smaller open lorries home with him a trip around Thistleboon on the back was always a treat. Whether it was official or not one of his lorries was always put to use at Mumbles Carnival time to be a float in the Parade which always started at Bracelet Car Park. Doreen, or Auntie ‘DoDo’ was very special to me as she used to baby sit for me, and spoilt me rotten; probably because I was a boy, and she had been blessed with four girls.

Many of my Post-War contemporaries (the ‘charmed generation’) left Thistleboon to pursue careers spanning the whole spectrum of work, and the whole cosmopolitan of place and society. Some, like John and Sheila Court emigrated and settled in the amazing surroundings of Durban in South Africa (a place that his father Les had enthused about having passed through there during WW2); his brother Jeff Court ended up living in Montreal in Canada; and Jeff Wastell and his wife Jen went out to Lisarow in New South Wales Australia, and are still there. Swansea continued to exert a pull on all three as the offspring of them all still live in Old South Wales.

Others like Peter Morgan of Thistleboon Gardens followed his father into the Police, but in his case, it was in the Metropolitan Police from which he retired back to live out his years in Western Close Thistleboon. Frank Rott had two careers, first as a Metallurgist with British Steel, a Chartered Engineer and then a Senior Civil Servant well away from Swansea. Retirement and hiraeth brought him and his wife Jacky (nee Dahlgren) back almost to Thistleboon (Langland to be precise), where he keeps busy with wildlife conservation and the National Coastwatch Institution. Robert Meyrick became a Geologist and spent his working life in all corners of the world looking for Oil. He is a frequent visitor as his sister Dinah still lives in the village having served out a successful career teaching at Newton Junior School, and strutting the boards as a Member of the Ostreme Theatre players.

Graham and Plina White of Thistleboon Gardens were staunch churchfolk, Graham being a sidesman for many years; he was the village Radio and TV Repairman employed by Ellis & Thomas of Mumbles Road. Their daughter Sue joined the armed forces where she met Bill, becoming Mrs Sue Kenney when they married. He had become a Military Attache and a member of the diplomatic corps; their life took them all over the Commonwealth, but on retirement they have returned to live in ‘Silverhurst’, a matter of yards from where she was brought up

Peter Royall Griffiths, also of Thistleboon and one time Head Chorister at All Saints, was probably the one who travelled most. He joined the Merchant Navy from Bishop Gore School to see the world, and like all the others ‘what did he see, he saw the sea’. He started out with a small company called Harkers, and then with Dick Chambelain (late of Higher Lane) and Alan Cole of Cwmdu served out his time with the Silver Line eventually achieving his Masters Ticket. Despite being a long serving deep sea mariner travelling to all four corners of the globe, when it came to home, he moved from one end of Thistleboon Gardens to the other, and later managed to cross over Higher Lane to Heatherslade Close where, until the pandemic, he was only seen infrequently!

Remarkably he is descended from Captain Thomas Prance who chaired the 1832 meeting at the Mermaid Hotel when it was proposed that a lifeboat be stationed at Mumbles. He has also carried forward the tradition of mariners living at Thistleboon first touched on in this Trek with John Robin in 1670. Many a lifeboatman and ships engineer has lived here over the years, so it would be remiss of me not to mention Roger Shefford also of Thistleboon Gardens who has plied that trade for all his working life, and not moved. His neighbour Lionel Copham the used car expert is another who has not moved far; from Thistleboon Gardens to Michael’s Field! Eleri Walters is another resident of New Villas who is a regular worshipper at All Saints who moved back to the family home to care for her Mum and stayed!

And what of Miss Gwen Pike’s two ‘very naughty boys’. One of us went into the law and became a successful local Solicitor and District Judge of the High Court and the County Court, and the other went on from accountancy to the world of advertising and exhibitions to become Thistleboon’s first multi-millionaire. Not bad for two naughty working class boys.

Another Blue Plaque?

I have already described the circumstances that warranted the Blue Plaque being erected to Morfydd Owen by the Gower Society at Craig y Mor in 2017. Her connection with Thistleboon was short. I believe that there is a case for another Blue Plaque to be erected a little further down the road at New Villas to someone whose connection was much longer, five years to be precise, and whose influence on world affairs is not to be underestimated.

I am, of course talking about Graham Chadwick, Curate of Oystermouth between 1950 and 1955, who lodged with Hilda and Hector Evans during that time at No 6 New Villas. I have already mentioned my recollections of him in Part 12. I now need to tell you some more:

o Graham Charles Chadwick was born on 3^rd January 1923 into a large family of railway signalmen. When he was only 10 his father died and his mother took her children to Swansea. He was educated at Bishop Gore Grammar School, leaving in 1939 aged 16

o From 1939 until 1942 he worked for GWR maintaining station clocks from Swansea to Mid Wales before joining the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. He was appointed a midshipman and saw service in the Pacific Theatre. After VJ day he was involved in the interrogation of Japanese war criminals, and left the Navy in 1946 with the rank of sub-lieutenant.

o He served as Diocesan Missioner in Lesotho for 10 years, and fluent in Sesotho covered up to 2000 miles a year on horseback, establishing St Stephen’s High School in Mohales Hoek.

o He returned to the UK in 1963 and became Chaplain at the University College of Swansea. Here he strongly influenced many students in and out of the College, including a young Oystermouth Chorister named Rowan Williams. During a sabbatical year at Queen’s College, Birmingham he studied clinical psychology, before serving a brief chaplaincy at St Thomas’ Hospital London and returning to South Africa in 1970

o Taking up the role of Diocesan Missioner at Lesotho again, he built an ecumenical conference and training centre in Maseru, with the aim of building racial equality and reconciliation. During the six years he ran this centre, his leadership skills saw him selected as Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman in South Africa in 1976.

o His contemporary Bishop Stanage of Bloemfontein said of him that; ‘He was a remarkable South African church leader with a brilliant sense of humour and a Welsh toughness that never betrayed him in seeking access – which was arduous and sometimes impossible – to his huge diocese’ and that ‘He was married to the beautifully supportive Suzanne, and they had one son’.

o This was the age of Apartheid, and Graham began to speak out against it. One of his youth workers was arrested on a trumped-up charge and died after apparently falling from the seventh-floor of the police station. The Inquest proved to be a whitewash, and as a protest against the continued detention and torture of his clergy Graham planted wooden crosses outside his cathedral for each day the detention continued and encouraged the ringing of church bells in protest.

o Needless to say, the Chadwick’s were placed under police surveillance, and as Graham with Desmond Tutu continued to speak out against injustice the authorities ‘got him’ by refusing to renew his work permit. In one final show of defiance, he preached his 1982 Easter Day sermon in the local languages of Sesotho and Setswana, and, for the benefit of the police in Afrikaans.

o The following day, he and his family were escorted to the airport and deported watched by a large contingent of armed police with dogs, and 50,000 mainly black supporters. This was world news on an epic scale.

For this grit, determination and integrity in paving the way for Nelson Mandela to bring an end to Apartheid following his release from 27 years in prison on 11^th February 1990, I feel that Graham would be a worthy recipient of this local recognition.

Canon Arthur Howells described Graham’s later life, in dedicating his ‘Little Book of Lent’ to him in 2014 as follows:

“He returned to Wales, becoming assistant to the Bishop of St Asaph, and subsequently to Bishop David Sheppard in Liverpool. Throughout this period he immersed himself in supporting and teaching those who felt called to accompany people on their prayer journey, especially by promoting the Ignatian Exercises, and travelled far and wide teaching and lecturing on the elements of prayer and spirituality. At the age of seventy-two in 1995 he was appointed the first Director of Spirituality for Sarum College – a post he held for three years until his retirement, when he continued to exercise the role of spiritual director until his death in 2007. As well as being a skilled counsellor and teacher, he was a friend and encourager to many”

Graham and Suzanne settled at Salisbury where they lived in a Diocesan house close to his office at Sarum College and the Cathedral where he attended the Daily Mass and Evensong. He died at Salisbury Hospital on 28^th October 2007

According to his wishes, Graham’s Funeral Mass was celebrated by Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury at Salisbury Cathedral on 5^th November 2007. The following day his body was brought to All Saints Church, Oystermouth for a Requiem at which the Bishop of St Asaph, John Davies concelebrated with Bishop Anthony Pierce Bishop of Swansea and Brecon with Saunders Davies retired Bishop of Bangor and another John Davies retired Bishop of Shrewsbury in attendance.

After this the funeral rites were concluded at Oystermouth Cemetery by Canon Arthur Howells and The Right Reverend Graham Charles Chadwick was appropriately laid to rest in the Parish where his ministry had begun.

Stuart Batcup

July 2021

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