A 1924 tragedy at Langland Bay by Joyce Hewett
I was born in 1921 in my grandparents’ home and have lived all my life in Mumbles. My mother died of TB soon after my birth, and I was brought up by my maternal grandparents. Thomas and Eleanor Taylor, at Coltshill House, Norton.
After my mother’s death, my father, Thomas Evans lived with his sister in Landore, near where he worked as an engineman in one of the Swansea Valley collieries. He spent every weekend with us in Coltshill, and to this day I remember him arriving, every Friday, with a bar of chocolate for me.
Our family always went for our picnics to Langland Bay. We did so, that fateful day, 9th June 1924, a Whitsun Bank Holiday. I was just three, so my memories are very limited and come partly from reading Press reports. But in the late afternoon, the rains came down, the sky darkened, and the tide was just turning, with a nasty undertow. There were two young men in the water, clearly in difficulties. My father and another man plunged into the water to rescue them. Many other people, including my father’s brother, waded out waist-deep in an attempt to rescue them all, but to no avail. The tides were just too strong. Both rescuers were drowned—Clifford Harcourt, and my father as was one of the boys, John Peacock. The other, Pat Williams (son of the Vicar of Oystermouth) revived, after resuscitation.
At the age of three, I did not of course understand what was going on. I do remember going to the Langland Bay Hotel, where there was a Minister waiting.
Thomas Evans
Years later, my aunt told me that my grandmother literally tore her hat to shreds, as she stood on the beach, watching the tragedy unfold.
For some years after the tragedy, my grandmother told me that I regularly asked ‘Where is my Daddy?
The Swansea Borough Treasurer Mr Wetherall set up a Fund to help the bereaved families. As a result, £600 was invested for me, which was a princely sum in those days—the price of a substantial house. Mrs Harcourt received the same sum.
This is my memories of a very unhappy event – but most of my Mumbles recollections are very happy ones.
