I was born in a small, square, limestone-walled house overlooking the old village of Mumbles, which nestles close to the shoreline of Swansea Bay. [The House maybe visible in the top right of this photo above, Editor]

          Up to the age of seven, I suppose, I can claim to have had an idyllic childhood, free from any of the stresses, which a modern child might have to endure. I could play in our garden or open the gate onto Mumbles Hill, a paradise for an inquisitive small girl, always accompanied by her faithful terrier, Bunty. We would scramble in the little hollows near the house with my dog sniffing out rabbits and me picking violets for my mother in the spring or blackberries in the autumn. An early morning stroll with my father would reveal small button mushrooms, probably a by-product of the numerous sheep that grazed there and kept the turf like a bowling green. 

On warm summer days, my mother and I would walk across the hill, past the lush buttercup meadow of Mr. Boulanger’s large house, Somerset House, [On the bottom right of photo] and down through the bracken to Bracelet Bay. There was no need to worry about catching a train or bus home; indeed a timetable was certainly not part of our lives. As we crossed the flat summit of the hill, known to the locals as The Plain,  skylarks would soar, singing, out of the heather, which was interspersed with blue harebells and yellow bedstraw. This was my enchanted kingdom into which only one or two favourite friends were allowed to enter.

          It all came to an abrupt halt in the autumn of 1939, when war descended on our peaceful little corner. I had no idea what it was all about, or how it might affect me — but I was soon to learn. The far section of our lovely hill was requisitioned by the War Department for a large anti-aircraft station, our walk to Bracelet was shut off by barbed wire, and where the sheep grazed, nissen huts of tough soldiers appeared. Mr. Boulanger’s meadow was scarred by gun emplacements and his house became the officers’ quarters. My playground shrank to the few hollows near our house and even those were suspect because of the proximity of the army quarters. Although I must say that I never had cause to be frightened of any of those ferocious-looking soldiers who had to pass our house daily, maybe ‘yomping’ on a dark winter’s morning or returning from the village pubs of an evening.

          My father’s pride and joy was his version of a security light that he had installed on a delicate lamppost over our gate and when we had visitors, he would switch it on from the hall to light them down the dark cliff path to Western Lane. He was heartbroken when the ARP men visited us, disconnected it and put a hood over its glass in case a search light picked it out during air raids. Our garden was steep and as we had a bed ridden grandmother, we could not have a shelter. So we all took potluck under the table in the kitchen, when the bombers, which always seemed to fly in over Mumbles Hill, arrived, especially during the tree nights’ blitz on 1941.

 There was a farm nearby, where the Woolacotts lived and worked with three of their four sons; the fourth one, Reg, was a butcher at Newton. Maybe they killed their own animals as there was a one-storey building, called the Slaughter House, at the end of our back lane, though I never knew of animals being slaughtered there. Next to it was a slope called the Milking Bank, where the cows were once gathered from the fields for milking, but when I was a child, the twice-a-day milking was done in cow sheds on the farm. We had no fridge — did anyone?—and so a pleasant little job in the summer was to go over to the farm with a jug and get fresh milk at tea-time. It was frothy and warm from the cow— no worries about pasteurization in those far-off days, and it never did us any harm. Kind Mrs. Woolacott would often ask me if I had a pocket —and I soon made sure I did — and she would give me a lovely brown fresh egg for my breakfast. What a treat when we were strictly rationed! We were able to buy delicious brawn too, which Mrs. Woolacott had made herself, and of course, fresh vegetables in season. Our morning milk was delivered in very heavy churns by her two daughters-in-law, even when they were pregnant. I remember my mother used to get very upset about that; they had a very hard life.

There was a large building on the corner of western Lane and Higher Lane, which had initially been a prep school, then an orphanage when my brother was small, and in the days when Swansea people lost homes through the bombing, it was converted into rather spartan flats. I remember seeing exhausted-looking young mothers pushing prams up the very steep hill, leaving them in the garden and carrying babies and shopping into the flats.          Thistleboon Stores, our general stores, a former pub, owned by Mr. Jones, supplied us with

most of our groceries as you had to register with ration books at your nearest shop. My summer would be punctuated by my mother’s frequent request, ‘Just pop down to Mr. Jones. . . .’ My heart would sink and I would set off clutching a list, a bag and a ten shilling note — safe in the knowledge that time would stand still while I waited and waited in that cramped and ancient shop, still with its old bar counter. Here gossip was exchanged, minute portions of butter and cheese cut, tea and coffee measured into blue bags and precious tins of salmon smuggled from under the counter for the favoured few. The floor was flagged and if it was a wet day — and it often is in Mumbles — it would be like a skating rink.

          What an amazing microcosm of Mumbles life Thistleboon was, full of characters who all seemed to be second cousins, who regarded my parents who moved there as a young couple, as ‘townies.’ I was accepted, after all, I was born ‘on the hill.’

          All this happened just over half a century ago, but it seems like another age, which today’s children would find totally incredible.