Ninety Years of Mumbles Life
by Audrey Strawford
There were Thomases, Evanses and Williamses of course, but unique to Gower were the Aces, the Webborns and the Rogers. I was a Rogers, and my grandparents were Aces. I was born in 1911, and lived with my mother and five siblings in a two-bedroomed house in Woodville Road.
My Ace grandparents lived in Gower Place, and had a laverbread business. After my father died, my mother refused to go to ‘the Parish’ for financial help, and was able to support our family by helping with the laverbread production. Ever morning when I left for school, a huge pot of seaweed was in place, on the open-fired range: by the time I got back from school, it was just about ready. Laverine was added to give it colour, and it was then sold in Swansea Market. After my grandparents died, my mother inherited the house and business in Gower Place and there I lived during the 1920s.
During those years and since, my great friend was Joyce Hewett, and I spent many happy hours after school in her grandparents’ house in Coltshill, West Cross.
My social life centred around Tabernacle Chapel. On Tuesdays there was Band of Hope, on Wednesday a Prayer Meeting. Thursdays saw “Christian Endeavour” and Fridays, choir practice. Roller skating at the Pier was very popular with the youngsters. By the early 1930s two cinemas had opened up in Mumbles, the Tivoli and the Regent, but I have no memory of going to either, I could not afford the entrance fee.
Our family outside the house
Coltshill House is in the centre of the photo.
In 1931, I married Arthur Strawford and lived above his bakery shop at 111, The Dunns – opposite the White Rose, on the seaward side of the road. We had a café behind the shop.
Sometime before 1969, that side of The Dunns was to be demolished, so Arthur moved the business to 135 The Dunns, now CJ’s Restaurant. Before moving though, under the terms of the lease from the Corporation, Arthur had to pay for re-wiring the premises, their refurbishment, including the restoration of the old grates – all soon to be demolished! He was very angry about that needless expensebefore 1969.
Advert in Mumbles Weekly News & Gower Gazette 18 June 1931
After Arthur died, in 1964, I worked in Sanders’ Greengrocery – now part of the White Rose – and later at Strawbridge’s the baker, which was then taken over by Sweetman’s. I retired from paid employment when I was 73, but to this day I work as a volunteer, as I have done since the early 1940s.
Paraclete Chapel
There was no WI in Mumbles in the early 1940s, so I joined the group in Newton. Once a month, meetings were held in Paraclete Chapel, because the Royal Sussex Regiment had requisitioned St. Peter’s Church. In 1948, we were able to establish ourselves in St Peter’s Hall. As the present WI does in Mumbles at Victoria Hall, we made and sold jams, chutneys and cakes. But we also provided entertainment. I remember one production of Under Milk Wood in which I played Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard, with two ‘dead’ husbands sitting alongside me – thereafter, I was hailed as ‘Mrs Ogmore’ in the Mumbles streets.
I was Secretary of the Newton WI for 17 years and president for three more years. When I joined, the membership was 150 – with a waiting list! From 1962 onwards, I helped to run the Mumbles Old People’s Day Centre. Many were in wheelchairs: they would arrive at 10.30 in the morning and leave at 3.30 in the afternoon, having been entertained, given lunch, and played games and so on.
Every year we organised a holiday for them, usually to Teignmouth. On one such outing, our coach made a detour to Coombe Dingle, near Bristol, the home of my daughter and son-in-law. Their neighbours, in their select cul-de-sac, were not deterred by the arrival of the coach, and came out with chairs and tables, to provide us with a wonderful tea.
To this day, I am Secretary of Tabernacle Chapel, as I have been since 1986. I have one interesting insight into the work of Tabernacle. A number of our Day Centre users wanted to receive Communion, while they were at the Day Centre and the Tabernacle Chapel Minister willingly provided the service.
At ninety, I can look back on an interesting, changing, and very fulfilling life in Mumbles. I am in good health, and I have had wonderful family support from my two children, four grandchildren and now six great-grandchildren. Who could ask for anything more?