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So what did we do for kicks?

by Anne Ardouin (nee Wilkinson)

More: Memories of Life at Oystermouth Vicarage also by Ann

Anne

The victory parties were over and the prisoners of war had returned. Elsie Mapp’s husband, skeletal and wan, epitomised what ‘our boys’ had been through. ‘Displaced persons’, as they were called (mainly Ukrainians) as yet not repatriated, worked to clear war debris. It had always been a minor source of amusement that the only bombs dropped on Mumbles were three incendiaries in the cemetery! Harry Libby came into his own, organising welcome-home meetings, tying up loose ends of the Mumbles Comfort Fund and liaising with my father, the Vicar at the time and others, for semi civic services of Thanksgiving. At that time, Mumbles was quite definitely separate from Swansea: with its own Council, used to separate decision making: very few people shopped in Swansea. Mumbles was its own community.

Oystermouth and The 'Tiv.'

Forte's

So, as we grew into teenagers in the post-war years, what was there for us to do now that the blackout was lifted and life was returning to some semblance of order? For me, activities centred around All Saints’. We were a lively bunch of youngsters. On Saturday mornings, we would meet at Forte’s (long since demolished) to drink cappuccino dispensed from huge hissing machines and watch Kingsley Amis and his wife Hilary with their small children, hold court. If the weather was good, we would adjourn with doorstep sandwiches of Shippam’s paste or squashed tomatoes, to Rotherslade or Langland – or get out our bikes and cycle to Crawley Woods. I’ve often since wondered why that was our favourite venue!

Forte's, The Dunns

Sundays were occupied with Church, more Church and yet more Church. The evening would end convivially at Cymru’r Groes in the Church Men’s Club, where under the guidance of Graham Chadwick (later a Bishop in South Africa) we thrashed out our adolescent views on the world, returning home by a circuitous route with our particular boyfriend (or girlfriend I presume).

Father & mother, Rev. & Mrs. Wilkinson

Anne as a teenager

We learned the Tango, Quick Step and Waltz and gloried in the new lipstick, ‘Tangee Natural,’ which was obtainable at Boots or Stratfords. We haunted the 1/3s or 1/9s in the Tivoli and held hands in the back row, while Cary Grant and Robert Mitchum strutted their stuff on screen. Always the cinema was heavy with cigarette smoke and our hair and clothes reeked as we walked along the sea front, stopping to kiss and grope (anything more being some sort of mortal sin!).

To the ‘clubbing’ set of teenagers today, getting their kicks from ‘Es’ and fast sex, our ‘kicks’ would seem tame but I am sure that we thought it was risqué and adventurous.

We learned to debate and compete with other debating societies, and even travelled to Morriston, either to compete or support our team. ‘Late’ was 9.00 pm at night and parental phone calls would go from house to house if we were later. Maybe we resented the curfew, but there was plenty you could get up to before 9.00, if you had a mind to.

After the war, a dear ‘old’ lady, Hannah Williams had come to live in the Vicarage. She had been born into the Orphanage at Thistleboon and had spent her life in service. She could not afford to maintain the rooms in which she lived in Southend – and my father had said to her – “There’s a spare bedroom in the Vicarage!”. Bags packed, she had arrived that very day. She was to live with us for many years, occupying the front kitchen and the room above, until we moved and she went into West Cross House. She was quite an amazing soul. She had her hair cut at Mr. Priddy’s, the men’s barber. There were no concessions to femininity. She wore little round tortoise-shell spectacles, a dark red beret and always toted a brown paper carrier with string handles. She loved us as the only family she had ever known and she gained vicarious pleasure from our romances. What Hannah hadn’t ‘seen in the ‘Post’ was not worth reporting. Along with Births, Marriages and Deaths, which seemed to fascinate her endlessly, she relayed the triumphs of the Swans (a good team in those days) and the Mumbles Rugby Club!

On Christmas Day she joined us in the dining room with another little old lady, Miss Thomas, the China Shop from Southend. She was bent and pale and lived in the backroom of the shop with nothing more than a paraffin stove, for heat and paraffin lamp for light. I still own some of her beautiful china, which my mother bought from her.

Hannah

Ann with my sister Ruth & brother Paul , 1942

Ann with my sister Ruth & brother Paul, c1950

Another old lady who springs to mind was Mrs Hearn, the gypsy. She lived somewhere on Clyne Common. Most Monday mornings would see her sitting drinking tea on the Vicarage porch, while my mother bought yet more pegs and gave her my father’s cast-off (or still being worn) black trilby hats and boots, which she wore with panache, smoking a pipe of foul tobacco. When she was dying in Morriston Hospital, my father visited her and she asked to be carried outside to die under the stars.

Yet another old lady was ‘Dicky Dick’ (so called by the Choirboys) Miss Edith Richards who owned and lived in West Cross House – an eccentric aristocrat if ever there was one. She had beautifully coiffured white hair and periwinkle blue eyes in a patrician face. She would sweep into Church on Sundays, bedecked in furs and ostrich feathers. She would open the door of Lloyd’s Bank, leaving her dogs (a Pekingese and a terrier called Cumrau) for the Bank staff to care for while she went for a hair appointment! She was a generous benefactress of the Church and on one occasion made out a cheque (which was duly honoured!) on the back of a Tate and Lyle sugar bag! Mumbles was not short of real characters in those days.

Wilkinson family at Langland

Finally I must tell you of the day when I came face to face with the Emperor of Ethiopia, Hail Selassie. He had wandered into the vestry of All Saints where I was helping my mother to clean the brasses. His son was at the time studying at the Bible College in Derwen Fawr. They were Christian you see. He was dressed in a beautiful navy blue cashmere coat and his manners and demeanour were impeccable. It was a privilege that I have not forgotten, even though I have learned subsequently of his dictatorial regime.

It’s enough for now: my heart and soul still rests in Mumbles, with those with whom I shared my youth. They know who they are and my husband, Michael (a Londoner for heaven’s sake!) and I still keep in touch with many of them.

Memories of Life at Oystermouth Vicarage

Also by Ann