My Memories of Gorseinon

by David Henry

I remember the Monkey Parade in Gorseinon. It’s heyday was in the late 1950’s, when Teds (Teddy Boys) in drape coats and "brothel creepers" used to swagger down High Street, across to Cross Street and into Upper Lime Street. I never saw anything like it until visiting the Mediterranean. Perhaps it was the influence of the Welsh-Italians. They ran the three cafes in Gorseinon. Albert’s, Moruzzi’s and one down by the railway station.

The first love of my life was one of Albert’s daughters, Angela. It was an unrequited love. Angela was over 16 years old, I alas, was only 4. Angela worked in the Nursery School and was kind enough to take me there each day, holding my hand and chatting to me on the way to school.

I was so enamoured with her, that one day, I sneaked back into the classroom in which she was teaching, and hid behind the blackboard (mounted, in those days on a wooden easel). The class soon betrayed me, however, but Angela was kind, truly an Angel.

The Nursery School was near St. Catherine’s Church and we used to have a third of a pint of milk a day, then an enforced rest on some camp beds. I enjoyed the former, but even at that tender age, could see no sense in the latter for healthy growing kids. That nursery education provided a fine springboard for study at my next school in High Street.

I remember being terrified on my first day. No one could understand why, until I explained that I thought I was going for a dreaded vaccination injection (hitherto the only reason that I had for going into that particular building).

I also recall having to run around the schoolyard with the other kids whenever it rained, our teacher instructing us to hold our faces towards the sky as the rain was good for our complexions. A bit unnecessary for a six year old, one would have thought, as it was a highly dilute sulphuric acid, no doubt, aided and abetted in its strength by the local steel and tinplate works.

The next school, the Junior School was near the Police Station. This was a different affair. What a range of teachers. One who was respected and indeed feared, taught us History. Later in life, I heard that he was a Communist and I had thought, for a brief moment, what sort of thing did he etch on my young mind. I could think of nothing – but I did grow up with what I was to discover, was an unusually strong sense of what is just and right (which hasn’t by the world’s standards, at any rate, always served me well.

I did not work hard (and never really have since) but got to Gowerton Grammar School (as did my sister a couple of years later). With me went such luminaries as Geoff Thomas, whose Quaker father used to walk each day to and from his employment in a Swansea Insurance Office, a feat that impressed me greatly. Michael Davis, Lyndon Edwards and various others including Warren Scott (his mum had a hairdressing business in Pontarddulais Road). He was later my Best Man.