Mrs Audrey Jones
Age 87
Years in the Village 87
"My Grandfather John Ithal Jones was born in your cottage.....the date was sometime in the 1870s...born and brought up in that cottage he was......When he married he had two daughters....my mother Ceridwen and my aunt Rose.
When my mother married they lived in the prefabricated house Winstays, which was at that time a shop which sold sweets , tobacco and the like . It was also fish and chip shop!
I was born there in 1924. The Woman that delivered me lived in Erw Wen and was a midwife in Liverpool or the Wirral. Her husband came to the village as the baker.
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| Audrey and her brother "blacked up" outside Winstay Cottage with their father |
She only delivered two babies in the village...me and Bob Davies...she wasn't official or anything...she only came to help....people did in those days."
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| A rare photo of Winstay house with Audrey's father with the horse |
"My father turned his hand to anything jobwise and got a job on the bins in the 1930s. His sister, Nellie Hughes was the landlady of The Crown and her husband Tom Hughes was the blacksmith. In the 1940s my father bought Gop Farm and I had so much to do with looking after the cattle I didn't have time to join in with the village's civil defence"
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Trelawnyd's Wartime Civil defence. Bessie Bryn Teg is on the second row 5th from left. Audrey's best friend Megan Lewis who lived in number 1 London Road is bottom row 3rd from the right. The shop keeper I.P Jones is on the top row 2nd from the left Audrey could name all but two of this group |
"Things could be tough in the village when I was growing up, but generally people shared what they had....I remember Ester Parry who was an older lady who lived in the house that was the Cross Keys pub at one time. She used to go from house to house around the village doing washing up here and peeling potatoes there...all for a meal!
She adopted a little boy who was called Frankie Chalk! That was his proper name! He was born out of wedlock to a woman who had a bit of money and every now and then she would come to visit and give old Ester Parry some more money.......apparently the father was in the navy"
"You know I remember the very first sixpence I ever saw! we were all round at Ester Parry's for a sing song and Hywel Stuart who used to play the piano accordion gave me a sixpence to go to the shop on Chapel Street for him. I had to buy 2 pence chocolate, a packet of woodbines and laces for his shoes! (she laughs)
funny what you remember after all these years isn't it?"
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| Audrey's family home. When Audrey married she farmed the next farm down the hill to Dyserth Ty Newydd Audrey's husband Lennis lived at the oldest house in the village Siamber Wen before his marrage to Audrey |