Voices from the Past

This forum is open to all of the villagers of Trelawnyd past and present


I would like for them to share their memories, old photographs, family histories and past Village news with me so that I may be able to present a comprehensive record of this small. ancient and facinating Welsh Village Community throughout the ages.


All photographs will be returned after being scanned and published

For those that want to read a comprehensive study on the History of Trelawnyd, please refer to the Book "TRELAWNYD PAST & PRESENT" by Daphne and Ken Davies

The Village Flower Show Blog can be viewed at

http://trelawnydflowershow.blogspot.com/
and my personal Village based blog can be seen at

http://disasterfilm.blogspot.com/

Best Wishes

John Gray

Trelawnyd 571838


Email : jgsheffield@hotmail.com
Many thanks to the following citizens of Trelawnyd for their conributions so far:
Mrs Gwyneth Jones, Mrs Gladys Jones, Mrs Olwenna Hughes, Mr Trevor Evans, Mr Hubert Evans, Mrs Bryn, Davies, Mr Islwyn Thomas, Mrs Pat Bagguley, Mrs Joanne Hewitt, Mrs Beryl Evans, Mrs Daphne Jones, Mrs Audrey Jones,Mr Basil Davies, Miss Mona Davies, Mr Graham Jones. Mrs Iola Endres

Michael Antonio Ralli

Last night I went to the Trelawnyd and Gwaenysgor Community Council meeting and in passing had chance to read a photocopy of the Prestatyn Weekly Newspaper dated the 23rd of October 1909.
In it was an article discussing an initiative by Mr Michael Antonio Ralli,who was the Greek Consul in Liverpool, to build our village Hall as a way of giving jobs and motivation to the local unemployed.
Ralli was a somewhat colourful character to be found in a predominantly Welsh village. He was a Greek from Odessa who made a small fortune importing cotton from Russia when American could not export it's own during the American Civil War and I find it fascinating that after a period living in London and Liverpool
he and his wife Polynmia, would end up dominating an insular and quiet backwater village.
A Ukrainian Greek as Lord of the Manor
How Exotic!
Trelawnyd ( or Newmarket as it was formally known) was Ralli's dream, he clearly wanted it to develop in status when he gifted the Memorial Hall to the village
The newspaper cutting eluded to that fact when it stated that Ralli's wish was to make Newmarket a "Garden City", a rather grand dream for a village of 600 simple souls, but a rather sweet one nevertheless.
 I wonder what Ralli would have made of the fact the Newmarket title was renamed Trelawnyd in 1954...
The "new" name was in keeping , I suppose, for it has a name that Ralli might of liked
.....Trelawnyd  literally  means " a town full of wheat"
Posted by at

3 comments:

  1. Ken Mac3 July 2012 at 15:53

    it rather denigrates this fine fellow to say so, but his mustache and beard is so totally modern it's scary. He would fit in very well in the hipster village of Williamsburg, Brooklyn

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  2. Fairtrader30 April 2016 at 08:17

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. Fairtrader30 April 2016 at 08:23

    Thank you, John!
    This a true delight, I have never been even remotly close to this part of the world but you make history alive. My family lives in a part of our country where our girls have their rootes and we have not. But people around here have taken great effort to preserve history in films, written documents, photos and recordings.
    Some people write books about greatgrandfathers and greatgrandmothers, in our neighbourhood that mostly means fishermen or farmers. We're past our fifties so nostalgia hits us badly. Who are we without our history?

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