A boy's schooldays in Wales

I wanted to try and piece together snippets of information and understand more about my Dad's school days in Swansea. Originally I thought he must have gone to the elite Swansea Grammar but then I came upon this photo and a reference on his CV to two years spent at Glanmore Grammar. According to the internet this had been a girls school.  I had to read through the school log book to fully understand what a unique and character building experience it must have been to have been a pupil here.  The headmaster's entry captured the excitement and above all the weather:  snow on the opening day in January 1920 and thereafter much torrential rain. The school buildings were not the grand institution on the hill but the WW1 army huts that had been transported from Salisbury Plain as temporary accommodation for an experimental school for "bright children" set up on the site of a farm. Admission was dependent on passing an entrance exam and even then fees were payable unless a scholarship could be won..  One of the main preoccupations for the head master was trying to improve facilities for drying out the soaking wet clothes of the boys as there was only a small boiler room. The other was the battle to stop the boys' daredevil bike rides down the steep hills, sometimes with pillion passengers aboard. The log book refers to a stream of visiting educationalists coming to observe art, science and maths. Pupils had the opportunity to stay until they applied for university although  many left to take up a place at technical college or to go to sea.  After the second world war it became a girls school and amazingly the army huts were still in use after the school closed fifty years years later.  My Dad left after just two years when the family moved back to Lambeth. What memories of that city by the sparkling sea he must have taken with him. 



Times changing

Once the Mumbles Train and later the Tram would have chugged to a halt at the pier head.  On one occasion over a thousand people travelled on a single train.  A picture shows them sitting on the top and hanging on the sides,  even the ladies with their long frocks and parasols.  For a sense of accomplishment they would wander up the road and climb the hill at Mumbles Head and gaze out over to Devon.  One hopes there was a tea shop on this side of the water. The pretty little station built in 1926 for the trams is now an amusement arcade, colourful, noisy and packed.  A fish and chip parlour adds tone with glass, brass and chandeliers.  The pier itself is being renovated so is locked off leaving a large mechanical red dragon looking forlorn and lonely on the board walk.

And what about those determined Edwardian daytrippers picking their way up and over Mumbles Head? A hundred years later their pathway leads into a car park with a tomato shaped burger bar and a lot less grass.  At the top, a line of railings with a "danger" sign beside a sheer drop makes a gesture to health and safety. But even today the sense of adventure is still real and much more exciting than the arcade.

Out along the bay

On Sunday afternoon I decided I would walk to the Mumbles, those enticing bumps at the very far end of the bay.  I could have taken the car but my idea of a holiday is to lock the car and leave it alone.  Not all  my family agree with me.  I wonder why?    I walked past the Guildhall, a park, a cricket ground and Swansea University but after an hour those lumpy bits were still very far away.

Just as in the best stories, a friendly train chugged into view and I paid my £2 fare and jumped on board.  We were soon rocking rolling riding out along the bay with all the little and big boys and girls snug inside as the rain came down.  When the sun came out and dried up all the rain, the smiling, waving people appeared again. We  were overtaken by two boys on skateboards and bicyles sped by. 

Small wonder the Mumbles Train

was so popular over a century ago.  The first horse drawn trains used the track laid for the coal and limestone railway.  Experiments with sails and steam followed until electrification brought the famous trams into play.  In 1960 the trams were scrapped in favour of a "good bus service".  The rails were lifted and the road was widened to make way for more cars.

But luckily for me the magic Mumbles train chugs on.

Constitution HIll

My great grandfather, Tom George, was coming to Swansea to visit his sister Teresa from 1908 to 1911, sending postcards back home to his wife Millie who was holding the fort  at the Coach and Horses pub in Lambeth. Teresa lived in a little end of terrace house at 137 Rhondda Street, two thirds of the way up Constitution Hill, one of the steepest residential streets in Britain.

The street railway is long gone. Houses have been modernised, pebble dashed and extended and the trees have grown but the hill is definitely still there along with cobbles and old style lamp posts now powered by electricity rather than gas. This street surely must have featured in many a period drama. 

In 1922 Cissie and her family were living at 38 Walter Road, the  main street that runs along the bottom of the hill.  Her aunt and uncle were still living at the top. 

Steadily, well trained on Sheffield hills, I made the climb in one go.  I found the Rhondda Street house, now extended at the back and advertising student bedsits.

At the top I paused to listen for voices from the past. I wondered how many times Cissie had dragged her children up that hill, and how many times my Dad had stopped to gaze out over the sea before racing down the steep slope home.

My grandmother's church

On Sunday I went to church.  I went St James' Church where my Uncle Tom was baptised in 1921. It is probable that the family were regular members of the congregation as this was a period when churches were well attended and Sunday schools were full.

I sat at the back of the church and thought about my 35 year old grandmother, holding her new baby with an eight year old by her side. And my grandfather, did he sing with the same beautiful deep voice as my father? Who were the God parents?   Maybe Cissie's cousins: Teresa Dudden, John, Gertie or Emily Broomfield, or Margaret Morgan ,  the children of Tom George's sister Teresa, who lived on Rhondda Street, just up the up the hill. 

A Family History Mystery

I'm here in Swansea to try and understand more about the little family in this photograph taken here in Swansea in 1922.  This is my Dad, George Rea, his baby brother Thomas and my Nana, Mildred.  She was known by her family as Cissie, a name given to her by her brother which stuck maybe because her mother was called Millie as a shortened version of Amelia.

I have come here to try and figure out why they were living here in Swansea when my Dad had been born in Lambeth, why was there such a big gap between the children, what their father Tom Rea was up to  and why they suddenly uprooted and returned to London in 1926.  This sudden move meant my Dad had to forfeit his scholarship place at a grammar school and register at the local board school.  For a bespectacled boy with a Welsh accent, it must have been a traumatic experience. I recall him telling me that he hated his London school, that if he was reprimanded he would respond with a nervous smile that resulted in a beating. The move had such a disastrous impact on his education that it  took him a whole lifetime of nightschool and correspondence courses to make up the loss.  But determined he was, and he eventually provided for his family a nice semi-detached home in Wimbledon of a type that he must have set his sights on here in the Uplands of Swansea on his route to and home from school. When he died it was with the confidence that his wife would be "alright", unlike the desperate straights his own mother was in when her husband checked out early.  He had done all he could to give his children the best chance but one by one we all rebelled as children do.  Or was it more?  What characteristics did we inherit from our grandparents - from Tom and Cissie Rea?

The Swansea days undoubtedly shaped Dad's aspirations which in turn left a trace on mine so by returning here, and in trying to understand the grandmother I never met and redeem my black sheep grandfather, maybe I will learn more about the mystery of myself.

A golden start to my hols

I'm on holiday.  And this year it's a good old fashioned British holiday in a guest house in Swansea.  For once it feels a great time to be British and there are signs that we may even be  reclaiming  the Union flag from the BNP and xenophobic football fans.  The red, blue and white looked pretty stylish wrapped around Jessica Ennis but even better as a cloak for Mo Farah.  And good to see  a ginga in gold as well. Watching the games this afternoon from the big screen in Swansea made me think back to the days when I used to watch the Olympics on a black and white TV with my Dad and we would marvel at the god-like perfection of the athletes and the extraordinary stamina of the marathon runners.  Then one day I heard with amazement that my own brother Chris was running the London marathon and impossibilities were swept away.

The new generation take such challenges in their stride so that to run a marathon these days is almost a rite of passage.   Jessica Ennis is a Sheffield lass and everyone feels they know her.  She used to go to a school where I worked. I know her old sports teacher. She even budged up on her track for me so that 200 school children could launch pop bottle rockets down it.  She is really a very extraordinary girl next door.

For years I've been chewing a mouthful of sour grapes over sports because back problems stopped me diving,  dancing and running.  Time to spit them out and smile and say well done.   I, myself , am a long way now from being an Olympic anything, but maybe some of the magic will rub off.  Well done all.