ĂŰŃż´«Ă˝

I always remember coming home and meeting Bert Benjamin and he said to me “what the hell are you doing, what did you do that for?” join the air crew, he said “we’ve already lost two boys in the village”.

I was and I’m proud of being a country boy, I tell you this much, if I hadn’t been a countryboy.. I’ve seen some of the others, people in Buchenwald, who couldn’t take it, and it helped me in my mind to survive. You didn’t panic you thought about things, and although in some cases there was nothing you could do about it, it was one of those things you accepted that you couldn’t do.

ĂŰŃż´«Ă˝ Life

Friday night we would say to each other “where we going tomorrow then?” ! I mean then it was a pleasure sometimes as I say to go to the pictures on a Saturday, sometimes you went to Newport to the pictures because there was a better picture on, me and Charlie. And we’d go out we’d go to Newport, and we’d come back and we’d have tea. You know go in the morning come back and have tea at his place, and I’d stay and then go home. And every weekend he was my mate, we were going out together. As I say, what could you do on one and four a week

There were certain people who came on certain days. There was people like the old oil man Tom Lewis and his uncle, it wasn’t his father. Tom was a great guy, a great guy, you see they’d drive out to Shirenewton, the old man would get off, in the bar at the card table. Tom did the round on his own, come back to the pub see my Mother, see what she wanted and then he’d probably have a cup of tea. But Tom was a very well regarded respected man. Yes, and of course he took over after the old man died look. But the old man used to play crib or nine card don with my father, and a bloke from up at Earlswood, a very old, quite an old man, but he used to walk down every day and walk back.

The Five Bells at that stage was a fully licensed inn, with Stroud Brewery, we were at that time the only pub with a full licence. We could sell spirits and beer, the Tredegar Arms could only sell beer and cider, The Tan House could only sell beer, I’m not too sure about the Cross Hands. If somebody came in and asked for something to eat she’d get them something. There was enough sugar in Mother’s cupboard upstairs to keep the village! I don’t know where it came from. And I mean let’s be honest about it, Irwin the policeman, always had a rabbit in his pouch, and he used to knock on the door on a Sunday morning and come in and give us a rabbit and have a pint. But he wasn’t coming as a policeman, he was coming as a friend. Sometimes you’d get a pheasant,when they’d been shooting and he had more than he wanted.

Bert Benjamin I used to work for him, well work for him in the sense that I went round with Raymond, delivering meat up through the Glyn, up to Devauden. I was probably oh probably fifteen fourteen. There was there was no such thing as controls, I never collected any coupons. There’s a farm, we used go with a big piece of meat every week. At night when I went back, after finishing the round and sometimes it was quite late when we’d get back he would say here you are Peter, two eggs. More than enough, I mean I didn’t expect payment, I went because I enjoyed it. Bert Benjamin always gave you something. Even when there was haymaking time and Raymond and I and probably somebody else would be the boys fetching the cider, from the little room next to the barn on the right. You’d go in there and get the cider and take it back up, but of course you never did that without having a swill yourself! By the end of the day, you were worse than the men!

That’s oh I don’t know there was an atmosphere then about, I mean because let’s be honest about it, the Five Bells at that stage was a fully
inn, didn’t have any water supply there therefore didn’t have any flush toilets, didn’t have any electricity, or gas. When my Father was alive his first job every day was to clean the glasses on the lamps. And the lamp on the dartboard was a parrafin lamp which was shielded by a tin, a piece of tin round it to stop the darts in. Occasionally if one came off the wire and hit the glass, you’d break the glass. There was no electricity, there was no water, the nearest water was around just by Benjamin’s at a tap; which you had to pay for the top of the tap that fitted it to get water, not very much but you’d pay for it. We also had a pump in the kitchen, but the water there wasn’t fit for drinking, but perfectly all right for washing up and washing like that; an underground tank there somewhere, but we never drunk that water at all. So if we wanted any fresh water we either went across the square to the pump, or we went to the Spout. Mainly we went to the Spout, because it was better water or tasted better. My sister used to come when she used to carry one jug I’d carry two and it was just something that had to be done. It’s like the toilet facilities wasn’t it? with the old bucket!

Football was more my line, and tennis, sport was my life. And that’s how it worked I mean as I say I was playing football for Shirenewton in those days, and I was playing tennis for Shirenewton, I played cricket for Shirenewton. Do you know we’d get on our bikes and go down to Caldicot to play, with the stumps across the top, and things like that. You know we used to travel quite a bit, and sport was my life.

This lodger was one of the construction engineers building Dinham. He actually helped to to plan it and build it, right at the beginning. And he came there and he stayed with us, he became one of the family in fact. Well he was with us sort of two and half years, I think the marriage came about when all of a sudden he was being transferred to Hirwaun. He went up to do some I’m not sure whether I think it was an electrical place up there, and so they decided they wanted to get married so they got married. And she went because, that was when they left us, they went together.

I can remember it as a place of I don’t know it was just one of those places that you belonged to. You belonged to, I mean it wasn’t that you just lived there, it was part of you. I mean you knew everybody, you could trust everybody that you knew. You knew their difficulties, their problems. I mean some of the things we got up to, and some of the people who we met. I always remember one particular Christmas when we were Carol Singing, and we’d been down to Cae Pwcella, and then to the house below that at the top of Red House Lane. Stan Stanley Webb was with me and a few others, and they gave us home made wine! I got home all right, but Stanley Webb spent the night in the church yard! Yes we were drinking potato wine and parsnip wine and all the various other ones, oh we’d had a good time.

But I remember going home the first week and walked into the house and my Father said to me “well Son, brought your wages home?” I said “yes Dad”, he said “how much?” I said “three and ten”, three shillings and ten pence. And he said to me “well” he said “you have two choices”. He said “you can either give me two and six of that and I’ll save it for you, or you can promise me you’ll save it, and put it away every week”. And I said, “I’ll do that Dad”. And he said “and you can spend the other one and four pence”. It’s true, and I did, I put that away, and I spent the first of that money at the age of twenty five to buy furniture after we got married.

Black market yes there was a bloke in there, a coach builder Ted something or other who kept goats, and occasionally he would kill one and he would bring the meat into work. But generally speaking he brought it in for people who he knew was going to buy them. I always used to have the leg of the kid to take home, it was really beautiful meat. Always remember it because my Uncle from Somerset, he was there with my Mother’s Sister who he married. Mother was in the bar, and they were staying for the weekend. And on the Saturday he poked his head around the door and said “Marie” that’s my Mother, and he said “Oh Marie where’s the meat for lunch?”. And she said “Oh it’s in the fridge in the cold room”, which is in the back of the place. Well she didn’t tell him what it was, and he went out and got it and brought it in and carved it and everybody had food except my Mother. She had hers when she came out of the Pub at three o’clock. And I always remember this when he said “Oh Marie” he said “that lamb was beautiful!”. “Lamb” she said, “we didn’t have any lamb!” It was in fact kid, and he was a butcher!

The Town

Next to the church (Methodist) was a sort of a big canteen, I went into that. Well generally speaking it had half a dozen land army girls in there, that’s probably why we went in there. They served sandwiches cakes buns stuff like that.

Saturday at the Gaumont, that’s where I spent my one and fourpence, used to come into the afternoon matinee, yes they had a matinee on a Saturday. You weren’t into girls then obviously. Oof, girls they were a waste of time. Not true but I mean no we weren’t. There again you see, you know the whole damn thing is has changed. I knew quite a number of the Land Girls because we used to go dancing to Llanishen in the crowd you know, in the back of Raymond Benjamin’s van. Our social life was dancing mainly, we used to go to Llangwm, Llansoy, Itton on occasions it wasn’t a regular thing , and Shirenewton of course always.

We always used to come in especially for Hospital Whist Tournament. Then of course there was the Hospital Dancing Cup, where you had to qualify to enter. You held a sort of dance, a big dance in Shirenewton, and there’d be people there judging, and you’d get the first three in one dance would then be eligible to go to Chepstow to the final. The funny thing about it was it didn’t matter where you were, if you failed in Shirenewton, you went on to the next one to try again! You could see the people who had failed last time at the next one, and all round the different places.

Travel

To get to work I started off by cycling from Shirenewton, down through Mounton, up to the road up the top here still there the lane, and then down through past Phil Prices’ (High Beech Farm). I remember coming down there one day, got down as far as Mullins the Rhewl, a stick come up hit my front wheel, over the top of the bars straight into his wall!

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