Hop-scotch, gambos and levitation

Loved John's comments on the Opies and kids' rhymes. I love all that stuff and have blogged about some I remember:
 omp-pomp-pee-and-lousianna

I went to junior school in Aberenfig, but when I went to Secondary school I was with children from Bridgend and Maesteg and realised they had different games, game words and rhymes despite being only two and eight miles away. When I went away to college in the big city - Cardiff(!) - a whole twenty miles away I found more differences. What I thought of as aeroplane hopscotch was simply hopscotch and the rhymes for playing two balls or skipping were endless. I particularly liked:
??????? had a fright
In the middle of the night
She saw a ghost eating toast 
halfway up a lampost

And there were those naughty rhymes where you nearly/sort of swore:
Lily was in the garden playing with the cat
Down came a bumble bee and stug her on her...
Twice she went to the doctor's...

While I find it hard to remember poetry or lyrics to songs I can recite the whole of the piece of filth above!

The word gambo has caused me great excitement - I should get out more! - it was what we called home made go-carts in Aberkenfig but were buggies or go-carts in Cardiff. The word actually came up on"call my Bluff" many moons ago.
 Wiki -Call My Bluff
The definition was a hay cart in the West Country.
Further excitement was caused when I saw the word on a cart wheel in the wonderful coracle museum in Cenarth in Cardigan:
 coracle museum.


 I wonder how many people attempted the levitation thing where you chanted to try and make a person weightless and the group attempt to pick the person up from a prone position supporting them with two fingers of each hand. There was a variation to make someone fall back as well where you pretended to make holes in their back and then thread and pull an imaginary string... Universal or just Aberenfig I wondered, but - as so often - the wonderful Wiki provided an answer:
wiki Light as a feather, stiff as a board

Snow...

I love wandering around Aberkenfig and the surrounding area so was lovely to see it in the snow. Click on pictures for bigger version.

Life's Necessities...

This is the view from my back garden.

Had been snowed in for a few days - not dramatically, but access to motorway was closed and my car was under a blanket of snow. Decided to have a walk around the village and surrounding area and it was all very picturesque as expected.


The local foodshops were open and had bread and milk - there'd been panic buying in South Wales supermarkets - and to my amusement and delight  the sex shop and gun shop were also open - Other businesses were closed but you could still get sex and guns in the village!

Will post more pics, but having problems with where pictures are being placed - still - you get the picture..

Front garden and my car

View of my street

The snowmen!

I'll post pictures on new entry.

Godless in Caerffili...

Lots of twittering going on - in the old-fashioned sense - about the latest census findings. There was the usual panic and immigration debate but a big issue was the increase in the number of those who say they have no religious belief.

The census found that there were four million fewer Christians in England and Wales in 2011 than 10 years earlier and the area with the biggest decrease (does that make sense?!) in faith  in general is Caerffili! Non-belief has leapt from 16 to 17% to 40%! Despite this being discussed on at least two news items on Radio 4 I can't find a piece specifically on the place but found this Guardian article about the changes in religious belief in Blaenau Gwent:
Census and religion: churches lose their appeal in struggling Welsh valleys

This is the general picture on Christianty n the UK as described by Robert Pigott, the  Religious Affairs correspondent on the BBC News site:

Churches had pointed to the 72% of people who described themselves as Christian in the 2001 Census to help justify their claim that Britain is a "Christian country".
The sharp decline in the number of people in England and Wales identifying themselves as Christian to 59% is a sign of the religion's weakening influence in society.
The secular trend is confirmed by the significant increase in the percentage of people describing themselves as having no religion from 15% to 25%.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20683744

Family Stuff and History

I'm now in touch with my cousin on my father's side (Jeanette and her husbnd Ian) and discovered several errors in my Auntie Gladys's version of the Gunston history which I will correct.

One of my  Australian cousins, Jacqui (my mother's side) is visiting again in September so I hope to  confirm some stuff when I see her. On our Maltese side there is the scary Greek Great Grandmother -who I resemble! - My sister commented that we have no idea of her background. There must be a tale of how she - or her family - came to Malta from somewhere Greek....

Diasporas are fascinating. I only got as far as Cardiff (20 miles!) and then came back - for some people that is quite adventurous, but nothing compared with Malta to Egypt and then to Australia like my maternal Grandparents. When I was in Cardiff I used to joke that I'd travelled 20 miles and got culture shock - it was quite true though.

A potted historie...

I was at secondary school with a girl whose Grandfather was from Aberkenfig. I asked her to find out what he knew about my family. This is what I learnt. My Grandfather married a woman from the coaltip (Llanelli) and my Dad went away in the forces and came back with a foreign woman (Maltese, from Egypt - it's complicated...!)

I love the summary of our history - I guess not the most common background for an Aberkenfig family...

Family History: My father's family

Several years ago I asked my Auntie Gladys (Dad's sister) about her family and wrote this based on what she said and bits I knew. The stuff about my grandparents is based on what my Gran told Gladys:

 

Alice Maud Llewellyn and Hubert Gunston were my paternal grandparents

Hubert was from Gloucester and ran away when he was 13. He went to sea and lied about his age. He had brother Ernie who was a postman.

Hubert was known as ‘Fiery Bert’ and was small but fierce.

Bert took lodgings with May Pullman in Llanelli.

Alice Llewellyn was from Llanelli and told her daughter Gladys that she dreamt of a man with brass buttons and a twirly moustache and it seemed that that is what she got!

Alice had brother Will who was a blacksmith. Brother Dai was lay preacher and sister Emmy was tailoress.

Bert  was possibly a wagon repair man. He was with Steelworks and may have been an inspector. Bert quarrelled a lot.

Bert and Alice moved on to Swansea, then Aberkenfig.

Lived at no. 31 or 21 the moved to 11 Dunraven Street.

Their children were:

Florence May

Harold William

Ernest Reginald (my father)

Gladys Elizabeth

Florrie’s children were Shirley, Rita and Jeanette:

Shirley married Ken and their children were Julie, Steve and David

Rita married Cliff and had Wakely, Guy and Victoria

Jeanette married Ian and their children were  Graham, Richard and Stuart

Harold and Gladys never married nor had children.

Ernest (my father) married Daria Molinari and had three children: Diane, Sheilagh and Irene.

The top picture is my maternal Grandmother with Harold as a baby. Harold was (we thought) the eldest, but apparently not. Because I've been writing  about Aberkenfig and came across the 1911 census website I decided to check out the family presence in 1911
I knew my Grandparents were living here and found them as expected - but also what would have been my uncle - named Bert after his father -  born in 1910! He didn't survive to overlap with my father and known siblings as far as I am aware - but what a surprise. Of couse child mortality was high in those days. I know that my Molinari grandparents lost a little girl - Emily - but didn't know about a lost Gunston...

This is the link for census: 

1911census

 The second picture is my father (sat on the right)  looking amazingly cool when having your photo taken was an event!

  

Omp Pomp Pee and a Lousianna...

...My black cat can play the pianah...

Been thinking about street games played wnhen I was a youngster. The above was part of the rhyme for a very imaginatively named game of "Kerb or Wall" This was the rhyme and and counting/choosing rhyme for person to compete:
Omp Pomp Pee and a Lousianna
My black cat can play the pianah
 Omp Pomp Pee,
Stick him up a tree
Kerb or wall?
Kerb or wall? 
Person picked would choose kerb or wall and race against the picker. Race by chosen would be to wall (if chosen), back and then to kerb and back. Chooser would run to kerb (if not chosen) and back, followed by wall and back. How sophisticated is that?! 


I was fascinated by kids' games and also the differences between language and games in different areas.The Opies have written extensively on this:
Lore andLanguage of Schoolchildren

In children's books, kids played "tag" and in Aberkenfig we played "touch". Touch came in a variety of forms: off ground, twty down, tunnnel and aeroplane to name a few. When one was off ground or twtying (crouching down) one was safe from being touched/tagged/caught/losing. In tunnel touch one became static, but could be released by someone crawling through one's legs...

I was also very taken with the idea of respite words varying according to one's location - something mapped out by the Opies.  In Aberkenfig if one needed a break in a game one asked for "bars". Cree and Pax I believe are most common and as "barley" is used, "bars" is likely to be a version or corruption of it. Just had a google and discovered the term for such words is "truce term":
wiki on truce terms

I shall write more about childhood games in Aberkenfig and surrounding areas again.

No sex please, we're Welsh...

As you know if you have visited my delightful village or read previous posts, there is a sex shop in Aberenfig which causes me much amusement. I was chatting about this to a neighbour (as you do!) and discovered that a very nice man working in te shop when it had its protester used to provide her with a cup of tea - How sweet (and slightly mad) is that?!

ps If you've not already found out -  clicking on pictures gives a bigger version and you can magnify further if you want to read the article.

Grilled cheese, poached eggs and kitchen suppers...

 Just read an article about the language of meals and their  social history and meanings
kitchen suppers, francis maude and Rachel Cooke
It seems that even the word "meals" is "non-U"!

"Supper" seems to be one of those words that is  completely working class, posh or pseudo-posh depending on what you eat and what you call your other meals. Not sure how "supper clubs" and of course the most famous one - "The Last" Supper" - fit into this...







In Aberkenfig in the sixties and seventies to my knowledge and recollection,  the meal in the middle of the day was definitely "dinner" and those that toook it at school needed dinner money rather than lunch money. 

On weekdays we'd come home to "tea" which was another substantial meal taken quite early after school and work. This meant that one often got peckish after about nine and that was when the movable feast that was supper took place. All meals were taken at the kitchen table except supper which was eaten in the sitting room in front of the TV.

My younger sister and my father were rather fond of  grlled cheese. This was like cheese on toast without the toast - slices of cheese just grilled on an enamel plate. My father added HP sauce to his, but Irene ate it as it was.

my favourite supper dish was poached egg(s) on toast - preferably with a firm white and runny yolk. I'm still fond of a poached egg and will settle for a more set yolk that risk the dreaded runny white! I've experimented with various ways of helping the egg to set, but still prefer a freeformed egg cooked in a pan of water with a good slosh of vinegar in it and sometimes some salt as extra insurance against an over-floaty white. Somehow egg poachers are not the same... I like to spread the egg over my toast and sprinkle with an obscene amount of black pepper, then eschew cutlery and eat with my fingers.

Sundays were - and still seem to be - different as most people have a significant meal in the middle of the day - Sunday lunch or dinner. As a youngster I loved the idea of a "high tea" on Sunday evening with sandwiches and cake all served at the table and looking my idea of  a meal from books. Tinned fruit and icecream elevated this even further. Irene and I didn't like tinned fruit, but loved the syrup from the tinned pears and peaches that the rest of the family ate. This was before we had a freezer and the block of icecream would be purchased from the only shop in the village to be open on a Sunday and bought wrapped in newspaper and borne home in some excitement.

Of course, nobody fully understands and expounds the significance of tinned fruit as the late and great Dylan Thomas in "The Peaches"
See below for summary and response to the short story:
"The Peaches" in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog

I still love high tea/ party food/buffet type meal with basics of sandwiches and cakes with additions of sausage rolls, pasties, crisps, nuts etc.

Illicit Bluebell Picking and May Altars

Listening to The Archers I realised it was May Day and memories of May Altars and picking armfuls of bluebells came flooding back.

Many Catholic (and other) churches have an altar dedicated to Mary, but there is also a tradition to have a home altar to her in "her" month, which is May.

Info on May Altars from "Catholic Fire"

As a youngster, I would turn a chest of drawers top into my May Altar, with a statue and some candles and said bluebells. I did try Mayflower (hawthorn) which seemed appropriate, but didn't last.

An elderly neighbour also told me it was unlucky, but I was not particularly superstitious.  Just looked up hawthorn and was reminded of the Joseph of Aramathea connection and the famous Glastonbury thorn:
about the hawthorn/Mayflower

I'd also put violets and other flowers on the May Altar, to complete it, but they didn't last as well as the bluebells. The forestry as we knew it had glades of the flowers as well as ones growing on the roadside along the path and Dee Greepo/Ty Cribwr Hill.

Seems strange that picking wild flowers didn't get a second glance then and was encouraged in a hymn:

"O Mary We Crown Thee." (Copyright 1938 St. Basil Hymnal)

Refrain:
O Mary we crown thee
With blossoms today
Queen of the Angels
Queen of the May.
Bring flowers of the fairest
From garden and woodland
And hillside and dale.
 Extract from "Catholic Fire" as above

Of course I wouldn't pick wildflowers nowadays and enjoyed the bluebell woods in the Forest of Dean last year. The bluebells were out very early this year though and I saw some in March in the grounds of the "castle" at Southerndown - they were out at the same time as the daffodills whch was rather nice. There is this lovely enclosed garden which is great fun.
Information on Dunraven House/ "castle" at Southerndown