Your story – Heather Scott

What do you remember about your family home?

As previously stated my father was a farm worker so during my childhood we lived in three different houses but all within the parish of Pendoylan.

The first house that I lived in was a village council house, my parents and sister moved into it six months before I was born when my sister was two years old until then they had lived with my grandparents on their farm. The houses were newly built, in fact when my parents moved in only four out of eighteen houses and two retirement bungalows had been built. Four of the houses were built for farm workers on a slighty lower rent, they were a different orientation to the others, we were suppose to have one of those but because they were not ready we had one of the others. It was a semi detatched house and a decent size house for a council house and a large garden, the ones that were built later were much smaller.

The front door lead to a good sized hall from which there were stairs to the bedrooms, a door to what we called the front room because it was at the front of the house which, until my grandfather came to live with us after my grandmother died when it became his bedroom cum sitting room, was only used for special occasions like Christmas; there was also a door to the kitchen which was not huge but big enough, though not big enough to eat in, but it had a walk in pantry there was also a hatch through from the kitchen to the front room; from the kitchen was a door to the back room which was the living room which had a three piece suit, a television, although I can’t remember what age I was when we got that, and a tableand chairs where we ate our meals I also remember playing card games at that table with mum, dad and Sue; there was also a door from the kitchen to a small porch which led to the garden, just off the side of the porch was a toilet. Both the front room and the living room had coal fires, the one in the front room was an open fire but the one in the living room was an enclosed fire with a back boiler for the hot water and with an oven above it which never worked but was good for drying the sticks in to light the fire with the next day, as a small child I remember having baths in front of this fire in a tin bath because it was probably too cold upstairs in the bathroom, there was also a door to the left of the fire place leading from the living room to the front room which was very useful  because the television, which sat in front of the door, could just be pulled into the front room when we went in there for Christmas. Upstairs there were three bedrooms and a bathroom, these days all of the bedrooms would be considered double bedrooms although we didn’t consider my bed room, which was the smallest and was called the box room, to be a double bedroom but it did have a four foot bed, a wardrobe, a dressing table and a chair in it with some room to spare. My bedroom also had two good sized built in cupboards one which went over the stairs and was great for storing all of our toys and one which went down the length of the bedroom wall again good for storage but even better for playing. This bedroom was  sometimes shared with my sister as we had lodgers living with us on and off over the years, when she wasn’t sharing my bedroom my sisters room was the one next door to mine it was much bigger it also had a cupbord in it but not a very big one. My bedroom faced the side of the house so that I could see the house next door where my friend lived but Sue’s room faced the front and looked onto part of the village green. Next to my sisters room was an airing cupboard and then my parents room which was bigger again, it faced onto the back garden, next door to them was the bathroom which contained a bath, sink and toilet. During the winter, as there was no central heating back then, it was very cold in the bedrooms, I remember getting dressed under the bed clothes it was so cold and there would be frost on the inside of the bedroom windows.

Outside at the front of the house a short path led between two areas of lawn, surrounded by low box hedging, up to a door which led to the back garden, when you went through this door you were in a covered area which contained the brick built coal shed and  another large shed where the cats and dog slept and where my dad kept his tools. This then led to the part of the garden at the side of the house which was mainly paved and led to a large garden behind the house which consisted of a lawned area just behind the house and then a vegetable garden, at the very bottom was a run for the chickens.

When my grandfather lived with us during the nice weather he would sit outside on the front lawn on a bench, the other kids in the village called him grandpa rather than Mr Lewis and I remember one day, when he decided to take himself off for a walk, one of the kids running in and telling my mum “grandpa’s escaped”.

We lived in this house until I was 14 1/2 years of age when my father got a promotion from tractor driver to cow man meaning he had to take charge of the cattle/milking and all the animals on the farm and we had to live closer to the job. My grandfather had died about 4 months before so we were able to move. We should have moved into the farm house but the person who dad replaced, and was becoming farm manager, only had 3 years left to retirement and didn’t want to move so we moved into a cottage about 1/4 to 1/2 a mile up the road from the farm.   Again it was a 3 bedroomed semi detached house with kitchen and 2 other rooms but this time the room we used as the living room was bigger than the front room and there were only the 3 bedrooms upstairs, the bathroom was down stairs off the hallway underneath the stairs it contained only a bath and sink,  there was only one toilet which was outside off the kitchen; outside the back door was the toilet and the coal shed. There was a long walk-in pantry off the kitchen and I remember there was an old radio on the top shelf, sometimes I would take a chair and sit in there to listen to plays on the radio. I remember once when we had lots of rhubarb mum decided to try and make rhubarb wine, she put it on the top shelf to ferment and one evening while we were all sitting in the living room there was an enormous explosion, she had corked the bottles and the pressure had built up inside causing chaos, there was rhubarb wine everywhere it took ages to clean it up. There was also another shed separate from the house which had been extended at some stage to make it into a garage although dad didn’t have a car. This pair of houses were on their own up a rough track between the fields so we were totally surrounded by fields, there were a couple of other houses around but they were across the fields from us so it was quite isolated but I didn’t mind that. The extended shed/garage had a flat roof on it so my friend Linda and I used to climb up there and sunbathe.  When we lived in the village I only had to walk across the village green to catch the school bus but from here I had to walk about 1/2 a mile to catch it and sometimes they would forget to come down and pick me up.

While in this house I was looking after a young fox cub for a while, they were having trouble with foxes on the farm so dad and the farm manager took his terrier to try and get rid of them, their mistake was taking a 15 year old girl with them. The vixen had removed most of the cubs but there was one left and unbelievasbly the terrier brought it up alive, I wouldn’t let them kill it so we took it home with us where it lived for a few months in an old metal chicken coop that dad got hold of . It ate dog food and the odd chicken that the old man across the field used to bring for it, he kept chickens on his small holding and when one died he would bring it over. I would take it for walks using the dogs collar and lead and in the evenings it would come in the house along with the dog and sit on my dads lap by the fire, if someone non family came to the door it would try amd climb up behind the sideboard which sat in an alcove by the fire and would let out the most disgusting scent just like a skunk.

We lived in this house for about 2 1/2 to 3 years then we moved on to the farm, we could have stayed there if dad had taken the farm managers job but at that stage he refused it.

The farm house was only 2 bedrooms although originally it was three but one bedroom, which you walked through to get to another, had been turned into a bath room and corridor, so subsequently Sue and I had to share a bedroom again although by the time we had moved here she had started her nurses training so wasn’t there all the time as she had to live in the nurses hostel while training.

The fam house had a large kitchen, the biggest of all the houses we lived in, with again a large walk-in pantry off it, the toilet was also off the kitchen,wouldn’t be allowed these days, from the kitchen you walked into a small living roomand from that into a large front room the stairs went up from this room. there was no hall in this house it was a bit like a Welsh Long House where you walked through the rooms to the next one. Up the stairs to the left was mum and dads bedroom to the right the bathroom, for some reason when they put the bath room in they didn’t put a toilet in it so the only one was off the kitchen, then my room. I always kept my windows open what ever the weather and one day when I came home from school and went up to change  the ceiling was covered in flies, I looked outside and they had massed on the side wall of the house and of course come in through my bedroom window, it was an extremely hot day and they had just swarmed like bees, consequently after that I close that window during the day in the hot weather.

The farm house was up above the farm buildings with garden/lawn to the front and rear and one side the other side had arun for chickens and some chicken sheds there were two ways tom approach the house either through the farm buildings and up a set of concrete steps or along a path that came off the farm drive and along a field that held chickens. Whilst in this house I had a pet chicken.  Dad had bought some young chicks for the farm and they started dying, according to dad this sometimes happened with young chicks, when they were transported they would develope a sort of paralysis and susequently be unable to get to food or water.  So, every day before school and in the evening, I would feed and water them putting it as close as possible but unfortunately only one of the dozen survived and it ended up following me every where, it would even come in the kitchen much to my mums annoyance. The dog we had at the time would get very jealous if the chicken came in the house he would pick it up and carry it outside to the lawn where he would lie with the chicken sitting between his paws but he never harmed it. When i left home dad ringed it and put it in with the other chickens, he promised me that it would never be killed and would die a natural death and as far as I know it did.

Once again I had to walk to catch the school bus, this time as the farm was part of a mental/psychiatric hospital which was in the grounds of a place called Hensol Castle I had to walk about 3/4 mile trough the grounds to catch the bus.

I lived in this house for about 2 1/2 to 3 years until I left home to join the WRAF, my parents lived there for about another 10 years until my dad retired when they moved  into a house back in the village of Pendoylan where my life started.