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One of the surprises when I converted my grandparents cine films to digital format was almost four minutes of footage from the 1968 Killay House Garden Party; here it is in it’s entirity.

It was a surprise because it was a film I’d never, ever seen, but I suppose there are some films that will bore a four year old that thirty years later he’ll watch repeatedly, so I can understand why it was never considered of interest to me.

The Fields That Became Killay

Killay House was one of the first buildings in the modern (i.e. non-farming) Killay, and when new it was by far, one of the most grand. Almost all the old buildings are now gone, victims of the weather, and a lack of foresight. Over the hill to the north Llanerch Farm (what we called “The Old Farm”) was still standing when I was a kid, both stables and farmhouse, but I recall it deteriorating to just a shell before it was eventually demolished to make way for the Hendrefoilan housing estate. The Llanerch Fach farmhouse was also still a fairly looming structure on the north side of Derlwyn until sometime in the 80′s. The farms that gave Goetre Fawr and Goetre Fach their names were long gone, as was Wimmerfield House, which stood on the corner of Dylan Road and Landore Avenue.

If you grew up in Wimmerfield, or attended Hendrefoilan School, you’ll probably find this photo a bit of an eye opener. It’s Killay House, circa 1900, when all around was just fields.

The small light coloured field in the top left still enjoys the same boundaries today, but it’s now the site of Hendrefoilan School. I wasn’t sure if the photo really is of Killay House at first, so using Google Earth I created an overlay of the old field boundaries from the 1884 Ordnance Survey map and used that to help me get my barings.

The field-boundaries are a perfect match and the overlay may be of general interest to anyone tracing the growth of Killay, because it shows how house construction was grouped according to the land that was available at different times. See it in Google Maps, or download it to view it in Google Earth.

My memories of Killay House

We (my friends and I) were very fortunate that our mate Martin’s dad used to look after the place, with the biggest bunch of keys in the world, so when we went round Martin’s house, he had a bigger back garden than any child could wish for, and what’s more, it was a remarkably well tended garden thanks to Mr. Cunningham. The grass was always cut, so we could play ball games, or ride our bikes around like nutters.

Incidentally, the year of the video (1968) was the year that Mr. Cunningham became the gardner.

Many hours were spent around the small pond at the source of the killay spring (susprisingly few residents know it exists, but it’s on maps) just outside the grassed area, where the slope of the woods falls away. Over that pond, which was often no more than a muddy bog, some of the older boys had somehow made a rope swing. This was a proper rope swing, one made of several misatched pieces of rope and attached to the tree by magic, because it was inconceivable to us that someone could have climbed the tree due to it’s height and lack of branches anywhere but in the canopy.

The other thing we found you could do very effectively with several acres, is have a really good game of hide and seek, or mob, or any other game that is normally limited by people complaining that you’re hiding in their garden. I must have picked up more grass and mud stains in the gardens of Killay House than any other single place.

Killay house was also one of the only places that had it’s own racetrack. Admittedly it was supposed to be a one-way drive for visiting vehicles (so as to maximise safety), but it formed a complete loop, an oval, laid with smooth tarmac – how could we resist? The laps we did on bikes and skateboards must number in the thousands.

Indoors

Most of the time we spent outside, but there were occasions when the buildings were used. Attached to the main building by a covered walkway was what I remember as a brown, probably wood-built hall where I recall the whole class gathering for Rachels birthday party (8th I think). This event was cetainly a disco, possibly a “roller disco”.

A few years after these more youthful pursuits I fondly remember Diane Shaw (official courtesy title “Martins Mum”) opening the house up on Tuesdays during the long wet winter nights, I definitely rememeber playing table tennis, and on reflection the rooms and hallways seemed huge; their spendour when first built must have been quite imposing when Morgan Bransby Williams built the place in the late 1800′s.

2006 and beyond

It’s a tiny bit sad that the view from Hendrefoilan School will be forever missing one of it’s foreground gemstones, as the picture from circa 1900 has today been inverted: instead of Killay House, surrounded by fields, there’s a housing estate abutting an empty space. I rather hope the next generation of inhabitants will have similar enjoyment to our own; I know any kids growing up there are going to love the woods.

Hopefully the building will stop soon; the thing that made Killay special was all the fields, and they’re nearly all full of houses these days.

In order of appearance, the partygoers (comprised as they are from Hendrefoilan School classmates and other friends) include: Kathryn Gray, Andrea Anderson (I think), Rachel Jones, Ceri Chaplin, James Morris, Tom O’Kane, Darren Chetty, Alex Fergusom, Michael Fuller, James Breeze, Ros Breeze.

To put it all in context, it was only a few months after this video was shot that I saw Star Wars in the cinema, the first time it was released.

Cine film at the time was not expensive, but still far from cheap, and also suffered from the small problem that every frame exposed had to be stored in the camera until the spent cartridge was removed and sent for developing, so as a result, home movies were short.

In order to keep the experiment from being too costly; to add interest, and to ensure the film didn’t run out half way around; the camera was slowed to (I think) 1/8 of it’s normal rate. The result was what we* all came to know as “Fast Run Round Sketty”, which in the days before video recorders was entertainment gold dust.

* I think I was probably my grandfather’s greatest movie fan, but the “we” included my cousins Jim and Ros, who often dropped by – I had the advantage of living within a literal stone’s throw of my grandparents so I was always able to ask for “films” when it was too wet to play outside.

The Film

The Route

The route takes in Wimerfield Crescent, Wimmerfield Avenue, the lower part of Goetre Fach Road, Gower Road to Sketty, Dillwyn Road, the upper part of Sketty Park Road, then back along Gower Road to Killay, before a quick U-Turn and returning to Wimmerfield Crescent via Wimmerfield Drive and Wimmerfield Avenue.

Points of Interest, and A Few Random Memories

There are a few things which on re-watching have sparked off memories that were long buried under more recent experiences, and I’m sure others who lived in the area at the time will also be reminded of other forgotten memories. The things I noticed were:

11 seconds: The lack of mini roundabout next to Siloam Baptist Church, which I remember being put in. Before then, turning around to head back into Killay was an altogether more haphazard event.

14 seconds: The phonebox. There was only one phonebox, and just as Tom Jones has purchased the phonebox that used to stand in his village, this was the one that used to stand in mine. To this day, subconsciously, when I think of an old red phone box, it’s this one.

14 seconds: Above the phonebox is a private road, with iron railings. When houses in the private road were put up for sale it was common for these railings to be used so as to affix the ubiquitous “Henry, Jones and Hobbs” sign. About 10 years after this film I was standing on the wooden frame of one such sign so as to see over the railings, when it gave way, and came insanely close to impaling me on the spikey railing. I had a two inch scar just above my solar plexus for several months.

15 seconds: No Pelican crossing. I remember that going in too, because before then, there were no local pelican crossings so although we’d seen them, most of us had never used one. We spent many happy hours crossing, and re-crossing the road, and thanking the stopped drivers profusely; or just having competitions to see who could stop the most traffic with a single button press.

15 seconds: the old sign to the Black Boy public house, which features the face of a black boy prince. I think it’s now a more faux-politically-correct coal-smeared child.

16 seconds: The sign’s not legible, but I distinctly recognize the Lloyds Bank Killay branch. I recall it was possible to park on the curb in front of the building.

17 seconds: Killay precinct before echelon parking became compulsory, and before the central reservation was extended all the way to the Co-Op. It took people a while to get the hang of the parking, and I remember mum’s car (with me in the back of it) being hit by a woman who reversed into us because she hadn’t worked out which way she should be looking. Happily there were witnesses who could explain to her that she had reversed into the side of our car so we could not “move our car” as she was requesting until she pulled forward and released us.

19 seconds: The edge of the old Killay House NCH buildings, now sadly razed, where Martin Shaw lived. Martin’s dad (Gerry Shaw) always carried about a million keys for going his job there. We spent a lot of time in the Killay house grounds, especially (a) down by the pond on the edge of the woods, because of the huge rope swing and (b) on the private interal roadways, because it had really smooth concrete so it was great for bikes and skateboards. See the article on Killay House for more detail.

20 seconds: The Armine Garage, when it was a National garage. I think this was when the tills were still situated between the pumps in a small wood & glass kiosk. Around this time, they started to offer Smurfs. I believe my first bag of Lego came from a small advert left in that kiosk, and a life of interest in how stuff works followed.

22 seconds: No road markings, how did people cope? Was there not mayhem? Given that I was at Olchfa School for five years I must have walked down this road thousands of times.

23 seconds: The end of Dunvant Road joining Gower road. This was a handy way to avoid the traffic exiting Wimmerfield on a busy morning, in the days before the traffic lights.

24 seconds: The road into the “student village” which was being constructed. On the right, trees and heavy foliage where the Olchfa House pub has now opened up the old garden. That pavement on the right was the last bit of uphill slog that we had to run when the school declared that it was too wet to play rugby, so we’d have to go on a cross country run, “through the woods”. Today there’s roundabout here.

24 seconds: The old bus stop, where after spending 10p in Killay, we’d alight from the bus and arrive in school in time for a game of fives round the back of the south block.

30 seconds: Red “London” busses! Wow. In the days before the green coloured Citi-Mini buses.

33 seconds: the sign for the Acorns Guest house, which was shaped like an Acorn. When I was very little, this seemed like it was a long way from home. The guest house cemented this for me (even if it was only a couple of doors along from where my friend from nursery school (James Morris) lived.

34 seconds: You just don’t see this today. The car’s having trouble getting up the hill, so stop, open the bonnet, fix it, and in the mean time let people drive around you.

35 seconds: A sign of the times; Esso selling petrol for 67p per imperial gallon (that’s 14p per litre)

45 seconds: The Sketty Park Road chicane has long since been removed and the road widened, but in 1975 to a small boy, watching a sped up film, this was the closest you could get to real James Hunt F1 racing.

47 seconds: Signposts and street-lamps are nowhere near as ornamental these days; it’s a shame.

60 seconds: Overtaking on Gower Road, far less common today.

64 seconds: Ah, the old shops; the Chippie, Clarks, Susan Sander (?), Derwen, The Flower Shop, and (in the days before the brick built flower beds) the three-sided advertising hoardings.

72 seconds: Iron Curb Ramps. Something I’ve not seen in a long time. We used to borrow these and ride our bikes over them; they made a hell of a racket. The piece of curb on the left just after the ramps is what Ali Kellerher once landed his kidneys on after riding from the top of Heol Glasnant on a skateboard. He got speed wobbles near the bottom, lost control and ended up in hospital. On the right is the Mob/Hide and Seek tree, where the person who was it used to count, whilst the local kids trashed the local hedge borders in an attempt to create the best hiding place possible.

73 seconds: Home for some lemonade (which in those days was delivered by “the lemonade man” in a big beige truck, I think the company was Alpine).

In 1977 Elizabeth II had reigned for 25 years, and to celebrate this Silver Jubilee, street parties were organised for children throughout the UK (and probably elsewhere in the Commonwealth too).

This video of the events before the party is shot at my grandparents house on Wimmerfield Crescent and features several local mums and grandmothers attending just one of many coffee mornings, bring-and-buy sales and raffles that were held to raise funds for the party.

I was just a little over 4 1/2 years old on party day, and a couple of months later entered the Reception class in Hendrefoilan School (where many of the other kids also attended). Hendrefoilan School had opened 8 months previously, so before then, many of the kids attended Dunvant Junior School.

If you see yourself, or your kids, or parents, or grandparents, let me know, it would be great to get everybody identified for posterity.

A Garden Party (or maybe it’s a tea party, or a coffee morning); I can’t say I’m sure of the precise definition, but there’s definitely sunshine, drinks, cake and several of the “old ladies” that I remember living in Wimmerfield Crescent when I was young (and I was born several years after this footage was ‘in the can’).

I’m assuming for now that this was filmed in the late 1960′s but it might be a bit earlier than that, maybe early 60′s, if so, the kids playing in the garden are probably in their mid 40′s by now (though probably not looking a day over 21 due to the forgiving seaside air). I’m sure mum will be able to identify things that put a fairly exact date on it.

View the location in Google Maps or Google Earth

If you recognize anyone, drop us a line!

Credentially speaking, Rick’s amply bedecked with two wheeled experience. To say he’s not one of your 30-minutes-a-week cyclists is an understatement, given that his prior record includes journeys such as “San Francisco to Los Angeles”.

Rick’s blog is was published by the Petaluma Argus Courier.
Rick’s blog is now published by Petaluma360.

When browsing round the hotel reception at the leaflets we saw a small guide on Warsaw itself. Being a general guide to Warsaw we picked it up and had a browse through. This was an In Your Pocket guide book, and it proved to be a fabulous alternative to the heavy-duty country-specific guide books that we’d brought with us. Detailing the local and surrounding attractions to Warsaw, offering contemporary restaurant guides and more off-the-beaten-track local and historical information that never makes it into the more generic guide books. Written in an easy to digest format, it was perfect for the few days we spent in Warsaw.

Heading down to Krakow, we looked out for an In Your Pocket Krakow guide, and found one, again, in the hotel reception; and we were pleased to find that is was as useful as it’s Warsaw counterpart.

The beauty of these guides is that they really live up to their name – a comprehensive guide that really can be folded, rolled and/or wedged into your back pocket.

So you can imagine the first thing I suggested to my mum when she announced that she was off to Gdansk with a few of her mates for a jolly weekend exploring – “Look out for an ‘In your pocket’ guide when you get there”.

Naturally I wondered whether there was anything online, so I visited the In Your Pocket website. A cool website with lots of information on a wealth of cities. “Bingo!” I thought. Unfortunately though, they only had the shorter guides for download, so I thought I’d drop them a line to see where I can buy the longer guide. After a few email exchanges I received two complimentary copies of the full guide book through the post.

I wanted to mention this as it’s so refreshing to find a company that offers a quality product and excellent, friendly customer service. Look out for these guides whenever you’re visiting an unfamiliar European city as you’re bound to find something in them that is useful and interesting, or check out their website before you go.

So, we can hardly imagine what Ann and Rick are feeling today on their 25th Wedding Anniversary (and we’re sure it’ll be more than what we’re feeling multiplied by 25). If Ann and Rick have as happy a day today as any of the other days that they’ve been together then they will have a great anniversary… if you top that with a good meal somewhere, maybe some chocolates, and (as it’s a silver anniversary) potentially some jewellery; then what a bonus.

( Oh, Rich, for our anniversary you can replace the silver with some paper tickets to somewhere nice ).

Happy 25th Wedding Anniversary you guys!

The nice thing about having an Auntie that’s an illustrator is that occasionally little gems pop out that capture something special. For example, it was not uncommon when I was a nipper, for me to be a little over-demanding on my vehicles, and therefore over-demanding on my grandfather’s time. Many hours were spent in his workshop, as he fixed whichever bike or skateboard I’d managed to buckle.

Naturally, I would leave the workshop, resume my previous activity and instantly manage to destroy said vehicle again, but in a more complete way than before. This would result in more interesting things happening in the workshop, and occasionally they involved the large drill, or the grindstone or the bandsaw, which pleased me greatly.

With all this work going on it was easy to get distracted, so we may occasionally have arrived at the dinner table a little late. In situations such as this my grandather would conspiratorially turn to me and, giggling, tell me that we were in the doghouse again.

Lynn’s website can be found at www.lynnbreeze.com.

My grandfather had a darkroom and used to develop pictures himself; he’d be amazed to know what’s possible today with digital photography and the Internet.

One of the more surprising things about the oldest of the pictures is how small most of the prints are (typically only 3cm x 4.5cm) and happily, how well they scale up when scanned at very high resolution.

I’ve spent some time now carefully doing just that, and I’m about 50% of the way through the archive: so far I’ve scanned everything pre-1944. So there’s photos in and around Liverpool, Wallasey Gas Works, North Wales, the Ajay, camping trips, summer holidays etc.

Family members, please put in your requests for copies of the entire archive; possible delivery media include:

• A directly over the web if you have broadband
• On DVD
• On several CD’s

More senior family members may also be able to help prior to distribution by identifying some of the featured people who were nameless in the albums.

To whet your appetite, here’s some of what I have digitised already:

It was something of a tradition that my grandfather would write a poem and make a card for christmas, birthdays and anniversaries, and in fact, any occasion he could thinkof. Often the cards and poems would have a whimsical subject matter, this one however, captures something quite special.

It concerns the night of March 12-13 1941. At the time, Harry and Edna were in their mid to late 20′s, and Lesley (my mum), was still not 2 years old. They lived at 58 Northbrook Road, Wallasey, which is a few hundred yards away from Birkenhead Docks. Also mentioned are my great grandparents Harry Breeze (1889-1955) and Alice Breeze (nee Hurst, 1889-1964) who lived at 9 Poulton Road (their children were Harry, Jack and Len Breeze).

One event from our fifty eight years of being married

My anniversary poem this year
Got longer than I was intending.
It kept going on, and on, and on
I couldn’t get to an ending

So I started again on one single hap’ning
And wrote about that instead.
One never to be forgotten event,
From the fifty eight years we’ve been wed.

Our house, and all our block of six, were destroyed
In the March 1941 blitz.
The raid was already in progress and
There’d been several direct hits.

I’d been out doing firewatch, there being
Incendiary bombs everywhere
You were guarding Lesley in our
Shelter under the stair.

I’d just walked to see how you were,
When we felt a gigantic WHOOSH,
We didn’t hear an explosion, only
This awful whispering WHOOSH.

Then the rumble of houses tumbling down
In clouds of dust and rubble.
We realised we were still alive,
But in a load of trouble.

"Get the pram." I remember you called,
But that could not be seen.
Just holes and open spaces
where doors and Windows had been.

We managed to scramble outside somehow
You and Lesley and me.
The sounds we heard meant someone was buried
And we knew who that might be.

"Better hang on with Lesley, Love,
Out here there’s work to do."
I joined the scramble to get Mrs. Shone,
And her baby was rescued too.

The Sylvesters had gone away for the night.
Other neighbours were still around.
They were still there when we saw them later,
Laid out under sheets on the ground.

We started to make our way to Dad’s.
Bombs were still whistling down,
Crumping in sticks of six and spreading
A red glow all around.

A shock on reaching Poulton Road.
Was our escape plan out of control?
A bloody great crater all over the road
Tramlines sticking out of the hole.

Better divert round Halleville Road,
It’s the only chance we’ve got.
That’s when wardens came out of their shelter
shouting "Get under cover you lot."

A bareheaded warden approached us
And this is perfectly true.
Mum just turned and faced him and said
"Put your helmet on, you."

As we struggled on over rubble and glass,
A new fear we tried to dispel.
What if we did reach Dad’s house,
Would they have been bombed out, as well?

Concerned about spaces between rows of houses,
Rubble on the roadway spread
Where others had lost their homes too.
We just hoped that none were dead.

Dad’s house was still there, when we reached it
Mum and Dad were safe within.
They got a shock when they saw us,
And the awful state we were in.

We said all our windows were broken,
Dad said "I’m no silly ass.
You don’t get covered in soot and plaster
From a bit of broken glass".

And that was the end of an episode.
We still had our family of three
To live through more bloody air raids,
Edna and Lesley and me.

The raids continued, randomly spaced,
The eight night Blitz, as well,
No mains water, gas or electric for weeks
It was like we were living in hell.

Do you ever think what you went through,
A trusting child in your care.
The mental stress the physical strain,
And all without turning a hair.

Your seal of success with marriage and kids
Comes from taking trouble in your stride.
That’s why we look back on fifty eight years
With happiness and pride.

harrybreeze.wav (738K)

The transcript is as follows:

My name is Harry Breeze, I was born on the 5th of August 1914, at 35 Manningham Road, Anfield, Liverpool.

I went to Anfield Road School until I was 10 when the family moved to Wallasey (1924). I attended Somerville Council School, and I went to Oldershaw Grammar School leaving at the age of 16 to join my father in his contracting business.

On completion of my apprenticeship I worked for a small firm in Birkenhead, before starting with Wallasey Gas and Water department.

From 1942 to 1946 I served with the Royal Air Force completing two tours of operation on 77 and 35 Pathfinder Squadron, as a Navigator. I was de-mobbed in 1946 with a rank of Flight Lieutenant, and with the award of a DFC.