The cloak room, bursting with colour from everybody’s personalised gym bag, and darkened by damp snorkel jackets. Discovering that by the time we’d got to J4, the infants toilets were really titchy and then reminiscing about how little we were when we were young.

Friday morning TV in the hall, with the fold out sun-shield. Queueing at the dinner hatch. The light streaming in and catching dust particles in assembly. The kid who always added an extra “of kings” at the end of “sing hosanna”. When we first learned we had to do a class play for the whole school and really bricking it. Billy Beacon (which scared the smaller kids).

Friday lunchtime, when Mr. Pascoe would retrieve all our balls that we’d kicked onto the roof throughout the week. Rugby on the top field in the winter, frozen to the core and smothered in linament. Mrs. Davies spraying her perfume around the room because the boys smelled so bad when we came back into class. Winning the Div-4 West football league. The Summer Fete. The bloke that mowed the grassy slopes with a flymo on a rope. Walking home down the lane towards Wimmerfield with an ice-cream from Brian, who stopped outside most summer afternoons.

Small glass bottles of milk with blue straws. School Sports day. School attendance being so low that the green team was dissolved. School trips to St. Helens swimming baths; Brynmill Park; Fairwood Lake. The Alton Towers Trip. The Christmas Carol Service in St. Hilarys. Watching a film at the end of term, in the hall, on a reel to reel projector. Helpers. Mr. Smith’s delicate use of “Six of one, half a dozen of the other.” when investigating the cause of a disagreement between 8 year olds. The awful, terrible, fashion mistakes of the early 80′s. The “art” areas. SMP. The installation of the water fountains.

School letters, hand written, and copied on the purple photostat machine. Sitting all day in the quiet room to watch the first shuttle launch.

The school getting it’s first ever computer, which we were allowed to use in breaktime, on a strict rota, with the older kids having priority time. Learning to type CH."" and dutifully responding to the "PRESS PLAY ON TAPE" message.

Most of all, when the sun was shining, it was a good day for a fire drill. We’d evacuate the building quickly and clamly. Then as a reward for our swift and safe exit someone would be sent into the hall for the brown plastic box on wheels that contained the hoops and bats and balls that meant a game of crazy cricket was upon us. I still remember the sound that thing made as it was wheeled out over the paving and tarmac; that’s that sound of summer.

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.

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).

I’m guessing it’s between these dates because (a) I look quite young (b) I think I can see Kath Williams before she went to Australia [confirmed, thanks Kath!] and (c) there was a distinct turnover in teachers around the time I went into J1 (September 1980 If my memory serves me well) and I can see several of the old-guard who I remember being teachers but who never taught me. If you can help nail down the year then any clues or categorical claims will be most gratefully received.

Organisation

The school was (originally) divided into four groups (Red, Yellow, Blue and Green) each with around fifty members of various equally distributed ages. When I was very little, I seem to recall Blue being dominant, but those of us in Green never gave up and I think I recall that either we won “the cup” (or the smart money was on us winning the cup) when, due to dwindling school attendance green house was disbanded and it’s members were redistributed, so I joined Blue house. Either way I remember taking whole lap of honour running around the big field, miles away from our parents, passing the cup around and holding it aloft.

The Cast (Help please!)

As I recognize people, or as others identify them, I’ll add names here. If you spot people who are not on the list please leave a comment below containing their name, the time when they are visible (there’s a little clock in the video player), and what they are doing/wearing that will help others distinguish them.

Teachers

Mr. Lewis (officiating the turn-around point at 1:01)
Mr. Smith (at the start line, facing away from the camera at 1:10)
Mrs.Davies (at the start line, facing the camera in the background at 1:10)

Children

Richard Boakes (in many shots due to grandparent camera holding)
Paul Brooks
Christopher Cone (right hand line, infront of Nathalie at 1:21)
Darren Chetty (looking surprisingly tall in red shorts)
Anthony Evans
Alex Ferguson
Tom O’Kane
Jarrod Rees (with handy name-bearing T-Shirt and winning the eggand spoon race at 2:00)
Steven Sole (right hand line, behind of Nathalie at 1:21) – unsure of name spelling.
Mark Withy (very brief appearance bottom left at 1:46 – maybe?)

Nathalie Carter (blue stripey top)
Lisa Barrett (tall, tanned, dark pigtails)
Kathryn Gray
Fiona Thompson (bright blonde hair in bunches with red tracksuit top at 1:23 – maybe?)
Kathryn Williams (Bouncing irrepressably)

Parents / Grandparents / Guardians

Lesley Gowen (my mum)
Sarah O’Kane
Maureen Horsman
Elaine Williams (KathW to confirm)
Edna Breeze
Dai Vaughan (maybe? He’s sits down at 0:06 looking away from the camera; it seems likely because I don’t remember there being a big dark haired teacher, but I do recall that “Vauhan Sound Systems” did the tannoys for sports day every year).

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!