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Going for Primroses:
Growing up in Chirk Green in the Twenties and Thirties
by Jean Peate
Up Chirk Green
I went for a walk up Chirk Green the other day. I got off the bus in Chirk near the War Memorial and looked over to where the Boys' School used to be. It's a club now. How times have changed since my childhood! I would have got off Fatty Lloyd's bus then. My face would have been covered in freckles in those days instead of the wrinkles it has now. We can't turn back the clock but how I wish we could.
I turned up by the Butcher's Corner. The police house where Mr Barnard lived is now a private house. Jack the Cobbler is no longer there in his little wooden shed, always with some cheeky remark as we girls passed by. Mr Tommy Edwards had his barber’s shop alongside. Mr Edwards trained our singing voices at Chirk Green Chapel Choir. I remember how he used to cup his hand around his deaf ear and say "Don't drag!" when we were learning to sing The Messiah.
There are houses now where we used to cross the fields on our way to and from school to Chirk Green. The boys in one school and the girls in the other school next to the Parish Hall. Mr Morris was the caretaker. He also looked after the, AAA ground. As children we used to say to him "How does the lions go, Mr Morris?" and he would roar like a lion. We would stare at him in wonder. None of us had ever seen a live lion in our young lives.
Silver Jubilee
All the schoolchildren were assembled on the AAA ground for King George V and Queen Mary's Silver Jubilee. We sang "Jerusalem". I remember it so well to this day.
Rose Queen
We also used to have the Rose Queen fete there. It was quite the event of the year. The procession was led by Ifton Silver Band, followed by the Rose Queen sitting on a decorated lorry and by people and children in fancy dress. The St John's Ambulance Brigade was on parade. And, of course, Mrs Bert Owen - always dressed in something quite outrageous! Mrs Myatt got a troupe of us girls together. We danced a floral dance and tableau. Each of us represented a different flower. I remember I was Wistaria. Joyce Carter from Weston Rhyn trained us.
Co-op Gala
The next big event was the Co-op Gala, when the fair and swinging boats came to Chirk. We were all given a bag full of sandwiches and sweets. There was another procession. Most of the people who took part in the Rose Queen were in it again, only this time the fancy dresses depicted all the products sold at the Co-op. Those who were getting dressed up could get labels and banners from Mr Potter's office. It was always held on the fields behind the Parish Hall.
Sunday School
I suppose the event I liked the most was the Anniversary at Chirk Green Chapel [Methodist] on Whit Sunday. Everybody dressed in their finery. On the Sunday after Whit Sunday, all the Sunday School scholars marched around the village in the morning. When we got to Chirk Green Co-op we had a drink of lemonade at Mrs Potter's house. It was always lovely and sunny in those days. In the afternoon we would all be on the stage, where we would sing our special anniversary songs and say our pieces, all dressed in our pretty dresses. Although times were hard in those days, we always had a new dress for the march in the morning and another to go on the stage in the afternoon. All the people and children used to come from the Prims Chapel to hear us perform. When they had their anniversary, we would go and listen to them. The Prims Chapel isn't there anymore. I wonder what happened to all those little chairs that used to be in the Primary. Mr Johnny Butler was the leader of our chapel, a dedicated Christian and a miner with snowy white hair like a messiah himself. He treated us all alike. Yes, chapel was a big part of our lives in those days. They were happy days!
After the Anniversary, we had the Sunday School trip to Rhyl. Sometimes we went by charabanc. Once we went by train. What an exciting day! None of us slept the night before. One of the first things we did when we got to Rhyl was to go on the little train around the Marine Lake or on the donkeys on the sand. I have been to Rhyl since: it isn't the same anymore. I often wonder what happened to those little red trains, where they ended up, all shining bright and blowing smoke and steam.
Houses in Chirk Green
The houses up Chirk Green are no longer there. The Bottom Row, The Old Row, The Middle Row and The Top Row. The Mount [coal waste tip] is still there where we used to slide down on a tin lid. Raymond Edwards used to cook chips on a little fire on top of the Mount, Great chips they were too.
"The 'Stute"
The Miners' Institute is still there. It's a night club now painted white, not the red brick building where we used to play "Cowboys and Indians" and pile bricks one on top of another so we could see through the windows around the back when Jonty and his band were playing "Blackbird, Bye Bye" for the dances. We were too young to go too. The only dance we went to was the Church Social on Shrove Tuesday, held in the Parish Hall: the Parish Hall where we paid our tuppences to see the cowboy pictures and then relived what we saw playing "Cowboys and Indians" behind the 'Stute.
Old Faces
Auntie Prissie is no longer there with her black apron and man's flat cap on her head. I can see her coming up the Co-op Bank with her big basket in one hand and her oil-can (it wasn't called paraffin then) in the other. All the old faces have gone like the houses - Ned the Soldier, Uncle Bert, Ben the Barber, Bill Doctor, Mrs Trotsky, Auntie Tattie with her immaculate frizzy fringe, Nurse Farrington, Miss Otterwell, Miss Kelshaw, Miss Elined Jones, Miss Dorothy Jones, Miss Ethel Davies, Miss Meta Jones, Jenny and Bessie Lavis and Harry Lavis the grocer, Tom the Tailor, Mrs William Henry Jones with her lovely Irish brogue, Auntie Alice the End and Auntie Edie [my Grandmother], who had a glass cupboard filled with little china knickknacks. I believe, when she died, everybody or most of the people in the Top Row had a piece as a souvenir . Uncle Edwin Evans used to recite ‘Albert and the Lion’ at the Chapel socials. Mr Roberts the chemist wore spats. And then there was Bob Carsley, Chirk football team's number one supporter. On Armistice Day there would be a parade of Great War veterans and Edmund Rowlands, the village undertaker, would carry the parish wreath of poppies. He was a big jovial man but years later, when my baby died, he had tears in his eyes.
And some of the young faces are no longer there. Eric Williams for one, who died so young as an airman during the war. His mother used to make treacle toffee and sprinkle it with desiccated coconut and bring us some to chapel. She lived in the Middle Row did Mrs Billy Tilda, where the women used to scrub the bricks that made up their back yards so that they were as clean as the red tiles of their floors inside their houses. They used to whiten the windowsills with rubbing stone they bought at the Co-op. Everyone was kind and caring then in Chirk Green.
We used to go to Dora's Shop in the Middle Row to spend our halfpennies and, sometimes, pennies. "Dora" was Mrs Tom Davies and used to sell sweets in her front room. Mr Atwood kept the little wooden shop in the Old Row. Dulcie Davies' mushy peas and savoury ducks [faggots] were a meal to remember, especially if we had scallops [scalloped potatoes] as well.
Woman's Work
The women made the best of what they had in those days when I was a child. They all shopped at the Co-op and got a "divi" on everything they bought. They had a share number and saved the checks on a sticky sheet of paper till the ha1f-year ending, when they got a percentage on all the money they had spent. They saved coupons on the bars of soap to exchange for towels. The women of Chirk Green got their "blue-whiteness" with a packet of "Paddy", a handful of common soda and a dolly blue bag. No washing machines then. No running hot water. The washing was done in a dolly tub with a peggy. The water was boiled in a brick-built boiler in the corner of the back kitchen and the washing was boiled white and clean. They used to take a shovelful of hot cinders out of the fire-grate in the kitchen and put them in the fire-hole under the boiler, with some sticks and slack coal. They were a special breed of women! They had a black-leaded grate in the kitchen to do all their cooking and baking. There was a small boiler on the side of the grate to keep the water hot and an oven on the other side. There was a ring that swung across the fire to boil the kettle. They had to do all this before they could get a drink of tea in the mornings for their husbands to go out to work at five o ' clock. And those grates were always black and shiny and the fire-irons gleaming. They used to make a lovely red glowing fire when they had to heat the flat -irons to iron the clothes after washing. How they managed in those days makes me wonder. When the Primus stove came on the market, they thought they were in clover. They did the frying on the Primus to save splashing the grate and heated the flatirons on it as well.
Games and Pranks
I remember playing "Jack, Shine Your Lantern" down the Cart Road, with a bit of candle in a jam jar, with string around the top to make a handle. It was fun on winter nights. And playing skipping and ball on Hughes End till we were moved away for making too much noise.
How daring we were as children! Sometimes I remember going down the Doctor's Road. A gang of us went into the little Catholic Church and splashed ourselves with holy water, making the sign of the cross. Then running down the path again, feeling like newborn Christians. We were never caught. It was a naughty thing to do looking back, but the holy water was kept in a bowl on the wall in the porch. We never went into the church itself. We would have been too scared. You see it was a different kind of religion we knew as chapel people. It's funny how it stays in your mind. Once, I came running down the path and my skirt caught on the rose thorns near the gate. It was a job to get free. I suppose it was my punishment. I wonder what Vicar Lloyd would have said, had he known what we had done. He was another big jovial man. Fatty Lloyd the Vicar, we used to call him. He used to come to our school occasionally to mark the register and call our names in turn.
School
As our school was Church of England, we had to take scripture exams. We used to get certificates with different coloured printing. By the time you got to the top class it was gold.
They say schooldays are the happiest days of our lives. The Girls' School was a happy school. Governess was a very nice lady, a Miss Eunice Jones. We all had a great respect for her. She gave us a love for music, all the old traditional songs we no longer hear these days, and good music too. We had a wind-up gramophone in the top class and she used to play the record "In the Hall of the Mountain King" on it. We used to beat out the rhythm on those long desks. Yes, I think I appreciate what the Governess always did for us all.
It was in the "Big Room" that Miss Polly Hulse used to teach us to do beautiful embroidery. She was always so patient and interested in the work we did. I remember she used to read to us on a Friday afternoon and we would listen, entranced.
Mr Rawson Hughes used to make the boys get a load of coal into the school shed, when it was dropped in their yard.
The Big Room had a huge fire in the winter. The ones in the front desks were the lucky ones. The Governess's yellow wooden desk had the bell on it. This was rung in the porch by the front door to change lessons. If you were the Head Girl, you had the privilege of ringing the bell, then returning it to the Governess' s desk by the gold watch in the small wooden frame holder. Fuss Morris taught us in the Big Room as well. Another nice person. We always tried hard for her. We were too afraid of her to do otherwise, in case she took us by our arms and stuck her nails in.
There were no school dinners in those days. We used to go home for our dinners, unless it was deep snow, when we used to take but ties. We had school milk, which I didn't like. It didn't taste like the milk we fetched in a jug from Highfield Farm or Mr Manford's farm at the top of Chick Green.
We used to look forward to the school doctor coming to examine our eyes and chests. Dr Shire Jones her name was. I think we were all pretty healthy. Although times were hard, our food was wholesome and good. We would walk over the hills to Llangollen with the youth club.
I think my one regret in life is that I would have liked to have had further education, but there were no family allowances and student grants in the 'thirties. Still, I have a lot of happy memories of my childhood.
Chirk Castle
When we were fourteen years old, most of the girls went into service and most of the boys down the pit, either Ifton or Black Park. I went to work at Chirk Castle for three years. The work was very long and hard, but none of it has done any harm. We had good training and were well cared for.
Lord Howard de Walden did a lot for Chirk in the years that he leased Chirk Castle. When his twin children, Mr John and Miss Bronwen Scott Ellis, came of age he gave a party for all schoolchildren in the Parish Hall. We all had a present as well. Most of the girls were being given dolls, so I hoped to get one as well, but, when it came to my turn, I was given a suitcase. I can remember how disappointed I was. I had never had a doll to play with ever.
The castle estate provided a lot of jobs for the people of Chirk. I remember Diggory coming into the castle kitchen for surplus dripping. He worked on the estate and it was one of his perks. He used to sell it in the village.
Down Station Road
Things have changed in and around Chirk since our schooldays. There used to be a little railway running from Chirk to the Glyn Valley. I don't remember that, but I do remember the trains that ran down to the wharf from Black Park pit and the one that ran down from Chirk Green pit. Little trains and their trucks that carried their loads of coal down to join the main railway by the wharf at Rhos- y- Waen. No longer can you look down Station Road and see the lovely plane trees, with the poplars at the top end by the station. Henry the Blacksmith's smithy is now a cafe. When we were young, Henry had a bucket full of pennies just inside his back door. A little man he was in leather gaiters. He used to say "Has any of yo' lads seen my heifer?" Em Williams could take him off to a tee. Emrys was a good scout and got a medal for bravery in the war.
The "Darkie" [canal tunnel about 300m long] is still there over the canal by Chirk Station. I never was brave enough to walk through that tunnel when I was a child, or walk over the aqueduct*. I did use to like going down through the Mill Meadows to paddle in the river. We used to go down there for picnics when we had the long summer school holidays. We used to walk back up the road from Pontfaen Bridge and have a lovely drink of water from the Pistyll on the side of the road, lovely cool, clear water from a spring up in the hills above Chirk Castle that came underground to the road. It's still there and I still have a drink if we go that way in summer.
*[Her young cousin was much braver! The ‘dark tunnel’ was not very pleasant at all though, it curved so that when you were in the middle it was totally dark. The handrails were rotten and there was a constant damp feel about it. It was also a place where the young did their courting!]
Smells
And you don't get the lovely smells we had in our childhood. The smell of Connie Parrish's fish and chips. Sixpence for fish and chips with as many bits of batter that Connie ladled out of the hot fat, after cooking the fish. The smell of Mr Roberts the chemist: a mixture of carbolic, Lysol, camphorated oil, linseed and, most of all, scented soap. Going to "Top Shop", J.D. Edwards, the smell of ground coffee and the jars of ginger, hanging in their straw bags from the ceiling. The smell of Cis Lloyd's shop: liquorice, tobacco, twist, aniseed balls, newspapers, chocolate tobacco made out of strings of coconut and lucky bags and leather. Going into Salter's shop with the smell of flowers and fruit. Lovely smells !
The smell in Chirk Green Co-op, which sold everything under the sun! Fred Jones from the "Vron" used to work there. He was a real heartthrob! All the girls were sweet on Fred. Mr Knight was the manager. He used to fill the two big windows before Christmas with all the Christmas fare. I used to like the shiny red apples the best. Fruit was a luxury in those days. Tommy Kitty used to come around with his horse and cart, selling fruit and veg and lovely rosy apples. They used to smell lovely and tasted delicious.
The smell of wet leaves after rain in the Coppey Wood, where we picked the chestnuts when they were ripe. The smell of honeysuckle in the hedges down Dingle Lane. Another smell I remember was on Friday night in Chirk Green, when everybody closed their bedroom windows when it got dark!
I remember the smell of the primroses in the Station Wood with the sun shining on them in early summer. They have built small factories there now and I thought that all the primroses would be no more. But, this year, there have been masses of them on the banks and in the woods that still remain.
Nostalgia
I have put my thoughts down on paper for one reason: nostalgia, nothing more or less. It was a happy time but we grew up very quickly when the war broke out in 1939. Many of us went to do our duty for King and Country. Some of the lads I went to school with never came back. We did things we had never dreamed of before 1939. We met people from all walks of life and races, people other than hardworking miners. Things were never the same after the war. Going for primroses never had the same magic, but I'm sure those of us who are left are happy and contented with our lot. I've had a good marriage and family, some have had further education and graduated from university with good degrees. So I have been lucky enough to achieve my early school ambitions through my children. Although perhaps they missed some of the simple things of life we had, I always tried to bring them up to appreciate our lovely countryside, chapel, Scouts and Guides and home life.
I now look forward to a long retirement, when I can come and go as I please up to the turn of the century and to go to pick primroses each year in the early summer.
September 1982
© The descendants of Jean Peate
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