Ysgol Glan Morfa was a happy school. The headmistress, Miss Rhiannon Davies, ran a tight ship but she was kind and fair.

When we started at Glan Morfa, our first teacher was Miss Dilys Roberts. Her lessons were fun. You were allowed to play with water in measuring jugs and sand on scales – learning all about weighing, measuring and getting messy.

When the playtime bell rang we’d all dash out to the concrete yard. Mrs Roberts, (Deryl’s mum), looked after us and dabbed Dettol when we fell and grazed our knees. She seemed so tall to us young ones.

All you needed to play ‘kingy’ was a tennis ball and tough fists. Whoever was ‘it’ chucked the ball at you and the object was to avoid being hit by the ball on any part of your body … apart from your fists.

The townies played war (rat-tat-tat; ania!) while the farmers’ children shuffled around, changing gears and producing stunning diesel engine sound effects as they played tractors. Arguments about which was the best make: “Massey Ferguson or Ford?” reached the scale of Belfast squabbles about “Protestant or Catholic?”.

My favourite game though was ‘kiss-kiss-corner’. Four boys stood at the points of a square beckoning to each other and swapping corners while a girl in the middle tried to fill the vacant slot. Slow running boys had to kiss the girl.

Yes, I was a bit of a slow starter at school.