Abergele local news and history, incorporating Abergele in Shorts

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Lewis’s Sale

Posted on by Gareth Morlais

Twice a year there’d be an ad and a pricelist in the Abergele Visitor announcing Lewis’s Sale, Lewis’s was the men’s clothes shop next door to the Gwindy.

The owner had a name that really suited her personality: Jolly Much – a lively and kind woman.

Jolly would have a start date, tempting pricelists available for days beforehand, balloons and limited launch offers to build anticipation. She’d also stick paper on the windows to cover up the bargains until the ‘reveal’ on the first morning of the sale.

Skinny ribbed polo necks were in fashion and mum bought me a mustard one that was a bargain. I wanted to look like Illya Kuryakin from The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

In the 1970s, underpants were generally sold individually, but Jolly would bundle up the pants and socks so you’d get five pairs for 50 new pence.

Yes, the Abergele shop owner who really knew how to stage a sale was Lewis Bros’ Jolly Much.

Lewis Bros ghost sign
This ghost sign next door to the Gwindy Abergele is all that remains to remind us of Lewis Bros

Local Interest

Posted on by David_Hughes

I have come across some old postcards that I haven’t seen before. They are not all of Abergele but they are of local interest. I’ll post them all over the next few weeks, here is the first.

At the moment there is a lot of talk and plans about the preservation of Colwyn Bay Pier. I really hope they save it, we lost what was left of Rhyl Pier and it would be a shame to loose another. Here is a reminder of what it looked like in its hayday. I believe it to be circa 1920.

Magic Potions

Posted on by Gareth Morlais

When they were younger, our children loved making magic potions. They’d fill jam jars with water, mud, my wife’s perfume, Fairy Liquid, etc. Then they’d seal the lid and put them on display on their bookshelves for weeks.

Is there a genetic urge that makes us want to do this, I wonder? I ask because, when I was a child growing up in Abergele, I used to love making magic potions too.

Ann Morris and I would pick rose petals from the front gardens along High St and crush them between two rocks and mix them with water in a jam jar to make ‘perfume’.

In late summer, we crushed blackberries, elderberries and bilberries to make ink. And we even used the juice of raw onions to make invisible ink. It brought tears to our eyes. To reveal the writing we had to hold the paper close enough to a candle flame to heat the paper without burning it.

We’d make stinkbombs by throwing lighted matches into an empty Haliborange bottle, then close the lid quickly and wait until the flame went out.

Unscrew. Sniff, sniff. Phew!

Eyewitness account of Abergele rail accident

Posted on by Gareth Morlais

“The Fenians were supposed to have the secret of a mysterious combustible known as “Greek Fire” which was unquenchable by water. I think that “Greek Fire” was nothing more or less than ordinary petroleum, which was practically unknown in Europe in 1866, though from personal experience I can say that it was well known in 1868, in which year my mother, three sisters, two brothers and myself narrowly escaped being burnt to death, when the Irish mail, in which we were travelling, collided with a goods train loaded with petroleum at Abergele, North Wales, an accident which resulted in thirty-four deaths.

“Terrible as were the results of the Abergele accident, they might have been more disastrous still, for both lines were torn up, and the up Irish mail from Holyhead, which would be travelling at a great pace down the steep bank from Llandulas, was due at any moment. The front guard of our train had been killed by the collision, and the rear guard was seriously hurt, so there was no one to give orders. It occurred at once to my eldest brother, the late Duke, that as the train was standing on a sharp incline, the uninjured carriages would, if uncoupled, roll down the hill of their own accord. He and some other passengers accordingly managed to undo the couplings, and the uninjured coaches, detached from the burning ones, glided down the incline into safety. From the half-stunned guard my brother learned that the nearest signal-box was at Llandulas, a mile away. He ran there at the top of his speed, and arrived in time to get the up Irish mail and all other traffic stopped. On his return my brother had a prolonged fainting fit, as the strain on his heart had been very great. It took the doctors over an hour to bring him round, and we all thought that he had died.

“I was eleven years old at the time, and the shock of the collision, the sight of the burning coaches, the screams of the women, the wreckage, and my brother’s narrow escape from death, affected me for some little while afterwards.”

– Lord Frederick Hamilton, The Days Before Yesterday.

Adopted by Abergele

Posted on by David_Hughes

I recently came across an interesting article about Abergele during World War II. During WARSHIP WEEK, a National Saving Campaign in 1942, Abergele community raised money to adopt two ships. One was a Flower Class Corvette named HMS HOLLYHOCK  (launched August 1940) and the other a River Class Frigate named HMS DERG (launched January 1943).

HMS HOLLYHOCK served in the Far East but was unfortunately sunk in April 1942, off Ceylon (Sri Lanka), in an attack by aircraft from the Japanese aircraft carrier SORYU, with the loss of 53 lives.

HMS DERG served through till the end of the war on convoy duties to South Africa. She was renamed to HMS WESSEX in 1951 (later HMS CAMBRIA) and was used as a training ship until she was broken up in 1960.

 

The town was presented with a plaque by the Admiralty .

The inscription reads;

PRESENTED BY

THE LORDS COMMISSIONERS OF THE ADMIRALTY

TO ABERGELE URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL

TO COMMEMORATE THE ADOPTION OF

H.M.S. HOLLYHOCK and H.M.S. DERG

DURING WARSHIP WEEK.  MARCH 1942