Early Wednesday morning, in Bryn Awel Avenue , off High Street, my father went downstairs to get the paper from his letterbox. Looking through the glass into the porch, he saw a sow badger, nibbling dry catfood sprinkled by the postman for the local cats.
Urban foxes are well known, but urban badgers…?
I’d appreciate some help in finding out who owns this piece of land please.
It’s in Pensarn, between the railway line and the beach, next to Ty Crwn caravan park.
Here it is shown on a map:
Juliet Roberts has been in touch with a question:
“Some very helpful chaps were able to help me out a few weeks ago pin pointing were my grandparents had lived at the time of their marriage. I have since found out they also lived at an address in Abergele called MOUNT COTTAGE. Now..i know the area we called The Mount was on Water Street….but can any of you learned people tell me where Mount Cottage was situated please?”
Here’s a list of the people who’ll be carrying the Olympic flame through Abergele on 29 May 2012
Eduard Kim (46) from Almaty
George Jacob (37) from Dubai
Gleb Nuriev (15) from Kondrovo
Graeme Johnson (69) from Dyserth
Joanne Wallace (34) from Warrington
Nathan Edwards-Hughes (19) from Abergele
Phil Jones(40) from Bodelwyddan
Stephen Bellis(56) from Mold
Steven Crossland(31) from Formby
(Source).
Good luck to all the Torchbearers, there’s sure to be a fantastic turn-out as the Torch enters town from the old road from Llanddulas, passes along Market St, turns left at the Gwindy lights down Water St, Dundonald Avenue and into Pensarn.
AbergelePost reader Juliet Roberts is researching her family tree and has asked for help from other readers. I’ll let her explain in her own words:
“I wonder if you might be able to point me in the direction of someone who may be able to help be locate an address…given as Abergele in the early 1900s? Ann and I are trying to trace our family tree and are curious to find where our grandparents lived at the time of their marriage. The Address given is Pen y Ffordd Cottages near Abergele. There does seem to be a very similar address now but I dont know if it’s the same place. Any advice would be greatly appreiciated.”
If you have any information that might help Juliet, please add them using the Comments on this page. Thanks.
When I opened the door, imagine my surprise to be staring at a big shiny red fire engine, with the words Abergele Urban District Council writtern in gold letters running along its side.
Slaters of Abergele is a name well-known throughout the country and now Colin Knowlson has archived his family’s motor company’s historical artefacts, images and documents. And he’s been giving historical and motivational talks to local societies and to people of all ages throughout north Wales.
Colin has some real gems in his photographic archive:
– a photo of world famous boxer and Gwrych Castle resident Randolph Turpin posing outside Slaters Garage
– an ariel photo of Abergele that must surely have been taken from a hot air baloon, because there were no cars on any of the roads and just one solitary horse and cart on Market Street.
– photos of the interior of the Teddy Jones-run Slater and Wheeler machine shop which turned out military equipment during WWII
– and many more fantastic photos
I’m sure to return here in the future to stories of Slaters and of old Abergele told to me by Colin today. But for now, I’ve just got a big smile on my face having seen that big shiny red old Abergele fire engine.
Mo and Bill use continental quilts since coming back from Canada. They’d emigrated and returned to Abergele with crew cuts. We’d been happy with sheets and camberwick blankets. They’d kept us warm even on nights so cold you could scrape iced condensation from the glass of the single-glazed sash windows in the bedroom. The frost burned under my nails.
My brother and I shared a bedroom and kept each other awake for hours talking in the light of the hall bulb shining through a square hole above our bedroom door.
My friend Huw Davies from Abertridwr in south Wales makes me laugh when he tells me about his games with his brother in their shared bedroom. They used to play ‘Who can be the last to fall asleep’:
“Huw?”
“Yeah Glen.”
“You asleep yet?”
“No.”
“Neither am I.”
“OK … g’night.””
“G’night.””
Pause.
“Glen? You asleep yet Glen?”
No answer.
“I won.”
“Another pause.
“Ha ha, only joking. I’m still awake.”
“Make sure you’ve put on clean socks Gareth, I’m taking you to have your feet measured after school today,” said Mum.
Last time, it was a shiny tape measure bound around my socked foot; this time it was a device with moving walls which closed in around my feet. It was scary and reminded me of that room with spiked walls in Batman with Adam West. What if the walls kept squeezing in?
However high-tech foot measuring became, it was never something I looked forward to – like having a haircut or a filling.
The only thing that kept me going was the possibility of getting a pair of Tuf shoes with a magnetic compass hidden in the sole.
As we grew older, we were tempted by Clark’s Polyveldts and Nature Treks. I had two pairs of Nature Treks. They smelled gorgeous but the soles split all the way through on both of them.
After reaching Size 5, I waved goodbye to The Shoe Box and started going to Colwyn Bay Indoor Market to buy my own choice of shoes – Monkey Boots. A perfect match for those drainpipe denims, ex-army top and a trip on the train to Eric’s Liverpool to see Stiff Little Fingers in 1978.
The Abergele Visitor was pushed through our letterbox every Friday. It was printed in Abergele, in a room with lino on the floor above the Visitor Office newsagents, next door to the Bee.
Our neighbour Gordon Hughes was the printer and the noise of the rolling presses made it difficult to hear him speak as he explained how he set the lead type mirror-imaged for each week’s edition.
The paper’s chief photographer was Mr Sumners who had his office and darkroom between the Visitor Office and Woolworth’s. Mr Sumners seemed to be at every wedding, summer fete, sports day and chapel parade. He’d develop his own photos and put prints of his latest shoots in his shop window, giving passing shoppers a good idea of what had been going on in Abergele that week.
Nowadays many local and regional papers are owned by bigger and bigger companies, based further and further away from their readers. But there’s something really cosy about remembering the days when the stories of Abergele were told by the people of the town itself. People like Gordon Hughes and Mr Sumners.
