Eirlys Evans

My name is Eirlys Evans.  I was born in 1931, June 19th.  I was born in Rogers Street, Tre-boeth.  My father and mother lived with my grandmother and grandfather.  My grandmother had a little shop at the front of the house, a little shoe shop.My grandfather was originally from Pembrey and he came to Swansea to look for work as a miner, and he and my grandmother who was from Tre-boeth got married, but after my grandfather had been in the mine for years he was ill and they had to think of another way of earning money, and they decided to open a little shoe shop.One Christmas morning, and I remember this well, I got a very special present. I was so happy.  A little china doll with pretty hair and it was lovely.  I came downstairs and played with the doll for a while and then there was a knock at the door and I ran from the living room to show the postman the doll, but I fell over the mat and the doll shattered.  And that's one of the worst Christmases I remember. One of my earliest memories.  A sad one. My father's sister's husband came home, he was a ship's captain, and this was back in March this was, and he heard about the unfortunate incident I had that Christmas, and he said, “We'll go to the market and you can choose your own doll.”  And we went to the market in Swansea and the market was wonderful.  It was busy and full of light, full of life and plenty of shops selling toys.  And I went round and round for hours searching and in the end I chose a doll and my aunt said, “Are you sure that’s what you want?” because I had chosen a little black doll, and I had that doll for a very long time.There was a lovely park in Tre-boeth, and the men used to play bowls and they would play against each other.  They even went as far as Llandrindod Wells to play in tournaments, and my grandfather was one of them and my father too, but I got to go with my grandmother and grandfather to Llandrindod in September 1939.  My grandfather was taking part in a tournament, but I knew that something was going on because everyone was listening to the radio, everyone was talking about war, and on the Sunday, on the third of September, when I was in Llandrindod, the War began and I remember that day.In school in September and October, we had to practise in case planes came from Germany to bomb us in Swansea. We had to practise going under the desks to begin with.  We then had to practise crossing the road to go to different people's houses. It was then that I began to realise that a lot of things were going wrong and also that Dad had to go into the Army, to the Air Force, and before long he'd left to go to the Air Force.  In 1940 the real bombing started in Swansea.  At the beginning we would go to the cupboard under the stairs and I'll never forget hearing the bombs dropping one night and they were quite close.  And I remember Mam being very frightened and shivering and praying.When the end of the war came you can imagine how happy everybody was. Everyone running out onto the road once they'd heard it on the radio; everyone saying that we had to have parties; everyone saying that bad things had come to an end.  So there was a party in Rogers Street.  But I was also going back and forth to see Grandpa, my father's father in Morriston, and so I was having a party there too.  And we had a wonderful time.  The worries were gone because Dad was back from the war and he was safe.  I hope this country never sees anything like we saw then.