Alf Willis

I was born in 1921 in Canton, Cardiff.

When I was 15 my father took me from school for an apprenticeship in Fleet Street.  When I was in Fleet Street the war broke out, so I applied to join the Air Force.

They sent me to Cardiff to get attested and sit the examination. From there they sent me to Halton, a number one school of technical training, as a fitter.  I done a special course on hydraulics.

We were like a family.  Each aircraft had its own crew and they all stuck together. They looked after each other.

At the end of the war I received three medals, combat medals.  That was the Africa Star, the 1939-43 Medal and the Victory Medal.

After the war I returned to Wales.  Come back to a wife and a couple of kids.  In the beginning it was marvellous, like.  Then I had to go to work and earn money.  She never worked.  There was no point in her working.  I was working.  I was earning the money.

I mean, some came back and they’d lost their wives, they’d lost their brothers, they’d lost their sisters.  I mean, I don’t know how it affected them.  But I was fortunate; I had three brothers in the services.

I had to put my name down on a register for a house.  I had two children then and they said until you get a third child you won’t get a house.  After the war a lot of these people had come back and they’d got nowhere.  They were living in rooms with their mothers-in-law like I was, you know.  As soon as you had three children, they allocated you.  They allocated me a house up here.

When I came up here, I thought, “what a dump”.  It was all rubbish.
I undertook voluntary work in Caerau for over 50 years.  We were a small community then.  They’d only just started building Caerau. I became the first voluntary youth leader in 1955.  I helped to raise money to build a community centre.  I used to take a keep-fit class.  Girls and boys were separated out somehow.  We had dancing.  We had a jazz band.  We had, you know, everything going for ourselves.

It was like a community then.  You know, you all mucked in together.  You all looked after each other.  On a Christmas, we used to run a Father Christmas parade around the estate for the kids.  We used to make up parcels of stuff and give to the old people.  Work for the community.

I’m still doing a lot of it now. I am the treasurer of the ‘Ely Grapevine’ newspaper.  A newspaper that we send out every quarter.

What you put into life you get out.