Instalment 5. ( It would appear that my memory of some of the family names differs slightly with those of Tonyf, but some episodes are similar, The explosions that I recall were as a result of Blasting in Penmaenmawr Quarry )
My father was now working in Llandudno Junction as a Toolmaker, in Colderator, later to become B.D.A. then Hotpoint. He purchased some reject glass Fridge shelves, to glaze the windows of the basement, to stop the weather entering. They were too large for the aperture, so he tried to cut them to size, I went to assist by holding the glass sheets whilst he scored them with a glasscutter, this being done, he tapped the glass with a small mallet, whilst I held it in place with the off-cut overhanging the bench, but to no avail, he then scored both sides of the glass as hard as he could, then tried again to knock off the excess, still no joy, desperate measures needed, he told me to hold it firmly in place and he hit it with a 4lb. Lump hammer. BANG, the glass exploded into thousands of pieces. Unbeknown to dad, it was tempered glass, similar to that used in car windows and cannot be cut. The basement was never glazed.
My father had a sports bike with drop handlebars, which he turned them up the other way, which I thought looked a bit strange and daft, but later became clear, as on his way home from work he would sometimes collect a sack of coke from the gas works, by Billy Simpsons yard on Maesdu Rd. The sack would fit into the curve of the handlebars whilst he pushed it home. Shopping was also a bit of a trudge, it was helped a bit by piling as much as possible onto my sisters pushchair, rather than carrying it, it was a Saturday event usually, down to the shops for the weeks supplies, such as they were, as rationing was still in place, woe betide you if anything was forgotten, you would just have to do without. We were fortunate that a milkman started to supply the site, so that was one item less to carry home. The rations were supplemented by putting snares to catch rabbits, fishing off the rocks at the far end of the Gunsite, scavenging for crabs on the foreshore and occasionally collecting Periwinkles on the way home, just below the West shore Tollgate. They’re not there any more, my mother would boil them and we would pick them out of the shell with a pin and eat them with bread and butter, if we had any.
Dad would sometimes go with a rake to the beach, by the black rocks end of the West shore, to collect Cockles, when they were available.
Breakfast was quite often toast and dripping, with a sprinkling of salt and a cup of tea. We would also collect blackberries, elderberries, sloes, mushrooms etc when in season.
Looking out of my bedroom window one morning I saw a couple of birds nearby, which I did not recognise, so I called my mother to have look, she said that they were Partridges and to keep quiet. She got my fathers shotgun loaded it, quietly opened the window and fired, throwing the gun onto my bed she jumped out of the window and collected one of the birds, the other had disappeared into the bracken, we searched for a while but never found it, still dad had Partridge for dinner. Rabbits were becoming scarcer so we had to forage further affield, I accompanied dad one day to try to shoot some rabbits with his .22 Rifle but we had no luck, On the way back we saw a Cormorant on the shore drying its wings, dad gave me the gun and said see if you can hit that. I lay on the grass, took aim and squeezed the trigger, I don’t know who was more surprised, me or dad, ’cos I got it. It seemed a waste to leave it, so we took it home, plucked, gutted and cooked it. I f you can imagine meat with the texture of rubber, that tasted of fish, you can get an impression of what it was like. Consigned to bin, never to be repeated.