Next was the costermonger. He had a flat four wheeled cart with all the vegetables laid out. He had his scales on the back of the cart. Customers helped themselves then he weighed their choices. Fresh vegetables every day.

The fishmonger would have collected his fish from the railway station, it having come from Cardiff on the first train. He also had a flat cart. Fresh fish today is sold whole or in fillets cut along the backbone, but then the fish was cut across the backbone to produce smaller cutlets. The tail pieces were sold whole, about six inches long. Friday was always a good day for sales due to the Roman Catholics.

The oilman came once a week selling paraffin. Most houses did not have electric light so oil lamps were the means of light.

Pre-wrapped goods were not available in those days so salt was sold in bars (blocks). The salt-man came about once a month. His bars of salt were about 18 inches long and 8 inches square at the top and tapered to about 6 inches square at the bottom. If a whole bar was not required he cut the amount required with a saw.

In between these would come the ash-man with his horse and cart. Coal fires produced a lot of ash which was collected every day.

In about 1927 the ash-man modernised and he bought a motor lorry, the first one seen in the area which was a great novelty to the children every day except Sundays.

Coal was delivered to houses of people not employed by the coal mines by horse and cart from trucks in the station yard, but miner’s coal was delivered from the collieries by steam driven traction engines. Very few houses had rear entrances so coal was tipped in the roadway outside the house and had to be carried through the house to the coalhouse at the rear.

The street light was mainly gas. The lamplighters went around at dusk to light up and then at about dawn to put the lights out.

The houses in the street were of a standard design, single-fronted, two rooms downstairs and three bedrooms upstairs. The door opened onto the pavement which was made of stone slabs raised above the road, then a rainwater gutter, but the road was not surfaced.

The front door opened into a passage which led to the stairway, adjacent to the stairway were two doors, one leading to the front room and the other to the kitchen. The back door opened onto a small platform and then six steps to the garden. At the end of the garden about 30 feet away was the outside toilet. No flushing toilets in those days you carried a pail of water with you when you used it.