My grandfather used to work at Ogilvie colliery and had an ‘underground road’ named after him this being Coggan’s Heading.

He also had a smallholding opposite Stoney Houses and had a few horses, chickens and pigs. He also bred budgerigars in a large aviary at the bottom of his garden. Every time that he had the slaughter man in to kill the pigs, which was a very noisy affair, he would give my cousins and I an inflated pigs bladder or two which we used as footballs.

He was also a mobile greengrocer and had a small shop in a loft above my Uncle Ralph’s house, which he later move to a shed in his garden. His round was Penybanc, Pentwyn and Fochriw and used a horse and cart to ply his wares as the photograph below shows with my brother Philip on the horse. The location was at the top of Martin Street..












My grandfather was a frugal man and owned four houses, his own, and two others in Penybanc, and what came to be my home at 25 Martin Street, Fochriw, one for each of his sons. His other son John lived in Worcester. His fifth son, Ivor, died before I was born. He also had two daughters by his first marriage.

My grandmother was a very homely and loving person and I used to stay with them on occasions.

My times spent at Penybanc were idyllic and unbridled, in that there was complete freedom to do whatever us boys wanted to do. A few of my exploits are given below.

The rope swing.

From the age of 9 years old I had to wear glasses following contracting measles which made me short sighted. At my mother’s insistence I never wore National Health spectacles, which were free, but always frames for which she had to pay, and many is the time that I used to come home from Penybanc with them broken.

One such instance was when we had made a swing on the branch of a tree by the side of the hotel, from some rope that we had found on Ogilvie Colliery tip, and deeds of ‘daring do’ were