VILLAGERS
was number 8, but there were two later on the opposite side. One has been quoted as 35 - the other was nearly at the top of the street.
Music coloured his life; from an early age he learned piano. The whole family attended Carmel, and there he learned the basics of playing the organ from Mr Tom Walters. Wishing to go further in his studies of the organ he started attending St Mary's, subsequently converting to Anglicanism. It seems silly today, but this caused some consternation in the family.
After Lewis' School, Pengam he went to Cardiff (as I did myself 10 years later) where his main study was Welsh Language. In fact, he'd had some difficulty deciding whether he would study Welsh or Music, such was his love for the latter subject. However, the language won and he graduated with a double first in Welsh.
During this period he was active in the Anglican Society at University; during a debate a chance remark by a Roman Catholic opponent led him to do some private study on Catholicism. He became a Roman Catholic - even more consternation in the family!
On leaving University he went to Yorkshire, to Ampleforth Abbey, a Benedictine house which is also the site of an exclusive Catholic public school; he taught here and subsequently became a Benedictine himself. It was at Ampleforh that he met many of the dignitaries who were busy sending him messages of congratulation later. He had been private tutor to the Marquis of Bute, for example, before he attained the title.
Funding from the Benedictines enabled him to go to the Catholic University of Leuven, also known as Louvain, its French name, where he gained his Ph.D.in Theology.
He returned to Ampleforth but soon afterwards he was back home. He had left the order as "his health would not allow him to withstand the rigours of fasting". This caused much rumour and speculation within the family as you may guess and the full story was never forthcoming. His parents had moved to Cardiff in the meantime and were living in a Northern Suburb near Castell Coch.
Huw got a post as a copywriter with Odham's Ltd, the publishers, in London, and subsequently the whole family moved to Wembley where he had a mortgage on a house. Always the high flyer, he joined the Garrick Club.
Like the leaving of Ampleforth this period becomes misty too; all we know is that he and Odham's parted company and the house had to be sold to meet debts. The family moved back to Cardiff where they rented a property after living with my Aunt Bess who had purchased the North Cardiff Property from them when they left, as she had left Fochriw.
His father was working as a hospital porter at this period and it was his earnings that supported them all together with the little my aunt earned as a school cleaner. Uncle Griff died of lung cancer in the late 1960s and my Aunt and Huw survived on benefit thereafter. He did work for a while, part time, with a Cardiff psychiatrist but the exact nature of the employment was never made clear; my guess is that it was to do with record keeping, but that is only a guess. The employment did not last long .Lydia died in a Catholic convalescent home in Cardiff in 1988 and Huw remained in the small rented flat until his death in 1995. The last time I saw him was a year earlier when I stayed with him for a weekend. An idea of how far removed he was from the simplest practical things of the world can be gained from the fact that when I arrived he told me that he was unable to use his TV because the remote control had failed, and the company from which he had purchased the set refused to replace the unit. There was probably a great deal of confusion on both sides! I went out and purchased some new batteries; of course, everything sprang to life again and he thought I was a technical whizz kid!