I am not sure
of the date but at least 60 years ago there were coracle fishermen
on the river; the father and grandfather of Mr. Johnson of the
Basket Shop fished from coracles, their right to so fish being
eventually acquired by the river authority. Then paddling
in the river as a boy I recall that roughly opposite the Rectory
there was a large concrete slab set in the river armed with a
hook the purpose of which was to catch and rip the nets of poachers.
William and John Griffiths, brothers, who lived
at Turn of Dee, were local butchers. John was really the
butcher and he also made deliveries; they did not have a shop
but delivered to order from their house which is where the river
turns westward away from Overton Road. Cattle were killed
at the house and delivery made by horse drawn cart; they also
had a stall in Wrexham Market. If a customer complained
that the meat supplied had been tough John’s reply was invariably
“the gravy was tender wasn’t it missus?" Herbert
Williams in High Street (where there is an antique shop) was also
a butcher. As a boy on the way to school I recall seeing
blood running into the street as they were slaughtering the animals.
At the bottom of Abbeygate Hill there was originally only
one house and Mr. Minshall lived there. He was the village
pig killer. In those days both cottages and farms kept and
killed a pig for their own personal use. If you did not
wish to kill your pig then you would send for Mr. Minshall who
would arrive in a pony and trap with the tools of his trade; a
portly gentleman almost as big as his pony. Near neighbours
came to help on the day of the killing. The animal was held
down on a bench whilst Mr. Minshall knifed it. The blood
was caught and used to make black pudding. The carcass would
then be placed in a pig turnell, a wooden bath oval in shape,
hot water poured in and the pig scraped clean. It would
be hung up with a gambrel through the hocks, the intestines taken
out, and left until the next day to dry. The following day
Mr. Minshall would be back to cut up the carcass into sides of
bacon, hams, smaller joints and fat. As a helper you each
received a piece of pork in return for the help given. The
pig turnell was given a layer of salt, the bacon added and sufficient
salt put in to cover the contents, the hams and other odd pieces
also being included. Salting took approximately three weeks
for bacon and hams a month, the latter having salt petre and brown
sugar worked around the bone. At the end of this period
hams would be hung up, probably in the kitchen, for as long as
twelve months.
The Police Station was on the Whitchurch Road
corner, next door to a little shop (always known as Olive’s
shop), now, a pet food shop. The first policeman I can remember
was named Jones - probably Nurse Owen’s father. Then
for a considerable period of time Tom Parry’s father filled
the post. In those days local policemen would mete out their
punishment for minor of fences e.g. a good clout with no ill feeling
on either side afterwards.
Field Oaks, where Charlie Bevington now lives,
was the home of Coal Merchant Dan Bartlam whose coal business
operated from Bangor Station. Delivery was by horse and
cart with coal dumped where required from heavy sacks. Another
merchant named Owen Warburton came from Worthenbury. There
was little delivery for farmers who had to fetch coal from the
station.
Mr. Jack Spoor, followed by son Jack, operated
the Smithy on Whitchurch Road catering for horses over an area
extending two miles or more around he village. His daughter,
Mrs. Gerry Roberts, lived at the Smithy in its working days.
Local farmers, Blakes the Cloy, Mr. Mort at Althrey
Farm, Suttons at Althrey Hall Farm (now Roger Done) engaged local
people to help with the milking. Three ladies, who helped
night and morning, probably for a few shillings a week, were Mrs.
Mullock, Mrs. Jack Roberts and Mrs. Joe Roberts.
At our farm tramps passed by constantly on foot
for either Whitchurch or Wrexham. In return for bed and
board at the Workhouse they had compulsory work to perform after
which they were free to go on their way with a chit from the Authority
which they might present at Twiss’s shop in High Street,
receiving in exchange tea, sugar, bread and cheese. On the
road they called at houses along their way for hot water to make
tea in an old tin can, on an average day as many as seven or eight
would pass the farm. One gentleman of the road was a regular
caller on Friday night; he would wait until we had turned out
the cattle before calling at the house to enquire whether we could
put him up for the night. We accommodated him in the Bing
that is where hay is stored in front of the cattle. By five
thirty the next morning he had always departed. He told
me that he aimed to get into Wrexham early where he would stand
outside certain public houses. Men coming out would not
wish to be seen to be giving him money but would drop it on the
ground and he would pick it up. If he’d had what he
regarded as a good day then his next destination would be by bus
to Oswestry. Pubs in those days opened early. Apparently
he had a round which included Bridgnorth and he passed our way
every three months or so. Eventually a long time elapsed and we
thought that he had probably died but then he turned up again.
It seems that he had been knocked down by a car and suffered
a broken arm. During his incapacity art students had used
him as a model tramp and paid for his sittings. A man and
wife were also regular callers. They traveled with an old
pram, what was in it we never knew, but it was very heavy and
required quite an effort to get it going. In their case
there was usually difficulty in getting them out of the Bing when
it was needed. The wife was co-operative but husband was
often awkward. Cows have a strong sense of smell and after
they had gone there was difficulty in getting the animals back
under cover as they were aware of a strange smell in front of
them. Tramps wore old and dirty clothes, carried on their person
their few possessions - cups could be old fruit tins with a hole
each side and a handle formed by passing wire through the holes.
One winter we experienced a terrible snowstorm which raged
all day and night. When I went to attend to the cattle there
was a tramp leaning against a building in a state of exhaustion.
We took him into a shed by the side of the house where we
had a furnace and boiler used for cheese making, put him in front
of the fire and gave him something to eat. The next day
Dad took him to Whitchurch Workhouse. Shortly afterwards
we received a postcard thanking us for our help. On other
occasions at night time tramps would go into the hay bay without
first calling at the house. We did, however, have a dog
with a very good nose who wild search out such visitors. We
did not begrudge a shelter providing that matches were given up
before going into the hay. We accommodated very many travelers
and never had a fire.
Going back in time, as the result of my parents
making friends with an Irish couple on holiday’ in the Isle
of Man, my mother and I went to Dublin in 1916 on a visit to their
home. It was at the end of the rebellion. In the house next
door a body lay for three days unattended because no one dare
move it. When we left they gave me a school satchel which
lasted for the rest of my schooldays. On the way back we
saw an airship over the sea.
In the 1920s Luther Williams was the village
cobbler who lived next door to the present Post Office; his house
has since been demolished. The Royal Oak yard had a building
with a loft and a door on the ground floor through which customers
went to get to the yard. As previously mentioned Mr. Jones,
Tailor, lived in School House, Overton Road; he was the grandfather
of Bette Jones who lives in Rectory Lodge.
On one occasion I went into the village after
a deep flood, getting there across fields and along the bulwark
from Deeside; walking along the bulwark with a gale blowing and
water only a few inches away was a frightening experience. When
I reached Mrs. Johnson’s house the door was open and she
was upstairs in bed and alone; she was all-right and remained
upstairs until the water went down. Our farm and house were
well above flood level but my Chapel has been flooded at least
twice and probably three times. In 1945 a neighbour and I went
to the Chapel by boat. We lifted the tubular heaters and
put them higher up and then moved the organ on to benches. Philip
Duckett who took us in promised to call back but, when we had
done all that we could and water was still pouring in, he failed
to return so we got a message out via a passing boat and someone
else called and got us out one at a time.
When the Second World War was declared I was
in Church and learned about it as I came out. So far as
farming was concerned we were obliged to plough up a third of
our land for grain. This proved to be something of a fiasco
as we only had horse power and there were few agricultural contractors
available to help the small farmer. We had, therefore, to wait
our turn with the result that the land was ploughed at the wrong
time of the year. A field of 4 acres was ploughed in the
Spring when the land was wet rather than the end of the previous
year. The wet clayey ground hardened as the weather improved
until it resembled a field of concrete. Contractor’s
came on a Sunday to work it rolling and harrowing it to a fine
tilth but, as moisture had been lost the grain germinated and
then largely died - the harvest yield was less than the seed sown
in the first place. At threshing time the Threshing Machine
came around and land girls arrived to help along with members
of nearby farms - as with pig killing we all helped each other.
In the winter I would be either threshing our grain or going
to help others who had previously helped us. Land girls
were needed because of the shortage of men.
I volunteered for the Local Defence Volunteers
later renamed Home Guard. We met every week with a rota
for duty when we would be out on patrol. In the beginning
we met at the Village Institute until we acquired a 1914 Army
Hut sited where there is now a car park, this had a games room
at one end accommodating two full size billiard tables.
Later in the war the Army took over the Village Hall and the billiard
tables disappeared; before the war there had been a thriving young
men’s Billiard Club with a membership of 60-70, the better
players competing for a cup. At the time I have in mind
there was talk of a likely landing by the Germans and we had only
our own shotguns and felt very vulnerable until after a considerable
period of time we received proper weapons. We patrolled
the village and its surroundings and one morning at about 3 a.m.
we were called out because it was reported that a parachutist
had landed in Worthenbury - the parachutist turned out to be a
parachute flare. That morning left me with a vivid recollection
of being on Overton Road near where the New Bridge now stands
and seeing the sun come up and the valley wreathed in mist, a
lovely sight when the war was going so badly.
In 1940, the night before we planned to cut the
grain, German planes were going over at the rate of one every
five minutes towards the mountains from where we heard the sound
of bombs dropping and this went on the whole night long. The
next day the mountains were on fire with smoke drifting as far
as Chester. Years later when I was in the Special Constabulary,
in the course of a lecture an Inspector referred to the bombing
of the mountain and said that the planes had been flying on a
radar beam to Liverpool but our boffin's had bent the beam to
the benefit and relief of Liverpool. Fires first started
were kept going and this attracted the bombers on the second night.
Some farms had a direct hit and people were killed but only
incendiaries fell on Bangor although a bomb did fail by the main
road at Buck Farm, Whitchurch Road, when three cattle were killed
and a massive crater was left in a field.
We members of the Home Guard were also sent on
exercises in Llangollen and Ellesmere. During the latter
part of my service: I was Lieutenant in charge of the local platoon
whilst Tom Osborne had charge of No. 2 platoon. Pitcairn Campbell
was captain. At the time when we turned out for the supposed
parachutist at Worthenbury when I was on Overton Road I could
hear Khaki Campbell as he was called (an old soldier from the
1914-18) was shouting on the old bridge. We learned later
that he had stopped and boarded with fixed bayonet a bus carrying
workers to the Ordnance Factory and demanded to see their identity
cards - needless to say his intervention was not well received.
A typical Home Guard exercise was for a party
to go to Howes Wood, which no longer exists, where certain items
were placed around the wood. Other members were stationed
around the wood carrying out different activities. Patrols
of about eight men were sent to the wood to find out what was
going on. Some men were talking, others had a tin can through
which poultry wire was drawn making a sound like barbed wire being
rolled out. The patrol then had to go back to HQ (the Village
Hall) to report to Captain Astley about what they thought was
going on in the wood, the object being to find out whether they
could report correctly activity by the enemy. At other times
army personnel would come to instruct us in the use of weapons.
Duty hours were 8.p.m. - 10.p.m., 10.p.m. - 2.a.m., 2.a.m.
- 4.a.m. and 4.a.m. - 6.a.m., with two men to a patrol, 10 men
slept at the hut and everybody had night duty once a week. From
time to time we traveled to Acrefair for instruction in new weapons,
bombs and the conduct of exercises. Church parade happened
once a year. Our activities were somewhat restricted owing to
the fact that we were all working long hours in agriculture.
One Saturday afternoon two Spitfires were stunting
above and below the clouds immediately over Bangor, suddenly there
was a bang and one of the planes came spiraling down, the pilot
parachuting safely to land on the Cloy whilst his plane dived
into Done’s wood where it buried itself in the ground. As
I was watching the other plane came down close to where Mr. and
Mrs. Evers, Ty Graig, now live. The pilot baled out but
his parachute failed to open. On a Sunday morning some time
later other planes were stunting and a Miles Master Trainer crashed
in a field just beyond Hollybush. I got there to find that
the plane had ploughed into the ground with the pilot’s
head just visible in the solid clay, the engine was underground
but the wings and body had smashed into small pieces. On
another occasion there was a further collision when a Spitfire
crashed at the side of the Green Lane near to the home of Herbert
Williams. In that case the pilot baled out successfully.
At the end of the First World War colliery hooter's
sounded and to celebrate the Armistice villages had a bonfire
in the field opposite Deeside with an effigy of the Kaiser on
top. I cannot remember what or if any celebration took place
at the end of the Second World War.
Since the end of the war there has been further
flooding, some serious and some minor, a pattern which must have
been repeated since time immemorial until the present control
and improvements. Foot travelers in time of flood would
have to travel to Wrexham via Overton. Travel by train or
horse drawn vehicle would probably have been possible but not
without some difficulty. Neighbour helped neighbour with
the Police and local volunteers fully occupied.
When I was young there was a boat stationed by
the Royal Oak. This had its origin in the loss of Mrs. Mytton’s
eldest son who drowned in the river. As a result Bangor
on Dee Public Safety Committee was formed and I was Treasurer.
We raised a lot of money which paid for the building of
the Boat House (still standing by the river at the side of the
Royal Oak) and the purchase of a shallow draft boat with outboard
motor. The Boat House was the work of craftsmen from the
Cadbury Factory. The scheme had the best of intentions but
unless a member of the boat crew was present when a person fell
into the water then the boat could not be launched. The
boat proved to be a recovery vessel only and there was always
difficulty in getting a crew with potential crewmen almost always
otherwise engaged on shift work elsewhere. The boat eventually
disappeared.
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