In the early years of the Second World War, when I was just a toddler, we lived eight miles west of London in a town called Southall. When the German bombers came over and the sirens started their awful wailing, my mother, Joyce, would shepherd me and my younger brother, Keith, under the stairs for protection.

My father, Charles Poole, was overseas fighting with the Eighth Army. Both my parents were born in Wales so, when a bomb demolished a house further down our road, my mother took us all off to live with her family in Penmaen, Blackwood to escape the bombing. I have only recently discovered that that bomb was the only one ever to fall on Southall.

My gran and granddad were called Ruth and Walter (Tom) Crouch and they lived in Park View Bungalows at number twenty-four. Granddad looked after the ponies down the pits until he somehow lost the strength in both arms. I am not sure if it was an accident or an illness that caused that to happen. After that he worked as a handyman at Gibbs Garage.

The few years we spent in Wales were a truly wonderful experience for Keith and myself and even after nearly seventy years the hold it has on us is still very strong.

We often chat about Perry's farm, from where we got bacon, or riding on a horse around John Bradford's field, which was half way up the hill - opposite the houses in Oakdale Terrace - to where our other grandparents, Charles and Agnes Poole, later moved. Or going on the bus to Oakdale School when we reached the grand old age of five. Most of the time we spent up the hill at the back of the bungalow with our cousins getting into the sort of scrapes and adventures that all kids did at that age.

One episode we will never forget. The three of us, me, Keith and cousin Jackie somehow managed to annoy a pig so much that it chased us all the way down the hill. At the bottom the only escape route was a small hole in the hedge. Being a few months older than the others - I was about five - I was through first. Jackie was next at the hedge but after a minor altercation it was Keith who was second through the hole. Chivalry? Not at that age with a man-eating pig on our heels! It would be nice to think we would both behave more gentlemanly and bravely these days.....

At 24 Park View we had fruit bushes, including raspberries and blackcurrants, all sorts of vegetables, as well as fresh eggs from our chickens. We also remember the milkman coming around with the churn on his cart and ladling out the milk which was then kept in the walk-in larder - no fridges in those days.

Washing was rinsed in the bath and then worked with a wooden dolly in a wooden tub before being wrung on the mangle in the back garden.

A couple of month's ago we made the journey from the Newmarket, Suffolk area where we now live to visit some of those places again. It was marvellous to see the old bungalow was still there and to think how many of us lived in it for that period of time.

There were the three of us, plus gran and granddad, Auntie Violet and daughter Jackie, four more cousins - and a lodger called Alec. Alec was the one who did most of the gardening. Twelve of us. Even though the bungalow has since been extended it is hard to imagine us all fitting in there.

At the time, two cousins worked down the mine at Oakdale. My mother, auntie and another cousin worked in the munitions factory. The name of R.F. Hancock another cousin, is inscribed on the war memorial in Oakdale along with the names of the others who died in action.

Just before the war ended we moved back to Southall, West London, and we remember the V E bonfire in the middle of the road.

Chief Petty Officer Jack Crouch, auntie Violet's husband, returned from the war and moved to Pontlanfraith where they had two more daughters, Lorraine and Annette.

Until I started work in the early nineteen fifties, Keith and I spent the long school summer holidays in Penmaen at gran and granddads, playing with our cousins. Those happy memories, of the closeness and comfort of being part of a large extended family, of freedom, adventure and fun, have stayed with us all our lives. Penmaen played a huge part in our childhood and I think the truth is that a part of us never left.