In my early years growing up in Llwynon Road there was always plenty of company, in particular Glyn Hale and Gerald Morgan, who both lived across the road and Kenny Bridge, who lived in no.1. My time at Rhiw Syr Dafydd School was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. I have one very sad memory of that time when a former classmate and friend John Case was drowned in the sea at Barry Island while visiting there with some French exchange students. This was the same John Case who had only just before turned up at the Whitsun sports day at the Rec. and won the 100yds wearing his normal day clothes and shoes, leaving me, in my relatively new Lewis School Pengam sports kit and pumps, in his wake.

I was somewhat in awe of my older brother Spencer who was eight years older than I; he played the piano at the Baptist chapel twice every Sunday as well as acting as the accompanist for various choirs. He was also good at soccer and rugby, playing rugby for the Pontllanfraith Grammar School 1st XV on Saturday mornings and soccer for Oakdale FC in the afternoon. After his national service he went on to play rugby regularly for Oakdale RFC. I too was given the opportunity to learn to play the piano. My very first lessons were from Mrs Hale, my friend Glyn's mother, and eventually I was sent weekly to my brother's music teacher, Mr Langley in West View Terrace for a number of years. Unfortunately my lack of talent eventually showed through. I also had aspirations to play with the Oakdale Brass Band where I was given a tenor horn and some music. I managed to mime my way through a number of rehearsals upstairs in the Oakdale Hotel before realising that there was no training available at that time and that I would have to learn to play the instrument on my own.

My mother insisted that I attended the Baptist Sunday School every week, but eventually I joined the Prims youth club, mainly because most of my friends went there. We used to meet in the Pavilion at the Rec. before eventually moving to the basement of the Methodist church on Central Avenue. Looking back, the youth club was an extremely positive experience on all sorts of levels.

My membership of the St John's Ambulance brigade involved regular meetings in a hall half way down the Rhiw in which we were given marching practice and taught 101 things to do with a triangular bandage. I don't ever remember using my triangular bandage skills but I do remember marching with the St. Johns Brigade whenever a suitable parade presented itself.

I am surprised that the Oakdale website does not seem to have any reference to Mair Squires. I remember her, not only as an accomplished singer, but also as my singing teacher and for the Oakdale Children's Choir which she ran in the early 1950s. The choir rehearsed weekly upstairs in the Institute with my brother Spencer as the accompanist; he also accompanied the Male Voice choir at that time. My outstanding memory of the Children's choir was competing successfully at an Eisteddfod in Porthcawl where we impressed the judges not only with our singing but the way we were turned out in our uniform of grey trousers or skirts, white shirts and red ties. As one of Mair Squires' pupils I regularly took part in concerts that she organised in nearby towns and villages, quite often in old people's homes. Perhaps 20 of us would sing solos, duets and some choral items with none of us knowing precisely what we were going to be asked to perform until the night. The voices that impressed me at the time belonged to Ann Pearce and Margaret Price, yes, the Margaret Price who went on to much greater things. (Ed. * See note)

My mother would often meet me off the Pengam school bus at about 5.00pm on a Friday with the shopping bags and a note for me to get the weeks groceries from the Coop. The Coop closed at 5.30pm and I still remember the shop assistants, Mina Bridge and Linda Davenport as I recall, taking the note from me as I walked in, tearing it in two to divide the items required between the two counters, the 'sugar' counter and the 'bacon' counter in order to get me out of the shop by closing.

Living in 11 Llwynon Road was very convenient for easy access to the Rec., for it was a simple matter to clamber over a disused gate in the lane opposite our back gate. Apart from the convenience of joining in with any activities that I could spot from our house, and getting in to watch various Oakdale teams playing, in my later teens I played a lot of tennis in the newly refurbished courts, with Gareth Horrigan, David Davies and Tom Morgan in particular. If I recall correctly Stuart Esau was the outstanding tennis player in the village, he was the first person I knew whose second serve was indistinguishable from his first!

My father Dai Waters worked as a miner in Oakdale Colliery and eventually trained new miners on the training face. He had a number of relatives living in the village who we would visit regularly: his sister Maggie in Ashville, his brother Wilf and wife Rene who also lived in Llwynon Road and his brother Horace and wife Muriel and my cousins Haydn, Emrys and Hywel who we used to visit at the bottom of the Rhiw until they moved to Beech Grove. My father and mother met at Oakdale hospital after he had badly fractured his leg in a motorbike accident. My mother was a nurse at the hospital having moved from her home in Maesteg as Eunice Griffiths. We used to regularly visit one of her former nursing colleagues who lived in Ashville; she and my mother continued to call each other Griff and Lloyd long after their nursing careers had ended.

I don't remember much about the Bevin boys who came to stay with us, but I do remember the metal framed single beds which served as occasional beds for visitors long after they were gone.

My mother and I were enthusiastic patrons of the Oakdale cinema and invariably went on Mondays and Fridays. I went with my mother in my early years and we would often take slices of apple in place of sweets during rationing, or even sometimes queue for off-rationed sweets that would occasionally be available in Conti's. Venturing to Blackwood to the cinema was more of a big night out.

We did not get a television until seemingly much later than everyone else, so I am still eternally grateful to family friends like Mr & Mrs Reg Coggins of Markham Crescent for regularly inviting us to watch the Sunday evening play on the BBC, and our close neighbours the Lewis's for the inordinate amount of time they let me sit in their front room watching England playing cricket.

I spent a lot of my school holidays in the Oakdale Miners' Institute. By helping to cover and clean the snooker tables we could often get a free game, only on the boys' table though. Another memory is of playing dominos with the retired miners who always seemed to know the dominos in your hand after the first two rounds!

Later, when I was old enough, I went regularly to the Saturday dance at the Blackwood Institute. I'm sure many people will remember paying a shilling to travel home in Glyn's after-dance special bus which made two trips to Oakdale with the second one travelling on to Trinant.

In 1959 I went to UCW Aberystwyth and while I was an undergraduate I returned to Oakdale every vacation until 1963 when I married Janet Lewis from Abertillery who I met at Aberystwyth. Before that I worked variously for British Rail in Pontllanfraith and Blackwood and Alcan in Rogerstone during the summer vacations. In 1962 Dai Prout who also lived in Llwynon Road, persuaded me to join him and Allan Pritchard at Blackwood Rugby Club where I played during the Christmas and Easter vacations for a couple of years. (See picture) I particularly remember the very enjoyable Easter tours to Dartmouth. I only ever played for Oakdale Rugby Club once, it was a midweek away game at Cross Keys or Risca and I seem to remember watching Cassius Clay beating Sonny Liston on television in the bottom club afterwards, so that would make it Feb 25th 1964.

My mother died early in 1966 after which I resigned from my post at Aberystwyth and we spent a year in Oregon USA before I took up a post at Liverpool University in 1967 and we have made our home on the Wirral ever since. Spencer had been teaching in Cwmcarn and when he got a new job in Bridgend in about 1969 my father retired and moved to live with him and his family. Sadly Dai (1986), Spencer (1991) and his wife Sonia (1990) have all passed away.

We have made regular visits to Janet's parents over the years which has allowed me to visit Oakdale occasionally; in fact I was recently able to find a local stonemason who refurbished my mother's grave at Cwrt-y-Bella. I still feel quite an attachment to Oakdale and feel very fortunate to be able to keep in touch with what is going on in the village via this website.

Congratulations Oakdale on your centenary.

Neville Waters

[* Webmaster's note : For those who aren't quite sure, the Oakdale Children's Choir member in question became the international opera superstar Dame Margaret Price.]