As mentioned on the home page here is the response to my comments about criticism by people who went away, about what the village has become.
Many of the comments in the remarks below can be applied to most English villages and many northern towns up to the 70s - not just the 50s
To complete the picture I add two other documents at the end of the remarks.
One a summary of the 1901 census of Aberarth and the other a "Nuicances Report" about the village in 1914
Response.
To Webmaster", re. your uncalled for remarks added to
"Reminiscences" by I. Lampshire-Jones.
The Townies who now live in
Aberarth would not have considered doing so before the late 1940's and early
1950's. Reasons.
1. NO ELECTRICITY. Lighting by oil lamps and candles. No
reliable radio. Sets were powered by heavy wet batteries which needed frequent
charging in Aberayron Heating. No central heating then, just coal fires and oil
stoves. Towns and cities had the luxury of power.
2.NO PIPED WATER TO
INDIVIDUAL HOUSES. All water had to be carried from street corner taps (late
40's), before that from wells, water spouts and a pump in the school yard. No
bathrooms (until after 1950). It was a case of a zinc bath in front of an open
fire, water heated on it in buckets and large kettles. Some households had
outside boilers (wood fired) for doing the weekly wash and heating the bath
water. No water closets (toilets to you). Usually there was a building at the
bottom of the garden which had to be emptied periodically, either when the
river was in flood or buried in the garden. All drinking water had to be
carried, some sources more favoured than others - no taps for a quick
"cuppa". And by the way there was no fridge to keep the milk fresh.
3.THE ONLY TELEPHONE IN THE VILLAGE WAS IN THE POST OFFICE.
4. INDIVIDUAL CAR
OWNERSHIP, ALMOST NONEXISTANT. That's just a few reasons. HOW YOU WOULD HAVE
HATED IT.!!!!!!!
I, a "townie", spent long periods in Aberarth as a
child and in later years, saw both sides of life. They were so different. You
speak about Aberarth in the past showing complete ignorance of the mode of
living in the village from before 1914 till the 1950's. Consider this. Look at
the jobs vacant pages in the Cambrian News today, none of the companies and
organizations advertising had even been dreamt of. For menfolk choices of
earning a living were very limited, in fact four.
1. Work on the land.
2. Go to
sea - Aberarth had always been a seafaring village.
3. Enter the local economy
cycle, being a local tradesman (finance limited this), becoming a carpenter,
bricky, etc., for which there was limited scope. The latter were required in
greater numbers during the last war for building army camps locally.
4. Make
the most of limited education, qualify and move away. Because going to sea was
what a large number of the men had to do the female population did what they
had done for generations, brought up their families, in the absence of
husbands, with the assistance of close extended families, but with very limited
incomes. The population of Aberarth was a close knit community.
Unfortunately,
today, because the village has no school, shop, post office, etc., and people
not being very neighbourly, the spirit of community can never be recaptured.
Another group receiving your critiscm. are the people who are in the latter
group , the "London Welsh" and "People living in
Vancouver". The fact that these people regularly returned to Aberarth
and gave support to those remaining ( financial and moral) contributed a great
deal to the family life of the village. It was a financial necessity for those
people to make a living elsewhere BUT THERE WAS ALWAYS A LIVE VILLAGE FOR THEM
TO RETURN TO. You mention new activities in the village today, you must be
joking. How many residents do they employ?. I'm quite sure that I am correct in
stating that 95% of the employable population of Aberarth today work away from
the village and to them it is a dormitory. The quality of life you enjoy today
has blinded you to the difficulties of living without what you today accept as
the norm. Think before you criticize. One undeniable fact as stated by ILJ is
that you can, today ,walk around the village all day and not see a soul, in a
village which in the past was vibrant.
The forms cover the lower village and Drefnewydd and Morfa which are outside
the village.
There were 308 people counted of which 179 were female 129 male. There were 11
children under 3 years of age. 186 were born in Aberarth and 106 in
Cardiganshire with 5 or so miles of Aberarth. 7 were from other parts of Wales
and 9 from outside Wales. 152 people spoke Welsh only, 138 were bilingual and 9
spoke English only, one of these, unfortunately, was the deaf and dumb son of a
Welsh only family who was sent to an English school to learn sign language.
23 homes had widows as head of the family, 3 had widowers.
17 homes showed a married woman as the first entry, suggesting the husband was
away perhaps at sea.
97 people are shown as in employment or living on own means,
10 of these are seamen,
6 are living on own means.
21 people are listed as in business on their own account or employers.
Their trades include:- Woollen Manufacturer, Shoemaker, Stonemason, Oil
Merchant, Blacksmith(2), Coach builder, Grocer(3), Coal Merchant,
Dressmaker(4), Baker, Inn Keeper, Egg Dealer, Butcher, Flannel weaver, Garter
Weaver, Clogmaker and Passenger Carrier.
The School had a head teacher, two assistant teachers and a pupil teacher.
The Post Office, in what is now Arosfa, had a postmistress and two letter
carriers.
8 people are charwomen or domestic housemaids.
6 people are farm workers and 5 are dress makers or drapers assistants
Surprisingly, considering the importance of the woollen mill, only three people
are listed as wool spinners or weavers.
Other occupations include a Calvinistic Preacher and a corn grinder.
The picture is of a self sufficient and self contained village only an
undertaker seems to be missing.
Interestingly Evan T. Davies, son-in-law of Rowland Pugh, woollen manufacturer
is listed as an unemployed carpenter and builder. He went on to become the
pillar of Aberarth Society and his building company built most of Penparcau.
Unfortunately we do not have a detailed report of each house
as mentioned in the report.
*************
INSPECTOR OF NUICANCES REPORT. 1914. A house at Aberarth where two cases of Diptheria have been notified, I have not been able to trace the origin of the outbreak, but the house and its surroundings are not satisfactory. The house is damp, there is a pigsty within 20ft of the front of the house, the water supply is very suspicious, being at the lower end of the farmyard, the farmyard drains toward it.
. I herewith submit to you a summary of my inspection of the village of Aberarth. A detailed report on each house has been prepared on the house inspection record.
Number of houses inspected 74
Number of vacant houses not inspected 8
Total 82.
House rents £4 and under 12 houses
House rents £4 to £8 24 houses
House rents £8 to £12 4 houses
Over £12 1 House
Owner occupiers 33
Overcrowding Nil
Lighting
Insufficient light in living room 11
Insufficient light in bedrooms 9
Ventilation Insufficient ventilation in living rooms 8
Insufficient ventilation in bedrooms 13
No through ventilation 6
Circulation of air around houses.
6 houses have soil abutting against portions of their back walls and higher
than their floor levels.
Dampness
11 houses have dampness in their walls and floors due chiefly to the absence
of eavestroughs and to soil abutting such walls. Eavestroughs and downpipes.
15 houses have no eavestroughs and 16 other houses have non except on one side
only
Water supply.
60 houses derive the whole of their water from the 3 supplies of the village? Ffynon Felin, Brynlewis Spout, and Dolgian Spout.
12 houses have rainwater tanks or cisterns mostly constructed of stone flags.
3 houses have their private supplies of water from wells bored in rocky soil. There is a scarcity of water in the village during periods of draught.
The 3 village supplies appear to be water from shallow wells and are liable to surface polution The rainwater stored in cisterns is used by some for cooking purposes during the winter mouths, but the majority of these houses obtain such water from the 3 village supplies and utilize the rain water for washing and other household purposes. I would reccomend that a series of samples of the 3 village supplies be procured for analysis.
Closet accomadation.
Pail closets 27
Privy middens 38
Earth Closets 3
Water closets 2
No privy accomadation 2
Consruction of closets.
Wooden building 8
Corrugated iron building 15
Stone building 47
Closets with earth floors 10
Closets with concrete or brick floors 14
Closets with boarded floors 46
The contents of the the pail closets are generally buried in the gardens. In these cases where the gardens are small and under cultivation in spring and summer, and also in those cases where the gardens are a good distance from the houses, there is no doubt that the pails are deposited to the river thereby causing polution and a nuisance especcialy so during the summer months.
The privy middens are generally cleaned out every spring and buried in the gardens.
The two water closets discharge to covered cesspools.
Drainage.
Houses with no drains 35
Houses with drains discharging to soak away pits in gardens 24
Houses have drains that eventualy discharge either seperately or collectively to the river 15
Paving of yards
Number of yards not paved 20
Number of yards paved with bricks 5
Number of yards paved with concrete 12
Number of yards paved with cobbles 15
All the houses in Water Street have no yards as they are erected with their backs right on the river bank and their fronts close on the street.