Visitors Pass

Gwanwyn Evans - 1931-32

Gwanwyn Evans of Ffinnant Isaf, Aberyscir, Brecon, was in Craig-y-nos in 1932 as a 10 year old with TB in the jaw. Now 85 years of age she sent in the following written account. ( This is an extract).

"There was no public transport so the local vicar conveyed me to Craig-y-nos from my home in Builth Wells. I was put in Ward 2 with girls my own age and some older women.

The treatment consisted in my having a sun-ray lamp applied to the scar. The first application frightened me - I was only 10- because a black, strange smelling sheet of something like cardboard was placed on my face. I learned that it contained an aperture for my scar but the rest had to protect my face against the sun-ray. Each morning I proceeded to have the scab "torn away", the bleeding stopped with the application of methylated spirits - did that smart?- and then the heat applied. I was in hospital for 16 weeks and so this continued for that period of time.

All the children, boys and girls, went each morning to the Sun-ray room wearing only little calico pants and goggles and we sat around, had games or sang songs around the big Sun-ray lamp.

Lord David Davies, Llandinan, was a benefactor then of several sanatoria and he came to the hospital as Father Christmas.
The present from Father Christmas was a doll which I kept for 10 years.

One death occured while I was at Craig-y-nos. A woman was isolated in a Ward which we passed on our way to the bathroom. We were told to be quiet when in that region and we were aware of when she passed away...

My parents didn't visit me, believing it would only unsettle me but the Vicar and his wife did come one day. I spent little time with them I remember but at least they were able to tell my parents they had seen me.

Came the time, in February, for me to go home and, on this occasion the Vicar fetched my mother down. I cried when I saw her- after all, I hadn't seen her for four months- and sobbed all the way home from Craig-y-nos to Builth Wells.

"Squash, squash, squash" - 1930's

This story was sent in by Gwanwyn Evans of Aberyscir, near Brecon:

"If you were reprimanded in Craig-y-nos it was called "squash" and one girl called Madge wrote the following lines which we used to sing, when out of hearing of the staff:

" Squash, squash, squash, here comes Staff Nurse to squash us

Squash, squash, squash, that's all we're getting here
The nurses and the sisters,
Their tongues must be in blisters,
That's all we get in Craig-y-nos is
Squash, squash, squash!"

Many years later my husband saw Madge in Brecon. She had become a Sergeant in the ATS and she was seen marching her recruits around Brecon.
It was obvious her stay in Craig-y-nos had been beneficial."

Boys on the balcony 1944-46

This photo has just arrived on email from Alice-May Brickstock. She says her grandfather, Peter Lesley Stacey Perkins, was in Craig-y-nos from 1944-46.

He is 74 years of age and remembers quite a lot from those days. He is in the bed on the far right hand side with the nurse beind him.

Other people in the photo are Leonard Smalldon from Swansea ( left). Anthony Downy from Port Talbot (4th from the left) now deceased. The nurse behind Peter Perkins is Sister Williams. He remembers another boy called Peter Wagstaff in the next bed to him.

Does anyone recognize anybody else in this photo?

e-mail me if you do: annshaw@mac.com

Brenda Bater- Ward 2

Does anyone know what happened to Brenda Bater? this photograph was supplied by Myfanwy Blatchford ( nee Hoyles) taken around 1952/53.

Inside Ward 2, 1952

Sheila inside Ward 2.
I don't have any more details. Note the raised bed on blocks in the background.

Ann and Caroline - re-union! - 2007

Caroline called around this afternoon - the first time we have met for over 50 years! - and she only lives about 10 miles along the Ochils from me! She moved to Scotland seven years ago with her husband after they both retired from teaching in Kent.

Caroline was at Craig-y-Nos for 20 months, at the same time as myself. After leaving the hospital she went to Brecon Grammar School for Girls, and then trained as an Occupational Therapist. She married, had two children and retrained as a teacher in the seventies, and combined both disciplines by teaching children with cerebral palsy and, latterly, autism.

She has many memories of her time at Craig-y-Nos - the high excitement of the monthly visiting weekend and receiving parcels and letters from home, reading an endless succession of books, boredom, the companionship of other children, the rigid hospital routine, and the longed-for walks in the lovely hospital grounds once she was allowed to be out of bed and dressed in day clothes. One abiding memory is of Sybil, a child from a travellers' family, being admitted into the ward and her frantic fear and misery as her weeping parents departed.

Myfanwy Blatchford (nee Hoyles) "more like St Trinians"

Alfie the gardener rescues Myfanwy Hoyles and Mari Jenkins . They had gone rowing on the lake and got stuck and Alfie was called upon to go and save them.


This is one of 18 photos that arrived this morning from Myfanwy. She writes about her five month experience in Craig-y-nos as a 12 year old in 1952:"
Despite our illness, I believe we made the best of our time whilst in the hospital. At times more like St Trinians than a sanatorium. I hope everyone of us, except Florence ( who died) had a healthy and happy life after."

Edward Ellis Thomas, age 85.

Ted, as he is best known as, is the oldest ex patient to come forward. He was in Craig-y-nos as a 7 year old for one year and has sent in a handwritten account. This is an extract:

He remembers :" In 1928 I travelled with my parents by train to Penycae, the station above Craig-y-nos , where we were met by a black ambulance and taken to the hospital. The ward was the large "all glazed" Childrens Ward ( conservatory), overlooking the river Tawe.

"On my second afternoon we were all carried down to a picnic by the river."

"Running beneath the beds were heating pipe ducts with ornamental cast-iron covers. We would wet tiny paper pellets in our mouths and drop them through the covers to hear mice and rats scuttle."

Ted lives in Brynmill Swansea and is a retired civil engineer with local government.

Mary Richards (nee Driscoll) Craig-y-nos 1946-47

Mary from Swansea just rang. She has lot of memories. Here's some:

"During the blizzards in 1947 I was out on the balcony.
My Gran asked if it was right that we should be left out there in those conditions and she was told that it was part of the treatment.
I was kept in bed for the first 3 months. I had my tonsils removed and used to have a tube pushed down into my stomach. I dont know what for.

Dr Huppert, an Austrian woman doctor, a short woman with a limp petfried me. She was nasty. She shouted at me one day to get the two curlers out of my hair. I shall always remember that."

Hospital records

Anyone wishing to get hold of their hospital records from their time in Craig-y-nos should write to the following address with full details ( name, age, time in hospital etc).

The Medical Secretary, Carol Page, Ystradgynlais Community Hospital, Glanrhyd Rd., Ystradgynlais, Powys, SA91AE. Phone 01639 846402.
Or contact the hospital administrator Carol Page: 01639 844777.

I can't guarantee they will have them all there but I have interviewed the medical secretary, Euronwy Lewis, who was responsible for helping to put some of them on record.

Roy Harry- Craig-y-nos 1940's

Roy from Cwmavon has agreed to be the first person to do an "oral history" recording on Craig-y-nos with the Sleeping Giant Foundation.
Admitted at 3 years of age he was there for 4 years.

Shooting parties and rabbit stew-Craig-y-nos 1930s

Received a letter this morning from Ellis Thomas, aged 85 who was in Craig-y-nos during the 20s. He enclosed a copy of a letter he received a few years ago from Vernon Evans.
"Like you I have only met one peson who has been a patient at Craig-y-nos, a local man who entered just after me, he also was cured, and he must have been alright, having passed his medical exam and served in the Navy during the war. I was turned down and they told me they didn't want lame ducks in the fighting forces.

"I well remember Dr Grant and her assistant Dr Walker. I'm glad that there are the likes of you who understand what we went through as a lot of people think we are exaggerating at the treatment we received.

I suppose you remember the gentry and the doctors having their shooting parties on a Tuesday, and we the patients lived on rabbit meat and stews for a few days. I found the food wasn't too bad, until I found a slug on my Brussel sprouts, which put me off them for life.

I was born in 1919 the tenth child of fourteen children, 7 boys and 7 girls, so you can imagine the struggle my parents had to make ends, although I lacked for nothing through the kindness of relatives and friends. I started work in the family bakery business becoming a master baker , and served 53 years before retiring. I spent some time as a lecturer in Bakery and Confectionery at Bridgend College. I now write a weekly column in the Glamorgan Gazette about the happenings in the Llynfi Valley."
Sadly Vernon died seven years ago.

Pamela Hill 1958-1959

Pamela was in Craig-y-nos as a 6 year old from April 1958- April 1959. This is a photo of her with her aunt and uncle. Her father was in Talgarth with TB at the same time.
She says:" It was very difficult for my mother at that time with both of us in different hospitals and with my brother just being 3 years old. Although we had a car my mother couldn't drive and it was quite difficult for her to travel from our home which at that time was in Aberdare."

Re-union - Ann and Rosemary -2007

Rosemary Davies ( nee Harley) from Llanstephan was my best friend in Craig-y-nos in 1951.
She was 10 years of age at the time.

Rosemary was one of 11 children. She says going into Craig-y-nos made her feel "special. I had 5 younger brothers and sisters and 5 older ones. We had visiting every month and I used to get lots of presents and attention."

Rosemary was not confined to bed and has happy memories of her time at Craig-y-nos.. The only downside she can remember is that when she came home she couldn't bear to sleep in the house and insisted on sleeping in the barn ( the family had a smallholding).

We used to break into the library to get books because we were the only ones thin enough to get through the bars. Then Rosemary put on weight and got stuck and refused to go in. So it was left to me to break in and open the door to let the others from the balcony in to raid Miss White, the teacher's library.
Oh yes we did return the books once we had read them.

After leaving school Rosemary wanted to be a hairdresser but was advised against it by Dr. Williams, the TB specialist. Instead she "lead a country life out in the open air working on farms " and she attributes this to her long and healthy life. She has a son and today works part-time in the Brigend Inn in Llyswen.

Rosemary remembers the stern Austrian woman doctor, Dr Huppert:" She tore the plaster off my neck ( I had TB gland) and it ripped the skin off too and she kept saying. "No pain, you not feel pain." Dr Huppert also ordered my long plaits to be cut off because she said they took energy away."

Nurse with children

Nurse Glenys Jones with some of the very young children taken some time in the 1950's. (date uncertain).

Childrens pantomine in Adelina Patti theatre

This photo came from the Sleeping Giant Foundation, probably from the mid 1940's.

Nan Davies ghost story

Haydn Harris tells this tale:

“Nan was a patient in the Sanatorium in 1928-29, at the age of eleven. The children were to organise a choir to give a concert to the parents one visiting day. One young girl, with a good voice, was picked to sing a solo. Nan, with the second best voice, was to be her stand-in. When the big day came the soloist was taken ill, and Nan had to take her place. Naturally she was worried, nervous and wondered what sort of a show she would put on. As she stood in the wings, she became aware of a woman standing alongside her. She wore a long dress with a bustle at the back, and her long hair was brushed into a bob. She told Nan that she wasn’t nervous, and would sing like she had never sung before. She was a great success. Nan rushed back to thank her friend in the wings to find she had disappeared. She always believed it was the ghost of Madam Adelina Patti that had helped her.
God help you if you didn’t believe her. Believe the story if you will, or dont believe it. But beware of the ghost of Nan Davies if you don’t.”

Nan died 6 years ago.

Some of Haydn Harris' stories

Snow on the balcony
"It was lovely sitting on the balcony when the sun was shining. But sometimes our beds were pushed out there, and we had to sleep out in the open. Mind you, they did fit a tarpaulin over the bed sheets. I can remember waking up with a layer of snow on my tarpaulin. "

Squirrels in cages
"We were sent on regular walks in the open air, often down in the gardens near the river. We used to visit the Gardeners Hut. The gardeners used to catch squirrels and keep them in cages, so that we could see them."

Visiting
It was difficult for my parents to travel up the Neath and Swansea Valleys in those days. So visiting was restricted to one day per month. But they could stay for most of the day. I was worried when my mother failed to turn up for a couple of months before I was released. I began to wonder what had happened to her.
But when I got home I found I had a baby brother, a few weeks old.

Haydn Harris -Craig-y-nos- 1937

Haydn Harris from Port Talbot was in Craig-y-nos in 1937-38 for eleven months. He was 4 years of age. He has sent in a full account of his memories and this is a brief extract:

My ward was at the back of the building ( men's and boys ward. overlooking the gardens and river. It had a large, covered but open balcony running the length of the outside. The inside of the ward had a platform at one end, about four foot higher than there rest of the floor. As young as I was, I knew that it was best to keep away form the higher level. The “Iron Lungs” were situated there. These were machines that helped ‘extreme’ patients to breath. Except for their head and neck, the patient was completely enveloped in the machine. Very few patients came down from the platform alive.

The one occasion I didn't mind going up on to the platform was Christmas Day, 1937. Father Christmas arrived in the morning and sat at the edge of the platform with his sack. All the children that were capable went up on to the platform to talk to him, and receive a present. I seem to remember mine was a model truck."

"Is your wife dead?"

My husband finds himself with the unexpected job as my secretary and he got a bit of a shock this morning when one very elderly woman talking about Craig-y-nos asked him:"Is your wife dead?"

Order out of chaos

Have spent the day sorting out all my emails, letters, and phone calls in response to my request in the Brecon and Radnor and South Wales Echo.
So far have received 68 replies so its going to be some time before I get around to eveyone though hopefully all will have had an acknowledgement by now. ( Malcolm, husband, was left answering all the correspondence while I was in Wales).

So a big "thank-you" to one and all for a fantastic response.

Caroline Boyce ( nee Havard)

E-mail this evening from Caroline who was in Craig-y-nos for 20 months from 1949. She lives less than half an hour from my home in Scotland - just along the Ochils in Muckhart!....I still cant believe it.
She's got lots of photographs too and we are going to meet up.

Photo caption (top): Mary Davies, Ann Rumsey and Caroline Havard
(bottom) Caroline with Margaret, Jean Carr and Ann Lloyd

Myfanwy Hoyles

Had a phone call this evening from Myfanwy Hoyles ( now Blatchford). We were in Craig-y-nos together (1952-53) though neither of us can remember each other. We are going to exchange photos to see if that jogs our memories. Myfanwy was in for five months. She remembers the day that Dr Huppert "flung off my vest which my mother had given me to wear under my pjyamas because she thought I was cold out on the balcony. Dr Huppert shouted at me:" Your body has got to breathe ! how can it do that if you cover it up.?"

Myfanwy remembers midnight feasts on the castle roof ( strictly out of bounds). "On one occasion we got caught rowing on the lake. Sister Morgan discovered us and we got the most awful row. Alfie the gardener was called upon to rescue us. After that we were punished and not allowed out and I remember that some of us tried to run away. We found the back road behind the morgue. We hadn't gone far though before we were caught."

"Before going into Craig-y-nos I was very shy, spoilt and a fussy eater. After I came out I would eat anything and I was no longer shy."

Today Myfanwy is married with one son and two grandchildren. She lives in Swansea.

Harry Secombe

Latest letter this morning from Pat Hybert who writes to say she was in Craig-y-nos from 1951 and remembers Harry Secombe coming to do a panto in the theatre. " I didn't go but he came around the wards after to see us," she says. She went in as a 17 year old and asks if anyone can remember Norma Pearce, Joan Thomas,and Jean Shakeshaft. She was in the six bedded ward.

Reunion!

Cynthia Mullan of The Sleeping Giant Foundation

Well, I walked into Craig-y-nos last Sunday expecting to meet maybe two or three people. Instead there was at least 10 or maybe more people all eager to talk and share their experiences and memories. The same again on Monday and more on Tuesday too. It was incredible. Everyone was wanting to share their photos and memories. I came home to find a backlog of 50 phone calls, emails, and letters. Some amazing stories have emerged. Please be patient as I try to sort it all out.
Many conversations started with:"This is the first time in 50 years I have spoken about Craig-y-nos..." and the stories would start to pour out.

The Sleeping Giant Foundation, ( new media charity dealing with oral history) based in Abercraf has offered to help collate information.

Off to Wales

This project seems to be generating a bit of interest in the media but ex-patients who were children at Craig-y-nos are reluctant to come forward. Have got quite a few members of staff and relatives prepared to meet me next week.

Local papers

Both the Brecon and Rador and the South Wales Echo are carrying stories today about this research. Hope it will throw up some contacts.

Staff at Craig-y-nos

This is a list of staff who worked at Craig-y-nos while it was a TB sanatorium. If you know of people who worked there and would like to add their names please email me:

Nurse Margaret Williams ("Auntie Maggie"); Sister Winifred Morgan; Dr Hubbard;
Miss White ( teacher); Mrs Thomas (teacher); Getta Hibbert (age 91 now living in Llandaff). Mrs Knox-Thomas ( matron).
Dr. Williams.

Staff nurse Lily May Jones, age 95, blind and living in a home near Cardiff.
Sister Miss Marion Evans, age 96, Pontardawe.

Ex-TB patients of Craig-y-nos

This is a list of people I am compiling, mostly children, who were at Craig-y-nos as patients with dates where possible.
This is the only known record of people who were there over a 40 year period and I am trying to fill in this historical gap. If you know of anyone could you e-mail me so that I can add their names? thank-you!
e-mail: annshaw@mac.com
If you have photographs these would be much appreciated.


Ann Shaw ( nee Rumsey) ( 1950-1954); Roy Harry ( 1943- 1947); Horace Batts (1930s); John Price and sister Anne Price (1947);

Marie Jenkins (early 1950's) Gwyneth Davies - doctor (early 1950s), Clive Rowlands (1940s) -rugby star; Peter Llewellyn (1940s)- millionaire businessman;

Carole Hughes (early 1950s); Lynette Jenkins, Somerset (1953-55). Shirley Moore (1956-57), Gleneath;
Pamela Hill , (April 1958-April 1959).

Brecon museum

Have just spoken to Patti Harris who works in Brecon Museum. Her mother was a nurse at Craig-y-nos for over 30 years . Her name was Getta Hibbert and she is now 91 years of age and living in Llandaff.
Patti has lot of memories of growing up in the area. Her grandfather was a gardener for Adelina Patti.

Publisher and ex TB-patient

Have just spoken to publisher Trevor Brown who was a TB patient for six years in an English hospital. He is interested in commissioning a book on people who survived TB and went on to become high achievers. I have told him I will think about it . My interest is to tell the story of Craig-y-nos whereas he is more concered with a much bigger picture.

Clive Rowland-Welsh rugby icon

Have just had it confirmed that Clive Rowlands who John Price from Edmonton, Canada referred to on the BBCMidWales website, is indeed the Clive Rowlands of rugby fame! they were in Craig-y-nos at the same time.

The White Death ( continued)

The second thing that hit me was the number of "treatments" for TB which turned out to be useless - and I had received several of them from collapsing a lung, removal of lung lobe, bed on blocks and "fresh air "treatment.
Maybe it is just as well that I did not know at the time that all these interventions were pointless.

The White Death

Thomas Dormandy's book "The White Death" a History of Tuberculosis arrived this morning.
One of the first things that hit me when I started to do a rapid skim through were the number of famous people who have had TB.
Just a sample: D.H. Lawrence, Chopin, Paganini, Keats. Modigliani, Bronte sisters, Kafka, Chekhov, George Orwell, Audrey Beardsley, Kirchner, Laurence Sterne, Antoine Watteau, Katherine Mansfield, Albert Camus and Vivien Leigh.

Brecon and Radnor Express

Have sent a letter to the Editor of the Brecon and Radnor Express. A very helpful woman on the switchboard recalls seeing a photograph album of an ex-patient "with hundreds of photos in it" taken during her time there as a child.The woman has since died. She was adopted and had no family of her own.

Craig-y-nos matron

Does anyone recall the matron at Craig-y-nos - Mrs Knox-Thomas?

Ex- patient now millioniare

Cynthia speaks about an ex-patient, Peter Llewellyn, who became a millionaire after he sold his business to the Japanese company Konica. He now lives on the Gower peninsular.

Sleeping Giant Foundation

Mentioned to Cynthia Mullan of the Sleeping Giant Foundation the story about the RAF pilot and she says she has a cutting from a local newspaper of the wedding! Have arranged to meet her next Monday.

She used to organise reunions for up to 100 people at Craig-y-nos until it became too expensive.

Romance in Craig-y-nos

This came to me via the Carmarthen Reference Library by a librarian who had found it on the internet:

"During the Second World War a RAF pilot was brought to the hospital for treatment and met a young woman who was almost confined to her bed. They decided to wed but she was too ill to travel so the church granted them a special dispensation. They were married in the theatre and returned to the outside world after recovering their health."

Craig-y-nos letters from the 1930s

Have just had an e-mail from John S. Batts in Australia to say that the letters written by his distant relative, Horace Batts, in the 1930s are now in the Powys County Archives at Llandrindod Wells.
Horace was his father's first cousin and the letters were written to his family in Hay. He died at Craig-y-nos in his late 20s.
John deposited these letters in the archives last August so I should be able to see them when I am in Wales next week.

He says the letters speak of:" a prison-like atmosphere and the footling ( and wrong-headed!) rules under which the place was administered."
He adds:"I was struck by the needless, additional suffering which that hospital regime imposed upon its patients ( and their relatives)."

World wide web

The world wide web never ceases to amaze me!
I had assumed that the guy who wrote on the BBCMidWales website that he had letters from a Craig-y-nos patient in the 1930s lived in South Wales. Now I discover he is in Australia!...and he was one of the first to respond to my initial story. So I don't know how I am going to see these letters unless he is prepared to scan them in and send them to me on e-mail.

All girls out together

This must have been taken in late 1953. The tall girl ( second from right) is Marie Jenkins from Cwmavon, near Port Talbot. I am second from the left.

In the grounds of Craig-y-nos

Ann Rumsey, age 11, in the grounds of Craig-y-nos with the matrons dog.

Craig-y-nos grounds 1952

With a friend in the grounds of Craig-y-nos. We were allowed out for up to two hours a day to walk in the grounds. This was taken shortly before I had a relapse and was put back to bed for another year.

Dorothy inside Ward 2, 1950

Dorothy was in the next bed to me and was a major influence on my life during the first couple of months. It was Dorothy who explained the cutlery to me. We had to tie bits of wool to the cups so that we had our own. One of the first initiations into life inside Craig-y-nos was to make all the new girls sing. This was decreed by the ward "boss", usually the oldest girl there. I was by far the youngest in the ward.

Inside Ward 2, 1950

This is the earliest photo I have of Craig-y-nos. I am 9 years of age. Friends surround my bed. My bed is raised on 12 inch blocks, one method of treatment before drugs were introduced.

Dorothy, my first friend in Craig-y-nos, with a member of staff.
The ventilation shaft behind the bed is to the Adelina Patti theatre. We would often peer inside it convinced it was some secret chamber.

Craig-y-nos, 1950

Bed elevated on 12ins blocks.

Playing at "nurses"

We may have been confined to bed but we still played games. Here we are dressed up as "nurses" and the dolls were our patients.

Mother

Mother sits by my bed during visiting.
Throughout the four years I was in Craig-y-nos she never failed to visit me. Looking back I now realise that this showed considerable tenacity and dedication on her part. She had to drive over an hour to get there from Crickhowell, the other side of the Brecon Beacons, not an easy road in winter.

Mother and father visit

This is the only photograph I have of myself with my parents. (I am in bed). Shirley, the other girl in the picture, had TB of the spine and had received a major operation. Now she wore a harness under her clothes.

Summer on the balcony 1950

My cousin, David Rumsey, a naval cadet at the time, and Mary Jones from Llanbedr, came to visit me once. I was very proud of them and insisted on having this photograph taken. My father did not visit me very often and some of the girls used to ask if he was dead. So I was delighted to have these visitors.
We were allowed visitors one weekend from 2-4pm once a month. All visitors had to have their bags searched incase they brought in food that was "unsuitable".
Visitors had to stand in line to be searched and mother told me that there was always a competition to be first in line to be searched so that they could then race upstairs to see us.

Summer on the balcony 1950

This was taken around 1950 on the balcony. We were given hats to protect us from the sun. I am the one in bed.

Early years at Craig-y-nos 1950

I am on the left hand side .
This photo show two different types of treatment used before the advent of drugs. I am on "blocks" the end of the bed raised up and required to lie on my left side. The girl next to me is in plaster. This was an elevated structure that encased her back.

Note how close the beds are. In Ward 2 a favourite games in the evenings was for girls to run from bed to bed even those who were supposed to be on strict bed-rest! I didn't play this game until I was much stronger.

Getting ready for an x-ray

X-rays were one of the highlights at Craig-y-nos. I am about to go to the x-ray department and one of the young nurses is helping me get ready.
The hospital porter, a well-liked and familiar figure in his brown overalls, prepares to wheel me down to the x-ray department. Another patient (name unknown) offers to come in the photograph too.

Staff at Craig-y-nos

This photo was taken on a Wednesday morning during Long Round and features Sister Morgan and Dr Williams. Long Rounds were a weekly event and were very impoortant. Depending on what the doctors decided would be your course of treatment.

Baron Julius Reuter

Found this curious fact in Len Ley's book. Among the guests at the opening ceremony of the Adelina Patti theatre on 12th August 1891 was the Spanish ambassador and Baron Julius Reuter, founder of the foreign news agency.
My first job in London was with the Reuters news agency working in their library....

Len Ley:"The Iron Cradle"

Len's book arrived this morning from the Sleeping Giant Foundation. It is a history of Ystradgynlais and an account of the historical imporance of the Upper Tawe Valley during the Industrial Revolution. It contains one chapter on Craig-y-nos Castle and I was fascinated to read his account of Adelina Patti's life there and her influence on the local community. He is now researching a book on the whole of Craig-y-nos. AS a tour guide he has escorted people around many of the grand houses and castles in Wales and the Borders and in his opinion Craig-y-nos is by far the most interesting because it has a "story to tell".

Reading list

Working my way through the reading list supplied by Carole Reeves of The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, University College of London. One of her jobs is to help people do their own history of medicine:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/histmed/public-engagement/index.html

Boomerang media company

Have had an e-mail from the Cardiff based media company, Boomerang. They are interested in my project and are considering putting it forward as an idea for a Radio 4 documentary.
www.boomerang.co.uk

X-rays in the roof

Roy says when the roof at Craig-y-nos was being investigated workmen found temporary repairs had been carried out using old x-rays! They had been stuffed in to try and prevent leaking.

Nurse from Craig-y-nos

I have just spoken to Roy, a patient in Craig-y-nos from 1943-46. It was amazing to talk to someone who had similar experiences to mine. It was like finding a long lost relative. We are going to meet up when I go down to Wales later this month. He tells me that he has met a former nurse from Craig-y-nos who still lives in the area.
"She says she doesn't remember an Ann Shaw but she does remember an Ann Rumsey."
"That's me! that was my maiden name."

UFO's in the Brecon Beacons

I wonder if Miss White noted down in her journal the day we saw a UFO- spaceship- floating down the valley? It happened one sunny morning in 1952 (or maybe 1953) about 11 o'clock. It was silent until it came alongside Craig-y-nos then it made a humming noise and disappeared out of sight.
Miss White hurried to call Dr Hubbard but it had gone by the time she arrived.

We used to see these strange objects in the sky at regular intervals- every few months- but after this daytime appearance we never saw them again.

Only learnt recently that the area is notorious for its sightings of UFOs. It is something I have never dared speak about before cause people think you might be a bit weird. I am sure tht there is some scientific explanation for the sightings though I am at a loss to know what they are. Time-travel?

Also, what we saw at Craig-y-nos cannot be dismissed as one child's over excited imagination: at least a dozen children saw it and several adult members of staff too.

One of many sites about the Brecon Beacons UFOs.www.psychicinvestigators.net/html/ufos.html

Craig-y-nos School journal

My friend "Carver" and myself , 1953 in the grounds of Craig-y-nos. We were allowed out from 2-4pm once we were judged well enough.


Have just been in touch with the archivist from Llandridod Wells. She tells me they have the school journal from Craig-y-nos from 1947 to 1972. That is amazing! Have added it to my my research list for when I visit Wales later this month - January 20th.
www.powys.gov.uk/index.php?id=2118&L=0)

The only lessons I remember, given my Miss White, were scripture, singing and hygiene. But there must have been others...

Miss White told us not to stick pins in our hands because they would let the germs in. I asked how many legs the germs had and received a slap in the face. My friend "Carver" said that the picture of germs in her book had more legs than mine and asked if her germs would walk in faster.
She too got a slap in the face.

She told us not to drink milk with flies in it : "even if you pull the flies out first."

June, my penpal from Dundee, 1950/51

This was a studio photo taken in Dundee. It was one of my treasured possessions. I wonder where June is now?

We all had pen-pals which we collected from the back of the Childrens Newspaper and we would write to them regularly.
Then we took to writing to soldiers in Germany.

Where are they now? Former patients at Craig-y-nos

These two girls were very lively but I can't remember their names.
(1952 approx)

Unknown young woman on the balcony.

Anyone recognize her? (around 1951/2)

Annie the maid

A quiet, gentle woman, we all remembered Annie with affection.

Summer 1950- 1951?

This could have been taken in either 1950 or 1951. I am on strict bedrest and required to lie on my left side all the time. Cant tell whether my bed is still on "blocks" or not.

Hair-washing time on the balcony

Summer on the balcony - 1951?

This girl had the "plaster bed" treatment. Part of her body was encased in plaster and she remained permanently elevated.

Anyone know this trio of girls?

Date 1952 (approx.)

Miss White, our teacher with myself ( in bed) and another girl who was on the balcony too. (1951 approx.)

Girl with bonnet

Does anyone recognize this girl? It was taken in the grounds of Craig-y-nos in 1952 or maybe 1953.

Where are they now?