the Patti theatre
Six-year-old Glynne Lowe, one of the sick children confined within Craig-y-nos Castle in 1926 clutched his chair with excitement. There on stage of the Adelina Patti theatre, modelled after the Milan opera house, was a special kind of magician - a man by the name of Harry Elston.
He could throw his voice. He could become different people. Magic. Glynne had never seen a ventriloquist before.
And that concert remained etched in his mind, one of the big memories from his time in this isolated institution on the edge of the Brecon Beacons.
By a strange quirk of fate when Glynne grew up he got a job working for Harry Elston, a businessman and part-time entertainer, in Brecon selling tractors and agricultural machinery, a job he held for fifty years.
Yet Glynne never mentioned to Harry that day in Craig-y-nos when his act so enchanted him.
Why not?
“You never talked about TB …" says Glynne now in his 89th year.
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