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NEWSLETTER August 2004
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Lecture Programme – our new lecture programme starts up again next month. Our Programme Secretary, Marge Selway, has once again worked hard to put together a mix of speakers to appeal to all tastes. Last season’s programme ended on a high note with a talk given by our Curator, Don Bearcroft. Aptly entitled ‘Little Acorns’, Don charted the history of the Society from its roots in 1964, through the stages where it was outgrowing the former Library accommodation, and on to the establishment of the Museum in the Metropole Building where at last the Society had the space and resources to display and care for the ever growing collection, as well as providing a full range of Museum services. We have good cause to be grateful to those who started the Society, and those who have taken us to where we are today and hope to be in the future. Don has played a leading role for many years and has been resilient in the face of setbacks. That resilience was no less evident at his lecture which he carried off with great aplomb despite failures on the part of the postal service and film laboratory to deliver his intended slides in time! Museum News – work is going ahead on preparing the information needed for an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund for a grant to put the Design Brief into action. In the meantime, it’s business as usual at the Museum. Don Bearcroft is committed to staging temporary exhibitions at regular intervals and in September he will be producing an exhibition to mark the 40th Anniversary of the Museum Society The exhibition starts on Saturday 25th September ready for anniversary day proper which is 30th September. AGM – the Management Committee was re-elected without any change, and the three Directors who are required to stand down each year were also re-elected and so we assume that our members are broadly happy with the way the Society is run. Thank you! Special thanks were given to Don and Peggy Bearcroft – the stalwarts of the Society. If you want to read the minutes of past AGMs or see the latest set of accounts, please call at the Museum. Fund raising August - £258 |
100 Club July
No.74 Ada
Howells £25 Six Bells Carnival – well it was a bit cool and it eventually poured with rain but not before everyone had enjoyed a couple of hours of fun. The Museum Society raised £73 on its stall so thanks to everyone who helped make the day a success. Diary Dates
August 2004 –
Exhibition at the Museum on 150 Years of
Methodism Summer Trip – Lacock Abbey Saturday 4th September, price £14. Please book your places by calling Roy Pickford on 01495 213377 or calling in at the Museum. The Abbey and gardens are spectacular and you can also visit the Fox Talbot Photographic Museum in a converted building at the entrance. The village itself is very ‘olde worlde’ and compact, with craft shops, tea rooms, pubs, and various historic buildings including the church, and so you can see why demand for this trip is likely to be high. | |||||||
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| Museum opening times The Museum is open to the public, free of charge: Monday - Thurs 10am - 1pm 2pm - 4pm Friday 10am - 1pm Saturday 10am - 1pm Museum phone number 01495 211140. Visitors and volunteers are always welcome so please call in as often as you like. Details of coffee mornings etc available at the Museum Vice Presidents Mr Keith Dykes Mr Alan Hunt Mrs Esme Heal Mr Glyn Saunders Mrs Kathleen Davies Rev. R Watson Mrs Margaret Herbert Mr Gerwyn Griffiths Mr Michael Elliott Mr David Llewellyn Mrs Carole Brooks Mr Edward Meredith Mrs Dorothy Meredith If you would like to become a vice-president, (annual subscription £25), please contact Peggy Bearcroft for details. Llangattock EscarpmentThese limestone cliffs dominate the skyline in the Crickhowell area and form a striking feature in the landscape. Despite their scale, the cliffs are not a natural feature but the result of years of quarrying in the 18th and 19th centuries. The construction of the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal between 1797 and 1812 encouraged extensive quarrying on the Llangattock ridge, eventually extending for almost 5kms. The quarry was linked to the canal at Llangattock Wharf via a tram road. Lime processed in lime kilns had a number of uses in 18th and 19th century households and agriculture. It was widely used by farmers to sweeten the soil and many a home owner would use it to whitewash the outside of their house. In addition it was an essential ingredient in the iron making process. Tram roads linked the canal with the ironworks in the Clydach Gorge (at Gilwern) and with the Garnddyrys ironworks at Llanfoist on the slopes of the Blorenge. There has been no quarrying for nearly 60 years and today the area is renowned for its cave sytems, the complex including some of the longest caves in Britain. Cadw This is the historic environment agency within the Welsh Assembly Government with responsibility for protecting, conserving and promoting an appreciation of the historic environment of Wales. Cadw is a Welsh word which means ‘to keep’. |
More of what our Grandmothers knew Window cleaningWipe windows twice a week with a rough clean cloth. When possible also wipe them after rain while they are still wet and the raindrops evenly scattered. To prevent windows from frosting, dissolve 5 dessertspoons of salt in 2 pints of hot water and then add 1 dessertspoon of alum. Wash the windows with the solution and allow them to dry. (I wonder if it works on car windscreens). Protection of mirrors in the bathroom or where there is a lot of steam Coat the back of the mirror with copal varnish (or a varnish sold for the purpose in do-it-yourself shops). It also helps to have air circulating behind the mirror. Ensure this by putting washers on the fixing screws between the mirror and the wall. Marge Selway
Poet’s Corner COLLISIONRoutes merging we
collided, When our ways parted, Slowly I moved on, Gordon Rowlands, August 2001. Milk Bottles – British milk bottles were first produced in 1880 by the Express Dairy Company. They would be delivered by horse-drawn carts. Before the bottle, milk would be drawn from a churn and customers’ own jugs filled. The bottle came in various shapes and sizes ranging from eighth of a pint to two pints. The third of a bottle size was strictly for schools. Pasteurisation was pioneered in 1894; before then milk was delivered several times a day.The first bottles used a porcelain stopper top held on by wire. Cardboard tops followed, although these were banned in the mid-50s when deemed unhygienic. Will bottles outlive today’s cartons? | |||||||
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The Foundling Museum A new museum has recently opened in Brunswick Square in London, devoted to the story of the city’s Foundling Hospital and its visionary founders - sea captain Sir Thomas Coram and the composer George Frederick Handel. In the mid 18th century 1000 babies a year were abandoned in London; most were placed in poor houses where they had little chance of surviving. The Foundling Hospital opened in 1745 educating up to 400 children until the age of 12 in a thriving artistic and nurturing environment. The children grew up in surroundings vastly better than the slums into which most had been born. Unmarried mothers became so desperate to send their children there that it soon became oversubscribed and a lottery system had to be introduced. Women had to pick a ball from a bag - a white ball secured a place, a red ball put them on the reserve list and a black ball meant rejection. The babies were renamed once they were given over to the care of the hospital, but the centrepiece of the Museum features hundreds of personal mementos or ‘tokens’ left by the mothers as a form of unique identification for the children they would never see again. The tokens include a hazelnut shell, a label from an ale bottle and button tags among more ‘valuable’ tokens such as small pieces of jewellery - poignant reminders of what must have been a heart wrenching experience for the women involved.
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Abertillery schoolgirls at camp in Rhoose, 1939  Camping Holidays We used to go camping before the war. We went by train and the bus used to meet us at Barry station and take us out from there. I went twice to winter and summer camp which was at Rhoose. We went just before war was declared in the July (1939). Two teachers would come with us and we used to have lovely times. It all came under the county. They paid for us to go. We had big, long dormitories with double-decker beds, like they call bunk beds now, and you had to go up to the kitchen for food. We used to have concerts and entertainment there, it was really lovely. They had a big square there and the airport is all built over where that was now. The boys used to be at Gileston in a separate camp and one day we walked from Rhoose across the beach, when the tide was right out, to Cold Knap and all the boys were there and we had a whale of a time. They’d treat us to pictures and we didn’t pay for nothing only our pocket money. We used to have a tuck shop and we could keep in touch with the family. I think we used to go for a fortnight if I remember rightly and we’d have lessons as well. They had one dormitory there which was like a school-room and we’d have lessons there at different times of the day. My schooldays were happy times, I enjoyed them. AH Source: ‘Voices of Abertillery, Aberbeeg and Llanhilleth’ (Copies of this illustrated book are on sale at the Museum) Your memory? Come on folks! You all have wonderful stories to tell and we’d like to feature them in the Newsletter. Please drop your contributions off at the Museum or send them to Jen Price at 8 Holly Lodge Gardens, Cwmbran NP44 2NB, tel 01633 482851. If you’d rather not put pen to paper then then just reminisce and we’ll do the writing for you. | |||||||
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When the Museum Society first began its main priority was to bring the history and heritage of our valley to its people and their children. Schools were encouraged to visit the museum, but the old museum in the library was very congested and when a new librarian “Anne Maund” was appointed she offered us the use of reference room for school visits. We asked the schools what they required for their
visit, the items relating to their subject ( e.g. Mining, Victorian,
WW11 etc ) were then set out in the room. The School Officer Mrs Sylvia
Mathews aided by myself and other members of the society gave a talk to
the children. The children were then divided into small groups shown
around the museum; those left in the room occupied their time drawing
the objects they had seen. Recently the museum has made a step further in partnership with Blaenau Gwent County Borough who had received a grant from the Welsh Assembly to pay for Living History Days to be held in the Borough and in our museum. The children were able to ask the various characters questions who then gave answers in keeping with their period. During these visits the same procedure was use by our members with a B.G.C.B.C observer in attendance. These events proved very successful and popular
with the school. It is the policy of our museum not to charge admittance for visitors to the museum and as remarked by a teacher, “With schools struggling with ever increasing costs our museum is a valuable free aid to their school year fitting in with the Key Stages which they use”. The 150yrs of Methodism in Abertillery exhibition in the museum started on 24th July and will last until 27thAugust. The next history day open to the pubic is on Saturday 11th September.
Don Bearcroft Curator | |||||||
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Perpetrators of crimes must be punished but
it should be tempered with justice and mercy.