Welsh Journals

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LLANDRINDOD IN THE 'NINETIES. By G. W. Gtbson. I ARRIVED at Llandrindod Wells' station by what was then known as the quarter-to-four train" on one of the last days of August, 1898. I brought my bicycle with me, and after leaving my trunk in the luggage room, cycled up Station Crescent looking for High Street, which I naturally expected to find in the upper part of the town. Turning right at the Emporium Corner, I rode down Temple Street to what is now known as Five Ways, where the open Common and the stile and path across it indicated that I was getting to the end of the town in that direction. So I turned up Spa Road, crossed the Railway Bridge and went down Park Crescent, where my eye caught the street sign High Street on what was then the Gwalia Shop. As I turned into the street, I noticed a sandy-haired young man standing on the steps of what was then Mr. Johnson's chemist's shop. Later on, I learnt that his name was Edward Powell Careless, a young solicitor, now principal of the well-known firm of Messrs. E. P. and A. L. Careless. So he was the first man I saw to remember afterwards in this town. The reason for my coming was that I had been appointed foreman in the printing office of the Radnorshire Standard, a newspaper that had started its career the previous spring in support of the Conservative Party. Sir Powlett Milbank, then M.P. for Radnorshire, and a few other leading county gentlemen had formed a small company, and Mr. Edmund H. Cheese, a solicitor at Hay, was its secretary. Its first editor was Mr. Waterhouse Kernick, under whom I had worked previously on a news- paper in Worcestershire. He offered me the job by wire, with a pre-paid reply, and I wired back accepting. Next morning's post brought me the offer of a better-paid job at Dublin, but having given my word to Kernick I could not go back on it. So what appear to be little things like this affect the whole of one's future lifetime. Waterhouse Kernick was one of the oddest yet most likeable men I ever met, and though he only stayed in Llandrindod twelve months, and I never saw him again, I shall always remember him. A native of St. Ives, Cornwall, he had lived most of his life in Ireland, and in every- thing but birth was a typical Irishman-fiery-tempered, quick-witted, and altogether a most interesting personality. He wore a cap with