Welsh Journals

Childhood Memories Marie Davies I was born on March 15th, 1904 in 8 Islwyn Terrace, Tredegar ('Beware the Ides of March!'), supposedly the house where Islwyn the Gwent poet lived when he was being educated in Tredegar for his vocation as a Methodist minister. My father and mother were Ebenezer and Catherine Thomas. My entry into the world was not a particularly welcome one. My father wanted a boy! Their first child was a girl who lived for only a few months. I was named Mary Irene Eleanor, Mary for my father's mother and Eleanor for my mother's mother. My Uncle Jack whom I always loved dearly, asked for me to be called 'Irene' for 'good luck'. He and his family always called me 'Irene'. Everyone else called me 'Marie' from the time I was born. I have only one memory of Islwyn Terrace, I was not three years old when we moved to Park Ville. I have always remembered falling and seeing a light. Strangely, seventy years later, when visiting the house, I did the same thing. I fell! We were the first people to move into 6 Park Ville in 1907 where I still live. My earliest memory is of standing outside a high upstairs bedroom window on the window ledge and saying to a little boy down below, "Harry, look at Marie!" My mother coming into the room was shocked. She had to move quietly and pull me in by my petticoats, for if she had made a noise I would have looked round and. I would not have been here to write this now! I had a happy childhood although I always regretted not having brothers and sisters. My parents were well educated people. My mother had been a Head Mistress in Oswestry and afterwards in Rhymney Bridge School of which she was the first Head Mistress. I have a silver teapot presented to her on her resignation. I was encouraged to read good books and to attend Sunday School and Chapel. My father, a very big man in every way, used to act scenes from Dickens, especially Sam Weller, and also "Cinderella". He was the Prince, I of course Cinderella and my dear little mother was the wicked step mother or step sister. Ours was a home where everyone was welcome. My father was the Liberal agent for this Constituency. Ministers, teachers, doctors and politicians visited us. Among them were Mr. Sylvester, Mr. Salathiel and Sir John Rowlands, who attended my father's funeral. They were three of Lloyd George's Private Secretaries. I also remember meeting Dr. Thomas Jones, the first