I am talking now, about then, a long time ago. My first memories are of my mother, pushing a pram as we called them then, and as we passed under the railway bridge, the sight of the new houses, with their bricks fresh from the kiln, the exposed timbers and the roof-layers and the painters, the rumble of the train, and the unexpected breeze. My mother screamed at me to catch the ration books which the breeze had snatched and I ran and ran, panicking, knowing that without these precious little books with their little stamps, we would not have food for the baby.
My parents, my older brother and I , and my little sister moved into the house in the new estate, Gabalfa.
It was on the Western Avenue that I first had a glimpse of death. A young boy with pale blue eyes lie dead in the road, knocked off his cycle by a passing car. A small group of people talked sadly until the boy's body was taken away. I still see those eyes of his, empty of him, empty of the boy who cycled.
Death became a frequent visitor. There was the friend's kind mother at the end of the street who had not been too well, and disappeared one night and whose body was found in The Taff.
There was the painted lady from the Nissan huts along the banks of The Taff, who wore her hair all turned in at the edges like the crimped pastry of a pie-crust, and whose lips were thin and wrinkled behind broad brushstrokes of lipstick which stuck to her cigarette and her uncomfortable teeth. Powder, layers of it, together with daubs of rouge gave her face a sad clown lonliness, but her eyes were full of the kindness born of experience and innate compassion.
Then there was one of our cousins, Catherine, named after our grandmother on our mother's side. Walking her new baby in the pram she was killed crossing the road near The Whitchurch Arms. Our Aunt, her mother, was with her when it happened.
Then, the unthinkable happened. Our brother, who had passed the eleven plus and was a pupil at Cardiff High School for Boys became ill and was moved to LLandough Isolation Hospital. We visited him there every week. My little sister and I waved from outside of the glass window near his bed. Sometimes we were let in and talked to him about his model planes. He loved playing chess. He wrote to a famous fighter pilot, and received letters and photographs of which he was very proud. His health deteriorated, and as it did so, our Mother's mood changed and strange things started to happen. At first, we didn't understand.
Then one day, our grandmother, whom the neighbours always described with admiration as " A lady, a real lady" came to our house. We always looked on Saturday afternoons at all the No 34 buses which turned into Gabalfa, hoping our grandmother would minutes later appear, walking along the street in her veiled hat and fox furs and gloves, carrying a bag which we knew would hold gifts for us.
That day she came we would all walk to the top of Mynachdy Hill to the trolley bus terminal, to take the trolley bus to The Docks, where our grandmother lived in the front room of one of her daughters, another of our Aunts. We loved going to that house. To sit in Gran's room and listen to stories about the family, her two sons, our Uncles, and her four daughters, our Aunts.
But that day it was different. While my mother sat with my sister , my gran sat next to me on the upper deck of the trolley bus. She held my arm firmly and motioned with her finger to her lips to remain silent. "Clive died this morning. Your Mother doesn't know yet. I have to tell her when we get to Auntie Hallie's. Don't say anything," she whispered. And I knew by the expression on her face that our lives would never be the same again. But like most easily distracted little boys, I had forgotten our conversation, or didn't want to recall it by the time we arrived at Windsor Esplanade, and Bob, gran's springer spaniel came bounding out to greet us panting with excitement......................
They had gone with Auntie Hallie to the kitchen while we played with Bob. The dog shook and cowered when the piercing scream came from the kitchen. I froze, sick, knowing that the truth which I wanted to go away had torn my mother's heart from her breast. My little sister cried and I cried, family came and comforted the inconsolable. And my father came.
And,nothing was ever the same after that.