Youth

I am looking after a neighbour's house at the moment while he is in hospital. I will also keep an eye on him when he returns home tomorrow, it's a rum deal to have a knee replacement in your mid eighties.

I am sure my neighbour won't mind me photographing a trophy which sits in his hallway, pride of place on the telephone table. This is the "Hogarth Cup" originally dated 1925' and was presented annually to the best Billiard player of The Newmarket Young Men's Club.

( for those that don't know Trelawnyd was formally known as Newmarket)

Back then the village was busy, self sufficient and " younger" than it is today. There was a youth club, girls' friendly society, young wives group, Village  Welfare Committee and drama group. There were three village stores, a sweet shop and even a fish and chip shop with tables and chairs! Two pubs, a football club and league . There was a WI, the choir of course and the chapels and church, but the Flower Show , which I am such a part of, did not start until the early 1970s, a later addition to village tradition.

As Auntie Glad recently said " The village had less houses , but more people back then"

And so like most rural communities of today, Trelawnyd is now a place with an older population, sure we still have the committees, the choir, the friendship group, the flower show, but apart from a sporadic youth club, the village does not really have much to offer the teenage population .....but I guess that was always the way of the world....

Now I am banging on about all this by way of a big up. last week my allotment supervisor, village elder and all around " organiser" Islwyn turned up on the field unannounced with two of the village teens in tow.

I don't know just how he did it, but in he space of two hours the lads had shifted a huge amount of dirt from one side of bosoms to the other, actively preparing the beds for planting, and saving me a huge amount of work and effort....

The lads were polite, and hardworking and I was totally shocked by what they achieved in just part of an afternoon.... Islwyn mentioned at he would like to mentor one of the lads, to teach him some skills such as dry stone walling and this little gesture on his behalf , seems to have been taken up by the lad,

It is a laudable project me thinks.

I gave each lad some eggs for their moms and will bung each a tenner when I next see them.....their help couldn't have come a better time.... for my sciatica seems to be getting worse

Hey ho....

Below is a newspaper clipping of the "young wives club"from a few years ago....( love the poncho by the way) several ladies from the front row still live in the village today!