Summer time recreation for the
boys was bathing in the River Clydach. If the weather was hot and it generally was in those days
up to eight or
a dozen or more boys would be bathing almost every day, and the
colliers coming from the pits took their baths in the river. Most,
if not all the boys could swim from a very early age, even from
five years old. All would be together, and only one fatality from
drowning during the whole of my schooldays was a boy from
Bryncoch, Frankie Blick, who was a pupil at Tynyrheol School. He
drowned swimming in the Big Pond at Glynfelin. Swimming in the Big
Pond was always avoided by all boys it looked too
forbidding, and it seemed that Frankie had ventured into the pond
from a shallow pool near the entrance and got tangled in the
underwater plant growth.
When the boys were bathing we
were all stark naked. Towels for drying were unknown. We dried
ourselves by lighting big fires, as there was an abundance of wood
available in the immediate area. A large forest stretched from
Skewen to Alltwen on the Drymma mountain slopes, down to the river
Clydach. Massive oaks mostly, together with beeches, elms, and
groves of eating chestnut trees. We gathered the chestnuts in the
autumn to play Yonkers' and roasted them to eat. After the death
of Mr. Joseph Moore Gwyn in 1922, the whole forest was cut down to
pay death duties on the Dyffryn Estate, and Mrs. Moore Gwyn had to
leave the Dyffryn mansion to reside at Longford Court.
The river Clydach for most of
its length from its source at Mynydd March
Hywel into the river Neath at
Neath Abbey, flowed through thick woodlands,
and has many small tributaries,
the largest of these coming from the Drymma Mountain and entering
the river at the Cwm in Taillwyd. There were two fairly large
pools in the river at Taillwyd. One was called Pwll Flags, about 3
' deep, perfectly flagged at the bottom with the hard blue pennant
rock. The younger bathers used this pool; the other larger pool
was Pwll Do, which was a feeder reservoir for the flannel factory
immediately below. An 18" pipe, cast iron, from the pool
carried the water to a huge water wheel, which worked the factory
machinery.
This pool was very deep, and it
was here that the older boys would swim. A huge rock above the
pool was used as a diving board, and this was at least 12 ' to 15'
above the pool. High diving was a popular sport, at which most
boys were expert. The river contained much trout and eels, and at
certain times, hundreds of young eels could be seen swimming up
the river. These elders would be about 1 " or 2 " in
length, and the children would catch them in glass jam jars, not
to be eaten, but just for fun. When the river was in flood it
could be a roaring torrent, and the roar of the falls at the Big
Pond could be heard miles away. Along the reaches of the river
were quite a number of kingfishers, which we used to watch diving
for the small minnows or pilkins that abounded in the river, and
their flashing blue wings were a delight to see.
The Big Pond, as it was called,
was really a reservoir to store water for the flannel factory at
Neath Abbey, and when the weather was very dry, as it was in the
summer of 1921, a man came Carom Neath Abbey from the factory to
open the sluice gates to increase the river water supply. We were
told that the reservoir had been built in the 18th century. The
pond was teeming with trout, but no fishing was allowed. Mr.
Theodore Gibbins, accompanied by his bailiff, was the only person
seen fishing there. Mr Gibbins resided at Glynfelin House.
