Mal's Memories (From Penarth Times)

Mal's Memories

DO YOU remember gas mantles?

When I was a youngster growing up on a local farm, we had no such thing as electric lights, or indeed, any electricity in the house at all.

But I well remember lighting the gas mantles under my mother or father's watchful eye, and hearing the pop as the gas ignited, flooding the room with a gentle light.

Gas lighting itself was somewhat of a novelty. We had gas in only two downstairs rooms - the kitchen (or living room), and back kitchen. Lighting in all the bedrooms was provided by oil lamps or candles - a somewhat hazardous business when I think back to those far off days.

We did not enjoy the luxury of electricity until we moved, when I was 11 years old, and I well remember the fascination of flicking the electric light switch on and off in our new home.

At the farm, switching on the gas lighting was not a thing to be taken lightly. My grandfather, Jack Davies, was head of the household and he decreed when it should take place, and the falling of dusk or even darkness was not necessarily enough.

If an afternoon was especially gloomy and I was nagging for the light to be turned on so that I could play some game or other, he would look at his pocket watch and declare: "It's only half past four. It's not tea time yet." And we would all sit in semi-darkness, or candlelight, waiting for his say-so.

What it did provide was a special time for family members to talk to one another, properly. So maybe it was not such a bad thing after all.

l Malcolm Davies is a former editor of the Penarth Times. Mal's

Memories are on the Penarth Times web site: www.thisispenarth.co.uk and you can find the early columns on Mal's site at www.communigate.co.uk/wales/mdav24/index.phtml