Safe Fun In Childhood

A Memory of Gobowen.

I was born in 1962 in my family home, number 36 (now 116) Hammonds Place. It's not so common these days to be born at home. There was a community spirit on the estate, all the kids addressed adults as auntie or uncle or Mr/Mrs, there was lip but respect. My best memories of Gobowen were the woods with bluebells and dumped Ford Zephyr cars etc complete with front bench seat, the fields prior to them becoming a housing estate and playing fields, the meadows by Perry's garage, the Rhewl bank and the walks that were fun and safe for all us kids due to more freedom, less traffic etc, this has now changed, the Gobowen of today is full of houses, no safe hideaways for kids, you can't even sit on the wall by the chippy and ask for batter bits. I can't say who ran the chippy but Idris Roberts had his finger in every other business "scam" - a rough diamond!! There were also good times spent playing with the Derwen students, in the non PC days of the 1960s and 1970s we called them cripples and spastics, there was no offence intended or taken, it was all character building. 1st Gobowen Sea Scouts was great too, our only venture to water being to the canal near St Martins with Bob Code (Bosun) Dave Cassidy (Mate), Syd Hardwick? and a man Mr Power, (Timber?). Later Major Taylor who was terribly posh but very humble. I liked them all a lot and have tremendous gratitude for my life skills learnt from them, Marge Cassidy and Mrs Conde taught me to cook and Mrs Taylor to sew, I was self sufficient to a degree on entering the RAF at 16 years old. That was it for me and Gobowen. I've been back but it seems a million miles from the place I knew, there was no sex and drugs and rock n roll, well not that I was aware of, just a great esprit de corps. The bridge at the station has gone, it used to be a great place to play hide and seek, The Buggles sang 'Video killed the radio star', the computer and silly politicians killed my village, their only saving grace is that it wasn't just Gobowen that died, it's all over the UK. I've lived in all the home nations, all the communities have gone the same way. Shame, Vorsprung durch technik eh, but I cherish my memories and sharing a polo mint with old Mrs Hope on the bench by the old police station.