Catch Up!

Well it's been a while since my last post! This is more because of little to report on the planning application than disinterest or lack of activity in other areas. In August the council cut the hedge back for the first time in two years. Although it was nice to see the abundant growth of the hawthorn, eventually the hedge would loose definition - so cutting back is better for the hedge in the long run. The cut will help it thicken up.







The crab apple was loaded this year - a damp but mild spring helped the blossom (see pics below) - the fact that it held so much fruit is a sign that there must have been a lot of pollinating insects doing their job despite the rain.

There have been a couple of article in the local press recently about our campaign. As a result I have been in touch with a few interested parties. The National Playing Fields Association have written to the Council in support, and also the Sports Council of Wales have been informed. Some residents who lived in houses that backed on to the field have e-mailed me some information about their personal recollections of using the field more than 40 years ago.

Here are some memories from Mary Hayman :

I was born in 5 Pentyla Rd and lived there till I was 10 I'm near the middle of 6 children - The oldest born in 1951 and the youngest in 1963.We had marvellous times there- making dens, having huge communal bonfires , pretending to be Lyn Davies doing the long jump in the sand pit, playing cricket, playing in the long grass round the edge, catching lizards by their tails, walking to school throught the field, climbing on the roof of the changing rooms and jumping down and running off when the keeper tried to catch us, lying on the grass finding pictures in the clouds, collecting flowers and ladybirds My mum and my brother Peter and I can remember there always being a hedge along on the left as we went up Pentyla, starting roughly level with the old changing rooms. My mum reminded me that we had frogs, field mice and a newt in our house on various occasions as well as finding hedgehogs. She can also remember celebrating the Queen's coronation in the field with the neighbours and eating ice cream on a freezing day (when my oldest brother was a toddler).

The Hayman family at Pentyla Playing Field early 1960s

Andrew Hayman adds:

I used to play a lot of cricket in the field with friends from Gors school like the Terry, the Carters, Rober Watkins. Sometimes groups of older boys would play and let us younger ones join in. We werent supposed to play on the well-mown parts like the football pitch and the caretaker would send us off from time to time. Widlife- I can remember catching grasshoppers in jam jars in the long grass. There was a hedge on the left at the top half of the street (and on the right, backing onto the houses in Townhill Rd.) What else? The Pentyla road Guy Fawkes bonfire, walking across the field to go to school, squeezing throught the hole in the gate along Lon Coed Bran. Playing in the snow and rolling enormous balls of snow.



These words show us how important the field had been to families over many years - 45 years after the photographs above were taken, my own children play football and fly kites there, they find ants nests, hedgehogs and strange spiders in the rough-grassed edges. We need to preserve this for the next generations.