14 Wern Fawr Road: Life in a 1950s Welsh Household

We lived at Wern Fawr Road in Port Tennant, Swansea, until I was eight, packed in with Nan and Grandpa Davies, Auntie Cynthia, Uncle Teddy, and by 1960 us five kids. The house seemed enormous through the eyes of a small child. It probably wasn't. There was a bay-windowed parlour at the front, strictly off-limits to children. Nan's sanctuary. A glass-fronted cabinet with her ornaments in it, a sofa and settee arranged round a coffee table we never once used for coffee, and the good china, kept for visitors who rarely came. Proper carpet in there, proper curtains, unlike the rest of the house. Only Auntie Cynthia was allowed in to play the piano. Everything that counted as life happened in the middle room, the combined living and dining room. The kitchen had a glass-roofed lean-to and a fireplace that heated the water for the whole house, and every other room had its own fireplace besides. The toilet was outside, so there were chamber pots under the beds for the night-time emergencies.…