Kilvey Hill: When Sociopathic Kids Met Baby Frogs

Photo by Denley Photography on Unsplash Kilvey Hill loomed behind our street in Swansea like a sleeping giant, all through my childhood in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Not far in reality, but to a small child's legs it felt like a hike into the wilderness. I didn't go up there often, it always seemed just slightly out of bounds, and to get there we had to walk past the Cem, the cemetery, a place full of ghosts and vampires as far as we were concerned. Still, when I did go, it was usually with a mixture of excitement and unease, the kind of feeling that something unexpected might happen. It usually did. The main attraction was the old quarry carved into the side of the hill, rough, wild, and scattered with half-believable landmarks. There was the Devil's Table, a stone ledge halfway up the quarry face, reachable by a narrow path, with a reputation for something ominous that none of us could ever quite name. The name alone was enough. I remember finally reaching it after weeks of…