Grampa Thorne

And to make sure that we are not biased, Margaret's memories of Grampa Thorne, my Great Grandfather : -

Grandpa Thorne was a handsome man. Even as a child I knew that. He was in his late seventies and had fine, silver hair, a grey moustache and a squarish head with a pronounced dimple in his chin. He was tall and broad shouldered and he had been a good swimmer. I was told he swam from pier to pier across Swansea bay, but that might have been a story he made up for me. In any case he loved swimming and had taught Mum to enjoy it too. They used to go to the baths frequently as it was close to where they lived. Grandpa’s father, apparently, was a furniture remover (of the pony and trap type) and I imagine the brothers would have helped with the lifting, but Gramps suffered from asthma and often spent some of the winter months in bed. When Mum was born Auntie Alice suggested they should take a shop (I believe she lent them the money) above which they could live. Nana could then run the business in the winter when Gramps was bed-ridden.

It was a shop selling sweets, in St Helens Road, and it had an upstairs room where young men gathered to play billiards. In the basement they produced homemade ice cream from fresh eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla. The mixture was put in a churn packed around with crushed ice that they obtained from a cart, which came from the town icehouse. It arrived covered in sacking in a large block and had to hacked into chunks. In the summer they sometimes ran out of supplies, and people queued along the street while they waited for the next batch to be frozen. Eventually they sold the premises to a member of the Cascarini family, who, in time, bought next door also (the corner shop) knocked them together and opened “Joe’s.” By then Nana and Gramps had moved a few doors up the road to a greengrocer’s, which was a bit roomier. It was from that shop that Mum was married. The traffic was stopped in St Helens Road, and a roll of carpet was thrown across the road to St Paul’s Congregational Church, where Leon Atkins, a well-known local character, married the couple. When Nana and Gramps retired from business they retained the shop, but rented it out and went to live under Mum, Dad and Don in a flat in Brynamor Road, opposite the High School, the school Mum had once attended. They stayed there until I was born in 1940 and the following year I believe Swansea was bombed. That event made them move out of town to Uncle Dai’s farm, Rhyd-y-Ffynon, on the road to Llandeilo. (He wasn’t really an uncle). Nana and Gramps looked after us there while our parents travelled in to the shop each day and Don went to a local school.

After about a year they moved with us into 105 Dunvant Road, Killay, and Grandpa kept some vicious geese in a shed at the bottom of the garden but after a few years they went to Brynmill and moved in with Aunties Alice and Mary and Uncle Dick in Marlborough Road. Gramps was loved animals and birds, had shown wire-haired terriers and kept show pigeons. I still have some hand-painted pigeon spoons he was presented with.

He always wore flannel shirts with detachable collars, waistcoats and a watch and chain. He could be persuaded to open the back of this item to entertain me. Inside one compartment was a photo of Mum and another held a lock of her hair. He was a pipe smoker and kept a rack of odd-shaped pipes by his chair on the right of the stove. Over about five years he had three strokes, the first slowed him down a lot and though his arm wasn’t completely paralysed it was colder and more lifeless. We talked a lot in front of the fire. I think he thought I was Mum some of the time. The second stroke paralysed him completely and Nana moved their bed downstairs so she could look after him better. He was still a strong man though and in his frustration he once grabbed her as she was bending over him and nearly throttled her. I visited him the day before he died and I can still recall the taste of sweat on his brow.