Helena Rees
I can remember being invited to go on a trip to Cadbury's World
After the war I did the NDD (National Diploma in Dairying) course at Aber. Then I had a job in London in charge of a laboratory testing the milk. Then, the same job in Tattenhall outside Chester.
In 1952 I had a job in Dolgellau as a manager of the new milk bar. Meirion Creameries had bought the building, which was an old hotel converted into flats, offices and a cafe. Farmer's Marts had two offices upstairs. They were the ones who held auctions from Corwen and Harlech to Machynlleth. I lived in one of the flats. A very comfortable place only that it was small: a very small kitchen, a gas stove, a sink and one food cupboard and that was all. I used the fridge in the milk bar. Then I had a living room with a coal fire - an electric fire in the summer - and a radio; nobody I knew had a television at that time. Also one bedroom and a bathroom and the milk bar on the ground floor. The bar was open from nine till half past eight from Monday to Friday and until ten o'clock on a Saturday. The first job every morning was preparing sandwiches for the customers. The bread van called three times a week with sliced bread to make ham, cheese and egg sandwiches and salad sometimes in the summer. We used to buy cakes from Dafydd Rowlands' bakehouse. He used to come every morning in his white apron with cakes on a tray. We used to sell tea, coffee, milkshakes and cold drinks and biscuits.
I can remember being invited to go on a trip to Cadbury's World. Everyone who sold Cadbury's products in the area was invited. We went on the train from Machynlleth to Birmingham, had a chocolate drink on the train, were guided around the factory in Bournville before having a film about the history of the company. A special trip!
Our best customers were people from the offices in Dolgellau and chaps from the garages, and country folk came to do their weekly shopping on market day, which was a Friday. May and September were extremely busy times for us at the cafe because that was when the fair came to Dolgellau. I can remember people from the stalls just came to the cafe to get hot water for their flasks.
There was often something going on in the town hall: evenings of Welsh entertainment, Eisteddfodau and folk dancing once a month. Everyone met at the milk bar instead of the pub before going to the dance. Only once do I remember a drunken man coming into the cafe. He sat on a stool by the counter and fell backwards. I had to call the police and I can remember him coming in and dragging him out of the milk bar, holding his head under his arm.
This is a couplet written by Gwilym Owen, Secretary of the Young Farmers Club:
Y dafarn laeth yw'r dafarn lon (The milk bar is a merry bar
Lle nad oes meddwi byth Where no-one ever gets drunk)
