Howard Jury
There were seven cinemas in Pontypridd then at that particular time and you could go to the cinema every night of the week and see a different film.
My name is Mr Jury. I was born in Pontypridd in 1935. When the war finished I was ten in 1945. During that time I was just a youngster grown up with all the rationing and all the other things that was going on through the world. Plenty of things to do. We had made our own games. Plenty of cinemas in Pontypridd area. We used to go to the cinemas a lot, swimming a lot, but we didn't have no swimming facilities - we used to go up to an old tip where the pond was and we used to swim in there on a Sunday. There were seven cinemas in Pontypridd then at that particular time and you could go to the cinema every night of the week and see a different film. Wonderful! "Cos it was talking and you could see all your favourite actors of that particular year, you know, in them days, and it was great. It was just wonderful. 'Cos we had no television.
When I was a youngster there was rationing and we didn't have much to eat. We just had to have what we were given and lump it! But we were quite lucky sometimes. My father used to go out and catch a few rabbits and we used to have rabbit stew one day, rabbit pie the next day and rabbit again for the following day, 'cos we didn't have a lot of meat. Well, no one had a lot of meat them days.
And we always had something to do. Made our own games, played football in the street, and people used to shout at us and that, you know, kicking a tin or ...! We had a wonderful time growing up. I think it was great. I couldn't do it today. Everybody pulled together. I lived in a small row of eleven houses and right up until 1962, when I got married, we never locked our front door. Our door was always open. People used to come - I lived next door to a little club and people used to come in, just open the door and shout 'coming in', and that was it. Never locked the door in the evenings. Just good camaraderie with all people.
My brother was in the navy and he was on board the ship and he arrived in Algiers. And my father was in the army and he was stationed in Algiers on the docks, and two of the sailors called out my brother’s name, "Taffy". And when my father heard that name, Taff, he asked where was he from and they said, "oh, somewhere in Wales." So he said, "what’s his name?" And they said "Jury". And my father said, "what’s his first name?" And they said "Robert". And he said, "ooh," he said, "that's good," and he said, "my son is named Robert," and he said, "his last name is named Jury." So when they called him down, it was my brother. My father didn't know that he was in the forces at all. So they met and then they had a few days leave in Algiers, and my father showed him around Algiers and the Casbah and different places like that, you know, and they had three nice days together. He was seventeen but he put his age on to be eighteen so he could get into the navy. And he had a wonderful time.
And it's nice to look back and to think, well, them days are gone, but you can do everything you want to today, but you couldn't do it then.
