"And you can stay in there till your ol' man comes home. You've been warned often enough."  It was Mam's voice.

It was dark when I was dragged out. Mam just stood there, gaping at the leftovers on the shelves.

"Oh look, Alf !  He's bin into everythin'!"

Dad's arms flayed my body raw that night. And although he did not entirely cure my weakness, he certainly persuaded me to give up further visits to Mam's weekend delicacies.

"A bloody conveyor-belt up to his mouth is what he needs," Dad hollered.

"Yes, but I'm not going to have any more of it, Alf.  I'm getting a padlock on that door!" Mam exclaimed.

"Better put one on his mouth then while you're at it, and then we'll all have somethin' to eat, instead of his leavings,"  hollered Dad from his chair.

Grandma Griffiths, on my mother Harriet's side, gave birth to six daughters. In order they were: Edith, Harriet, Millie, Mary, Maggie, and Gladys. They all lived to a ripe old age. My grandmother also had a son, Willie, who didn't live as long. His father, who was a very religious man, died in the Senghenydd pit explosion before I was born. Hundreds lost their lives on that terrible day in the bowels of the earth in the dark. Willie said that he saw his Dad pinned down by a rock as big as a table, and had no choice but to leave him there. I don't think Willie ever recovered from the way he saw his Dad perish. I cannot imagine our Lord Jesus advocating that men go underground to work, for it is where we bury the dead. (I feel the same is also true regarding underground transport).

Some years after his father's death, Willie suffered from depression, and was in ill in bed at his mother's house. His sisters (all except Edith, who lived in Doncaster) went with their husbands to visit him. While they were talking together downstairs, Willie managed to climb out of a bedroom window without them knowing. When it was discovered, there was panic. The men left the house and searched in different directions in order to find him. It was my father who found Willie. He said he saw him go down for the last time in the waters of the local reservoir.

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