WWIIFeature

published inRhiwbina

LivingMagazineDecember

2009

Rhiwbina Living Page 8

My parents bought 131Pantbach Road in 1928, myfather having borrowed moneyfrom his father-in-law and thebuilder to secure a deposit. Thehouse cost £250.

In 129 lived the Sampsons. MrSampson was an austere dourman who worked in the PumpHouse in the Docks. He rode abicycle to and from work. MrsSampson was a chatty woman,who was small of nature andalways busy. They had two boys -Donald who had red hair andStanley, who was one ofnature’s bachelors and nevermarried. Donald was always introuble, always got caught, butwent on to become one of theleading scientists in theexperimental Rocket Test Rangein Woomara, Australia in thepost-war years.

Next door to us, in the other halfof our semi, lived the Tolmansand Mrs Tolman’s sister - “OurEde”.

Nearby, in Bella Vista, Dr DannyThomas set up ’his plate’ and

became the family physicianand a very good one at that. DrThomas moved to Birchgrove inthe 1930s, and in essence, wasthe founder of the BirchgrovePractice.There have been many changes

to Pantbach Road - from acountry road to a mainresidential thoroughfare. TheMonico Cinema was built in the1930s, and St Thomas’s Church, acorrugated ’shed’ used to call thefaithful to prayer with its tin bell.

Opposite where we lived wasHomelands Road, giving us aclear sight of the Phoenix BrickWorks, whose 8 o’clock hooter,calling the workers in, was also aclear signal for the many childrenof the village to dash to RhiwbinaElementary.

But 1939 came and war wasdeclared. At the age of ten, theidea seemed a fun one, but thefull horror of war literally hithome on the night of 17/18 May1943.

History

WhenWarHit

Home

Last issue, RhiwbinaLiving published aletter from NormaStephens who nowlives in Australia but

once lived inRhiwbina. In her

letter, sheremembered her

friend’s house beingbombed during WWII.

As a result, BobLewis, who was in the

house when it washit, got in touch.

Here, in great detailhe recalls the nightthe Nazis came to

Rhiwbina

History

Rhiwbina Living Page 9

My mother had insisted thatmy brother and I headdownstairs when we heard thesiren. She reassured us as we satthere chatting under the stairs.Outside in the black skies, theack-ack guns were throwing up agreat barrage of fire, while flareshung hauntingly in the sky. Therehad been many inactive alerts inprevious months. Ominously so.Our dog was shivering this time.We didn't hear it coming but we

felt it when it arrived. The houseshook violently; the fridgestopped; pots fell from shelves,bricks and masonry fell down thestairs. There were a lot of noisesbut no big bang as such.Strangely, the dog had stoppedshivering.Several minutes passed before

we realised that we had been hit.My father, who had been fire-watching in the street (and whohad his own near miss) wasshouting at us, forcing his wayinto the house.

Next door at 133, the externalwall had collapsed inwards onMrs Tolman, “Our Ede” and theirlodger - who did not survive.

Mrs Tolman and Ede had to bedug from the rubble and spentmany months in hospitalafterwards.

Nos.131, 133, 135 and 137 weretotally wrecked. Our upstairsbedrooms were open to the skiesand full of rubble - we would nothave survived if we had stayed inbed. There was a car on its roof atthe bottom of the garden andour car had been crushed in thegarage by the weight of the sub-soil.

Father later told his version ofevents as he and ‘Willy’ Herbert,the local butcher, stood outside asurface shelter near the cornerof Caegwyn Road. Father hadspotted a parachute minedescending slowly behind

Homelands Road. Grabbing MrHerbert, they both dived into theshelter. At that moment, threebombs dropped onto PantbachRoad.As the dust settled, father and

Willy Herbert emerged from theshelter. Willy’s shop awning wasflapping in the breeze, to whichhe remarked.

“They got my blind.” beforerealising the full impact of thebomb and exclaiming “They gotmy bloody shop!”Concern for the family had

galvanised my father into aheadlong dash to our house,smashing his way in to make surewe were safe.

In the morning, as dawn brokeover the huge craters and thedevastated houses, peoplewandered aimlessly, not surewhere to start the clean-up. Wewere still in pyjamas. My motherhad lost her valuable rings in therubble of what was once a frontbedroom. The bed was hangingthrough the lounge ceiling. Ourfriend Bill and his neighbourgrabbed shovels and a riddle andsieved every last piece of rubbleuntil they found the rings in thevery last few pounds of dust.

Father handed around a bottle

of whisky he had received as aChristmas gift. It served to slaketheir thirst that day.The three bombs that night

killed three people andseverely injured two. The sixhouses in Pantbach Road weretotally demolished as they weredeemed unsafe. They wererebuilt after the war and to thisday, can be seen to be totallydifferent from other houses in thestreet.

Following the raid, we hadnumerous offers ofaccommodation and help frompeople that we hardly knew, andwe ended up sharing a houseopposite, where Mr and MrsLlewellyn lived alone.

I have vivid recollections of thatnight that don’t diminish in spiteof my years. I even remember thetwo candles that still burnedbrightly after the raid, eventhough the room was wrecked.Some years later in business, I

met a George Cooper, ex-RAFwho had directed the ack-ackbarrage protecting essentialtargets in the Cardiff and Barryarea. He remembered the lastactive raid on Cardiff.

So do I.

Rhiwbina from the air in 1941.The ROF munitions factory lay to the right,a constant target for Nazi bombers.