'I was thinking about our camping days in Wales yesterday,' says Hal, suddenly experiencing a fit of coughing.

'Sorry' he coughs, 'as you know I have breathing problems now.  We could not be told when we were young about smoking.  We thought we knew it all, and did not understand the concept of peer pressure, all our film heroes smoked.  I also worked at many jobs that harmed my lungs'

'Here Hal,' I murmur sympathetically, offering him a glass of water I fetched from the kitchen, 'sip this slowly.'

Hal sips from the glass and quickly recovers and continues:

'Do you remember getting water from a running stream in North Wales to try and make a cup of tea?   Because it was running we thought it came from the mountains pure as crystal.

 In fact cows were crapping  in the River Leete in it further up stream, and on our return to Liverpool  we were both confined to bed with the wildies, eye of a needle style..... feverish too.

And do you remember Lennie (backward) with the ferret in his coat, it nipped me the little bastard....... I think it was in Pantymyn (sounds a bit rude that) never mind though -  we are survivors.

Laughing, I nod.  'Actually - it wasn't Lennie it was Willie - and here is a photograph of him and I that you took with an old 'Brownie camera' in 1951.

I remember our trips  to North Wales very well.' I continue,  'They were happy days when we were in our middle teens and seeing the world through different eyes. I think we went on two occasions - am I right?

The first time we went to Loggerheads and camped on that high, rocky outcrop above the car-park on the opposite side of the road from the Loggerheads Inn. We had a good view of Moel Famau from the top. I remember that at the end of our weekend we dropped what remained of our tattered tent over the cliff (either by mistake or deliberately I can't remember? I think we walked from Loggerheads by a winding path alongside a river called The Leete,  to visit Ryddymyn.

It was during that walk that we drank water from the river only to encounter a herd of cows standing in the water a little further on nonchalantly opening their bowels with great abandon directly into our erstwhile drinking-water supply.

The name of the camping field we used to visit was Nant Alyn just outside Ryddymyn,  It is now a  caravan park.  It  was originally a smallholding, belonging to a Mr. John Morris. The land comprised of fields at the side of the Leete river, woodland and a shop. John Morris allowed people to pitch their tents in his fields. Campers found Nant Alyn after travelling by train to Ryddymyn Station or catching the F11 from Birkenhead Landing Stage  to Pantymyn and walking down the woods, to Nant Alyn. The Mold/Denbigh road was the main coast road and a bus travelled along the coast, stopping off in Ryddymyn. Do you remember The Antelope Inn?'

Remember Hal, we bought  sweets, milk, bread and baked beans in the shop?  In more recent years Jack and Peggy, carried on the site, with caravans replacing buses, coaches, tram, railway carriage, gypsy caravan etc in the early 1960's.

Hal has been listening carefully.

 'Perhaps you remember the house with the steep garden and steps?  The woman of the house was trying to earn an extra crust by serving tea and cake and we both went mad on a particular cake, it was a little going home treat for us before we caught the bus home.

The high rocky outcrop in Loggerheads you speak of is correct and I walked all the way to the top up a steep path, with Jack, my grandson and his other Grandfather about five years ago. I was slower than all those years ago, and was puffing when I reached the top. Did you know I lived in Mold for a couple of years, must have been about 24/25-years old ...and in the summer during my time there,  I used to cycle down to the Antelope Inn, to try and meet Liverpool girls who were camping.


'I trust your efforts bore fruit Hal,' I smiled.

Indeed the relationships of the young were very different in those days weren't they - there was remarkable unanimity: pretty much everyone was appalled when couples acted too demonstrably in public - kissing, holding hands, or just looking fondly at each other often engendered disapproving looks and tut-tut-tutting.

'Yes' I went on, 'I remember that you had a job in Mold back then Hal,' I said. Anyway we went back to Ryddymyn another time and I have quite a lot of photos of us and our tent. When next meet I will show you them..I don't know about you but I always used to associate my current girlfriend and the  love-life of the time with a particular pop tune? And not only that - also my teenage and early manhood was punctuated and temporally sign-posted by certain songs.

As a matter of interest I did a bit of research as to what the popular songs comprised of, and about this time in 1951 it was the year of the big-voiced male singers, as a series of dramatic tenors dominated the charts, among them were  Guy Mitchell, Frankie Laine, Tony Bennett, Tony Martin, Johnnie Ray, and Mario Lanza, often fronting gimmicky arrangements touching on everything from opera to country music.

There were also somewhat sweeter voiced women such as Jo Stafford, Patti Page, and Rosemary Clooney, as well as men who sang more casually, such as Perry Como, Bing Crosby, and Nat "King" Cole. There were Les Paul and Mary Ford, with their multi-tracked electric guitars and vocals, while Rosemary Clooney competed with a harpsichord in the ethnically confusing "Come On-A My House," and as song subjects took listeners from "On Top Of Old Smoky, "and "Mockin' Bird Hill" (Les Paul and Mary Ford)  Doris Day was in full bloom, and  most notable was Johnnie Ray's "The Little White Cloud That Cried" as was Mantovani's "Charmaine""
But "Too Young" and "Unforgettable"  (done by Nat "King" Cole) and "Be My Love" (by Mario Lanza), were my all-time special favourites though.' This period was not long before you went to The T. S. Vindicatrix for your training to enter the merchant navy and go away to sea and I joined the regular army and went down south to join The Gloucestershire Regiment

We both took these songs with us I guess - for like all meaningful music - it becomes a part of one's own autobiography doesn't it?

By this time Hal had decided to do the washing-up, so I followed him to his well-planned kitchen and continued to reminisce.

'Changing the subject for a moment Hal'  I said, 'read this.'

'I can't just now Jud, my hands are wet.'

'Oops!!  Sorry Hal ' I say - I'll read it to you.'

Taking the newspaper cutting from my pocket I straighten it out and begin to scan the words. 

I am still surprised that rationing went on for so long after 1945.

It was still in force when we were going on our camping-trips - but we did not notice.

Tt was our poor hard-pressed  mothers who had to woory about  doing the shopping and making both ends meet.