Volunteer wardening as it used to be

By the year 1954 I had been a YHA member and active hosteller for five years and a regular reader of its magazine 'The Rucksack' as it was then known. The title caused me mild irritation as I was at the time and for many years after an ardent cyclist. Be that as it may advertisements for temporary wardens occasionally caught my eye and when one appeared early in that year to warden Blaencaron for the summer I thought I would apply. I wrote to the regional secretary in Cardiff, Dai Davies, and a convenient appointment was eventually arranged on a Saturday when Wales were playing France at Cardiff Arms Park. My face must have fitted or more likely there were no other applicants because after five minutes chat I was told I was appointed - no CRB checks or YHA training courses to worry about in those days. France were duly dispatched in the afternoon - altogether a satisfactory day.

The hostel opened in early July and remained open until mid September. A few days prior to opening I loaded myself, bike and baggage on to the train at Llandeilo, my home town (then spelt Llandilo), on the Central Wales line taking the former LMS branch to Carmarthen. There I changed on to an Aberystwyth train which brought me to Tregaron via Pencader and Lampeter - a delightful line long since closed. I was to make another journey on it at the YHA's expense but more of that later.

Having biked it from the station up to the hostel with some of my luggage - a second journey was necessary - I was met by Dai Davies who had come over from Cardiff on his motorbike with two panniers full of tools and seemingly prepared for any hostel emergency. Regional secretaries were very hands on then. He proceeded to show me around which didn't take too long and give me a general idea of my duties including how to deal with the Elsan chemical closets in the old school loos at the rear and dispose of their contents. Rather reminds me of my recent holiday on the Pembrokeshire island of Skokholm where the toilet facilities were identical except for the notice which faced you as you entered: 'Gentlemen unless you wish to be seated please go and water the nettles'!

My accommodation was a small partitioned room in the left hand rear corner of the present common room cum kitchen. It contained only a double bunk and small table. The accommodation for hostellers was provided by two additional partitioned rooms, the women's dormitory having six beds and the men's ten.

The hostel itself and surrounds presented quite a startling sight. All external wood and ironwork including the gate were painted a bright red. All the handiwork, I was told, of an enthusiastic German working party there a year or two previously.

The hostel had no electricity, no bottled gas and no running water apart from a trickle fed from a spring which was the only source of drinking water. A butt just outside the front door collected rainwater from the roof and that was a very useful source of fresh water for washing. Until that is one of the younger hostellers decided to wash his greasy breakfast plate in it leaving bacon rinds and various uneaten bits of his breakfast at the bottom of the butt.

The breeze-block extension built by the Germans and which presently contains a dormitory each side of the entrance door was then used as washroom and kitchen. The former contained only a bench and some plastic bowls which had to be filled from the butt or more usually the river. However, the river bank was the more popular washplace when it wasn't raining, girls given precedence, men half an hour later!

Primus stoves had been used for cooking but my first job before the hostel opened was to make contact with the local Calor gas dealer in Tregaron which I did the following morning. He turned up later in the day and installed four small gas rings. They were all run off one 13kg cylinder with no spare. When I queried this he jauntily replied 'Oh that will last you for ages.' Inevitably over the August Bank Holiday (then at the beginning of August) when the hostel was full the gas expired. Fortunately a quick pedal down to Tregaron brought the dealer up out of hours to replace the cylinder and leave me with a spare.

Artificial lighting was provided by paraffin pressure lamps and the odd candle. I had had previous experience of the lamps so avoided mangling too many mantles. Heating, which generally was only needed for drying purposes although some September evenings could be chilly, was provided by a freestanding cast iron stove placed a little in front of the present fireplace. I cannot remember purchasing coal and I was never short of wood found out and about. The stove was sometimes almost aglow and even now I can recall the smell of still damp but scorched socks.

I soon settled into a routine and the hostellers and postal bookings came in pretty regularly. The idea had been that I should spend the closed hours with my head buried in books but it did not quite work out like that. With a wilderness at my feet that was as yet unspoiled and uncluttered by the Forestry Commission I was off out whenever the sun beckoned and often when it didn't. Shopping had to be done and that meant a cycle ride in to Tregaron two or three times a week. Although not obliged to, I endeavoured to keep a small store of essentials available for hostellers. Milk and eggs were at hand from the neighbouring farmer.

There were occasional visitors. The master and matron of the local children's home turned up in their car one day with their two children, curious to see what the new young warden was like. Word of my tenure had of course spread around Tregaron within minutes of my arrival. During the school holiday period their son called regularly and lunch with his family was a frequent occurrence on my excursions to Tregaron. Reporters from the Cambrian News turned up wanting to write an article about the hostel. However, my most frequent visitor was young John Lloyd, 12 years old, from Gwarcastell higher up the valley.

John was a constant source of entertainment and sometimes consternation. A very useful lad to know. It was he who suggested when the steel mudguard stay on my wartime Rudge Whitworth Sturmey Archer 3 speed cycle rusted through that it could be repaired by Tregaron's blacksmith. So in his company we visited the smithy and the broken pieces were duly heated up and hammered into one for which I was charged two shillings(10p). John was appalled and thought as a non local I had been taken advantage of.

He brought me fresh trout and on another occasion a rabbit. At that time myxomatosis was rife in my part of Wales and I was somewhat diffident about making a meal of it. However it appeared to be ok and having seen my father skin rabbits, successfully got it ready for the pot. Several good meals resulted.

On one day to be remembered John decided it would be sensible to see if all the Primus stoves were still working in case backup cooking facilities were needed. Somewhat reluctantly I agreed, there being methylated spirits and paraffin at the hostel for use in the lamps. The stoves showed a distinct disinclination to perform. John reckoned more heat was needed and before I could stop him had poured paraffin on to the kitchen bench and meths on that accompanied by a lighted match. In seconds the whole thing was ablaze. Fortunately the bench was lined with a zinc trough but I could see the rubber tubes of the gas rings being burnt to a cinder and possibly worse. Somehow the flames were extinguished after an anxious half minute without damage being done. Needless to say the stoves were quickly hidden from future view.

He was passionately fond of his Meccano set and tractors but I am not sure if I have them in the right order. He longed for the day when he could own and drive a Fordson Major.

Early morning once a week I would hear the rumble of a farm cart passing the hostel and looking out would wave to John's grandmother holding the reins as she drove to market with John's young sister sitting alongside her.

At Glan yr afon uchaf, the farm below the hostel, lived a young farmer, Johnny Jones I think, and his wife with their eight children varying in age from 2 to 13. Having made friends with some of the older ones I invited them all to the hostel one sunny morning for pop and crisps. All sat very politely and stiffly on the bench in the kitchen, the little ones very much in awe of this stranger who spoke only English. It was quite an eye opener for me to see how the older ones were looking after their younger siblings. By the end of their visit there was much smiling and laughter so adjudged a success.

Another visitor to the hostel, a four legged one, decided to stay - a delightful tabby kitten which I eventually found had strayed from Penrhos, quite a way down the road. His owner said I could keep him until the end of the season if I wished and so I had a permanent companion in McCarthy. Why McCarthy so many hostellers asked? Because everyone loves him I would reply. Still puzzled they waited for an explanation. It was the period when the infamous Senator Joseph McCarthy was chairman of the committee looking in to 'Unamerican Activities' (reds under the beds and all that). A hugely unpopular person worldwide but the name appealed to my perverse sense of humour.

August bank holiday was approaching. It looked as if I was going to have a full hostel and I was short of four mattresses. Having raised the matter with regional office I was told there were some spare at Poppit Sands and I would have to arrange personal collection. This entailed a bike ride to Tregaron station, a railway journey to Pencader, finding a taxi there that would take me to the hostel and bring me back to Pencader with the mattresses. It all panned out pretty well considering the arrangements were made as I went along. There was some difficulty squeezing the mattresses in to the taxi - cars generally were smaller then and certainly not designed for that sort of load. When the train pulled in to the station I attempted to load in to the guard's van but was promptly told to put them in the passenger compartment as personal luggage otherwise I would be charged carriage! The day's work was successfully completed with the Tregaron taxi taking my load up to Blaencaron and me in hot pursuit on my bike.

The Bank Holiday weekend was memorable. As previously mentioned the gas ran out but thankfully on the Friday evening. The hostel was overfull and I gave up my double bunked room to two females. I had an Anglican monk staying who having paid a very early morning visit to the Ty Bach at the rear managed to lock himself out. There were six likable lads from Llanelli who, determined to proclaim their manhood, were never without a cigarette in their mouths but never lit in the hostel. The rain was tipping down on Monday morning in true West Wales fashion. General chaos reigned as everyone seemed to want to wash or cook at the same time. It was of course the era of a duty to be done before your membership card was returned to you. What to ask six healthy lads to do on a foul day. I could only think of digging a new trench for disposal of the Elsan contents. After doing so they returned wet and muddied and still comparatively cheerful. I did feel very guilty but their fine effort lasted me the season.

At this time hostellers were still commenting on the unusual hostel sign set in the hedgebank just as you turned off the Devils Bridge Road, the only non green YHA sign they had seen. Needless to say it was the work of the industrious Germans - red lettering on a white painted piece of wood attached to two long stakes driven in to the ground. Unfortunately some of Tregaron's bright sparks decided to remove it and throw it over the hedge. I promptly replaced it but when I next passed that way it was adorning the telegraph wires some twenty feet up. With difficulty I retrieved it but did not replace it. I wonder if the miscreants or some of them are still around to remember and laugh at the prank.

I had no radio but hostellers and the weekly edition of the Manchester Guardian sent to me by post kept me in touch with what was happening in the world at large. Several personal postcards arrived from previous hostel visitors - all female I might say but never from any I was tempted to reply to!

Despite the use of tractors in the neighbourhood, cabless of course, the field which sloped up from the river on the opposite side to the hostel had its crop of hay cut and tossed by horsedrawn machinery and finally pitchforked by hand on to a horse drawn hay cart. It was good to be part of that world if only just.

The summer passed all too quickly and with it the closure of Blaencaron until the following year. Now alas closed for all time or is it? The flame of hope still flickers.

Derek Edwards