My Grandfather

I didn’t meet my paternal grandfather. He died when my Dad was seven years old and so I missed him by 27 years. Of course I have thought about him often, what I would have called him – I called my maternal grandfather Bampa – or what kind of relationship we would have had. I think that we would have been friends. Not because I’m his granddaughter and that’s what I’d hope, but because as I have got older I have realised that parts of me, things that I believe to be fundamental to who I am, are echoed in the recollections others, especially my Dad have of him.

Years ago my father gave me the gift of a book called Martin Eden, by Jack London. I believe that the copy was my grandfather’s. It’s the story, thought to be semi autobiographical of a struggling, aspiring writer. It’s a story of love, melancholia and of the sea. I must have been around 14 when I first read it and as all teenagers are, I was inclined to romance and dolour and it caught my heart. I won’t say more about the plot, but its final pages are ones that I’ve never forgotten. It was my grandfather’s favourite book too.

I’ve learned other things about him. He was a voracious outdoor swimmer who would visit Barry Island on bus trips with his family, leaving my gran and Dad and aunts on the sand to swim for what seemed to them like hours, out of view. I’ve always been the one to swim out further, to stay in longer, reluctant to return to the shore. In that way, I take after him.

A long time ago, my Dad told me a story about him and his Dad. About how they took a bus trip from home, Merthyr, towards Brecon, and stopping around Llwyn Onn Reservoir walked until they reached a place my grandfather knew, a warm spring, where they swam. I’ve asked many people about this place, if they know of it or have heard of it. Most haven’t but a few have. Nobody seems to know where it is, or even if it still exists. I’ve looked for it several times, after my father has searched his memory for details of a trip over half a century ago, but never found it. Maybe it’s gone. But maybe it’s still there. I don’t know yet and maybe I never will.  If my grandfather was still around he’d be able to take me, or tell me where to go, or if my Dad had been taken there when he was older he'd remember, but he didn’t have the chance.

Clare and I have made some recordings of my Dad speaking about swimming with his Dad. There’s one on this blog of us talking to both my parents and there’s another recording that we made with just my Dad which we haven't published yet. I’m going to use this space in the coming weeks and months to write more about my grandfather as I learn more about him, and maybe we’ll even find the warm spring. If we do, I'll tell you about it. 

That warm spring, that for now is lost, is one reason why the project Clare and I are working on is important to me. There’s so much knowledge and experience and pleasure to be shared amongst us, so much good stuff, and I think we need to preserve it. An archive of stories of places where people swim, and of why those experiences are important, seems like a good way of doing something, and of keeping such things safe.

                                                                               Becca 
Ken Thomas