As It Was

Henry Jones, known to everyone as Harry, was born in Gyffin, a small village next to Conway, North Wales, on the 29th of October 1908. He grew up in Gyffin and became a postman. During the Second World War he joined the Army and worked on mail distribution. Upon returning he rejoined the Post Office. Apart from his war service he never lived far from where he was born. After he retired early for health reasons he wrote of his life, the things he remembered, and the people he knew, particularly from his childhood. These memoirs were written longhand in five hardbound notebooks. Harry writes of the showman's engine, the steam roller, early buses, toys, the early cinema, the town porter, the water mill, and the less fortunate among many other recollections of childhood. He writes of the jobs he held, memorable people he knew, his experiences in the war, and of his family. Harry describes the working life of his father-in-law, a long time engine driver for the London and North-Western Railway.It seems a shame that these memories should fade into the fog of history especially in this age of self-publishing, computers, PDF files, and such-like miracles. We have transcribed the notebooks and given the text the lightest of editing. We have taken advantage of the resources of the internet to annotate the chapters where we can. Almost without exception documents on the web show that these memoirs are accurate. We also have access, which Harry did not, to the 1911 and earlier Censuses and the 1939 Registry and these have provided some more information. In the final section "The Family" we have provided some additional information to put Harry's life into context. Apart from the sections describing his jobs, Harry did not write much about his home life after he was grown so we have added additional information to make things clearer.So read on. Read memories of childhood, read of now vanished occupations, read the story of a long-time railway driver on the LNWR, read Harry's memoirs of the war (but read first his admonition that war is horrible). Read of Harry's compassion for the unfortunate. Read of saints and sinners (and of some people who took the law into their own hands). Read not of leaders or major economic or social trends but read the history of the ordinary people of North Wales.