Rhyl Life: RELIGION

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Colin Jones / email: rhyl.colin.jones@live.co.uk

Don't forget my YouTube channel featuring Rhyl videos and slideshows. The channel is named RhylTime.
Click on the link below to see RHYL AT THE FÊTE, a new slideshow of stills from an amateur video of a garden party at The Lawn care home in Russell Road, circa 1990.
Featured are many residents, staff and visitors including councillors Nancy Fletcher-Williams & Frank Selby.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5zBr3Pxb48

Only YouTube items labelled RhylTime are mine!

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Sunday, 26 November 2017

FLASHBACK #31

Many readers would remember Charles Jones timber merchants at Foryd Harbour. In days of yore the harbour was a hive of activity. According to the postcard / business card below, the Charles Jones company was established in 1870. (It closed down in 1988.)

"From SHIP to RAIL"
This would refer to nearby Foryd Railway Station aka Kinmel Bay Halt about which you can read on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foryd_railway_station

"RHYL HARBOUR"
This was a name in common use for Foryd Harbour even though most of it is in Kinmel Bay. Foryd is an old name for Kinmel Bay.

This part of the card's text is repeated here for indexing purposes:

Archangel Reds, Floorings, Bathurst Spruce, Mobile Pitchpine & English Cement.

Vessels discharging at Messrs. Charles Jones and Sons, Ltd.,

Timber Importers & Sawmill Proprietors, Foryd & Rhyl.

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A reader got in touch to say she had searched Rhyl Life for an old picture of St. John's Church, Wellington Road, and failed to find one. What? Can this be true? Hereby I make amends:

St. John's, a Grade II listed building, held religious services from 1887 to 1997 and is now a private residence named Churchill House.

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FRI 16 NOV 2018 UPDATE: Mike Theaker reports that Churchill House is now a Bed and Breakfast business. See Trip Advisor:
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g616283-d2077168

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Tuesday, 26 September 2017

OTHER WORLDS

A surprisingly large amount of info and pix received here at Jones Towers is not about Rhyl but about towns and villages nearby.

Above: Bodfari railway station (opened in 1869). This shot dates from 1961, a year before the station closed down and is taken looking westwards towards Denbigh. Station buildings on your right were on the Chester bound platform. Last I heard the station was a private residence.

Below: An old image of the present Tafarn Yr Heliwr/Sportsman's Arms on Denbigh Moors. The pub is in Bylchau near Denbigh or Llansannan according to whose directions you take. "You can't miss it," I suppose.

Above: A lofty view of part of Dyserth village on a card postmarked 1937.

Below: In Dyserth Parish Church aka St. Bridget's Church – the 15th century Jesse Window photographed circa 1930.

Above: Found in a batch of Prestatyn pictures, an image captioned Old Pigeon House, Talacre. I'm glad about the caption, otherwise I wouldn't have known what the hell it was.

Below: Fforddlas in Prestatyn. What shall we say – 1950s? Fforddlas in Prestatyn is one word whereas Ffordd Las in Rhyl is two words often written mistakenly as one.

Above: Multiview card of Towyn near Abergele, postmarked 1955. The church bottom right is (Grade II listed) St. Mary's consecrated in 1873.

Below: This is a memorial at St. Michael's Church, 1 Peel Street, Abergele. The inscription reads: "Sacred to the memory of 33 persons who names are inscribed on this monument. They perished in the railway accident near Abergele on the 20th of August 1868 and their remains are deposited within this enclosure."
Click on the image to see bigger version.

The family names are (top to bottom left):- Farnham, Chinnery, Berwick, Aylmer, Franks, Askin, Cripps, Edwards, Farrell, Holmes;
(top to bottom right):- Ingram, Kellett, Lea, Lund, Owen, Outen, Parkinson, Roe, Scovell, Smith, Stearn, Strafford, Symes.

For details of the accident see Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abergele_rail_disaster

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Recently I've had meetings with film maker Mike Theaker who is planning a new Rhyl project. Mike co-produced the most popular video on my YouTube channel where it is titled Rhyl 1960s: A Tale Of Two Seasons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7l8SIqHvsw

Only the videos marked RhylTime are mine!

Colin Jones / email: rhyl.colin.jones@live.co.uk

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Tuesday, 20 June 2017

THE ASK CENTRE OPENS

This is a photo of Rhyl resident Eunice Parry taken last week by Yours Truly outside the entrance to United Church in Rhyl (originally Christ Church) in Water Street, where Rev. Paul Robinson is nurturing a new project.

The north side of the church and the adjacent building (formerly Citizens’ Advice Bureau) which is under church ownership, are undergoing transformation into The Ask Centre - of which Eunice will be Manager / Receptionist.

The Ask Centre is being created by money from the 'Community Facilities Programme' of Welsh Government. The centre will incorporate the Rhyl branch of Denbighshire Citizens’ Advice, plus community and social activities.

There will be a suite of six computers for free public use, a food bank that could provide 24 hoursworth of food in case of emergency, community meeting rooms for hire, and a community choir for an hour once a week.

Choir practice will be in the church. Not all songs are going to be religious and you don’t need to be a good singer to join in. Eunice will accompany at the piano.

Helping in the centre's management and admin are Rev. Robinson and Natasha Harper the Communities Facilitator. ”We hope the new centre will help to tackle poverty and deprivation among members of this community." says Eunice.

Grand Opening of The Ask Centre is on Saturday 1st July, 11am-3.30pm. Go along and see the project - you’ll be impressed! The centre is open to all enquirers from Monday 3rd onwards.

Tel: (01745) 337750, email: eunice@unitedchurchinrhyl.co.uk

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TUE 11th SEP 2018 UPDATE: Eunice and Natasha report that the community choir has been replaced by Carry On Singing, a dementia-friendly singing group.
In addition to a food bank The Ask Centre now has access to a fuel bank (a voucher scheme operated by a third party).
Despite expectations, the food bank's statistics show that benefit delays are not a major cause of hardship. The reasons are more to do with the everyday cost of bringing up children on benefits or on inadequate earnings.
Comparatively poor families with children are under extreme pressure during school holidays when no free school meals are available, and whenever they need to buy school uniforms, and almost inevitably at Christmas time.
All sorts of people are in all sorts of trouble. Guidance on marriage and other relationships is much in demand, and debt is without doubt a growing menace in the community. You can get counselling on these and other tricky matters at or through The Ask Centre.
Some refugees and other migrants have “no recourse to public funds”, i.e. no entitlement to benefits and need help from charitable groups; ex-members of the military and other emergency services need practical support and friendship.
Whatever the problem, The Ask Centre is a good place to start looking for a solution. If you are fortunate enough not to need the services perhaps you could afford to make a donation or leave some money in a Will?
Light refreshments are available in the Living Hope coffee shop run by volunteers of the United Church in Rhyl next door. The coffee shop is open Tue/Wed/Thu 10am-1.30pm. It operates on a donations basis – just pay what you can afford.

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Colin Jones / email: rhyl.colin.jones@live.co.uk

See my Rhyl videos on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/RhylTime
Only the videos marked RhylTime are mine!

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AFTERTHOUGHT
Comparative poverty is a form of suffering, and suffering is an intensely personal experience that cannot be shared. You can sympathise with somebody experiencing deprivation but you can’t stand in their shoes and know what they are going through. Poverty can make people feel lonely, alienated, even embittered and angry. It is corrosive and divisive, and no decent society should tolerate it.

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Sunday, 18 June 2017

FLASHBACK #25

Kerfoot Hughes & Jones is one of those evocative Rhyl business names that I like so much. They were ironmongers mainly, and their shop was in Bodfor Street. The business card above states new premises, so this was not their first address. The card would be circa 1909.

The Kerfoot Hughes & Jones invoice below is addressed to Mrs. Stanley "Plas Coed" Dyserth Road and is dated 1931.
Click on it to see small print.

Having consulted my pal Dilys Bagnall, I can advise that the shop was on the northeast side of Bodfor Street. The location is shown in the following photo taken last month by Yours Truly standing outside Argos:

There may be a connection between the ironmonger Kerfoot and the Rhuddlan street name Kerfoot Avenue. Can anybody confirm?

Colin Jones / email: rhyl.colin.jones@live.co.uk

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Another fondly remembered ironmongers was H.O. Davies, 28 Queen Street (known as Garth's). At the time of writing we have no ironmongers in Rhyl town centre.

6720. Additional image added here in June 2020:

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At the time of writing we have no butchers in Rhyl town centre either. The business card below, for long gone butchers I mean purveyors of meat Owens & Sons of 9 Water Street and 51a High Street, is likely to be from before World War 1.

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These names are added here for indexing purposes: Mind charity shop, Goldilocks hairdressers.

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FRI 23rd JUN 2017 UPDATE: Nigel Kerry has written from Clun – a lovely place in South Shropshire. Nigel says that in the 1950s his uncle Oswald Jones of Alpha Villa (now No.9) Elwy Street, Rhyl, worked in the dispatch department of Kerfoot Hughes & Jones.

[He adds that there is or was a few years ago a Kerfoots in Porthmadog, an imposing shop that was part ironmonger/ fancy goods etc. The proprietors told him that there was a link to the Rhyl business.]

Nigel says that, in Rhyl, Kerfoots’ dispatch department was in Windsor Street – probably where Salvation Army is now. That would it have made it parallel with the Bodfor Street shop with perhaps an alley between.

Here is a photo of the Sally Army premises taken today by Yours Truly:

The Blood and Fire emblem on the wall above the entrance never fails to catch my eye:

Friday, 5 May 2017

ECCLESIASTICS

The two pictures above of the Parish Church of St. Thomas, Rhyl (organ and exterior) are from the 1900-1910 period, and the interior below is on a card postmarked 1916:

Click on any image to see a bigger version.

The above portrait of the ladies of Church Army Crusaders Group No.2 is undated and is the work of photographer J.A. Harding of Rhyl.
Below: gentlemen of Church Army Pilgrimage Salisbury To Rhyl 1928 posing outside a church. I wonder what church.

Church Army should not be confused with Salvation Army. They are not the same. See Wikipedia:
Church Army -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Army
Salvation Army -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Salvation_Army

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The original Catholic Church in Wellington Road, Rhyl, was known as St. Mary's but actually named Our Lady Of The Assumption (same applies to the present one).
The original's interior was far more elaborate and decorative as shown on this card postmarked 1916:

Here are two rare snapshots of the old church being demolished after the present one had been built behind it. The new church opened in 1975.

The following segment has been moved to here from an older post:

Rev. Father Patrick Collins (later Canon) was based at St. Mary's from early 1950s to early '70s. He was a well known figure on a bicycle visiting parishioners who were in hospital or housebound.
In 1971 he was presented with a motor scooter. Standing left to right in the image below are Mayor of Rhyl Dan Roberts, Les Slee (from whose book ‘The Catholic Church In Rhyl 1854-2005’ the photo was uplifted) and Councillor Herbert Weston.

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TUE 16th MAY 2017 UPDATE: Regarding the photo of Church Army Pilgrimage Salisbury To Rhyl 1928. The Great Gareth and I have been puzzling over the church in background; it may not be a Rhyl church.
The photo might have been taken in Salisbury before starting out.

Same consideration applies to image below of Church Army Pilgrimage Nottingham to Rhyl. This is a card postmarked 1937.

[Taking pictures of pilgrims before they set out for Rhyl seems a good idea - in case they don't return.]

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COUNCIL ELECTION RESULTS 2017

Plaid Cymru retained overall control of Gwynedd County Council – that means Plaid has more councillors there than other parties put together. Plaid won a total of 202 county council seats in Wales as a whole (33 more than last time).

Here in Denbighshire the biggest party had been Labour but with no overall control. NOW the biggest party are the Conservatives with no overall control.

County residents are unlikely to notice much difference because unelected officers rule the roost anyway.

In Rhyl all our county and town councillors had been Labour but their stranglehold has been loosened slightly. NOW 2 of Rhyl’s 11 county councillors are not Labour and 5 of Rhyl’s 22 town councillors are not Labour.

Town residents are not likely to notice much difference because town council has no powers worth mentioning.

I note with satisfaction that the election left Wales without any UKIP councillors. UKIP is the nastiest, most racist and most untruthful party. We are better off without them in our council chambers.

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Colin Jones / email: rhyl.colin.jones@live.co.uk

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Sunday, 15 January 2017

NEW YEAR QUIZ (# 181) ANSWERS

On Tuesday 3rd January I posted eight Rhyl questions to get your brainbox working after the Christmas/New Year break.

Question 1 was about a photo of the trough/fountain on the promenade. The question: What is hidden behind the red dots?
The answer: 1963.
Here is the photo without dots. The inscription in full reads: "Presented by Mrs William Jenkins Birmingham 1963."

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Question 2 was based on a 1950 photo of Rhyl councillors and staff.
The question: What is the occasion?
The answer:Routine visit to/inspection of Rhyl Waterworks.
Many familiar faces here. Easily discernible sitting in front row, 2nd from left with hat on knees, is Coun P.T. Trehearn. In the first row of standing figures, 3rd from right is Coun Glyn Vaughan.

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Question 3 concerned a recent shot showing part of a block of flats.
The question: What is the English name of the building?
The answer: New Horizon.
The block is usually known by its Welsh name Gorwel Newydd; it is on corner of West Parade and Butterton Road.

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Question 4. In this image of a religious gathering, what was the nearest theatre?

The answer: Rhyl Pavilion.
The clue in the far background is the white statue of an unknown soldier in Boer War campaign dress, facing the sea.
The gathering is most likely to be the annual Children's Mission c.1890. The event comprised meetings, preachings and processions.

In its two subsequent positions along the prom the statue has faced the opposite way. Incidentally, the designer/sculptor was Herbert Chatham who created the Boer War figure that stands in the shopping centre at Winsford, Cheshire.

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Question 5. Here is a flyer for Celebrity's night club. In what hotel was Celebrity's?

The answer: Marina Hotel
I have a note saying that the hotel was closed following a police raid in 2012. Not long afterwards the hotel was converted to flats (Marina Apartments).

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Question 6. Below: pomp and ceremony draws a crowd. Where were they standing?

The answer: Rhyl Railway Station.
The event is a visit in 1920 by The Prince Arthur, 1st Duke of Connaught & Strathearn (1850–1942) representing the monarch at the time, George V.
At first glance I thought that would be the far left of the station building but a photo I took a few days ago says no - it doesn't match:

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Question 7. This building's name is hidden by a cluster of black dots. What is it?
The answer: Rhyl Bowling Club.
The building is in Seabank Road. Here is the picture without dots:

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Question 8. The following roofs (rooves if you like) are where?

The answer: Marine Holiday Park aka Marine Caravan Park,
The business is located in Cefndy Road opposite Rhyl College and is owned by Hoseasons.

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So, how many did you get right out of eight?
Six or more = splendid.
Four or five = OK.
Less than four = Go and stand in the corner!

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SUN 4th FEB 2018 UPDATE: Regarding the visit by the Duke of Connaught & Strathearn, the date was 1920 and the location was indeed Rhyl Railway Station. The Duke had been in St. Asaph attending the enthronement of the Bishop of St. Asaph as first Archbishop of Wales.

The Duke's appearance in Rhyl was brief and took place on a temporary stage outside the railway station in front of a large crowd. This was caught on film by the Shannon Brothers, new owners of the Market Street cinema once operated by Arthur Cheetham.

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Sunday, 8 January 2017

MILITARIANISM #1

Blessed are the peace makers and not the war makers. The image above is captioned Denbighshire T.Y. RHYL 1912 "Church Parade". Abbreviation T.Y. may stand for Territorial Youth. On the other hand, it may not.

Click on any image to see a bigger version.

The Rhyl district, a comparatively safe place, has been ideal for military training camps. Here is a picture captioned The Lancashire Hussars Camp at Rhyl 1909:

The following is Western Signal Camp, Royal Engineers Camp at RHYL 1913 (the year before The Great War aka World War 1 began):

Below: Taking a break at Denbighshire Hussars Camp Rhyl 1914.

World War 1, World War One, First World War, The Great War

Recently the next item was for sale on Internet, hence the seller's logo. The accompanying description said DRUM MAJOR PALMER 1st RHONDDA BATT WELSH REGIMENT BAND POSE RHYL 1914:

The letters R.B.B. above must stand for Rhondda Battalion Band. I wonder why soldiers from South Wales were up here.

The next was taken at Kinmel Park Camp, Bodelwyddan, in 1916 by which time the war was half over. It is in the form of a postcard addressed to John Evans Esq of Kensington, Liverpool.

The postcard bears the following message on the reverse: "Waiting for a word from you. I have blood poison in my right hand & be home very soon. Your friend, Dick."

The card below reflects the toxic combination of patriotism and emotional blackmail that led an estimated 744,000 young Britons to their deaths in that dreadful conflict.

For more statistics about the extent of casualties see Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties

Recommended film: Oh! What A Lovely War (1969) directed by Richard Attenborough, from an epic stage musical created by Joan Littlewood's ensemble at Stratford, London, in 1963.

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Colin Jones / email: rhyl.colin.jones@live.co.uk

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THU 23rd NOV 2017 UPDATE: A dramatic shot of Denbighshire T.Y. galloping on the sands near their Rhyl camp in 1912:

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Thursday, 31 May 2018

LIFE GOES ON: MAY 2018