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In 1939 the Commonwealth began building the Hendon small arms munition factory on the site of the former Albert Park Aerodrome. The factory was served by a spur railway line (closed Feb 1980, track removed, now a section of West Lakes Boulevard). Philips Electrical Industries took over the 80-acre site in 1947. In 1970s after Philips transferred to Victoria, the site was named Hendon Industrial Park. Some buildings were used by the SA Film Corporation from early 1980s until 2011. Many wartime buildings are still in use, now as warehouses. Harry Butler & his partner, Harry Kauper, had established an aerodrome at Albert Park to offer flights to the general public in a two-passenger bi-plane. An adjacent housing development was named Hendon. The partnership, Butler-Kauper Aviation Co, was dissolved Sep 1921 and Butler returned to Minlaton. The aerodrome was used by the government as the Adelaide Airport until the move to Parafield in 1927.
“A surveyor has begun the preliminary detailed work for the £100,000 small arms ammunition factory to be established by the Commonwealth Government at Albert Park. It is expected that tenders for the construction will be called within a few weeks. The property occupies 69 acres and the factory will comprise one large workshop and about a dozen subsidiary buildings.” [News 14 Nov 1939]
“Because of the need for precautions against prying eyes, a guard room and fencing to keep unauthorised people out of the premises will be the first contracts let in preparation for the ammunition factory at Hendon.” [News 4 Dec 1939]
“Recently the Woodville Council asked the Commonwealth Government to supply plans and particulars of the work to be undertaken at the small arms factory at Hendon, near Albert Park, as required by the Building Act. The Acting Minister for Supply and Development (Mr. Stewart) has now advised the council. . . that it was not desirable in public interest to release the plans of the factory or to indicate precisely the products to be manufactured there.” [Advertiser 24 Jan 1940]
“The Defence Department, however, is building a small arms factory at Hendon. And it is expected that this plant will be in production by next September.” [Advertiser 6 Feb 1940]
“More than 40 South Australian men and women operatives have been sent to Melbourne for experience in munition work to fit them for key positions at the new ammunition factory at Hendon. The second group of 20 trainees left Adelaide this week and will begin work at Footscray smallarms ammunition factory on Monday.” [News 6 Jul 1940]
“A limited amount of work in drawing out cartridge and bullet cases has begun this week in the Commonwealth munition works at Hendon. This factory will undertake the complete manufacture of .303 (Mark VII.) cartridges for rifles and machine guns. This type of ammunition is used also in fighter aircraft. Buildings are still being erected, and only a small percentage of the machinery has been installed.” [Advertiser 24 Aug 1940]
“The first unit of the new small arms ammunition factory at Hendon, South Australia, would begin production next month, and preliminary operations had begun already. When in fun production the two Hendon units would employ from 2,000 to 2,500 people.” [Advertiser 26 Aug 1940]
“In addition to railway tracks already laid, a line will link the Cheltenham works to the present Port Adelaide-Dry Creek route. . . As there is already a rail link from the case factory to Woodville, and another from Albert Park to Hendon, interlocking railway communication will be complete,” [News 19 Dec 1940]
“More than half the 864 girls and women engaged in munition work at Hendon were previously in domestic service, and a minority formerly worked in factories. . . Since the shifts have been arranged to co-operate with the train, tram, and bus services, the housing problem has been eased considerably. When the number comes up to the proposed full strength of 2,000, then the housing will require some thinking out. . . The number of workers has increased in the last few weeks since the age limit was reduced to 16 and increased to 40, and more country girls are being: attracted to the work.” [The Mail 8 Feb 1941]
“Not many months ago the site of the factory was covered with boxthorn and ugly scrub. Today well-kept lawns border concrete-surfaced roads and paths and solidly constructed modern buildings. . . Men who are responsible for the tools and mechanical side of the machines are in the minority with the blue uniformed girls, most of whom had no previous experience of machine work. . . One of the experiments being carried out now is to put some of the girls into overalls with trousers, as it has been found that they get their stockings splashed with oil when wearing the frock type of overall.” [News 16 Jul 1941]
“the Hendon munition factory, that neat, attractive, well-set-out group of red and grey buildings among concrete ways and green lawns, which serve the double purpose of stilling the dust and pleasing the eye — the whole an amazing mushroom growth from the open field of 18 months ago. . . several of them as they worked at the machines — feeding them with those small sections of brass or nickel, lead or aluminium, which go to the making of millions of bullets for our fighting services. . . There are two of these large bullet case-making factories at Hendon, and then there is the final department — the ‘clean area’, when cigarettes and matches are left behind, and when outsize special shoes must cover normal footwear — where the explosive is placed in the cases. Here, again, girls are to be found working quietly and efficiently. In these filling rooms they all wear woollen clothes as one of the many precautions against possible fire.” [Advertiser 17 Jul 1941 p 4]
“Except for boxthorn and weeds, the factory site — part of the old Hendon aerodrome — was idle and bare when the war started in 1939. . . first in the main work-shop where the brass is pressed and drawn and gradually moulded into the proper cartridge shape, and where bullets are formed from separate pieces of nickel, aluminium and lead: and secondly, in the 'clean' separated shops where brass cases are partly filled with cordite and the insertion of the bullet makes the cartridge complete. . . bullets made at Hendon have been spraying from the machine guns of Spitfires and Hurricanes.” [Advertiser 17 Jul 1941 p 6]
“The social club is making a big effort this month to raise £315 for the endowment of a cot at the Adelaide Children's Hospital. More than £100 has already been raised, with nearly half of that sum as proceeds from the sale of 2,000 copies of the ‘Hendon Howl’, a chatty newspaper of munition workers' doings.” [News 4 Jun 1942]
“Hendon smallarms ammunition factory would cease production shortly, the Minister for Munitions (Mr. Makin) announced in Adelaide last night. At the same time, however, production at the Finsbury and Salisbury factories would be speeded up. . . Since its inception in 1940, the Hendon factory had produced 650 million rounds of small-arms ammunition, and had had an exceptionally low percentage of rejections. . . the termination of production at Hendon would be gradual. It was expected that by the end of the year it would no longer be required for munitions purposes. In the meantime, a section of the factory had been made available for rehabilitation training purposes, and the Secondary Industries Commission was negotiating for the establishment of an industry there in the post-war-period.” [News 23 Jul 1945]
“Hendon's future is already decided. It is to become the Australian production centre of Philips Electrical Industries.” [Advertiser 6 Apr 1946]
“The whole of the vast Hendon plant, which covers an area of 80 acres, has been taken over by Philips Electrical Industries.” [Advertiser 6 Dec 1947]
“Eight years ago, an Australian branch of the world's largest electronics firm undertook what must have been the biggest move in Australia's industrial history. Having decided that South Australia offered everything a modern industry needed, the management of Philips Electrical Industries of Australia Ltd. Uprooted its three New South Wales plants and moved to Hendon. . . The factory now employs 1,000 — a half men, and a half girls — in one of the most up-to-date plants in the Commonwealth.” [News 28 Jul 1954]
OSTRICH FARM
Before Harry Butler established his aerodrome, the land had earlier been used for an ostrich farm.
“There was a large number of visitors at Albert Park on Sunday afternoon to see the ostriches which are in Mr. Cave's paddock there. The birds appear to have quite recovered from the effects of sea-voyaging, and many show a very great improvement in plumage.” [Advertiser 11 Jun 1883]
“Albert Park Ostrich Farm. . . over eighty acres, and is divided into paddocks suitable for the birds. . . In one paddock of about an acre there are two very fine birds in excellent order, and at the time of inspection there were fifteen eggs in the nest. In another paddock was a splendid pair of birds which were worth a fabulous price as parents, and in another large enclosure were two broods of home-bred creatures, the first six being so far grown as to be over six feet high in the clear, and the second brood of six being considerably more than half-grown.” [Register 4 Aug 1884]
“The Albert Park estate is primarily an ostrich farm, but there are other animals to be seen there in the shape of four camels. These animals were born on board one of the steamers recently arrived from India, but, being two [sic] young to attempt the journey to the northward, Mr. Cave hit upon the idea of rearing them by hand. . . has succeeded in rearing the whole four of the camels, which are now fine upstanding animals. They appear tractable and docile, and the experiment of artificial rearing seems to have been a complete success.” [Advertiser 4 Aug 1884]
“The loss of feathers by the ostriches on Mr. W. B. Cave's farm at Albert Park. . . caused by the moulting of the birds. . . Daring the last few days two or three of the ostriches have been noticed to cast off feathers, and on close examination buds of new feathers were seen on the skin.” [Advertiser 22 Oct 1884]
“Mr. W. R. Cave has at his office, Port Adelaide, some very fine feathers, taken from an ostrich at the farm, Albert Park, on Friday. The collection comprises thirty pinion feathers and nearly a pound weight of byocks*, besides some black body samples. Mr. George Wilson, who has had a long experience of ostrich farming in Africa, and who cut and plucked the feathers, pronounces them a superior lot, and values the pinion feathers at from 15s. to 20s. each in their undressed state. They are well shaped, with long staple, and without blemish.” [Register 6 Dec 1884]
*byock = black and white wing-feather from a cock ostrich
“The birds at the Albert Park Farm, which are in excellent condition, now number thirty-six, and are all in good feather. The fifteen months' chickens are rapidly improving, and one of the old hens is at present sitting on twenty-six eggs. The feathers from one of the mature ostriches at a recent sale brought £13, and those of the younger birds were quitted at 4s. 6d. each. Altogether there is every prospect of the farm proving a success.” [Register 9 Apr1885]
“Mr. W. R. Cave on Sunday transferred his ostriches from Albert Park to his farm at Dublin. Sunday was selected so as to secure the road being free from traffic. Seven horsemen under the personal supervision of Mr. Cave were engaged for the undertaking, and it took them from 7 o'clock in the morning till 8 in the evening to accomplish the journey, a distance of 13 miles. The birds were driven because on a previous occasion ten were killed in conveying a flock by vehicles. . . the ostriches had increased so rapidly that a larger run had to be found for them.” [Evening Journal 10 Aug 1886]
Directors posed for the Golden Jubilee of the Chorley Co-operative Society in 1937.
My grandfather top right, P.Walsh, JP. then aged 58
Other members -
Back row, l-r Robert Harling , A Myers, Frederick Mellor Ellis, Willie Costello, J.Walmsley, P.Walsh
Front Row l-r John Tom Sanderson,[1890-1947] Frank Ewart Cross (acting secy), [1898-1961] George Marsh ,(president, former chairman) Stanley Davies (manager) Herbert Hewins.
People who were inspired by more than fiddling, tax evasion, bungs and trousering huge amounts of cash.
Frank E Cross married Emily Worthington in 1924. late of 25 Coleridge Avenue Thornton Cleveleys.
John Tom Sanderson 94 Railway Road Chorley died 14 November 1947 at 152 Eaves Lane, Chorley, probate to Lily Sanderson, nee Bennison, his wife, widow.
Frederick M Ellis 1904-1965 died December 3 1965, of 30 Canterbury Street, Chorley, probate to Nellie Ellis, wife and widow.
Willie Costello 1893-
Baptism: 10 Dec 1893 St George, Chorley, Lancashire, England
Willie Costello - [Child] of Thomas Costello & Ann
Born: 12 Nov 1893
Abode: 10 Duke Street Pall Mall
Occupation: Collier
Baptised by: J. A. Pattinson
Robert Harling 1875 - 1960 of 58 Eaves Lanes, Chorley died March 23 probate to Elizabeth Emma Harding, nee Powell widow.
William [b willie] Costello married Betsy Read b 1895. She died in 1972, address 18 Devonshire Road, Chorley.
Sons John b 1923 and Thomas b 1927
Herbert Hewins, b Stratford upon Avon 1868, [son of a blacksmith there at 22 Church Street.] of 210 Eaves Lane Chorley, died PrestonJanuary 30 1954. His wife Ann Maria, nee Strain died just over 2 months later, probate to Annie Hewins, spinster.
Stanley Davies b 1903 m 1931 Winifred Loon.
George William B Marsh, 1874 - 1953
A fine view of the village Co-op store at Wheelton in Lancashire as drawn by Rowland Hilder and seen in this 1950 advert. Parke's paper mill that is mentioned (latterly part of Wiggins Teape) closed in 1967. The Co-op mentioned is I think the Wheelton Prospect and Industrial Co-operative Society, founded in 1866/7 and, by 1887, trading from Bennet Row. The Society ceased trading in 1967 when it transferred its assets to the Bolton Society.
Cate's boots have a moderate-heel and a flat sole. They're femfig ball-jointed bootfeet, so no luck if you want to put this on a Hot Toys figure. Then again, the head won't fit either and from experience, bodysuits that look nice on a Triad/Takara-style femfig will look pretty awful on a Hot Toys body.
From our beginnings in 1863, the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS) became one of the largest co-operative organisations in the UK providing great food and fantastic services to generations of members and customers. We changed our name to The Co-operative Group in 2001.
Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society.
I'm not quite sure how this will turn out. I have a small site at the front of the layout that this is intended for. Much of the font edge of the layout deliberately has low features, in order to allow a view of the trams of course. This building will deliberately obscure a direct view of one part and perhaps encourage views along the street axis to the road junction by 'Tooting Common' Underground station.
The architecture is lifted from a Co-operative store in the North-East, although it seems quite applicable to represent a London one. The frontage has been wrapped around the site that I have available, and will have a plain utilitarian brick rear wall along the front edge of the layout.
At this stage the task was to 'fit' the architecture to the front elevations that I have. The shop windows and doors have yet to be added.
ACY 985 of Koptaco coaches CO-operative. An ERF E10 Trailblazer with Unicar body.KopTaCo has a fleet of 36 full-size coaches, making it the largest Maltese coach operator, with many Volvo and Scania vehicles.
when your countries fate is at risk, you know who to call on. Op Oh-Four-Five. of Libyan descent, this is the only operative currently serving in the US with the ability to say they've saved a country. how? well, that may be a story for another time...
so I improved slightly. and NO, that is not an attempt at multicam.
it's a derivative of chocolate chip camouflage used by Libyans. It does look multicam-ish though.
Now an Asda
This used the CRS (Co-operative Retail Society) branding, a successor to 'Pioneer'. I don't know which actual co-op society ran the store.
The Co-operative Food - Gospel Oak - social distancing queue.
Seen on the walk to Langley Hall Park again.
It was warm on the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, but we are on lockdown, so can't really go far, but are allowed one form of exercise a day.
The thing my mom has been dealing with this past week... is a pulmonary embolism.
She finally heard back from her doctor this morning after calling him again (she called Thursday and Friday and didn't get a call back). He arranged for a CT scan immediately when he heard she took a shower and got so winded this morning that it took her an hour and a half to recover. The CT scan took 10 minutes to do and 10 minutes to read and then the doctor there wanted her to be transported via ambulance to emergency but my dad insisted he'd drive her instead. They were waiting for her with wheelchairs everywhere.
Once she was admitted to emergency (also immediately) she had 4 doctors (including one of the best pulmonary specialists, her doctor, her heart doctor) consulting on whether or not she should be given TPA (which is a serious clot busting medication and introduces very high risks of internal bleeding) or something not as severe. They eventually decided on the TPA because she has two clots that are large and almost fully blocking both main arteries to her lungs which has put a big strain on her heart. She has to be monitored closely for internal bleeding and right now she has some pretty bad bruising and swelling at the sites of her IVs (which can't be removed for the next 6 hours due to the drug).
She's now in cardiac ICU (with post-operative heart patients). After that she'll be moved to a heart monitoring room for the next 5-7 days as they lessen the clotting medications in severity, take CT scans of her lungs and her legs (where most clots develop) to make sure she's out of danger. Then her doctor will try and figure out what brought all this on so they can prevent it in the future.
Yes, she could have died from this.
She's the best looking and healthiest looking patient in the cardiac ICU.
Ormskirk Rd. Preston 1902. The Preston Co-Operative movement was formed after a number of previous attempts in 1873. The above building was opened on November 25th 1892 and was known locally as 'Fashion Corner' The architect was W. Munford. The building cost £6,000 when built.
Click Here to see how this location looks today.
LLWYNYPIA COLLIERY, LLWYNYPIA, RHONDDA.
Any recollection of this colliery and its workforce is inseparable from the name of Archibald Hood, a Scotsman who bestrode mid-Rhondda and elsewhere as a colossus of the mining world, and beyond that distinction too. A brief summary of this man’s career –where to do justice, a volume is needed – is that in 1860, when he arrived in Wales from Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, he was merely thirty-seven, but in a brief twenty-five of those years in Scotland, he achieved more than most men of that time would achieve in a lifetime, becoming a qualified mining engineer and coal-owner, genuinely highly-respected in both spheres by his mining peers and workforce. His interest and concern in the latter extended beyond their daily duties, with the provision of good accommodation complete with gardens for food production, and also encouraging their purchase of domestic needs from co-operative initiatives. But, as illustrious as he was in Scotland, he would, over the next forty-two years in Wales, carve a second career that would overtake his first.
Hood’s first Welsh mining involvement was at Tylcha Fach Level in Coed Ely, which exploited the thin bituminous Ty Du seam of less than a yard thickness. The colliery was owned by the Ely Valley Coal Company, and its office and winding-engine house are still in existence, modified into three residences, sitting above Tylcha Fach Estate, an elevated, relatively-new housing development which sits on the valley-side opposite the former Coedely Colliery. He had arrived there in 1860, commissioned by Messrs. Campbell and Mitchell-Innes to determine if a proposed investment in small mines in the area would be profitable, but in an interim period and inexplicably not seeking Hood’s advice, Campbell and Mitchell-Innes were persuaded, unwisely, to buy the level. Although Hood later joined them there, his thoughts were focussed on deep mining at Llwynypia, and when the Ely Valley Coal Company was liquidated, he, Campbell and Mitchell-Inness formed the new Glamorgan Coal Company and began shaft sinkings at Llwynypia Colliery. Eventually, under Hood’s leadership two more deep mines were established at Penrhiwfer and Gilfach Goch.
Evidence of the beginning of Llwynypia Colliery, dated February 27th,1861, is shown on page four (pages 1-3 missing) of Glamorgan Coal Company’s Cash Book, which over the following twenty-eight days showed directors’ cash injections of £3,600, including £300 by Archibald Hood. It provides early-years evidence that though Hood was undoubtedly the driving force at Llwynypia, his periodical purchase of company shares was always much less than his fellow directors! A search for this colliery through officially-recognised sources will be unsuccessful if ‘Glamorgan’ or ‘Scotch’ is used as a search-word, for the correct name is ‘Llwynypia’, which broadly translates as ‘Magpies Grove’. However, for good reason, ‘Glamorgan’ and ‘Scotch’ soon became every-day alternatives, and they are unquestioned and accepted to this day – but why did they originate? Imagine, you are a Scot, beginning work as a miner in a very sparsely populated area, where the native language is predominantly Welsh, a tongue completely foreign to you. Inevitably, at some time, you will be asked your place of residence or employment: do you invite ridicule, by attempting to pronounce ‘Llwynypia’, or do you use your wits, replying with the easily-pronounced ‘Scotch’, a reference to the colliery’s predominantly Scottish workforce imported by Archibald Hood – or the equally easy ‘Glamorgan’, the name of the company owning the colliery?
To accommodate his workforce, Hood found it necessary to build, and eventually, 271 homes were constructed in fifteen terraces adjacent to, and overlooking the colliery, of which 256 are still in occupied existence, together with several impressive managers’ residences built in the proximity of the colliery. More dwellings were built near his Penrhiwfer and Gilfach Goch mines, and to this day, in all three villages, there remain references to the Glamorgan Coal Company, Hood’s nationality, and Scottish landmarks. Sherwood (several), Gilmour, Anderson, Thistle, St. Andrew, Ayton, Campbell, Argyll, Grange, Holyrood, Rosedale, Bruce (Penrhiwfer), Scotch and Dundonnell (both at Gilfach Goch), all are overtly Scottish-influenced place-names, but there were acknowledgements to Wales, with Cambrian, Glamorgan, Llewelyn, Glandwr, Llwynypia, Glyncornel, Iscoed, etc. Missing from all these is a landmark dubbed ‘Hood’ by Hood himself, and perhaps this remarkable, extraordinary man knew there was no need for self-acclaim, for in his modest way he probably realized that his achievements in South Wales would render that self-perpetuation superfluous.
There were six vertical shafts and two levels at Llwynypia. On the Llwynypia side of the River Rhondda Fawr were shafts 1, 2, 3 and 4. Nos 1, and 2 shafts were sunk to exploit the shallow Nos. 2 and 3 Rhondda seams but were eventually deepened to exploit the steam coals in the deeper seams; No. 3 shaft worked the shallow seams too, but, whilst reportedly sunk to also exploit the lower seams, it closed in 1908. The coal in the Nos. 2 and 3 Rhondda seams was bituminous, used as a domestic fuel and also as the basic element in coke production, fuelling the 281 ovens at Llwynypia and Gilfach Goch collieries, where an impressive 1,400 tons was produced weekly. Additionally important, at the floor of these seams was fireclay, a mineral consisting of the roots of dead plants, extracted along with the coal, the decayed vegetation above the plant-roots, both having undergone change, metamorphosis, through heat and deep burial over millions of years. This clay was a valuable by-product, an essential constituent of the 10,000 or so bricks made daily by women in the colliery’s above-ground brick-making plant.
The three shafts (1, 2 and 3) were sunk in a line, parallel to and near the Taff Vale Railway, their extremes contained within an incredible 35.33 yards. No. 4 shaft did not conduct minerals, it was sunk purely to accommodate water pumped from the whole of the colliery’s workings, and its former location is today bordered by a fast-food outlet adjacent to Llwynypia Road. When the colliery ceased production in 1945, the yard remained in use as a rescue-station and central workshop, and the shaft remained open at the No. 3 Rhondda seam, 108 yards level, for water-pumping only until 1966, when total colliery closure took place. The writer recalls, during the mid-1960s, many times travelling to his ventilation duties there, in a very small, single-deck cage, the only one that could be accommodated in this extremely narrow shaft. No. 5 shaft, on the Trealaw side of the river, did not conduct minerals, it was sunk purely to conduct the whole of the colliery’s stale air to the surface, but at times through the colliery’s life this function was fulfilled by other shafts, including No. 6, when No. 5 closed. No. 6 shaft, close to the Collier’s Arms at Ynyscynon Road, was sunk to exploit the deep, steam coals.
In descending order, the seams worked at Llwynypia Colliery were: No. 1 Rhondda (only at an inconsequential, almost mountaintop level, see below); No. 2 Rhondda; No. 3 Rhondda; Pentre; Two Feet Nine Inches; Lower Six Feet; Upper Nine Feet (Red Vein): Lower Nine Feet and Bute; Bute; Five Feet; Lower Five Feet. The Lower Five Feet was the deepest-worked seam and was found at 517 yards in the 525 yards deep No. 1 shaft. The two levels were established on the Trealaw side of the river, with the highly-productive Sherwood Level, whose entrance was adjacent to No. 5 shaft, shallowly traversing under Ynyscynon Nursery as it commenced its 950 yard journey into Rhondda Fach, extracting the No. 2 Rhondda seam. It was opened in 1905, in anticipation of the closure of No. 3 shaft, thereby maintaining the essential supply of bituminous coal and fireclay for the production of coke and bricks, but it closed in 1923 when those reserves were exhausted. That year also saw the closure of Llwynypia Colliery Mountain Level, situated high on the Trealaw mountainside; it was a largely-exploratory, short-lived venture into the No. 1 Rhondda seam for its much-sought bituminous coal and fireclay, but one which was of limited presence due to glacial action and erosion by the elements. Reliable and complete manpower and production figures for Llwynypia are not available, but the colliery was certainly prolific in both, with 4,200 employees in 1902, and 700,000 tons output in 1923 being quoted, although the latter figure, is much lower than the widely-held figure of one million tons per annum.
Archibald Hood was that rarity, a truly-respected coal-owner. He was canny and conservative but also a humanitarian, and at Llwynypia, as in Scotland, he sought to beneficially influence the lives of his workmen and their families. Whereas D. A Thomas, Chairman of Cambrian Collieries Ltd, injected nothing into the Clydach Valley communities, Hood’s hand was everywhere in Llwynypia, manifested by the provision of schools, St. Andrews Church, a Miners Institute, complete with library and billiards tables — a swimming pool, tennis courts, cricket, football and rugby fields, and even the winter-time provision of a large, outdoor ice-skating area! He encouraged his workforce to grow food by providing large garden areas at the fronts of their dwellings, simultaneously seeking to divert the male occupants from alcohol, an imperative, given the volatile temperaments of the Welsh, Scots, and the Irish that later inhabited the community! He was known for his attention to detail, often involved in matters which his minions might have been expected to supervise – the writer’s grandmother lost an arm at Llwynypia when sixteen in 1893, amputated when caught in brick-making machinery, and Hood, then seventy, personally attended the matter, obtaining a job for the one-armed girl at the Tonypandy ironmongery of John Cox – Hood, probably not needing to remind Cox of Glamorgan Coal Company’s patronage!
When he died, aged 79, in 1902, a fund was established to erect a statue, the first in Rhondda, and this likeness, with an arm horizontal, pointing to his colliery, stands to this day, overlooking Llwynypia Road. Such was the respect of his workmen that the fund was heavily over-subscribed, with the surplus being used to provide a gas-lit statue and animal drinking-trough, now modified and situated near Tonypandy Library, removed from its original site at Tonypandy Square. Six years after his death, Llwynypia Colliery was taken under the control of D. A. Thomas’s Cambrian Collieries Ltd, of whom Leonard Llewelyn was General Manager. Today, it is known that Llewelyn was a liar, impostor and opportunist, but when he and Llwynypia Colliery became newspaper headlines in the Tonypandy Coal Strike and the associated rioting of 1910-11, he excelled in concealing and distorting the truth, by manipulating Establishment-based newspapers, the only information source of those times. To expose Llewelyn, one needed mining experience and a source of publication, both possessed by, and available to the writer, but not so in the latter-essential to miners in the 1910-11 period. So, critically, the untruths in those newspapers passed unchallenged, and became immediate history, creating false perceptions of events that deceived many historians and others to the present day. Llewelyn’s lies would not have sat well with Hood, and one wonders, when at the peak of his powers, would he have vetoed the Cambrian purchase of Llwynypia? Had it been possible to configure that time-span, he might have prevented the immense suffering that occurred in mid-Rhondda in 1910-11.
There was a delivery with a difference in the car park of The Co-operative food store in Helensburgh, when baby Abigail Richmond was born.
Abigail’s mum, Annan, was being driven to the maternity ward by husband Joe when she went into labour, and gave birth in the car park of the store, which had closed for the evening.
The family, from Armstrong Road in Helensburgh, made a special trip back to the store where staff were able to meet the new arrival, as well as presenting them with Co-operative vouchers and a selection of nappies and baby products.
Store Manager Brian Edmiston said: “As a busy store we get deliveries every day, but it’s the first time the delivery has been a baby. We were delighted to welcome Abigail, Annan and Joe to the store, and to present them with a few items.”
Proud parents Annan and Joe Richmond (centre) are pictured with baby Abigail and (l to r) The Co-operative Food’s Kirsteen Robertson, Ela Latosi, Brian Edmiston and Gemma Bignall.