Tag: Second World War

The Memories of a Child Evacuee from Folkestone to Merthyr Tydfil, 1940 – part 1

by Peter Campbell

MEMORIES BEFORE EVACUATION

All of a sudden life became very strange to me as a little boy six years old. I didn′t know what was happening, Shops were all being boarded up big tin sheds were being built in tunnels under the ground at the end of the streets; they were called air raid shelters. All along the sands where we played was all sealed off with rolls of barbed wire it was all very confusing.

Everybody seemed to be wearing uniforms soldiers, sailors, airmen even the women were dressed up as nurses. There were armoured cars, tanks, lorries full of soldiers all over the place. My Dad said it′s OK it′s just in case the enemy try to attack us. Then we saw great big grey balloons in the sky with big ears we thought a circus was coming to town, Dad said no the balloons had a lot of strong wires hanging from them this was to try to bring down enemy planes that would come in low to drop their bombs. At school we were all given a cardboard box with a long string tied to it inside was an ugly thing, a rubber mask this was a gas mask which everybody had to wear just in case there was a Gas attack.

Henry and Rosina Campbell – Peters parents

Every day we would have to put them on for a short while just to practice, we thought it was funny because we all looked like monsters! Also, if you blew hard when you had them on it made very rude noises! We were told if we did not have a mask on we would be very sick, so everywhere we went from that day on the box went with you hung around your neck. Grownups had them, they even had one you could put a baby in! My Mum and Dad were putting brown sticking tape all over the windows, and hanging black sheets they looked terrible and dark. We were told it was necessary to stop any lights shining out at night and anyway there were men patrolling the streets they wore black tin helmets with the letters A.R.P. painted on them and if they saw a light they would bang on the door a shout “Put that light out”. We asked why they had letters on the helmets Dad said it stood for Air Raid Precautions they were volunteers just helping to make us safe. Cars had special black hoods over their headlights; this we were told was all done so that enemy planes would not be able to see our town at night.

Down at the bottom of the garden my Dad built a big shed and put a heavy roof on it and a door I thought it was going to be a den for us to play in because it had lots of things in it bunk beds, blankets, tins of biscuits and cakes, drinks, books and comics, but he said no it was a shelter which we would all use if necessary to keep us safe. I did not understand what he meant.

When the air raid sirens started I was very frightened Dad said they were just testing, if it was a wining noise up and down it was danger when it was a long blast it was the all clear. Many times we would have to get up to go in the shelter but Mum made us sandwiches and hot drinks and we would sing and play games. I thought it was great at night you could see big beams of light sweeping across the sky Dad said they were search lights looking for enemy planes. Once or twice I remember it was too wet to go outside so we hid under the stairs, we were lucky we heard plenty of bangs but nothing else. Some houses further down were damaged but nobody told me anything.

My Dad always had the radio on at night so we had to be very quiet.

I remember we used to climb up a big grassy hill called Sugar Loaf Hill it looked right down on to the harbour and out into the Channel, we used to watch the ships out at sea and see big splashes in the water nearly hitting the boats and aeroplanes up in the sky then coming down very low we saw some crash into the sea making very big splashes, we thought it was very exciting – but we really did not understand what was happening.

One day at school the siren sounded so we all had to go down in the air raid shelters which had been dug in the sides of the bank with seats and lights and plenty of things to play with. We sat there with our teachers they gave us chocolate and lemonade and we were singing when there was a very loud bang it really shook the ground around us. It was very frightening then it all went quiet, when the all clear siren went we all came out. Our school was alright but on the golf course which is right near our school there was clouds of smoke and a very big hole with a plane sticking out of it, its tail high in the air with a funny cross on it, we were told it was a German plane.

I could not get home fast enough to tell my Dad as he worked at the RAF station in Folkestone but he already knew all about it. I was so disappointed that he knew before me, he said it had tried to bomb the station but was shot down by one of our planes.

So things were getting worse more and more air raids everybody looked sad, some days we couldn′t get to school because of holes in the roads, I did not worry too much as we could play at home, but Mum and Dad were not happy…..

To be continued…….

Many thanks to Les Haigh for giving me permission to reproduce this article. To see the original please visit:-

http://www.leshaigh.co.uk/folkestone/evacuee.html

Last Honour for Nazi Victim

by Terry Jones

Whilst doing some research, Terry came across a fascinating article in the Merthyr Express dated 23 June 1956. Here he has written his version of the story, and what better time to post it than day after we remember the fallen of both World Wars.

In 1937, due to the escalation of atrocities against Jewish people by the Nazi party in Germany, Stanley Baldwin, the Prime Minister, made a wireless appeal on behalf of Jewish children in Germany for British families to help them.

One of these children was 13 year old Edgar Adolf Fleischer, son of Herr Max Fleischer of Berlin. Young Edgar left his parents and embarked on one of the Kindertransport, eventually arriving in Britain in April 1938. Here he was adopted by Mr F Wallace-Hadrill, a house-master at Bromsgrove School.

A keen musician, amongst the meagre possessions that he was allowed to bring from Berlin, Edgar carried with him a small violin case, holding his most precious possession – a violin. He had actually taken a few lessons at the Berlin Conservatoire until the Nazi racial laws forbade Jews to receive such lessons. Upon arriving in Britain however, he once again pursued his musical ambitions.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, and as soon as he was old enough, Edgar wanted nothing more than to join the British armed forces and fight the hated Nazis. In 1944, having taking the necessary oaths of loyalty to Britain, and officially changing his name from Fleischer to Fletcher, he joined the Royal Army Service Corps, and soon rose to the rank of Sergeant, and was selected as a cadet for further training for a commission.

Before he could complete his training course, in the aftermath of the D-Day landings, he was posted to Normandy to reinforce the British Army’s campaign to liberate Europe.

In 1945, he returned to Britain to complete his training, the last stage of which took place at Rhayader in November 1945. With just two days until his commission was due, Edgar took part in the final exercise – an assault exercise on a steep hillside. As he reached the summit, he slipped on the shale and fell forward on to his Bren gun and was killed instantly when it discharged. The only positive from this was that he never lived to find out that both his parents had been murdered by the Nazis in one of the death camps.

Edgar Fletcher was buried with military honours at Cefn-Coed Jewish Cemetery on 24 November 1945. His headstone bears two inscriptions – one in Hebrew and one in English:

Hebrew: ‘O let his soul be bound up in the bond of life’,

English: ‘Who falling among friends shares their promised land’.

Dewi Bowen – A Tribute

by Mansell Richards

Earlier this year, on 16 June, Merthyr lost one of its great characters, and a huge champion of the town’s heritage, when Dewi Bowen passed away at the age of 93. Here his friend and former colleague, Mansell Richards pays tribute to the great man.

Dewi Bowen was a legend in his home village of Cefn-Coed, a legend at Cyfarthfa Castle School and a legend across the town of Merthyr Tydfil.

A naturally amusing man, he enjoyed making people laugh, whether passers-by in the street, his school pupils and their teachers – not forgetting headmasters – canteen ladies and caretakers, councillors and mayors. But he will be remembered mainly as a gifted artist and teacher. His imaginative artistic output was prodigious: his illustrations of scenes redolent of Merthyr and district’s rich and colourful history can be counted in their hundreds. It is no exaggeration to say that no individual over the decades contributed more to the heritage of this famous Welsh town.

St Tydfil’s Church by Dewi Bowen

Dewi was born on 7 August 1927 at number 87, High Street, Cefn-Coed-y-Cymmer (he loved to give his village its full title). From an early age he showed artistic talent which was nurtured at his beloved Vaynor and Penderyn Grammar School. In 1944 on leaving school at seventeen, he was directed to work as a coal miner for 2 years as part of the national war effort against Hitler’s Germany. This meant he had to postpone entry to art college. Dewi took pride in his years as a ‘Bevin boy’ at Elliot Colliery, New Tredegar and the Rock Colliery, Glynneath.

Indeed his memories of being a young miner never left him. Many of his detailed illustrations were based on his observations of those hard- working men who risked their lives daily in often dangerous conditions.

Similarly, he identified strongly with the soldier in both World Wars, but especially during the First World War.  He never tired of telling of his father’s experience at Gallipoli and Mesopotamia, while his mother served as a nurse in both those wars. This strong affinity with the soldier never left him. Thus in later years, he joined a British Legion excursion to Flanders in order to be present at the unveiling of a sculptured red dragon monument at the site of the Battle of Mametz Wood, where thousands of Welshmen had been killed in 1916.

Dewi never refused work for charities. His cleverly designed, eye-catching posters, advertising fund-raising events appeared at local shops, pubs and libraries. Indeed, he and his scholarly brother Dr Elwyn Bowen MBE, to whom he was devoted, made a massive contribution toward necessary funding, estimated at tens of thousands of pounds, when the Urdd National Eisteddfod visited Merthyr in 1987.

The programme from Cyfarthfa High School’s 1982 production of Christmas Carol designed by Dewi Bowen

Dewi rejoiced also in designing the scenery for the Cefn-Coed Operatic Society which flourished during the 1950s and, contributed greatly in this respect to the annual stage musicals and concerts performed by pupils and staff of Cyfarthfa High School, a school he served loyally for 30 years.

Continuing along the cultural path, his work was regularly exhibited at the National Eisteddfod of Wales, while he contributed to many heritage projects across Merthyr and other districts of South Wales.

He took a particular interest in the preservation of the Joseph Parry Birthplace Project which won the Prince of Wales award. He played a pivotal role in this success for his school. The visitor to 4, Chapel Row, Georgetown will see a beautifully inscribed stone plaque alongside its front door. Not only did Dewi purchase the block of dressed-stone out of his own pocket, but he lovingly carved the inscription,  including the evocative words, ‘Joseph Parry, y bachgen bach o Ferthyr, erioed, erioed- Joseph Parry, a little boy from Merthyr , forever, forever’.  This carved tablet will remain a monument to the creative talent of Dewi Bowen.

His final contribution to the Merthyr cultural scene was to provide the superb illustrations for a book on Merthyr place-names, compiled by Malcolm Llewelyn. Dewi was delighted to be invited as a guest to the book’s launch last year.

But let us return to his never-to-be-forgotten humour, which appealed to people of all ages. At Cyfarthfa School, some pupils with only limited talent were known to have opted for art, mostly for the pleasure of being taught by him. Several brought him regular small gifts of sweets, while one girl, aware of his liking for wimberry tart, presented him with one every autumn. He was, undoubtedly, one of Cyfarthfa School’s most popular teachers.

One story he liked to tell concerned a friendship he had at Cardiff College of Art with the beautiful future actress Anna Kashfi, who was later to marry the Hollywood star, Marlon Brando. When teased about this, Dewi replied ‘I never understood how she preferred Brando to Bowen!’

Dewi never owned a car, preferring to walk almost everywhere. He particularly loved walking holidays during his earlier years. He visited the Holy Land and parts of Russia. When asked why he loved walking so much, he replied. ‘If you’ve spent 3 days in an ancient bus crossing the Negev Desert in the company of 2 Arabs and 50 sheep, you too, would enjoy walking’.

On another occasion he accompanied a friend to see a Wales/England rugby match at Twickenham. With Wales snatching victory towards the end, Dewi insisted on joining the triumphant Welsh supporters on the famous pitch. He astonished his friend by asking for help in order to ascend one of the very high rugby posts. After climbing unsteadily onto his friend’s shoulders, they were both confronted by a London policeman, who turned to the friend with the instruction ‘put the gentleman down please sir’.  Some yards away a group of Cyfarthfa sixth-formers were holding their sides with laughter.

Cyfarthfa Castle by Dewi Bowen

Dewi loved music, especially light opera. He was a regular visitor to Cardiff theatres to enjoy Gilbert and Sullivan productions. He loved singing some of the songs in his distinctive sweet tenor voice, often when talking to friends on the telephone. Dewi would entertain at the drop of a hat.

But his greatest love was his family. He nursed his mother who lived to be a hundred during her final years, while his admiration for his brother Elwyn was profound. He received considerable love and support from his exceptionally loyal nieces, Ann and Elizabeth and sister-in-law Gwynfa, while he gained much joy from his young great nephews, Ewan and Llyr.

There can be no better epitaph to Dewi than in Shakespeare’s words:-

‘We shall not live to see his like again’.

The Castle Inn (Tavern Twll), Caepantywyll – part 2

by Barrie Jones

Born in Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire, it is not surprising that his memorial stone is inscribed in Welsh. On the stone is a verse in keeping with many Welsh headstones and is a Welsh type known as englyn. The verse describes John as a fond husband, a loving father, both willing and generous and that there has never been a man on earth with his healthy vigour, nor more genial.

At the time of taking on the licence, John Lewis may already have ‘retired’ from puddling, the Cyfarthfa Works was closed from 1874 until 1879 and this interval may have marked his ‘retirement’. More so because after such a long layoff the exacting work that puddling entailed would prevent a return to work for a man of his age.  Charles Russell James recalled:

“puddlers in front of the huge furnaces plying their long puddling bars before fires that would roast an ox. To protect their bodies they wore long leathern aprons. The work was most exhausting. They did not live to be old men. They got shrivelled up at a comparatively early age, and often took to drinking beer heavily. No wonder poor fellows, for their thirst must have been a consuming one. They got heavy wages, but no wage can compensate for that class of killing work”.

Puddling was dangerous work, for example, Gabriel, one of John’s sons was forced to seek temporary parish relief for himself, his wife and four children in 1897 because of burns suffered at work.

Through his work, John would have been well acquainted with the beer trade, and the reopening of the Cyfarthfa Works in 1879 would have been a welcome boost to those inns near the works. John’s entrance into the beer trade and, the expansion of the inn, may have been prompted by the Work’s reopening. The iron masters appreciated from an early stage that their workers could not stand the hot, dusty and fume filled atmosphere of the works without regular intake of water. Beer offered the safest alternative to water and the works purchased beer from the nearby pubs on a contract basis for special exertions. When ‘encouragement’ was needed for special exertions beer notes were written by departmental managers, so that the beer could be brought into the works for the men or could be collected by them when they went home. In addition, public houses formed a useful gathering point for workers at the end of their shifts and especially those inns where gang masters paid their gangs their weekly wages.

John had a relatively short-lived career as a publican, no more than a decade. It would seem that the driving force at the Castle Inn was his son Samuel. Joan, John’s widow, moved out of the inn and Samuel became the full time landlord. During this early period Samuel’s sister Catherine and her husband Alfred Parry assisted him. Alfred was no stranger to the licensing trade; his late father Lewis Benjamin Parry was formally landlord of the Black Lion, Picton Street.

Samuel married Diana Smith in 1902 and continued to manage the inn for the next twenty years.

Samuel gave up the licensing trade in March 1915, with the transfer of the Inn’s licence to George Rees.  Samuel had then moved to number 20 Gate Street. At the time of his death in March 1933, he was living at number 12 Dixon Street and working at the Dowlais Works.  Samuel had inherited his father’s geniality; during his time as a landlord he had established himself within the community and must have been an active and well-liked personality, as testified by his obituary in the Merthyr Express:

“It is with deep regret we have to record the death of Mr. S. Lewis late of the Castle Inn, Caepantywyll, at the age of 57. Working at Dowlais Works, he collapsed at his work last Thursday leaving his home at 12 Dixon Street in his usual good spirits.  It came as a great shock to his sons, daughters, relatives and friends. A great sportsman in past years and well known throughout Merthyr, the deceased was a widower of the late Mrs. Diana Lewis”.

It seems fitting that Samuel had returned to the industry that had helped prosper his father and his older brothers for so many decades and to what was then the last iron and steel works in Merthyr Tydfil.

It’s uncertain when the ‘old’ inn was demolished and the larger ‘new’ inn built in its place. The rebuild may have taken place just after Samuel’s retirement in 1915.  George Rees was the licencee throughout and after the First World War, and by the onset of the Second World War the licencee was Arthur Charles Sussex.

The Castle Inn in 2020

The Pant War Memorial

by J Ann Lewis

Ninety-five years ago today, on 4 July 1926, General Marden unveiled the Pant War Memorial, with about 1,300 people in attendance and with loud speakers and microphones were in place for the event. Pant was the second village in the area to erect a memorial to the men killed in the First World War.

The Memorial Committee was inaugurated in 1920; house-to-house collections were organised and many promises of weekly contributions were made, but due to the coal strike of 1921, and the trade depression that followed, the final cost of £800 was not quite met. The local inhabitants had paid the bulk of the money, and the school-children contributed largely through the many concerts organised by the staff. Also mentioned for their donations were: Merthyr Football Club, the directors of the Victoria Cinema and the Oddfellows Hall (where the concerts were held).

Mr F. J. Bateson released the ground he had rented from Messrs Guest, Keen and Nettlefold, enabling them to give the ground, previously owned by Daniel Thomas, stonemason, for the memorial. Before the memorial could be erected, the urinal built in 1906 had to be moved to the other side of Caeracca Bridge.

The Memorial is built mainly of Portland stone, with the side wing walls and steps leading to the cenotaph of local limestone. The bronze plate centrepiece reveals the names of local men who were killed during the conflict.

Designed by Mr C. H. C. Holder, a curator at Cyfarthfa Museum, the sculpture is a monument to the skill of Councillor F. J. Bateson from Pant and his assistants. The Mayor, Alderman D. Davies J. P., another Pant resident, accepted the deed as a gift from Mr S. J. Lloyd, Secretary of the Memorial Committee. The mayor had actually lost his son in the War, and his name is commemorated on the plaque.

General Marden, in his response, thanked the Dowlais Male Voice Party for “the most wonderful singing he had ever heard”. The march to Pant was led by the Municipal Band and the G.K.N. Dowlais Silver Band.

A second plaque was added to the memorial to honour the men of the village who died during the Second World War.

Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

To the left hand side of the main memorial is another plaque honouring the men who had been employed at the I.C.I. Factory at Dowlais who died in the Second World War. These were:

  • Simon Davies
  • William Evans
  • Thomas John Davies
  • Norman Ernest Freshwater
  • Cameron Meredith
  • Glyndwr Price
  • Frank Wills

Professor Herbert Nicholas

Today marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of  Professor Herbert Nicholas – yet another Merthyr boy who worked hard to make it to the top of his profession.

Herbert George Nicholas was born on 8 June 1911 in Treharris. He was the youngest of seven children born to Rev William D Nicholas, minister of Bethel Chapel, and his wife Mary (née Warren), daughter of Samuel Warren, one of the foremost businessmen in Treharris, who opened Warren’s Drapery in Perrott Street.

At an early age, Herbert contracted rheumatic fever, which prevented him from attending school until he was 11. During this time he was educated at home by his eldest sister Evelyn, who had become a teacher. When he became well enough to attend school, Evelyn arranged for him to attend a small school in Cardiff run by a remarkable deaf lady, Miss Maud Humphries. Having travelled back and forth to Cardiff daily for three years, Herbert won a scholarship to the prestigious Mill Hill School in London. Mill Hill School was set up in 1807 by merchants and ministers from non-conformist backgrounds in order to provide a place of learning for the boys from their communities, as the “ancient” public schools at this time required all their pupils to belong to the Church of England.

Following his, not altogether happy, days at Mill Hill, Herbert won a place at New College, Oxford to read Greats. For the whole of his time at Oxford, his sisters supported him financially. The sums spent on him were carefully noted by Herbert however, and his sisters were duly repaid later. He graduated in 1934 with first-class degree.

The following year, Herbert acquired a Commonwealth Scholarship to travel to America to study history at Yale University. Originally concentrating on 17th Century history, he became more and more fascinated by contemporary American history, and he developed a huge admiration for the policies of President Franklin D Roosevelt. Upon his return to Britain in 1937, having managed to live off earnings for occasional articles he wrote as a freelance journalist for several months, he accepted a job lecturing in 19th Century History at Exeter College in Oxford.

Having spent two very happy years at Exeter College, the idyll was cut short by the outbreak of the Second World War. Classified as unfit for military service due to his bout of rheumatic fever as a child, Herbert joined the American Division of the Ministry of Information, where he had, as he later wrote: ‘…an indecently enjoyable war. I vastly enjoyed the work which was a natural extension of my academic interests, I had the company of singularly agreeable colleagues….’

In 1944, Herbert was elected as a fellow of Exeter College, and in 1946, following the cessation of hostilities, he returned to his post at the college. In 1948 he published his first book ‘The American Union. A short history of the USA’. In 1951 he published his only book about a British topic ‘The British General Election of 1950’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That same year, he was invited back to New College to take over the position of tutorial fellow in politics. Although holding fellowships in other colleges (Exeter and Nuffield), New College would remain his base. In 1959 he published ‘The United Nations as a Political Institution’, which would eventually be published in five separate editions. In 1969 he was elected Rhodes Professor of American History and Institutions at Oxford, and in the same year he was elected to the British Academy, becoming vice-president in 1975-6.

Soon after his election as Rhodes Professor, he moved to Headington to look after his elderly sisters Evelyn and Doris, devoting nearly all of his time to their welfare. During these years he did find the time however, to write two more books – ‘The Nature of American Politics’ (1980) and ‘Washington Despatches, 1941-45 (1981). The first of these books is still used prominently in University courses on both side of the Atlantic.

When Evelyn died in 1987 (Doris having died previously), Herbert returned to college life, delighting friends, colleagues and ex-pupils with his sharp wit, punning one-liners and gifts as a raconteur. His favourite story being of how, in 1950, he, slight and bespectacled, together with his middle-aged schoolmistress sister, went with his pupil, Stansfield Turner, later a US admiral and head of the CIA, to hear a speech by the general secretary of the Communist Party, Harry Pollitt, who was fighting for a seat in South Wales. For their parts they found themselves denounced in the Daily Worker as ‘a bunch of American rowdies with their gangster’s moll trying to wreck the meeting.’ Most importantly, though, he never forgot his roots in Treharris, and spoke fondly of his youth there.

Herbert’s activities were curtailed when he suffered a stroke in 1991, but he recovered sufficiently to still be a major part of New College until his death on 3 July 1998 at the age of 87.

Breaking the Glass Ceiling – Laura Ashley

by Diane Newman Jenkins BA (Hons)

Laura Ashley was the first female entrepreneur, and I wrote this to honour and celebrate a Dowlais born girl from my home town of Merthyr Tydfil.

Laura Mountney was born in Dowlais on the 7 September 1925. Although her Welsh parents lived in London, they returned to ensure their child would be born in Wales. She was born in her Grandmother’s house in 31 Station Terrace, and it was from these humble beginnings in a colliery workers cottage she would go on to become the owner of a multi-million pound fashion and furnishing empire, with 500 shops worldwide carrying her name.

As a child she attended Hebron Chapel in Dowlais, and went to school at Marshall’s School, of which I can find no trace on maps or documents. This was until 1932 when she moved to England and attended Elmwood School.

At the beginning of World War II, Laura was evacuated back to Wales. However the Merthyr schools were full, so she attended Secretarial school in Aberdare until 1942, when, aged 16, she left school and joined the Royal Navy Service.  Here she met the English engineer Bernard Ashley at a Youth Club.

Laura became Mrs Ashley in 1949 when she married Bernard. She and Bernard started a small business in 1953, in a basement flat in London’s Pimlico, Laura and her husband laid the foundations for what was to become one of Britain’s greatest fashion success stories.

She was inspired by an exhibition of Patchwork and Quilts on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Laura used library books to teach herself how to transfer colour onto fabric, working on a silk screen built by Bernard in their kitchen. This allowed her to make fabric for furniture, curtains etc. in the 1950s, expanding the business into clothing design and manufacture in the 1960s. The company grew over the next 20 years to become an international retail chain.

While working as a secretary and raising two children, Laura undertook some work for the Women’s Institute on quilting, revisiting the craft she learnt from her Grandmother and books. But this was no overnight success story. The couple struggled to raise working capital and every bit of the profit was invested straight back into the business. Her first order was 20 scarves to John Lewis stores.  This grew to printed tea towels, gardening aprons etc. Bernard eventually left his city job to join in the family business. The couple went on to have another two children who all worked in the family business.

Laura became known as a British designer who achieved renown for her genteel Victorian inspired fashions in women’s clothes and for her English country style of furnishing for homes. For more than half a century her name was synonymous with quintessential English style, but Laura was Welsh through and through. Wales played a huge part in her success.  Her first shop was in Machynlleth in 1961, with a factory two years later in Powys. Bernard was the company chairman and Laura kept her eye on the fabrics.

1970s printed cotton dresses by Laura Ashley exhibited at the fashion museum in Bath 2013

From humble beginnings the couple went on to success in the company allowing them to afford a yacht, private plane, Chateau in France, town house in Brussels and a villa in the Bahamas.

In 1985, just days after her 60th birthday Laura fell down the stairs at their daughters home in the West Midlands. She was taken to hospital, but sadly died days later of a brain haemorrhage. She is buried back home in Wales, in Carno.

The company continued without her. Sales totalled over £276 million in 2000. However in March 2020, due to the pressure put on retailers because of the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic, the fashion chain collapsed and went into administration.