| Description | Track 1 [0:51:49] [Session one: 4th December 2017] David Griffith [DG], born in a modern flat above a shop in Willoughby, Hull in Yorkshire. Mentions his patchy memories of places lived as a child due to frequent moves during the War [WW2]. Mentions both parents were teachers. Mentions his father was born in Ystalafera, South Wales. Comments on moving back to grandmother’s house in Ystalafera to escape the bombing in Hull, although decided no better off in Wales after bombing of Swansea docks and moved back to Hull. Mentions his family joined the evacuation with the school his father taught in to Bridlington. Remarks on being four years old when they moved back to a village on the outskirts of Hull and whilst his father commuted to Hull to teach, his mum found a job in their village school. [0:03:56] Mentions having only vague re-collections of the evacuation to Bridlington; pupils from father’s school looking after him and some phrases of the war can be attributed to them [0:05:22] Mentions first memories were collecting pieces of shrapnel from anti-aircraft guns during the Blitz in their house in Hull and recounts this as being a big disappointment to him, when moving to a quieter village outside of Hull and having to leave all that treasured shrapnel. [0:06:50]Describes going to the village primary school in Yorkshire Wolds where his mother taught until passing the eleven plus and describes the eleven plus. [0:08:30] Remarks on gaining entry to the Grammar school in York where he stayed to do his A levels. Comments on his journey to school: a 3 mile cycle to catch a bus to York. Comments on his sister did a similar commute to York. Mentions the transition into the Grammar school was difficult which he attributes to its size. [0:11:40]Describes the punishments for misdemeanours: caning and drill [or detention] by a fearsome master but if you had a bus to catch there was a degree of leniency in that subtractions would be given and describes how subtractions worked. [0:13:29]Describes the school day, outside of lesson times; uniform was worn and school dinners costing 9p were available but could go to chippy for 6p meaning a saving of 3p. Mentions school milk was issued at break. [0:15:10]Mentions after school activities and remarks on uptake of these were reliant on the infrequent bus service home although in special circumstances could stay with friends. Comments on homework, varied according to the teacher. [0:16:36]Mentions he did A-levels in Maths, Physics and Chemistry in school as a result of doing well in O-levels. Comments on the reason that he only passed his Chemistry A-level as being his favourite and would be done in preference to other subjects due to the teacher being organised and issuing lots of homework to the detriment of maths and physics. [0:17:14]Mentions some of his friends opted out of National Service [NS] as they were starting university instead. Mentions NS was a good thing for him as he was fed up of studying after A-levels and describes going into Army in 1956 – two years national service. [0:20:10]Describes his entry into the Royal Army Pay Corp [RAPC] starting with the ten weeks basic training in Devises before being posted to North Korea where he stayed for eighteen months. [0:22:20]Describes being in Korea with other Commonwealth Forces such as Canada, Australia but mainly British and USA service men and at a time when the British and other nations were pulling out of North Korea. [0:22:48] Describes North Korea as a pleasant country with very nice but very poor people and comments on the only Western food being at the American bases. He considers his time here as being a very useful experience. [0:23:45]Mentions spending the remainder of his NS in Hong Kong and described Hong Kong as an absolutely fantastic place. [0:24:00] Mentions letters received via sea mail from home. Comments on his role in the RAPC and describes it as a very bureaucratic system. Remarks the pay book had your life story in it and mentions the differences in wages through the ranks with new recruits getting £1 10 a week whilst officers pay was on a different system. [0:26:53] Describes finishing his NS in 1957 at 21years old with an A-level and 12 O-levels to his name but remarks not being able to get the job you wanted without a degree and gives an example of a friend had gone to Bradford Technical College and done a London external degree. [0:30:35]Mentions getting a place at Swansea University to do Metallurgy after taking and passing his A levels in Physics and Maths at Bradford Technical College. [0:31:00]Describes Swansea’s History in the metallurgy industry as a reason why he felt it was preferable to doing Metallurgy there. Mentions a friend from Bradford was also on the course with him in the September 1959 intake. [0:31:45] Describes arriving at Singleton Campus and mentions their main preoccupation was where they were going to live. Mentions reading that Swansea students had a good social life especially with the student nurses at Morriston Hospital. Describes Induction week and managing to get homely accommodation in Killay at a B&B, a shared a room with his friend. Mentions moving with his friend in the second year to a B&B in West Cross, commuting back and forth to campus by motorbike. [0:34:50]Mentions lectures were in Prefab buildings with the newest buildings being the student union building and the library. [0:35:19]Describes the intensity of the course; six day a week job including Saturday morning lectures. Describes the relationship with the landlady of his first digs, Mrs Davies, regarded it as a home from home and due to having done national service previously not so much of a trauma being away from home. Story of competing to make the best Yorkshire pudding with his landlady due to the location of his upbringing and mentions they were sad to leave when the elder son moved home. The next B&B in West Cross was good, breakfast and dinner provided and routine was revision all evening in the front room. Remarks he would go down the pub. [0:39:45] Describes the phrase smokers which was a term given to an evening in the pub singing welsh songs – Calon Lan and more songs that today would be sung at the rugby ground and mentions the West Cross Inn and the Rhyddings pub, Sketty. [0:41:55] Describes laboratory work; looked at structure of metals, to do this samples had to be polished using abrasives to enable you to look at it under the microscope to see the crystalline structures of the material. Mentions photographing and applying various chemistry based experiments on these samples. Describes the course involved much lab work with chemistry lectures on Saturday morning. Remarks would share lectures with other disciplines with passing pure maths as a requirement to get onto the honours course and Mentions his time at Bradford College got him through. [0:45:31] Describes his social life at SU being mainly with the people on his course and controversially remarks on people doing Sciences had a harder degree than those doing Arts. Mentions his military background conditioned him to get through the high work expectation of the course. [0:46:54]Describes his free time; playing cricket for Swansea University and playing rugby for Dunvant Rugby Club in the local community. Story of how bumped into a friend that was in the National Service with him whilst playing rugby. [0:48:52]Mentions unsure whether many of his fellow students had done NS like himself and regarded it as an experience he was more than happy to have had. Comments on being lucky to have had the motorbike whilst at SU as a local method of transport but describes the torturous convoluted journey from Hull to get to Swansea.
Track 2 [0:63:12] Describes the adequate lodgings of his first year at SU, a shared bedroom with Bed and breakfast. Remarks on being treated to supper on numerous occasions by the landlady of his girlfriend’s B&B.[0:01:57]Describes his memories of Beck Hall as an interesting institution and comments that his girlfriend was there with her elder sister, both from British Guana, sharing a spacious ground floor room in Beck Hall. Recalls the Beck Hall night time curfew being 10pm although no day time restrictions and remembers having a cautionary warning by Elsie Griffiths [EG], a warden at Beck Hall, because he had a motorbike and was wearing crude apparel. Mentions EG had taken his girlfriend aside and warned her not to spend too much time with a man on a motorbike. [0:03:50] Describes dances at Beck Hall and comments on a particular fancy dress dance where his girlfriend wore a sari and remembers doing the conga through the kitchens. Comparison made to Beck hall today. Comments wore a relaxed party sweater with a skeleton design that his mum had knitted, to the party. Recollects it was a good occasion. [0:07:12] Remarks were no curfews set by the landlord at his loggings and mentions just having a key. [0:07:55] Mentions the Davies family where he resided in first year of Swansea University [SU]. [0:09:00] Describes some of the social activities he did: Lunchtimes bridge school in the refectory, pubs, playing golf on the par 3- 9 hole golf course at the bottom of singleton park and mentions railway on the beach. Comments he played bridge.[0:13:25] Describes refectory and college house and apart from registration, frequented very rarely. Mentions Arts students would have lectures in College House. [0: 14:20] Describes prefab buildings where the sciences were taught: held lectures and were set up as modern laboratories. Remarks that they were not brick built and contained dark rooms for photography development and facilities to prepare metal materials for microscopy. [0:15:25] Comments on local fieldtrips with subject courses: geology fieldtrips to a gold mine and steel works for metallurgy and also fieldtrips further afield: visited the steelworks in Sheffield including visiting famous cutlery works, the Lonsdale belts factory memorable for the boxing trophy belts and Scunthorpe United Steel Company where they were given beer. Mentions with all visits they were looked after very favourably.[0:17:30] Mentions an eight week summer job in a copper mine in modern Rhodesia, now Zambia during the summer of his second year at SU and giving a talk about it on his return. Comments being happy with the tuition given by the lecturers, preferring some and mentions Professor O ‘Neill as a very gentlemanly chap who gave the chemistry lectures in a multi-tiered room on Saturday mornings.[0:21:03] Mentions having no recollections of the principal of SU but recalls the presence of Kingsley Amis on campus. Remarks on Landlady’s son got a job as an extra in a film being made locally in that era [unsure of film name- Tiger Bay?]. [0:23:25] Describes the relationship between “Town and Gown”. Mentions got a dinner jacket from D L Davies Gents Outfitters. [0:25:55]Mentions Dick Barton’s fish and chips in West Cross and comments on the radio advert at that time, Dick Barton ‘fishal agent which was a popular stop shop after a night out and a place he frequented. [0:26:30] Favourably describes Oxwich and Langland beaches locally and having good weather to appreciate them: Oxwich was a popular bay to go on his bike and swam lots across Langland. Remarks upon Gower being an excellent place for swimming with sea temperatures tolerable compared with back home. Summarises Gower; as a beautiful addition to coming to do his degree at SU. Describes his preference of Gower over Mumbles and attributes this to having transport. [0:30:05]Describes playing cricket for SU and rating it a good way of seeing Wales during the inter-collegiate matches and acknowledges that rugby was most competitive. Mentions the cricket season wasn’t conducive to overwhelming numbers applying for the cricket team due to the nearness of exams. [0:34:51] Describes SU Rag Week. Mentions SU one year creating a [wagon train after a western soap on the TV] Mentions his concentration was more on his girlfriend and so didn’t integrate much with the town except for playing cricket against Swansea town which got them onto a high class cricket pitch. [0:38:00]Describes being secretary of metallurgical society in second year and his involvement preparing a float for rag week which was a wooden robot made out of plywood, admits it was a crude effort compared to the previous year’s wagon. [0:39:25]Describes being part of the team that organised the Departmental ball with jazz musician Monty Sunshine headlining. Mentions anxious that ticket sales wouldn’t cover high cost of band but it was a successful dance. [0:40:42] Describes the Summer ball: huge marquis on the sports field, girls in crinoline and rewarded with a beautiful evening. [0:41:30]Discuss his SU diary and admits not using Student Union very much with exception of the graduation ball and gives reason as inconvenience returning to campus in the evening after a day’s lectures. Mention it being easier to go to local pubs instead, [0:43:34] as there was no campus accommodation. Student union building was where Fulton house is today and comments on the how helpful the security guards at the entrance to SU were his only trip back to Swansea to getting parking for him, as parking is such a premium today. Reflects that parking was easy for his motorbike in the day when he was at SU however students didn’t have cars in those days.[0:46:16] Took a trip in friend’s Morris minor to see a rugby match at Twickenham. [0:47:00] Mentions food in refectory being informal and recalls his evening meal was provided by landlady with the more notable meals being made by the landlady of his girlfriend. Mentions that cooked breakfasts were always provided with little bias to any Welsh recipes. [0:49:06] Humorous story of how his dad’s memory of loving laverbread in his youth had changed over time. Mentions got faggots at Swansea market. [0:51:40] Mentions being unaware of any Campus changes in those three years [1959 -1962] but has seen huge expansion recently. Remarks on the Campus location as outstanding and was pleased with his choice to go there to do his degree and met girlfriend there. [0:55:33]Describes his career post-university; making graphite for use in nuclear power stations in Newcastle, making steel tubes and pipes at Stuarts and Lloyds at Corby before returning to production management in Newcastle. Remarks on Career change making Clutches for motorcars involved a move to a brand new factory in Caernarvon before transferring into health and safety. Mentions 1970’s good time to go into H&S and had Involvement with Health & Safety policy for Snowdon Mountain Railway. Describes final move to Burton on Trent as H&S in brewery and noted that by changing jobs at the right time he managed to avoid redundancies from the closure of many of these heavy industries. |