PORTHCAWL

Send Your News To: 42 Suffolk Place, Porthcawl, CF36 3EB. 01656 451844 davidn-w@homecall.co.uk

Car parking in Porthcawl: Bridgend County

Borough Council has confirmed that councilmaintained town centre carparks will be free to use between now until the end of July.

The free car parking concession is being provided as part of the council’s range of overall support for local businesses.

In Porthcawl, it will be available at the Hilsboro and John Street carparks. The car park at Salt Lake will remain temporarily closed until further notice.

The free car parking does not include Rest Bay car park, which is now open.

In addition, Bridgend County Borough

Council is providing local businesses with free training, advice and materials designed to help them reopen.

The council provides businesses with free start-back training, and has made equipment available such as sneezeguards which can be installed around tills and shop counters.

Porthcawl Covid-19 Strategy Group: I appreciate that times they are a’ changing and nonessential shops can now reopen, but the virus has not gone away and the Porthcawl Strategy Group is still needed.

I am sure that there are still people out there who find themselves in need of the services they offer; if you know someone in need of help or if you are in that position then then contact them on porthcawlc19s.weebly. com and you will find a great weight has been taken off your shoulders.

I have mentioned before that if all you need is someone to talk to, then again contact the group by referring to the leaflet you had through your letterbox or refer to their website: porthcawlc19s. weebly.com, or their Facebook page Porthcawl Covid-19 Strategy.

With the development of ‘phone buddies’ it may be that you will develop friendships that carry on well after the pandemic

Television and the best of times: I know I have said it before, but I seem to have watched more television in the last few weeks than I have watched over the last ten years and in order to try and keep away from television I have been emptying boxes from past generations: but sometimes they get mixed up.

I found a ‘Form 739’ which would be the then version of the current

P60.

It was issued by the Salop County Council Elementary Education Department dated May 1924 to my mother, Alice Claudia Jones giving details of monies paid to her as an infant’s school teacher in Market Drayton C.E. Infants School for the period

1st April 1923 to 31st March 1924, in the sum of £141/4/- with a deduction of £7/1/2 under the School Teachers Superannuation Act 1922. Wow! £2/7/6 per week.

Then a newspaper cutting came to light. My father Rev David Williams Bethany

Church Port Talbot was elected Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Wales in 1954, and one of his first tasks was to try and push through a recommendation that the minimum wage for ministers should be raised from £400 pa to £500 pa: this after 5/6 years in University and Theological College.

My first job in 1952 was one and a half times my father’s highest ever wage.

I don’t know how my parents managed and I have to say that my brother and I never went without anything that we needed: but then things were cheaper I hear you say.

True! My mother died suddenly in 1961 and I found the receipt from St Catharine’s Church Baglan in the sum of £8/12/6 including Excavation of grave, Church Maintenance

Fee, Burial Fee and Registration Fee.

The gravestone was extra as was the undertaker’s charge both of which were reasonable.

This leads me to the regrettable fact that these days you can’t watch a programme on television without some wealthy celebrity who is being paid handsomely for his showing, extolling the fact that what you as a viewer really really