FORGOTTEN
After competition forced their factories to close
McKibbin said: “The Gower was three thousand miles or a stone’s throw away. It could have been America for all we cared. We were worlds apart from anywhere else.”
By 1951, a huge new tinplate factory was built on the other side of Llanelli in Trostre. The Trostre site was a pioneering project and one of the largest of its kind. The new factories were too big for those in Machynys to compete with and, ultimately, they closed in 1961.
Many of the Machynys workers moved over to the Trostre site, but continued living in the communities until they received a knock on the door during the mid-1960s.
Grief poured over the communities on that day when families were told that, as the works were closed, the 90 houses would be demolished and a that they were being forced to leave.
A whole community was destroyed as generations prepared to leave all their memories behind and elderly grandparents were evicted from the only homes they’d ever known, and relocated to other areas in Llanelli such as Morfa and Bynea.
Mrs McKibbin, who now lives in Burry Port, said her mum, who had lived in Machynys her entire life, was devastated after being told she had to leave.
“It was like a grief. There was a knock on the door one day and that was that, everything they’d ever known was going.
“People were broken-hearted. They were losing their friends and that sense of community.
“People helped each other, everybody trusted each other and everybody knew everyone – it was a real community,” she added.
After the majority of residents moved out in the mid to late 1960s, much of the community lay derelict and idle for nearly three years, waiting patiently for the bulldozers to turn up one morning and flatten homes and businesses.
That day came in 1970 when both communities were demolished with little trace that families, street parties and children playing in the streets were ever there.
Today, the only indications that the working-class communities ever existed are the small street and golf course which hold their namesakes and the remains of Machynys Farm’s brick gateway.
Generations left their homes and community. Now there is nothing to go back to.