ST0267 : Boys Village, St AthanVery fond memories for me. I visited twice for summer holidays. With my brother we arrived on the day England won the World Cup! I think that the BV had an affiliation to the Boys Clubs of Wales, we had one in our village. As a young man, my father had visited, as a youth leader I think, ditto other family members, all from our pit village . I recall watery porridge for breakfast and an hirsute Frenchwoman on the staff. By coincidence, dry steam coal for the power station nearby, was entrained from our pit- Deep Navigation. I swam into the deep end of a pool for the first time in my life, here.
The dorms had names like Llandinam, I believe that David Davies, of Llandinam, had financed the building of the village. He was also the owner of the Ocean company that included Deep Navigation pit. In those days- mid 1960s- the Vale of Glamorgan was like another world for us Valley boys. The sun shone on the sea and stuff grew in fields that had no sheep in them!