00:00:01 Introduction

00:00:29 Glenys is born in Brook Terrace, Maerdy in 1921; family background

00:01:40 Glenys’ school life in Maerdy and Ferndale; the primary school headmistress being a committed Methodist with a strong support of the Welsh language

00:02:27 Welsh was the exclusive language of the home for Glenys in her early life and was married in a Welsh service; despite being raised as a Baptist, she married a Calvinistic Methodist minister and became a Methodist herself

00:03:39 Glenys attended Ferndale Grammar School and did well as a pupil. After finishing school Glenys takes a job in Woolworths, Pen-y-Graig; the logistics of travelling to and from work

00:05:52 As a teenager, the chapel was still a centre of social life in the village; as a younger child, Saturday matinees at the cinema

00:08:12 During the war, air raids meant that public transport came to a halt even with passengers on board; the dangers of getting about in blackouts

00:09:08 Despite wanting to follow her cousin’s path into the Royal Navy, Glenys’ mother makes her take a job in industry and she moves from her job in Simmonds Aerocessories, Treforest, to start at a new factory in Sunderland

00:11:17 The first journey to Sunderland doesn’t go as planned

00:13:19 The excitement of being away from home for the first time is tempered by the fear of the country being at war

00:13:42 While in digs, their landlady looks after the girls; air raids were a regular occurrence

00:15:06 Due to a medical condition with her legs, Glenys has to return to Maerdy towards the end of 1944