Last Saturday, we held our coffee morning at Monkton Church Hall. For those of you who have not been to one of these - besides serving real filter coffee and home made cakes at the very reasonable price of £1.25, we put together an exhibition or presentation on differing aspects of our heritage. There is no charge for any of our events as we cover costs with the sale of coffees and a raffle. We regard our meetings as a place to meet friends, have a chat and enjoy our heritage. And bring in any photos to scan or memorabilia if you have them to share.

Old Pembrokeshire Postcards

For last week's meeting, Stuart and I put together a slide show (or rather digital presentation as it is now called) of old picture postcards of Pembrokeshire. Whilst we already have a very large collection of local postcards, I have to thank Nancy Davies for giving me additional photographs of the county which she obtained from her nephew Graham Davies. For those of you who follow these pages, you may remember that Graham presented to the museum a great deal of material on the Pembroke and Tenby Railway which formed our major exhibition last year to celebrate its 150th anniversary.

Narberth

With the help of my invaluable IT savvy husband, Stuart, I arranged these photographs into a tour around the county, starting with Narberth. Many of these photographs depicted the town in the years of the 20th Century with crowd scenes of people in Edwardian dress enjoying carnivals, fairs and market days. What a very busy place it then was, and is now of course, very much a town that is admired for its successful town centre. Narberth even has a very fine museum now, of which we are very envious!

Saundersfoot

We next travelled over to the coast at Amroth and Wiseman's Bridge, neither of which have changed greatly, unlike Saundersfoot which, as can be seen in the photograph, had a railway running through it. This was the miner's express, which travelled from the Bonville Colliery, through the tunnels then along what is now The Strand to the harbour where the coal was delivered on to boats for transportation. It is hard to believe nowadays that this popular seaside resort was once an industrial area!

Tenby

Next stop 'fair and fashionable Tenby' and even today, despite its post war expansion, Tenby Harbour is a view hard to beat and one of the top views of Britain - Pembroke Castle as well of course! I was born in Tenby and remember it in earlier times when Serpentine Road was on the outskirts, and I used to play in the green meadows where the large estates of Upper Hill Park and Lady Park now stand. But the town and its beautiful beaches have not changed a great deal - except how in the world the planning authority allowed that new monstrosity on the South Beach beats me! One great loss was the demolition of the Victoria Pier and this can be seen in the photograph. Its demolition was before my time, but my mother used to talk about it.

Haverfordwest

And so along the coast to Manorbier, Freshwater East and West and around the coast to Pembroke and Pembroke Dock. As old views of our towns are frequently displayed in this paper, I will move on up the Cleddau to Haverfordwest, a town which definitely has taken a turn for the worse in recent years but which is now being improved considerably with grants to renovate the shop fronts. The old postcards show a thriving town of many shops and crowded streets - unfortunately the planners in their wisdom are now killing the town centre by moving everything up to Withybush.

Postcards also reveal Haverfordwest's maritime past when the river was an important highway and ships at the Quayside unloaded cargoes on to horse drawn vehicles. Like Pembroke, it is amazing to contemplate that Haverfordwest was once a port and large coastal traders would make their way up the Cleddau to carry and collect their cargoes from a busy quayside!

Milford

Milford next and such changes have taken place there! I remember, as a child, being taken to see the fish market and what a hive of activity that was, along with the making of nets and ice in the ice factory. And what a journey that was from Tenby! We caught the bus to Pembroke Dock, took the Hobbs Point ferry across to Neyland and waited for the next bus to take us to Milford. A day trip no less!

I have a particular interest in this as my grandfather was a trawler man from Brixham. His name was Harry Rowse and he had a trawler named the Silver Spray, so I believe. He settled in Tenby marrying a local girl, my grandmother, whom everyone called Annie, and they ran a fish shop in St. Mary's Street. My mother told me that fish would be sent down from Milford. This photo of the trawlers reminds me of this. Other postcards picture the attractive sea front which Milford still has, although the outdoor swimming pool below the Rath has gone, as have so many outdoor pools and lidos.

DVD of photographs

There is not room to feature any more photographs here, but the journey continued along to Dale, Solva and St. Davids to Fishguard, Goodwick and Newport. We have put the photographs to music on a DVD which can be viewed on a DVD player. This will be made available to anyone wishing to have a copy at Pembroke Museum, all donations to the museum.

WW1

project update

The meeting also included an update on our WW1 project and an appeal to anyone having photographs to bring them in, either to our meetings or to Pembroke Museum. We have a display of photographs in Pembroke Town Hall and this will be added to throughout the year. Then on Saturday, November 1, we will have an end of project event in Pembroke Town Hall culminating in a presentation on Pembroke in WW1 to which other heritage groups are invited.

Next event

This evening, Friday, April 11, Richard Davies, an excellent speaker, will be giving an evening talk on 'The French Invasion of Fishguard ... and Pembroke's Part in the Story', 7.30 pm. We are bringing forward the talk this month because of Easter.

Contact

If you have any stories, photographs or feedback for this column, please contact me, Linda Asman, on 01646 622428, email [email protected]">[email protected] and visit our website http://www.pembrokeandmonkonhistory.org.uk">www.pembrokeandmonkonhistory.org.uk