I was given details of your web site a week ago. I am thrilled with what you have so far put together. My family have many links with Llandaff North dating back to the early 1880s. In fact I was amazed at one entry in your guest book (4th January 2004) the actual mention of my family and referral to my father's father, also my father's brothers. My father is the E. J. Boyer mentioned who played in the famous record breaking Pontypool RFC team in 1928, he was known to all as 'Jack. He was also the Welsh Elyn Games Sprint  Champion in the 1930s over 100, 220, 440 yards, he also won the high jump and long jump he was also a top rugby player and boxer. Alongside the Pineapple pub was the snooker hall where my father was a snooker champion in the 1940s. He also drove racing cars at the Goodwood Race Circuit which was a wooden race track. He also rode a red Ariel 1,000cc motor bike at the Isle of Man TT races. He kept three racing motor bikes in the garage at our home in Hazelhurst Road. I was born at 15 Hazelhurst Road on 28th May 1936, my sister Janice (now resident of Fairwater) was born two years later in May 1938. My Grandfather and Grandmother (father's side) lived at 23 Hazelhurst Road until they passed away. My father's brother George had a daughter called Ruth who moved into their home to look after my grandmother when she got frail. Ruth married Elwyn Davey who served in the Royal Navy during WW2. They remained in the house. Elwyn became the manager of the Roath Dock in Cardiff, they had three children. Ruth now in her 80s is at this present time a patient in Rookwood Hospital being tended by a nurse who is another member of my family. My father re-married after my mother passed away in 1942 we moved from Llandaff North to live in Roath Cardiff so he could be near his work, he was the Chief Fireman at the old Pengam Moors Airport, at the time it was Wales main aerodrome during the war. Men from the RAF, USA, and Poland flew bombers and fighter aircraft to and from the airfield. Many returned after sorties in Europe which I witnessed had been shot to pieces. The aerodrome was demolished in the 1950s and factories were built on the now vacant ground. Elkes Biscuits and the Range Rover factory being the most remembered.

I was pupil at Albany Road School until 1952. In late 1953 I Joined the Royal Marines and served in Commando' units until 1967 when I was medically discharged after a helicopter accident in Borneo. I lived in Plymouth before returning to Wales in 1969. I lived with my wife and two sons in a village called 'Llandyfodwyg known in English as Glynogwr, it was situated on the main road midway between Gilfach Goch and Blackmill. I was stationed at Gilfach Goch ambulance station with Mid Glamorgan Ambulance Service after I had transferred from South Glamorgan Ambulance Service, I had worked in the Cowbridge Ambulance Station for five years. The Thatcher government and with inflation at 19% we migrated to Melbourne in 1979. We've lived in OZ ever since. We live at a beach town called Dromana on the Mornington Peninsula which is some 60 miles south of Melbourne. The town made the world news when the Arthurs Seat Mountain chairlift collapsed leaving many tourists trapped in chairs for many hours on the 3,000 feet slope overlooking the town.

 I had an unbelievable occurrence two years ago. For fourteen years I was the Chief Security Officer of 'Fosters Brewery in Melbourne. A  group of us ex management and friends, attended a 50th birthday bash for one of the ladies who worked in the company medical centre before marrying and leaving the company.  The bash was at her home in a remote high mountain area in the east of the state some 350 miles from Melbourne. I've only been known and called Taff since living in OZ and the services. During a conversation at the local village pub one of the group a very large chap Jim Davey 6' 5" with an aussie accent asked me where I came from in Wales. As the conversation went on the entire group became mesmerised in dis-belief. Jim turned out to be my first cousin. He was born at 23 Hazelhurst Road and is the son of Ruth's who's eldest daughter lives in Adelaide South Australia, where Jim Davey was raised after they migrated when he was aged about six. A very small world, Jim is the top manager of 'Caterpillar for the Antipodes they make the biggest earthmoving trucks in the world that operate in the Australian and NZ mines, also Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Jim is the only relative I have ever known since last seeing the family together as a young lad in 1948. My father's brother Alf who lived in Bell Vue, Llandaff North played cricket for Glamorgan in the 20s we had gathered with relatives from Neath, Swansea and Llanelli at my grandmother's house, the evening of the day we had all been to watch Glamorgan play Australia cricket at Cardiff Arms Park the last game in which the great Don Bradman played. 

I have vivid memories of life in Llandaff North as a young lad during the war years and after, the halcyon Sunday nights during the summer when most of the locals and courting couples congregated at the old brick work ruins on the edge of Hailey Park. We joined in the summer hay cutting on the area that replaced the allotments after the war. During the winter the sleds our fathers made we used to race down the slope of Puvey's Field the other side of the river, sometimes getting soaked after breaking the ice on the water cress that grew in the ponds at the bottom hedge row near the road. Unhitching the horses and walking them to the other side of the bridges   when the barges went under the bridges with the bargee laying on the top pushing with his feet under the bridge to keep the barge mobile along the canal. The barges then queued waiting to go into the lock, we then received our reward a large bottle of Tizer between us. We started out at the Melingriffith Works and as far as the lock. The barge men adjourned into the Cow and Snuffers. The lock was shut down and filled in after a tragic accident. A school friend of mine Jean Andrews her grandfather when walking the old towpath slipped and fell into the lock which was then only a few feet of water and mud. Sadly he drowned and it was then filled in with earth.  About that time the Tivoili where we use to go on a Saturday to the 'Tuppeny Rush, we watched ' Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, Boston Blackie and the Three Stooges with so much noise going on. The cinema became a car showroom after it had first been a short lived timber goods emporium.

My 'Uncle Abe Simms lived in the barber and sweet shop in Station Road next to Basil Hughes Chemist shop. The barber who took over the shop during the war was Percy Evans and his wife Lill. Uncle Abe lived with them he was my mother's brother, he served in the Royal Artillery in WW2, rising to the rank of WO2. The gun battery he was in charge of based in England was unique, the guns were the actual guns used in the Battle of Jutland during WW1. My father was one of the members of the Llandaff rowing club 'eights, they trained on the river on both sides of the weir. The Hailey Park bridge was memorable he his mates used to dive off the bridge in the summer, he also taught me to swim in the river after making me swing on a rope suspended off the trees into the murky coal dust water. But no way would I dive off the road bridge I had visions of getting stuck in the mud. My grandmother 'Nanna Simms who we lived with used to give him hell about letting me go into the dirty coal dust water.

I have photos of my father watching a steam roller working on the main road from the Llandaff North Police Station down to the bridge when it was being tarmaced in the 1930s. I will dig out any relevant photos and will send them to you for the site. Our closest friends here are Alan & Marjorie Criddle they live in Melbourne, they once lived in Ty Mawr Road in the 1950s after they married.  Marjorie's father was the gamekeeper at Cardiff Castle, he also sold fish from a two wheeled cart which he used to push around the streets in the 1950s. Alan was a carpenter - a very skilled cabinet maker. Unfortunately they are not on the internet. They still have family living in Llandaff North,  Allan's brother with whom they are still in contact..

I still have the New Testament presented to me when I was christened at the church in Hazelhurst Road. I can still recall life in the village during the those days in 1940 and 50s. When later living in Cyfarthfa Street in Roath Cardiff I used to roller skate from Roath to Llandaff North via Whitchurch and back home after visiting my Grandmother. I always had to walk the last mile or so along Whitchurch and City Road because of having no wheels left on my skates they fell to pieces.  My father's eldest brother Tom worked on the railway for 49 years his house was one of the last ones of the terraced houses on the Whitchurch Common.  I have only been back to Wales once that was in 1996 I was able to catch up with my uncle Abe Simms in his Station Road shop since last saying goodbye to him in November 1979. He was running the sweet shop down in 1996 being on the verge of retiring. I also recall another Llandaff North lad who played for Llandaff RFC, he was a national serviceman in the Royal Marines the same time I was serving as a regular. I can only remember his name was Kevin I'm not sure of his surname or if he still lives in the area I last met him at Abe's hop in the 1970s.

I'll close for now hoping I haven't bored you. I will certainly keep in touch and will look for photos from that era. I will also make contact with Jim Davey who is away at the moment everything closes down in Victoria for a month during the summer holiday.

Yours aye

Albert Boyer (Taff)

67 Rainier Avenue

Dromana - Victoria

Australia. 3936.

Tel  : 61+ (03) 5987 1394.

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I am also President &  Secretary (22 Years) of the Royal Marines Association Victoria - Australia. Past President & Secretary Victoria Welsh Male Choir (best Welsh choir outside of Wales.)