A Night To Remember.

It was seven o`clock on the seventh day of the seventh month, 1971.

Aberdare, a small mining town in the Welsh valleys,

Cwtched in between The Rhondda and Merthyr hillsides.

Aberdare, “The Queen of the Hills” – in her time.

Noted for Caradog,

A famous conductor of male voice choirs that once sang before the king.

Also noted for the number of pubs it boasted within its vicinity.

It had been a hot, sultry summer.

A summer of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones,

A summer of Sandy Shaw,  mini-skirts and hotpants.

A summer when the pubs had run dry of beer,

Long poured down dry throats to slake their thirst

In a swirling,  edifying, refreshing wave of icy coolness.

Me and the girls out for a good time,

Basking in the golden glow of a beautiful summer evening,

Skin bronzed and flushed with youth,

Eyes bright with excitement for the night ahead.

I was twenty one and it was my birthday.

There was ten of us, mostly young we had shared our schooldays together.

Some were married, some were not

But all united by anticipation and a heady sense of freedom.

It had been agreed that hot pants would be worn,

So like long, bare legged filly`s we set off to drink the town dry.

Four hours later and all the worse for wear we wound our separate ways home.

Familiarity and instinct got me to my mams

Where my brother carried me to bed when I past out in the bathroom.

It was the toilet seat, spinning like a top that flung me to the floor

And there he picked me up – fireman style,

Throwing me over his shoulder and dumping me on my bed.

We all met up a week later.

Carol said that she`d sat up in bed and thrown up all over Sid as he lay beside her.

He`d cleaned them both and then she went straight back to sleep.

There`s love for you isn`t it !

That boy was always potty about her.

Married at sixteen they already had two little boys.

Mair said she`d forced the bus to stop at the top of the Merthyr mountain,

Then provided entertainment to the other passengers by being sick at the side of the road.

No-one made it to work the next day.

Everyone had a tale to tell but all of us agreed,

As a girls night out

It had definitely been a night to remember !

Jan Wharton.