The new dining hall / assembly hall
in Trecynon, 1960
from Mrs Christine Evans
Appearing to be in its final stages of construction, this building
was completed in 1960 to give the school a new kitchen and much larger dining area for
lunchtime school meals. It also served as the morning assembly hall. Prior to 1960,
both the old school hall and Bethel Vestry had to be used for morning assembles. For
dining prior to 1960, both the original 1900 dining room and the room above, connected
by a dumb-waiter, were required. In the 1950s and 60s this first floor room also served
as the Art room during the rest of the day. Also on the first floor was the staff room,
a room where the atmosphere was almost opaque due to thick cigarette and pipe smoke!
At about the time the new building was opened the roof was daubed
with whitewash by a party of rebellious pupils. The incident was discovered one morning
by an enraged headmaster. The whitewash spelt out a derogatory phrase which escapes
our memory, but it might possibly have been: ‘The Cowshed’.
The building in the background is School House, where the first two
headmasters lived. The third headmaster, W. Rees Williams, preferred to live in
his own house in Broniestyn Terrace, and so from 1937 the house became vacant. In our
recollection Mr David Jones the caretaker occupied the house in the 50s and 60s and
possibly before this time also. The house is now in private ownership and is almost
unchanged from its appearance shown above.
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