50 years ago in Llandudno (Sepia Saturday 769)

In a blog post written yesterday, Yorkshire Pudding mentions going to Llandudno in Wales for the weekend. "Yay!" said I to myself - because I remember the place, from having visited it some 50+ years ago, on one of our family holidays in Britain back in my teens. I wasn't quite sure whether 1971 or 1974 though (we visited Wales on both those trips), so I had to check my photo albums. It turned out to be in June 1974. 

The colour photos and postcards glued into my album half a century ago have no doubt lost much of their original colours; but I decided to copy them with my camera, do what I could with them in Picasa3 (the simple photo editing software I've been using ever since I first started blogging - which is almost ancient history in itself now), and use them for a Sepia Saturday post.

This view of Llandudno, with the long beach, matches the memories that came up in my brain as soon as I read the name.

My dad was a big railway enthusiast, something that also very much had its influence on what places we visited on our travels in Britain. In Llandudno, it wasn't a steam train that took us up in the mountains on the Great Orme Railway, though, but a tram. Checking Wikipedia now, I see that nowadays it is indeed called the Great Orme Tramway; and that this was also it's original name. But between 1932-1977, it was known as the Great Orme Railway (cf the postcards above) - until 1977, when the name was changed back again. According to Wiki, it is Great Britain's only remaining cable-operated street tramway, and one of only a few surviving in the whole world - and "still open seasonally from late March to late October, it takes over 200,000 passengers each year from Llandudno Victoria Station to just below the summit of the Great Orme headland". 

Maybe a more recent visitor to Llandudno can provide information about how much the price for a trip up to the Summit has gone up since 1974??

A photo obviously taken on our way UP...

A 1974 Sepia version of yours truly, up on the Summit.

On the hill in the background, people had used white stones to create huge images/patterns/letters/messages, visible from afar. Does anyone know if they are still there? (I know that hill figures, and especially white horses, are an old tradition in Britain; but a quick google search I did now didn't mention Llandudno in that context.)

My parents and brother standing outside/below what I assume is probably the hotel where we were staying. (No note made in my album about its name, and that sign on the wall isn't readable.)
 

Linking to Sepia Saturday 769

 

Memories from Devil's Bridge (Sepia Saturday 588)

 

 

The prompt for Sepia Saturday 588: "a covered bridge going to who knows where"

I can't recall that I've ever been on a covered bridge like that one. However, in the past, I have been on a lot of old railways and steam trains, because of my dad's love of them. Most of our family holidays (by car) back in my teens, both in Sweden and in Britain, involved visits to various railway museums and other remains of old railways and station houses. 

The combination of railway + bridge brought back one such memory in particular: From Devil's Bridge in Wales, visited on a family road trip in England and Wales in 1974.

Postcard (1974)

We went there by steam train from Aberystwyth, through the Vale of Rheidol:

Ticket (1974)

Postcard (1974) -  Rheidol Valley

I'm afraid the only photo of my own from Devil's Bridge is not really blog material - even after an attempt to enhance it digitally - but here it is, anyway:

It shows my parents (well, dad's cap and mum's jacket) having climbed down to some lower platform beneath the bridge, to look down on the river (Mynach) - and perhaps also see the construction of the bridge(s) from below.

Wikipedia is more helpful when it comes to reminding me of details:  

The bridge is unique in that three separate bridges are coexistent, each one built upon the previous bridge. The previous structures were not demolished. The top one (from 1901) is an iron bridge. Beneath it are two older stone bridges, the oldest one from medieval times. This Wiki photo shows the construction more clearly than the old postcard:

Photo from Wikimedia Commons
(geograph.org.uk 2005)

According to folklore, the first bridge was built by the Devil - hence the name.

According to legend, the original bridge was built after an old woman lost her cow and saw it grazing on the other side of the river. The Devil appeared and agreed to build a bridge in return for the soul of the first living thing to cross it. When the bridge was finished, the old woman threw a crust of bread over the river, which her dog crossed the bridge to retrieve, thus becoming the first living thing to cross it. The devil was left with only the soul of the dog.

Besides the postcards in my album, I have another souvenir to remind me of the visit to Devil's Bridge - a piece of jewelry I bought in a gift shop there. I guess one reason it has stuck in my mind where I bought it is the contrast between the name of the place vs the item itself: a Celtic cross.  It is one I have worn quite a lot over the years, as it has a very clever design - it can be used both as a pendant and as a brooch.