Memories of London Pembrokeshire (From Western Telegraph)

Memories of London Pembrokeshire

DEAR EDITOR, - Does anyone remember the London Pembrokeshire Society in the 1950s when Mr Michael Harries, a chemist in the East End, was the jovial president and Miss L. M. Thomas was the diligent secretary?

Miss Thomas spent her Saturday afternoons at Paddington Station seeing young girls off the train from Pembrokeshire, finding out in a caring way if they needed support of any kind or help to find accommodation.

I recall a small Christmas party at the rooms above Studio One or Studio Two Cinema in Oxford Street, our meeting place, and a summer outing we went on out in the country somewhere.

That was the London of Lyons Corner Houses, particularly the Marble Arch one on Sunday evenings, before crossing over to Hyde Park Corner to listen to people, after church or chapel, holding forth on their soap boxes on all sorts of subjects, and entering into the hwyl of Welsh hymn singing, all of 50 years ago.

MISS MARY RICHARDS 6 Green Meadow Avenue, Pembroke.