At long last the day had arrived for our trip to Wales, wrote Beryl Yull. I have been looking forward to this since last September when we started to make the arrangements. We all decided it would be best if we all made our own way to Neath, where we had booked into a restored 18th Century farmhouse.

We all arrived safely, and after booking in we all gathered in the lounge and started asking each other what we could remember, I did try to warn them that things had changed quite a lot, but then it would after fifty years, but mam's house was still standing although someone-else was now occupying it.

We set off the next morning for Garnant, and drove up the road where our grandparents had lived. As my brothers and sisters were getting out of their cars I was watching their faces to see if they recognised anything. The eldest of us can remember the house, but the youngest could only remember the ground floor flat at the other end of the row of houses, where mam and dad lived until their end.

The road and houses hadn't changed, but the surroundings had. The fields were overgrown, and the field directly in front of mam's house now had some scruffy garages on it. I think it was Dennis who said to me, ''This used to be the field we came down on our sledges in the snow.'' I said, ''yes'' and looking at it now I wanted to tear the garages down and see the field as it used to be.

We made our way down the side of the house to the back entrance where the gardens were, and everyone was silent. It was a sad sight to see, all the gardens except one were overgrown and a sorry sight. I think we all remembered how they used to look, when dad used to pull a carrot out of the ground, rub all the soil off and give it to us to eat. Wonderful days and I would like to dedicate this story to them both.

We walked back to the road and along to the last house where they lived in the ground floor flat; they had a scullery, a kitchen and a small room to the side, and a small winding staircase that led straight into the one small bedroom. The toilet was again half way down the garden, but it was ok because we didn't know anything different, but I can remember the spiders.

We spoke to the man who now lives in the whole house that has been completely renovated, and his was the one garden that was looked after. He allowed us to walk down his garden, from where you can see for miles the wonderful mountains in the distance.

I stood there with my sister Marion looking around and remembering so much, feeling a little sad. We made our way back up the road leaving the youngest of us with her husband talking to the man whose name I forgot to ask.

We then made our way to the other end of the road where dad used to sit on a long log with his friends, smoking their pipes and chatting away in Welsh. From there we went down to the main road where the little post office was still in operation and just as tiny.

Marion asked me where the little sweet shop was, where our sweets were wrapped in a cone-shaped wrapper twisted at the bottom and the top flap folded over. I told her that used to be right next to the school that wasn't there any-more, and of course the sweet shop had also gone.

I wished at that time I had a magic wand and could bring it back for her, because she looked so sad that it had gone.

We came to where the school and sweet shop used to be. Now it was a car sales center and garage with some flats built where the sweet shop used to be. There was a lady saying goodbye to her daughter and asked us if we were lost as we were all looking around.

We explained why we were so interested in her home, and she asked us a lot of questions and confirmed that the school had stood where the garage was and of course the sweet shop. We had to drag ourselves away from her, but it was nice that she showed so much interest.

From there we made our way back to where we had left our cars; time to say goodbye to Bishops Road, and go in search of the picture house. It wasn't too far away because I remember walking there with mam and holding tightly onto her hand walking home in the dark, with my eyes nearly closed, and walking into the warm kitchen where dad sat smoking his pipe, and with the table was set for supper, a warm drink and to bed.

And there it was, not a picture house any-more but still as I remember it looking quite good considering. Someone said we should try and find the Chapel where some of our relatives are buried. On the way there we passed a river where Dennis said he had cut his foot on some glass, and said he remembers that quite vividly still, because his friends had to carry him back to mam's to get the wound cleaned up.

In fact the little Chapel was right next to the river, and we found three graves with our father's surname: his parents were in one and two of his brothers in the other two. We never knew his father for he had died very young in the year 1923 aged 44. His name was George Slocombe.

Nanny lived until she was 75 and died in 1960. Her name was Lydia Elizabeth, I remember her very well as she gave me some words of advice that I still adhere to today.

Our pilgrimage was coming to a close. As I sit here writing this I wonder if I will ever go there again, you never know.

The two children sitting on mam's house steps I believe are my brother Jon and sister Marion.

The elderly lady with the white hat on is my dear grandmother, I called mam.

Beryl Yull, Lincolnshire, 2002