“I remember the German bombers going over.”

- Stephanie Davies, farmer’s daughter (Rumney)

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Stephanie Davies (Nanette Hepburn)

“We cycled or walked everywhere,” says Stephanie Davies of Upper Newton Farm as she recalls life on the Levels and the disruption that war brought.

Hand milking the Davies family’s dairy herd and running a milk round without electricity (power didn’t reach these parts until the 1950s) was hard enough. But managing the little farm after it took a direct hit from a German bomb didn’t make life easier. “One cow, she was blown out of the shed by the blast! They found her wandering up the next morning with the chain still round her neck. Alive!”

The nonagenarian farmer’s daughter remembers the itinerant reen cleaners who came to stay once a year: “We’d put a bed up for them in the barn. They were very strong men and they kept the reens clean with just a spade and a fork.”

She watched army lorries bringing unexploded ordnance onto the Levels (“they must have dumped them in the mud on what we called the lynches”) and generous GIs dishing out sweets. “We always did very well for food despite the rationing, but,” she admits, “it made such a difference to the work when we finally had the electricity.”

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Life on the Levels

Life on the Levels Interview

Stephanie is the daughter of farmers from Rumney. She remembers the war and how it affected the area; her family home was bombed and they had to move out to other accommodation. She remembers the Home Guard on the seawall and many other fascinating details of this area.

“I grew up in Utopia.”

- Arthur Thomas and wife Anne, farmer (Marshfield)

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Arthur Thomas (Emma Drabble)

St Mellons-born Arthur recalls how his little village (“it was very compact”) once supported five pubs including the White Hart, Fox and Hounds, Star Inn and the Bluebell. But it was the milk meadows that really made the place: “The grass grows wonderfully.”

These rich pastures led to the Levels serving as Cardiff’s dairy and before he and Anne took on their own farm, Arthur helped his father, Walters deliver milk by pony and cart from his farm, Hendre Isaf, to St Mellons and beyond to Rhymney and Roath. Walters progressed to a three-wheel Raleigh van and even built his own house in 1935 “from the makings of the milk”.

Arthur, after serving with the RAF on atomic warfare, left and with Anne bought their own farm. He was a self-taught farmer and when it came to hedge repairs he was stumped. “I’d never done hedge laying so I stopped and talked to this grumpy old so-and-so laying a hedge.

“Next thing I know he was at the back door: ‘I’ve come to see if you’ve got a job for me.’” Evans the hedge layer stayed with the Thomas’ until he retired.

“We put that farm right. We did all the fences, the walls: marvellous. I had a great education off this gentleman. I owe him a lot.”

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Life on the Levels

Life on the Levels Interview:

Arthur recounts his childhood in St Mellons, school life, church, dairy farming and the milk round, utopia, drinking from the reens, wartime and the drainage board.