If Greg had been back home to Holyhead for these few days when there was no entry in his flying log book, he may have spent today at the family home in Porth-y-felin, getting ready to return to Yatesbury. In those days, Porth-y-felin was a small settlement separated by farmland from the main port town of Holyhead. This photograph was taken close to where they lived, and shows Holyhead Mountain:
Rising some 720 ft (220 m) from the Irish Sea by the ferry route to Dublin and Kingstown (as Dun Laoghaire was then called), the rocky Holyhead Mountain was and is always more than a mere hill!
It was the mountain that had brought the family to the town in the early 1900s. Greg’s father was a mining engineer, and had been engaged by the mineral rights holders to reopen and then run the quarry at the foot of the mountain, which is mostly formed of “rather pure Holyhead quartzite” (see http://www.angleseynature.co.uk/geology.html).
As my daughter lives in Trearddur Bay I will endeavour to locate the view when I next visit in June
I spent my early years in Holyhead, as Greg did two generations before me, so I can place the point from which the photo was taken fairly precisely:
The lower road was widened and the promenade established some time after the old photo was taken – in the 1950s, I believe – so the lie of the land isn’t quite the same now. But I think that the camera was more or less where the bushy tree is, between the two roads in the Google street view image.
Enjoy your time at Trearddur Bay. I spent a lot of time on the beach there when I was little!
Thanks for this. It is interesting to see how things have changed over the years. I was at Valley in the early 1960’s on Firestreak missile firing trials and the difference when I went back in the 1970’s and in the last couple of years is unbelievable, particularly the dual carriageway across the island. my son in law was search and rescue pilot so he knows Valley well. He also flew Chinooks for many years and also ran the Sea King simulator after retiring and is now the operations officer on the helicopter unit there. I don’t know if you are aware but Robbie and I go back to the 1950’s being at Halton as apprentices and served on 206 Sqdn Shackletons, at St Eval, St Mawgan and Christmas Island.
Thanks for that, Pete. I’d heard you and Rob went back a long way!
You probably know that the building on the right of the old photo (and just visible behind the boat masts and trees if you zoom in on the Google street view image) is Porth-y-Felin House – though we knew it as ‘Government House’ when I was growing up – where No. 1113 Marine Craft Unit RAF was based with its Vosper Thornycroft Rescue & Target Towing Launches (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Holyhead).