Miah Lewis, Customer 1950 - 2005

I suppose I first visited the Severn Arms as a schoolboy after a football match and since that time this has been where I have met some of my best friends and neighbours. The Severn Arms is where the characters of our community could always be found and which has throughout my life been managed by a succession of kindly and successful landlords. I have the happiest memory of local people who had a profound knowledge of country ways and a strength of character which came from experience and a lifetime of hard work on the land. Anyone who visited the Severn found there a way of life and a culture that has been cultivated over many centuries and which has survived the challenges and changes of more recent years. Farmers could enter the Severn with their problems and difficulties and meet there others with far greater troubles and realise how fortunate they were. The Severn was also a good leveller. Some might arrive over confident and boastful of their successes and leave realising that there were others who had done just as well or even better. The truth is, we learned from each other, both the skills that are at the heart of farming and also the tolerance that makes for a stable society.

 
Among the characters at the Severn I best remember are such people as Jo Watkins of Fronlace. He was a great reader and most knowledgeable and with the ability to judge a farm animal second to none, but prone to exaggeration. He once bought a bull which he reported was so large that it caused the sun to rise later at Fronlace because of the shadow it cast, or the snowdrift on the forest larger than any ever seen, or the aircraft that flew so low over the hill that it caught the fence with its wing and tore up a whole length leaving it wrapped up in a neat roll! He once asked another regular, Dr. Jinks (Dr Jenkins) to suggest a cure for an ailment. The good doctor recommended a mixture of some five or six drinks from the bottles behind the bar. Jo thanked him and asked if he could buy the doctor a drink in return. ‘I’ll have the same as you’, said the doctor.

 
Many of the old characters had special skills and abilities. Sid Bufton of Sunnybank could run his finger down a column of figures and immediately give the total. He knew exactly who had bought what and for how much after each auction without reference to a written record. Jack Morgan of Cwmtrallwn was a skilled thatcher of ricks and hedger. Tom Botwood of Crossways was an expert at feathering and dressing poultry, and able to catch rabbits and fish whenever he wished. Alan and Stan Price of the Craig were two bachelor brothers with a wealth of knowledge of local history and custom, great domino players and welcoming and friendly to all. Tom Griffiths of Baileymawr was a ‘gentleman’, Bob Phillips, a railwayman and builder, helped with the football club and loved his greyhounds. Basil Griffiths was a great athlete in his youth and had a distinguished war career. Some years later when his eyesight was failing he could not recognise the local policeman who greeted him at the bar, having previously driven his car to the pub! Jack Bufton of Eaglestone was liked by all. Charlie ‘Abrocho’ of Penrhiwfrank once took the auctioneer R.P. Hamer all the way out to his farm on a very wet day to show him two cows but failed to strike a deal. His concluding remark was ‘If I didn’t do any good I showed you two good cows’. And overseeing it all was Bessie Brown the landlady. When she called ‘time’ we knew it was time to go!

 
I suppose my happiest memories of the Severn Arms relate to Market days - big Cattle Auctions three times a year and Lamb Sales every Tuesday from mid-June to early March. A good trade was celebrated by all, and if it was a poor trade we would drown our sorrows. The Severn Arms has always had a reputation for its singing, especially in the period before Christmas. Millie Thomas played the piano, Dai the Swydd conducted and we sang carols, hymns, and sentimental songs - even those who couldn’t sing. We knew the words without any books in those days as we had learned them all in school. Hymns like ‘rugged cross’ and ‘Beulah land’ were Millie’s favourites and the old war-time songs. Earlier when the soldiers were on the common there had been Canadians and British soldiers to swell the singing – and the takings on ‘pay day’ were such that it was nothing to have to empty the ‘till’ two or three times in an evening. Years later we formed the ‘Severn Songsters’ and for a number of years gave concerts around the area. I was the conductor, Millie Thomas was on the piano and Dai Davies the Swydd was compere. Among those who sang with us were the future ‘Country Company’ Clive & Sandra, Robert and Susan Lewis, the Evans Sisters, Sheila, Sandra, Susan and Pam, Pete Davies, Glyn Thomas, Tom Price, Bev and Rob Watkins, Don and Gladys Lewis, Mr & Mrs Lewis Abermithel, John & Jennifer Smith, Colin & Dorothy Davies (secretary), Ida Davies, Dot Green, Sheila Lewis, Libby Griffiths, Margaret, Rita & Christine Lewis, Dot Bayliss, Joyce Powell, Elsie Griffiths, Edna Morgan, Ivy James, Tom Davies, Evelyn Cadwallader.