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Veteran Welsh poet, Ruth Bidgood, has been announced as the winner of the prestigious Roland Mathias Prize for 2011. Click Here for Literature Wales report.

There was silence for about 4 or 5 minutes, while everyone sat in thought. Then Dilys, Stephen's daughter, got up and read snippets from some of the letters she and her mother had received. One of them was from Islwyn, recalling Stephen's sense of humour and the twinkle in his eye. She read from another by ex-Pembroke Grammar School pupil Peter Hussey, in which he suggested that everything that Stephen did stemmed from his Quaker spirituality and that his inspiration lives on in so many people. I later discovered that Peter was actually in the congregation. Dilys went on to talk about her childhood and, specifically, how Stephen built a little boat, which disappeared on the high tide overnight, then building another and having such fun.

Stephen Griffith at home

After some more minutes of private thought by those present, another speaker rose to his feet and spoke - this time in Welsh. There followed about 4 or 5 Welsh speakers, each interspersed by a few minutes of silence. One of these was Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas (Plaid AM and Llywydd of the National Assembly for Wales.) Another contributor was a nephew who spoke about the good times he had in his childhood with Stephen. He also told us about Stephen's time in Ghana and how he would send messages home asking for things to be sent out - once for four tyres! I got the impression that, somehow, the request was fulfilled . He went on to speak about Stephen's many experiments, eg: building his own TV, 'which was never finished, because there was always so much to do with this and that'.

A lady then recalled her memories of making a tapestry about the founding of the Quaker Meeting House in Milford, which had been tackled at the suggestion of Stephen. This had been completed by eight ladies - apart from a few Welsh words at the bottom of the tapestry, which had been done by Stephen himself. The panel was embroidered in wool on a piece of coarse linen and Stephen had learnt the skill specifically to contribute those words. Another lady recalled a conversation with him about the concept of Quakerism - Faith, Hope and Love and how the most important of those is Love.

There was a short bible reading and then the lady who had spoken first thanked everyone for being there and invited everyone to have a cup of tea and some refreshments.

A very nice afternoon. Obviously, Stephen was very much respected and loved by everyone there. Dilys thanked me for being there and her mother did too.

Rosalie Lilwall (Minchin), represented The Penvro.com at the meeting. To read the full obituary of Stephen Griffith's life , CLICK HERE.

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THE PENVRO MAGAZINE DIGITAL
ARCHIVE PROJECT GETS UNDERWAY!

Islwyn Griffiths hands over his collection of The Penvro to
Mike Knill for the first scanning session in March 2009

Thanks to the generosity of past pupils Roger MacCallum & Sandra Briskham (Stevens), along with Islwyn Griffiths, thepenvro.com has been offered decades of the original Penvro magazines for scanning to a digital archive.

NEWS!

Do you have any news or items you would like to share? If so, please e-mail them to us by clicking on the Contact bar. Don't forget to include photographs, where possible. Scanned articles from the press or magazines are welcome too. Be sure to include the publication name and date so that we may contact them for permission to publish on The Penvro.

Most of the material featured on thepenvro.com has been submitted to us via the website or solicited from individuals by members of the editorial team. However, there have been some notable exceptions. The most obvious example was The Emlyn Lloyd 'Scrapbook', which was retrieved for us from a local museum by ex-teacher Dennis Lloyd. Now we can tell you about some other 'finds'.

In January 2011, a note was sent into the Penvro.com Webmail from a memorabilia/collectibles trader informing us that 2 scrapbooks of PDGS school trips from the early 1950's were to be offered for sale on e-Bay and it was decided that we would attempt to purchase them for the website.

Over the next week, Sandra Briskham and Lauren Brown kept a watchful eye on the offers that were submitted for the books, before swooping in to clinch the final bids. The vendor informed us that he was pleased that they were going 'home' and would be enjoyed by our website visitors.

Both the albums have been scanned in their entirety and are reproduced here as pdf files to show what they look like. (Click on the icon covers below). In addition all the photographs which illustrate pupils and staff on the tours have been scanned and a separate ‘Gallery’ of these will be put onto the website in due course. Some of those who actually went on those excursions are currently compiling lists of those they can identify.

We hope that others might recognise their parents or other relatives, friends or neighbours before we put them in a gallery. If you can help, please let us know by e-mailing us at info@thepenvro.com If you know of someone who is not online and might be able to help with this project, we are happy to contact them by post and provide hard copies of the photos if you provide their contact details.

Viewing Hint: You will find a larger photo for most that have pupils or staff in them on the page following which should make identifying them easier!

As soon as he arrived at the Argyle Street premises, Emlyn started to assemble what he termed a 'Scrapbook' of school photographs mainly of sSports teams and drama productions. These were meticulously labelled, adding to the value of the collection as an accurate record of those action-packed years. There were also photographs of the opening of the new school at Bush and unique aerial shots of the school taken from a Sunderland Flying Boat.

Following Emlyn's death, Dennis Lloyd, formerly Head of Games & PE at Bush, deposited the 'Scrapbook' in the Guntower Museum, Pembroke Dock, in accordance with Emlyn’s wishes. When the Penvro Website came into being, Dennis kindly arranged for us to borrow the book, and copy it, so that everyone could see the Photographs and share the memories.

Emlyn Lloyd
in 1963

The display of the Album on this web-site is a fitting tribute to Emlyn’s love and dedication in assembling the collection in the first place. We are all greatly indebted to him – as we are also to Dennis Lloyd for his foresight in realising the importance of these items, and for his diligent care of this remarkable document down the years. Emlyn certainly left his 'Scrapbook' in a safe pair of hands.

Through general usage down the years, the scrapbook was in some state of disrepair when we received it, and we arranged to have the spine rebuilt by a professional bookbinder - in a sympathetic manner, so as to preserve the character of the original. We were also able to produce a photographic copy of it in a large laminated format which can go on display and be used in the Museum, whilst the original can be archived and properly conserved.

Click to view in pdf format (10mb)

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