"Everyone, or nearly everyone, contributing to the Aberystwyth website seems to be young and their happy memories of Aber are in affluent times, but it wasn't always like that in Aber by any means.
Some of us lived in considerable poverty my mother bringing up four of us on £1 a week.
Above is a photo of the hut which used to house 'The Dinner Scheme' which I took just before most of it was pulled down.
The front of the building still exists and forms the pedestrian entrance to the car park in Park Avenue, just alongside the day centre for disabled people.
As you can see it was a stone building and had no windows except for the roof lights. Inside were long rough wooden tables and benches.
The butchers in the town used to give bones and unwanted meat to a group of local ladies who made soup (followed by rice pudding) for the poor children of the town.
The menu remained the same year in year out and for our dinner we used to have to pay one halfpenny. I had my dinner there for some years and I'm talking of the period around C 1940.
I still visit Aber about 4 or 5 times each summer and love to be there but it does have a certain decadence about it now with the harbour which I onced love filled to capacity with leisure craft and every other building almost being some way out cafe or restaurant. A far cry from the 'Dinner Scheme' of years gone by!"
Article by Ralph Tonks.
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Ralph Tonks from Loughborough
Nice to have further comments Janet. Interesting to know what the place was used for between when I knew it and later. Sad to hear they've pulled down the front part as well. Good job I took a photo of it when i did! I hated the experience of using the dinner scheme, being bullied as a very small boy in the queue waiting to go in and then having to eat the rather awful food provided. All rather Dickensian!
Sun Mar 8 17:29:11 2009
Janet, Aberystwyth
What a good photo. I think it then housed Avery Scales, and the Council Yard was situated to the rear until it was moved down to Llanbadarn (just by the railway crossing). Unfortunately even the front that remained has recently been demolished.
Wed Feb 25 14:35:51 2009
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