"After leaving Bettws in 1936 we settled in Pinner, Middlesex in the western outskirts of London, to be as near as possible to my father's work, Robert Maynard's Raven Press in Harrow. Such was the state of things then that we were immediately able to rent an empty three-bedroom council house at 65 Pinner Hill Road. For the first time we enjoyed the luxury of electric light and power, a bathroom and flush toilet.

It was quite a culture shock almost as much as the shock I got when I first went to Pinner Council School. There I was subjected to some ridicule because of the way I spoke. After my first day I cried to my mother that I wanted to go back to Bettws but such is the resilience of most children that I soon became accustomed to my new surroundings.

The one person I missed most was Mrs Hind. I first went to Wales at six weeks old and never really got to know most of my grandparents. Two were dead anyway and a third, my father's father, died soon after we left Wales. There remained my mother's mother, Louisa Moore, who lived in Marcia Road, Bermondsey a stern, wiry lady who called me 'boy'.

As often as possible my mother took David, Ivor and me over to see her (27 stops on the Bakerloo Line - Hatch End to Elephant and Castle and a penny tram ride down the Old Kent Road).

She usually served up a lunch of haddock swimming in greasy-looking water which I refused to eat. "You spoil him Beck" she would say to my mother "Go on boy, eat your dinner, you'll get nothing else" There was no hint of softness or care in her voice, not like the person I loved most outside of my Mum, my 'Nanny' Mrs Hind, back in Bettws.

She it was who used to hug me and let me take a ha'penny out of the small china bowl in her sideboard drawer, her 'tot' she called it. As with the ha'pennies from the Player's packets outside Hywel Jones' garage the coins would soon be transformed into eight Standard toffees from Andrews' shop.

I loved 'nanny' Hind and she loved me - her 'Bonz'. I dimly remember saying good bye to her when we left. "Don't forget me Bonz" she said.

Mrs Hind and my mother exchanged regular letters and Mrs Hind always remembered the birthdays of my younger brothers and me (In 1938 she sent me a watch for my eleventh birthday. My mother told me it was from Marks and Spencer and cost five shillings).

A day or so before Christmas in 1936 she sent us a chicken which she had killed, plucked, cleaned, packed and posted all in one day, the first of many more annual Christmas birds. My younger brother David remembers the parcels arriving with 'loose feathers poking out of them'!

At sometime in the early summer of 1937 my mother said to me "Do you want to go back to Bettws, just for a holiday?" It seems unbelievable now (in 2008) but when the day came for me to set off my mother took me up to Paddington Station and put me on the 11.05am Aberystwyth train, the same one we used to catch on our return journeys to Wales.

She walked me up and down the platform and found a compartment in which sat a man reading a newspaper.

She said to him "Excuse me, how far are you going on this train?" "Wolverhampton, madam" he replied "Oh, that will do" she said "that's only one stop before Newtown. Would you mind keeping an eye on my Bernard, I'm sure he'll be a good boy. He's getting off at Newtown and being met there" The man replied "Certainly madam" and raised his hat.

She waited until the first puff of smoke announced the departure of the train, handed me a bag of sandwiches, some fruit, sweets and two comics, waved goodbye and off I went.

It may seem strange but I hardly remember the journey. The man didn't say much but asked me now and again if I was "alright". I can remember getting off at Newtown at about four in the afternoon and Arthur Hind scooping me up and then the journey to Bettws in the Andrews' Ford 8 car.

Arthur remarked about the fact that I sounded like a Londoner and in no time at all I was enveloped in 'Nanny' Hind's arms.

I spent a glorious month with Brian Williams, Vernon Richards, Ieuan Jones and all the others I'd left behind but there was now a difference between us.

They didn't know but for the last year I'd been transplanted to a foreign land where there were streets of houses, stores, shops, cinemas, factories and municipal buildings. I'd ridden on double-decker buses, trams and, wonder of wonders, underground on the tube railway where on the Bakerloo line between Charing Cross and Elephant and Castle you actually went under the River Thames.

I'd been to the pictures for the first time, seen my first 'western' film, was a Saturday morning regular at the Rex cinema in nearby Northwood Hills and told the Bettws lads about Flash Gordon conquering the universe.

I had to explain to them what a radiogram was and how my father had purchased one which took pride of place in our living room. And whereas in Bettws the whole school had turned out if a plane flew overhead I now saw planes nearly every day.

And I lived in a house with electricity, a bathroom and a flush toilet. And when they asked me if my Dad was still playing his banjo I said airily "No it's too old-fashioned but my brother Bert is learning the sax and is saving up for a motor bike."

In short, at nine years of age, I had arrived in the twentieth century. As the day of my departure from Wales grew near I had very mixed feelings. It wasn't a great wrench to get back on the Paddington train heading for London. The rustic pastimes of Bettws were not nearly so exciting as those of Pinner.

Next year, in 1938, my mother sent my brother David with me. He was eight but she judged that Ivor, six, was too young to go. Despite my misgivings I found the holiday very enjoyable. Suddenly it seemed that the comparative freedom of roaming the fields, woods and streams of rural Wales was far more exciting and less restricting than the streets and parks of urban Middlesex.

I don't remember why my mother never sent us back in 1939. Probably because of the scares of war but when World War 2 did start we were quickly reminded of Bettws. The pressman at Gregynog, Idris Jones, was called up and Robert Maynard was asked if my father could be spared to complete one unfinished book before Gregynog closed down for the duration of the war.

Maynard obliged, my father was willing and so the connection with Bettws, Gregynog and my family continued for a few months. I didn't return to Bettws until 1954.

The war and its aftermath (including my national service) swallowed up a decade and by the time I thought about seeing Bettws again I was a married man and a father. The correspondence between my mother and Mrs Hind (and the Christmas chicken) had continued and Mrs Hind had sent a letter to my daughter Valerie when she was born which started with the words "Welcome to the world little baby". Valerie still has it.

In 1938 when I had last been to Bettws I left it in the Andrews' Ford 8. Now I arrived in my own Ford 8, not, I hasten to add, a gleaming almost new vehicle like the Andrews' but a second-hand battered old pre-war banger which I'd bought for £125. We were on a touring holiday and I'd written to Mrs Hind and asked if we could visit.

Arthur Hind had answered and said that we would be welcome but his mother was not well. She was a tiny shrunken figure who made every effort to greet us and managed a smile and even called me 'Bonz' but she had little strength.

She pointed to the sideboard drawer and indicated to Valerie to open it. The "tot" was still there but full of silver coins and Valerie took a shilling piece.

Arthur and his wife Dolly made us very welcome. It was a lovely day and we sat out in the garden and had a scrumptious tea. I took my wife and Valerie on a rushed tour of the village and through the churchyard. All too soon we had to leave. Mrs Hind was asleep when we left. I whispered "Good Bye Nanny" to her and cried as I said it. It was the last time I saw her.

My brothers have visited Bettws a number of times. My elder brother Bert who spent his boyhood in Bettws from the ages of eight to sixteen, went back and renewed old friendships and my younger brothers David and Ivor, who have scant memories of Bettws, have been back out of curiosity to see the place of their birth and which has always been talked about so much in our family.

My memories are those of a boy of three to eight years of age, less clear than Bert's but stronger than my younger brothers who have few or none. I did visit again once. In 1981 my wife and I took a snatched week on the Leyn Peninsular and our journey took us through Welshpool. It was Sunday lunch time and we had plenty of time so I took a slight detour and arrived at the New Inn in Bettws about 12.30pm.

I pointed to the twenty or so customers in the pub and asked the landlord "Is there anybody here who might remember a London family who lived in the village in the 1930s?" He indicated one man who I approached. He told me that he remembered my family name but that he was too young to actually remember the people but he recited some of the names including my own.. He did say that there was no-one living in the village who would remember my family but his sister was older and she had a very good memory.

He gave me her address in Tregynon which was on my way. With some excitement I knocked on her door. There was no answer. I scribbled a note on an old envelope which had my address on it and pushed it through the letter box. No response ever came.

In 1961 we were on another touring holiday and called in to the University of Wales in Aberystwyth. I asked if I could look at some Gregynog Books and see my father's name in them. I was treated very courteously and the cabinets were unlocked for me.

At the end of it I was told that they had a surprise and introduced me to Idris Jones, the man who had been my father's apprentice at Gregynog and whose call-up in 1939 had necessitated my father's short return to the Press. I had a cine camera with me and I was filmed with Idris which made a welcome surprise for my father when he saw it. The film is still in the family archives.

Now at last, in 2008, I am going back to Bettws. My own memories of my life there have renewed interest in my father's dance band The Venetians and the story of the band is to be a feature of this years' Gregynog Festival.

I will be attending with my daughters and sons-in-law, my brothers and their wives and a nephew who now plays my father's banjo. I will be meeting descendants of former band members of the Venetians including the daughter of a 91 year old lady who is still alive and who played the piano in the band from 1933-1936! It promises to be an exciting event!"

Article written by Bernard Hodgson