I'm originally from Tonypandy in the Rhondda Valley. I was in college in Barry when the war came - we all thought the world would end, but it didn't and I continued at college.

Then I had a job in Derby. The Merlin and Rolls Royce engines were made in the city so it was a target for the bombs. They used to have a barrage balloon above the town, and when the acac guns were going, we all piled into shelters - can you imagine me in a tin hat?

On Sundays as was my want, I would go to chapel. There was a tiny Welsh chapel in the middle of Derby, just one small room. So I went one Sunday night and lots of soldiers came in. Sitting on a bench opposite us were these two soldiers, eyeing up my friend and I. We could here the guns in the distance and we were all scared of going home, so they asked if they could walk us home to make sure we got there safe - well, that was their excuse!

And that was when I met my husband who was from North Wales. The other man was married, and the brother of Richie Thomas the singer from Penmachno.

So I spent a lot of time cooking for the soldiers in Derby. They came in their pale blue uniforms from Dunkirk and we were always begged to give blood to give to the injured soldiers.

My husband was five years abroad - in Africa and up through Italy on the march to Rome. We wrote to each other daily, on those little postcards which you were allowed to send. When you received the card, there would be pencil marks through it if something was written which shouldn't have been said.

We then thought he'd come home in 1945 but he was sent to Israel, it nearly broke his heart. He went to the Gaza Strip, where the fighting's going on now. He managed to tell me where he was by writing 'I am now where you're sewing beans into Welsh' - well, sewing beans in Welsh is 'hau ffa' - Haifa. The English sensor didn't know the Welsh for sewing beans, so it was let through.

Eventually, he was sent all the way home. By this time he had jaundice and was so ill. He stayed for a fortnight and went to the education office to see if they'd sent for his release papers, but the army hadn't received it so off he went again, on a flat boat back to Israel. But when he arrived, he was told his papers had been sent back home so he came home too.

He got a job in Bethesda so up I came too. I taught at Deiniol secondary modern, which is now the university library. We became comprehensive and so combined with Friars. Comprehensive schools were a good idea - a lot of the children we had at Deiniol were clever enough to be in Friars but they just hadn't done well in one exam, on one day.

Then I taught at Tryfan, the new Welsh school in Bangor and I still live in the same house we moved into all those years ago in Talysarn.

There used to be an eisteddfod in the chapel here in Talysarn. We had the band of Hope there and a thriving Sunday school. But then the older people began to die and the numbers fell and the chapel had to close because we couldn't afford the repairs.

When there wasn't television, the chapel was the centre of village life. It's where you found out who was ill, who needed help - so I'm so thankful we can come here to the Silyn Club to get together and talk. People are so important and having the chance to meet and chat is so vital.

So that's why a 'Hwntw' has landed up in the land of the 'Gogs' and been very happy. People have always been important to me, and that's what everyone should remember. It's not the place, it's the people and friendship.