Ifan's house

Image: © Deborah Tilley Taken: 31 Aug 2008

Ifan Richards was already an old man when I first met him as a small child. He lived like a hermit in a corrugated iron shack that was soon swallowed up by the new housing estate. Us children knew him well but our parents, confined to their neat new patches knew him just a little. In this day and age people would be horrified to learn that their children would visit an old man who lived by himself in reduced circumstances, but Ifan was a lovely, gentle old man who bothered no-one. He lived in one room with a wood burning stove and a ready supply of firewood and grew all his own vegetables in a patch about 25'x 15'. There were always chickens running around. He gave me a tortoise one day, but Mum made me take her back. She could still be alive! Ifan died peacefully in a home after an attack of appendicitis in the late 1960's. I sometimes think of him and wish I'd known more about him and his past and how he ended up where he did. According to the older residents of Llethri Road, there were other men living in similar circumstances, some with better facilities, some with less. On a recent family visit I was so surprised to see that there were still remains of his home and that his garden hadn't been assimilated into those that surrounded him. Brought quite a tear to my eyes!

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