Ahh I see Fine Fare, I think this was the first supermarket in Aberdare. Of course we had the CO-OP, but most villages had a branch. This must have been mid to late sixties when Aberdare had everything and it was a pleasure to shop there. Shops of all description.

Yes i remember Commercial street also.Many a pint in the Bush,Commercial andIron bridge when Mierion owned it. He was one tough little character,i would like to see him sorting some of the yobs out today.He would have made mincemeat out of them.Trouble never stayed long in The Iron Bridge.Good old days.

Richard "Dick" Heasely if I'm not mistaken. Now there's a blast from the past. Were you also part of the Black Lion\Gogo's crowd that included Milo, Venn, Evo, Ducko, Dai Harry, Chris Shott, Morgan the Pirate, Floss, Curly, Kenny Jenkins, Mickey Howells (who unfortunately died a few years back), Thorburn (The Top Man), Steve Cap (now in America), Stewey Howells, Tommy Rowlands, The Ferndale\Maerdy boys...etc.etc.?

Last I heard you'd gone off to Harlech College back then, or some such establishmnet. If the same one, are you still in Aberdare?

Well, that's great to know, Richard. I just spoke to Floss from Hirwaun who remembers you well. Yes, the Black Lion\Gogo's days were great fun, with many fond memories. The others you mentioned like Denzil Davies, Martin Hodges, Wayne Bendon etc. are still around.

Paul Bendon has lived in Sweden, Denmark, and even Chile, but is now living in Trondheim, Norway, where he's been for the past twenty five years or more.

Keep looking into the site, as there may be a lot more to talk about from those days.

Yes l am, Deirdre lives in Australia and Aiden in London.

I remember the record shop, roughly where this photo was taken from. You could order an LP and the lady that owned it would let you pay a couple of bob a week until it was fully paid and she handed it over.

I also remember Smith's corner and the level crossing that used to cause mayhem everytime a coal train went through.

I started work in Aberdare in 1967 in Stephens and George printers who were in Cardiff Street.

I think the heydays of the 1960s were 1963 to 1969. There was a bloodless revolution going on in people's attitudes, and the questioning of authority and old mores. Rightly, women in Aberdare, following their crucial role in the fight against Naziism during World War II, began to question their roles at home.

Why should they now be tied to the kitchen sink and at the beck and call of their husbands? They now had work and money of their own. Likewise, the era of the "teenager" was growing in power, and young people no longer had to adopt the viewpoints of their parents, teachers, and the churches.

New, and some would say, alien, cultures were begining to be discovered. I discovered Eastern religions and philosophies through the works of Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsberg. American and British folk music came through Bob Dylan and Donovan. The Blues via the Rolling Stones led to Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson, and then the soul of Otis Reading and Marvin Gaye, via the Motown sound, led me on to Ray Charles and Nina Simone.

The sexual revolution took off too, and males and females were allowed to mix freely, to dress in clothes they felt comfortable in, that allowed them to express themselves. This led to the Mods and Rockers syndrome, with fighting around the country on bank holiday weekends between rival groups.

I failed to be a mod as I couldn't afford the clothes, and anyway, I wasn't into that kind of consumerist fashion. I was of the hippie persuasion, wearing combat jackets, frayed jeans and sandals, beads, long hair and a beard, oh, and the street cred of walking around town with a guitar slung across my back.

Yeah, I smoked dope as well, when I could get it, which usually meant a trip to the docks in Cardiff. Though that wasn't the start of the drug scene in Aberdare by any means. It had always gone on, but on a far lower scale than the 1960s. That is the era to which we can point and say that the drug scene really exploded.

Every bank holiday we would hitchhike down to Tenby in our droves from all the valleys, Cardiff and Bridgend. To this day I don't know how it came about, but it was a spontaneous thing. We just did it, and Tenby was full with hundreds of kids sleeping on the beaches, invading the pubs and having beach parties.

During those bank holiday excursions we lived the "Turn on, Tune in, Drop out" lifestyle as advocated by Timothy Leary, the acid prophet, as well as free love, though that wasn't as widespread as has been portrayed. Sure, the sex went on, but we were not all at it like jackrabbits.

It was a great time to be young then, and I always look back at it with affection and nostalgia. In that I feel extremely lucky compared to what my parents went through in having to give up their youth to work long hours just to survive, and then having to fight fascism in a world war.

I don't think there will ever be another era like it, but then you could say that about any era. This one was different in that it was liberating, even though there were casualties like drug addiction to heroin, and wrecked lives through LSD and cannabis. Again, I was lucky in not being one of them, as I so easily could have been, being involved in the drug culture myself.

Now, I just stick to my red wine, and even stopped smoking tobacco over five years ago. I ain't going to live forever of course, and I don't know what damage I may have done to myself during those years of indulgence, but I don't regret any of it.

It used to be said of course that if you remember the 1960s then you weren't there. A bit of an exagerration, but I know what they mean. It wasn't quite a drug fuelled haze, but it had its moments.

I must have lead a sheltered life in the 60s. Most I can remember of it was just how often teachers were allowed to beat you in one day. Schools didn't close for snow, not even if it was six inches deep.

I hated school, glad to finish. Last lesson was on a Thursday and I started work the following Monday, school leavers of today have no chance whatsoever of doing that.

I can remember, as a bunch of lads, meeting up in the Black Lion, anyone remember the parrot who used to swear at Plod when they used to make their visits. Other pubs that we frequented was the Conway or the Morning Star, think the landlord's name was Elmo.

We used to get as much beer down our necks before they closed the doors at GoGos or the Mems. When we felt really sophisticated we used to go to the Vulcan in Merthyr.

I remember going to see the Beach Boys at the Capitol theatre in Cardiff in 1966, which was so much better than the cattle shed that is the CIA. Other 60s favourites were Simon and Garfunkel, Carole King and all things Motown. A bunch of us went from Aberdare to see Jethro Tull in 1968 and now I'm going to see them in St David's Hall this May, wonder if they look any older.

Apart from a few years of working in Dowlais, Cardiff and Bargoed I've worked almost all my working life in Aberdare. I hate to say it but the town looks at though it's on a one way ticket to oblivion.

The Cowbridge? Now the closed down Market Tavern if I'm not mistaken. Also known in its time as The Tamping Frog, or The Bucket Of Blood. I don't know how it aquired such names, but that's what I recall it being called in my teenage years.

The landlady at that time was a great opera fan as I remember. You'd only have to mention Puccini or Verdi, and you were in for a great conversation for hours on end.

She kept a fantastic fire going in a huge cast iron stove in the bar, just the same type as I remember from my junior school days. She ran the pub on her own too.

I remember the African grey parrot in the Black Lion too. The Perrymans kept the place then, and when the parrot started swearing, they'd place a sheet over his cage to shut him up! And yeah, he certainly had a great vocabulary of swear words, and was easily encouraged.

Fine Fare was the first supermarket in Aberdare. A TV personality came to open it - from Coronation Street, maybe or a DJ of the day. it was a huge event. I remember in the first months of the store opening, they gave away plastic flowers with every packet of Persil washing powder. People used to put the flowers in vases in the windows. Tescos came quite a time after.

AP, you are correct Fine Fare was the first supermarket in Aberdare, it was also the place where I had my first job, aged 14, I was allowed to leave school aged 14 because I had work lined up. Finished school on Friday started work on Monday.

Aberaman y.m.That brings back memories,i used to play table tennis,snooker,and weightraining in the basement.My girlfriend was Margret who i later married.Vic Wynnen,Digby Martin,Ann george.We all had great times there.Sitting on the gas works tip talking ,and laughing.Life was sweet then.