Interviewing the ladies of Brynaman about the cinema in days gone by

On Friday night, 4 of the Wales Strangers, along with Peri and Julianna, went to meet with a local Welsh language ladies group called Merched y Wawr (ladies of the dawn). They are really like the WI (Women's Institute) and bake cakes and make lots of tea and come together socially on trips and events.

We went to film an interview with the ladies about their experiences of Brynaman Cinema as research for writing our Wales script and found out about some interesting characters and what went on in the back seats! ;D

The biggest change for young people of the village from the old days to today was that there was youth club every night of the week with different chapels where the young people of the town between 14 ad 25 years would gather in groups of over 100! There was no need out hang about on the streets as there was always something to do. These days the youth club is only open on Monday nights and is currently closed for refurbishment until the new year :(

People would queue for the cinema for hours and whilst one audience came out of the doors after "first house" the queuers for "second house" would be in their way!

Two very interesting characters were Betty Ben Tips the usherette and a man who worked there called Phil who was big and could neither speak nor hear and all the young people would behave when he was around...Peter is going to look at writing a scene about them over the weekend ;) Nice one Pete!

The ladies also confirmed that there used to be operas at the Public Hall and Owain's nan used to play the piano at those events.

Another interesting thing was that if you were over 15 you had to pay more to come in so the girls would spend ages trying to "dress young" to look 14 or under to save money. These days young people tend to dress up older to try to get into 15 certificate films! Very ironic don't you think?!

There was loads more info we discovered but this is just a taster to give you an idea.

Diolch i pawb yn y Merched y Wawr am yr atgofion a diolch i'r pobl ifanc sy wedi neud y cyfweliad yn digwydd.