Newport

Move to Newport 

The next move was to Wales where my grandfather took up his posting on 20th September 1925. My father was then 9 years old. 


Around 1925. Tom, Arthur, Nanny Hall, Mabel (Mabs) and Grandad Hall

About 1925, brother Tom enlisted as an apprentice artificer RA, and went off to the Military College of Science at Woolwich, and within a short time we moved to Newport in Monmouthshire where my father was appointed RSM of the 83rd (Welsh) Brigade RA (TA.) We occupied one of two married quarters, the adjoining one housing my father’s Battery Sgt Major Jerry Old and his family. These quarters were part of the TA complex in the poorest area of Newport, at the bottom of Lime Street in the district of Pillgwenlly (commonly known as Pill.) The complex consisted of a Drill Hall with gun park for its 13/18 pound field guns and 4/5 Howitzers, administration offices, Officers’ and Sgts’ Mess and a Men's spit and sawdust wet canteen. Adjoining the drill hall was a Riding School. Our quarters were next to the latter, and a large walled enclosure which contained stables with twelve horses and mares, buildings for tack and harness, and in one corner of the square a sand pit in which the horses could roll.

Lime Street, like all its neighbours in the area, consisted of small, terraced houses, with the odd general shop. Front doors of all the houses let directly onto the pavement, the area in front of which was kept scrupulously clean being swept daily, and occasionally scrubbed by the woman of the household. Most of the men were labourers, employed in the dockyards, railway and Lysaght’s steelworks on the other side of the nearby River Usk. They were poor people and I loved them. I suppose we were fairly well-off comparatively, as my mother had a woman, Mrs Flage, to help with the housework several days a week.


Grandad Hall, mounted, with AWH on foot. 

By all accounts my Grandfather was a very competent horseman. This photo was probably taken at the Riding School where he is seen alongside an unidentified companion - possibly their neighbour, Battery Sgt Major Jerry Old.



Caption on the back in pencil reads, ' After the church parade Dad has 
realy [sic] had enough'

This seems to have been taken around the same time as the photograph above. Family life cannot have been easy for my grandmother or the children.



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