Transcript

My life has been very interesting. I was born in Neuaddlwyd, near Aberaeron. I moved to and that's where I was brought up. I attended school and The Grange School, Carmarthen afterwards. Secondary school. Whilst at school, I became partially sighted After school I spent some time in Torquay, Devon and then to Letchworth near London. After that I got a job with a company in Birmingham. I was there for a while. There were a lot of strikes at that time in the car industry because they were building car parts with machines.

I went to work in St Fagans, near Cardiff, in the museum. Then I went into ministerial service. I was ordained in Cilcennin, near Aberaeron. dihewyd – desire I moved to Gwynfryn in Ammanford and then to six churches in north Pembrokeshire. I retired back here up until my wife lost her health. Mary went in on the 14th of April. She's very happy there. Perhaps she doesn't really understand where she is. At times she doesn't recognize me. They decided that the best option for her was to go into care permanently. She's very happy there. The reason she's happy there is because there's a day centre in Ammanford.

Every day, after the carers have been in to look after her, she would go down to the day centre. She's got to know the staff and the other people who go there,she does the same thing now, the only difference is that she doesn't sleep at home. She goes to the day centre every day from the care home. Because of that, she's happy mixing with other people. Things are easy, but some things have changed as well. It's easier because I can sleep at night whereas I couldn't before. Because of her condition she'd be waking up and walking around.

To a certain extent it's easier but it's also very difficult because I’m on my own now – I’m not used to that. I sit here sometimes and think that she's here, but she isn't. I think that I can hear her speaking like she used to. Sometimes she'd talk all night. Sometimes I can't sleep because I think that she's still here. It's a strange experience. To tell you the truth, I do find it difficult because we were happy together. We wouldn't ever go out without each other because that's the nature of being in the ministry. She was a Sunday school teacher. It was hard to make the decision but the CPN nurse and the social worker advised that it was the best option for her. We don't deal with social workers in the ministry. I realize that they are meant to help people. They go to residential homes. I sometimes think they have too many qualifications and not enough practical experience.

I would think that you'd need sympathy and wisdom to deal with the elderly. That's more important than a piece of paper which show's you've done the right exams. Because of their condition, the patients themselves I think you need sympathy and wisdom to be able to deal with them. I've been doing it for years now, and It can be difficult. You can be impatient sometimes. But you have to have patience and understanding of the illness itself. You need to have Welsh speaking services for the elderly. That's their language. When they were being brought up, there wasn't a lot of English. Welsh speaking social workers are essential. I haven't had any myself. If I had stayed at home, perhaps I would have had problems understanding English. But because I've been away, I could understand them fine. There was nothing wrong with the little bit of Welsh service that I had But something got lost between myself and them through not being able to speak in Welsh – having to think in Welsh - and speak in English.