Liverpool Daily Post, 1970 

The End of an Era at Aberffraw

By Arthur Williams

Time is running out on a vocational way of life.  Mr Alfred Price, aged 59, has worked in the bakehouse in the square at Aberffraw, Anglesey, for 46 years. For health reasons he is to retire in three week's time. In this quaint building, full of the aroma of fresh bread, he told me: "The reason I am giving up is arthritis. This place over the years has been the village Parliament and I shall have many memories of remarkable characters who came to the bakery in their time."

While I was talking to Mr Price, a visitor put his head around the corner of the door and called out a cheery greeting. Said Mr Price: "Many of them come to see my old-fashioned oven which is stoked with wood.  It fascinates them.''

The only concessions to modernity in the bakehouse are the mixing and and moulding machines. Everything else is done by hand and Mr Price uses the old-fashioned peels (a baker's wooden shovel) to reach the bread from the oven. A number of villagers came in to order bread or to take loaves away. They all had friendly chats with Mr Price, who said:  ''That's how it is here. We are all such good friends and all on Christian name terms."

Rewarding Work

The business was opened by his father, Mr John Price, in 1915, and Alfred took over when his father died. His assistant, Mr Hugh Jones, has worked with him for 30 years. Mr Price, a genial chap with a countryman's keen sense of humour, mused: "I did not have much option but to become a baker, I suppose. Still it has been a very rewardingexperience in terms of people and characters that I have met. There are one or two about still, and I could write volumes about what I have heard said m this bakehouse from time to time. We discuss everything here - anything you can think of.  Many of the old fellows knew all abouthuman nature from, A to Z. Quite a few young people call in the bakehouse for a chat, too, and in the winter it would be difficult to get in for village folk."

There have been changes through the years in Aberffraw. The old houses have been pulled down and new houses built but it has not lost its atmosphere as a truly Welsh village. Said Mr Price: "There are a few English people living in the neighbourhood but they have to be Welsh when they are here. They have to learn or understand our language."

Regular visitor

"Mind you we live very harmoniously with the English and like them. It is just that the village has remained Welsh in character and language."

Mr Price recalled that years ago cottage loaves were very popular, but today there is a great demand for tin loaves. He explained that pan loaves are stili very popular. Today no one wants a four pound loaf. One pound and two pound loaves are in demand now."

Mr Price and his wife, Mona, have three sons who are schoo!teachers. He lives at Llangadwaladr and will spend his retirement in his garden, and doing carpentry, in which he has always had a keen interest.

Mr John Evans, aged 81, broad-shouldered and extremely youthful-looking, has been a regular visitor at the bakery since the days of Mr Price Snr.  A native of the village, he served .in the Army, worked in South Wales and in Army camps in his home district. He told me: "I shall miss coming to the bakehouse very much when Mr Price retires. ''The smithy has closed and so has the shoe maker's shop. Now the bakehouse is to dose and there will be no traditional village 'Parliament'  in Aberffraw which was once the the seat of the old Welsh princes"

As one villager has noted: "Aberffraw will lose much of its contact with the old way of life when Alf Price closes the bakehouse door for the last time."