We used to have our fresh water from Gwndwn - the well is still there, fenced in. The water came down from the well to a reservoir that you can see today - it is under the road opposite Cefntrefor Bach and a little higher up, under the wall, there is a well, and that is where the houses around there had their water.
There was only Fron Yw then and Cefntrefor Bach. In summer we were always short of water and they had water from Esgairolwyn - I think it was in the thirties. We used to carry water when we were short, from the back of Brontrefor; there is an old cave there and they built a dam to keep the water in and it was good enough for washing. I can remember, when I was in school, there was a lot of houses without water and they had to carry it from the station road - there was a little cupboard in the wall the other side of Gwenda's Garage and a tap. The old people used to carry water for drinking from the well at Cae Bran, this side of the Caravans, and I heard my mother saying that she and her mother carried the clothes this side of Stabal Mail and washed them in the little stream and dried them on the rocks. They did the same in Soar as well as there is a pool in the river under Soar and it is called Llyn Ysgoldy.
The electricity came to the village in the early thirties, and before that we had paraffin lamps and candles, we had old lanterns made with cornbeef tins and a candle in it with a wire as a handle, we also made lanterns with a big swede and made it like a face, it did look like a man's face with a candle in it, as it was hollow inside. You had only the light of the houses and shops to see your way around at night but there was a lamp post by the school and in the station yard and one opposite the Ship, but I can only remember light on the station and of course it was paraffin.
Sanitation was very bad and in Bryn Street they had dry lavatories - they were a good way up the gardens it was called Tan yr Allt and shared by a few house. The waste water in the old time used to run to the ditch that is behind the Ship and before they did the parking I opened the gate that was where the entrace to the parking is now and with Harry Jones we found the old pipe a few feet down.
I can remember John Edwards and another man digging in our garden to put in the new sewerage, it must have been during the first war, there were no works then - it went straight to the cut on the Harlech side of the Station. In later years there was a court case and after that they built the sewerage works in the field under the school, that was after the war about 1947 and they connected the new Council houses that they were building at Gwndwn and they had to blast through the rocks in the Gelli. They followed the path down to the back of the Motel. I often think that the ditch that is behind the Ship has been neglected, as there must be waste water still running to it from some of the houses and of course all the water that runs down from Tremeifion and Ty Mawr on the road goes behind the Church and finds its way to the ditch. I'm sure somebody should take responsibility to open it.