When I brought my wife to Talsarnau in 1946, she felt very strange at first, as she could not understand Welsh. My mother helped her a lot as she always spoke to her in Welsh as her English was not very good.
Eleanor went to Welsh classes but she soon found out that she had a lot of words that we don't use and when we had the children she soon picked a lot from them.
I'm sure that is the best way for people like her to learn. I went through all the houses in Talsarnau and Llandecwyn as they were when I went in the Army at the beginning of the war. I think there were only 12 houses with English speaking people but today it is fifty fifty. Mrs. Syn Hughes, the wife of Hugh Owen Hughes, whom he met in Newlyn Cornwall, when he was a sailor, they lived in Bryn Street and Mrs. Hughes could speak Welsh as good as any of us and was very proud of it and today Mrs. Orton and Mrs. Harper are working so hard that I'm sure in a few months they will be fluent Welsh speakers, and others as well.
I remember when I was a boy working in Caerffynnon with Mr. Haigh he asked Dafydd Jones the gardener, one day, to fetch his gaberdeen, old Dafydd had no idea what it was, so he got hold of the watering can, and I can see him now and Mr. Haigh saying "That is not the right thing David Jones"., he wanted his cape! One day it was raining and Mr. Haigh wanted me to take it as I was going home for dinner but I hid it by the lodge as I knew the children would be out of the school as it was dinner time and they would laugh at me.