1950s

There were nine boys and nine girls, a cook and Maisie Charles, the School's teacher and 'Monty', the dog from Nantcoch.

This photo was kindly scanned and provided by Catherine Daly who is Maisie Charles' neice, who wrote on 27/07/2014: "My aunt moved to the area (from Carmarthen) during the war when my grandfather was appointed vicar at Crai. She moved away after my grandmother died in 1956. I believe she taught at Heol Senni school throughout the period, though if you have any information suggesting that she started there later you would probably be right. She was born in 1916 and, to me, looks fairly young in the photo, so I would guess at mid to late 1940s rather than 50s, but that is only a guess. I do know that the other lady in the photo is the cook rather than a teaching assistant. I believe she was on her own as far as teaching was concerned. Aunty Maisie died in 2004 and her ashes are in the graveyard at Crai with her parents and sister. When they were interred we met several people who remembered her. Apparently she had a rather good rate of getting pupils through to the grammar school."
Janet Evans wrote 25/08/2019 "I have just stumbled across this site and one photo of a group of children, their teacher Maisie Charles and another lady. The writer (Catherine Daley) goes on to say she doesn't know the other lady, she is in fact my grandmother who was the school caretaker and cleaner, she may have been cook as well, not sure about that. Both my grandparents are buried in Brychgoed chapel along with the ashes of my father and my late mother's ashes will be interned there shortly.  My grandmother known as Meg was also know to help deliver the local babies as well. She lived close to the school with my grandad Lewis who farmed from a tied cottage and they had to move when he retired.  Lovely to see the old photo, it was possibly late 40s or very early 50s as they left Heol Senni I believe in 1955/6. My father and his brothers attended the school, although they not in photo as obviously they grown by then."