Many weekends and holidays, mostly in the summer months, were taken at Bodfari. The site was off a minor road that ran parallel to the Denbigh-Mold road, with the railway from Chester to Denbigh (and on to Ruthin) in between. I don’t think that any use was ever made of the railway, bar in its last week (q.v.). There are few family memories of the Bodfari area, but my sister was taught to fish by Jack Birch, whom Dad knew from Mr Birch’s plumbing business in Wallasey. He also had a caravan at the site, and fished the brook there. We visited the Denbigh Show, which was in a nearby field, and presumably travelled to Rhyl, down the Vale of Clwyd, and other places in the locality. One recent family memory is of trips along the road across the Denbigh Moors, which were not far away; even when the caravan had been sold, Dad would still go along this road on days out into the 1960s. We would still visit his parents, who had a small (but enlarging) bungalow at Pantymwyn, near Mold, and also friends that Dad knew in Queensferry.
We left Bodfari because the family needed a larger caravan, for which the site was not big enough. Mum recalled that “we loved the one at Bodfari”, but she did not like the later site at Clwyd Gate (q.v.): “It was lovely the other one, because you could see the old man with the hens.” There was indeed a henhouse, and various farm animals, and Dad must have favoured this, as it must have reminded him of farming at Knolton. Amenities were limited, but a footpath, still there, led to the village of Bodfari with a footbridge over the brook and a level crossing of the railway.
This railway closed in April 1962, and it was a family legend that we went on one of the last passenger trains in its final week. My sibling has suggested that we had already moved to the Clwyd Gate site by then, and this would seem likely, since my personal memories of that site are vivid, and this might well reflect two seasons there. Mum recalled that Dad dropped us at one railway station (probably Bodfari) and went on by car to our destination (probably Denbigh); I have no memory of this, but my sister recalled being inside the carriage. Dad didn’t make the rail journey, following bye car, and for some reason was violently sick when he reached the destination.
At some point (maybe 1961?), the caravan was moved to a site near the Clwyd Gate, between Llanferres and Llanbedr. Dad will have known the Clwyd Gate through attending Area meetings of Round Table there. It had begun life as a roadside cafe, for cyclists and motorists, and then expanded, so that it was a small pub and restaurant (it closed in 2017, and still seems to be vacant in 2022). I recall the much larger caravan arriving, with some difficulty, down a narrow lane.
Mum said “Funnily enough, I never liked being there in that caravan. It didn’t have much going for it….It was just a field”. Water was only available at the farm down the lane, quite some distance away, and I recall going down the lane there to fetch water. There were three other caravans there, whose owners all came from a distance; one had a family from Widnes (the Herrons), and another had a pharmacist from Wallasey (the Ambroses), but I do not recall much contact with them. Oddly, as children we greatly appreciated the field with the nearby forest, then recently planted, and the wide field on a slope, with a small wood at its centre. It seemed a great deal more adventurous, but safe, although my elder sister recalled falling into a thorn bush that was very painful. There were views over the Vale of Clwyd, and the caravan was, at first, partway down the hill, and then on a plateau further up. There was at least one summer spent there (possibly two), until Dad acquired a small boat early in 1964 (q.v).
Mum recalled that we sometimes went for Sunday lunch at the Clwyd Gate. I don’t recall going out from the site much, but I remember passing through Clocaenog Forest and a journey over the Denbigh Moors. One day we walked down past the forest and up the hillside to the south, from which a track, now part of the Offas Dyke Path, led back to the caravan site. At a distance, we could see that cattle had been allowed into the field and had knocked down the green tent which Dad had erected for us children. After this, the caravan was surrounded by a barbed wire fence.
Just beyond the forest was a former farmhouse, now derelict, and Dad seems to have entertained the idea of acquiring this, but there were problems with water supply and drainage, so this did not go forward. It was renovated many years later.
One problem was that at least two couples turned up with their families and expected afternoon tea. Knowing Dad, he had probably told them to call any time! I recall the final time, when the caravan had been closed up and the boot was full, and we were ready to go. A Wallasey family arrived and practically told Dad that he would have to open up the caravan to make tea for them. He duly complied, and so we had to entertain them.
Much later, the Birch caravan was moved to a site in Meols, where it survived for many years. Dad’s caravan lasted in the field for many years, and I visited it once with Mum in the 1980s; but at that time it and others had been severely vandalised. There are now no caravans in the field but there are still caravans at Bodfari. All are now in the Clwydian Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
13 December 2020, slight amendments 7 March 2022 and further amendments 6 April 2022
Joseph P J Boughey Remembered 