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Sandra Evans: My Harbourmaster Memories

My Harbourmaster story began over 50 years ago at Easter 1971 when I asked Major Neville Evans (later to become my father in law) for a bar job over the summer holidays. He asked if I knew how to make a Snowball! Yes, I replied advocaat, lemonade and of course brandy. I got the job! After I’d finished my finals at college, I came down early summer to start my bar job before I took up my new teaching post in London in September. I stayed with my aunt and uncle in Alban Square (Ceri and Dai Griffiths). It was a busy summer – Aberaeron still played holiday host to the Wakes Weeks in the Midlands and the Miners’ Fortnight in South Wales. The wall running along the Quay outside the Harbourmaster became the ‘longest bar in Wales’ according to David and his father, Neville Evans. I spent a great deal of time serving behind the bar, collecting glasses and empty food plates from people who decided lunch on the longest bar in Wales just had to be done!




L-R: David & Sian Evans (on horse) outside HM 1970/71, Horses & Hounds outside HM 1970/71, Neville & Hilda Evans behind the HM Bar 1971.


All too soon September arrived and I returned to London and the excitement of my new teaching post in North London. I knew I’d come back to Aberaeron to visit my relatives at some point in the future but never thought the Harbourmaster would become my home.

1973 saw me back in Alban Square recuperating after a bad car accident and David and I went out for dinner and a year later saw us married in Holy Trinity church with the Wedding breakfast in the Feathers and an evening bunfight in the Harbourmaster! At the end of the school term in July 1974 I moved into the Harbourmaster – my new home.


There were seven bedrooms in the Harbourmaster together with a large Residents’ Lounge on the first floor overlooking the harbour. The attic which can be identified today by the small window in the eaves at the front of the building, consisted of two rooms. The Harbourmaster had been built around 1807 as the premises for the actual first harbour master of the new port of Aberaeron. The window in the eaves was (so the story goes) one of his look out points to check on the comings and goings on the dock side. The building later became the Red Lion Hotel and then its name was changed to the Harbourmaster Hotel just before my in-laws, Neville and Hilda Evans, bought it in 1970.


There was a window inserted on the side wall of the building at the attic level which offered a glorious sea view. It was impossible to get furniture up to the attic (which became a mini flat for David and me) as the stairs narrowed considerably and there was not enough headroom to get a sofa up. So the side attic window was taken out; a pulley and hoist was erected and the said sofa made its way up the side wall, through the window space and the window put back!




L-R: Rebuilding the back of the HM 1970/71 (x2), Rebuilding the porch 1970/71, Nearing completion, Work complete (1971), Neville, Sandra & Owain Evans 1977.


People often asked if the building was haunted. It had had its fair share of tragedies over the years. In the 1960’s, the then landlord, Joe Woodcock had taken his dog plus the dog belonging to one of the hotel residents for a late night walk. The dogs found their way back but Mr Woodcock sadly didn’t; it was thought he’d fallen into the harbour. Another story told to me was that someone staying at the hotel in what was then Room 7, had taken his own life there. I slept in that room for many years and at no time felt uncomfortable or uneasy. Indeed, the building and its wonderful staircase usually gave me a warm and comfortable feeling.


But there was one occasion in early 1976 when I did hear strange noises. I was alone in the attic flat one Sunday evening. David and his parents had gone to the Yacht Club but I was tired and pregnant and had decided not to go. Something disturbed me and I opened the door to the flat but then couldn’t hear anything. I just put the noises down to the sounds that an old building often makes. We later found that the back window in the bar had been jemmied open and the large Bell’s Whisky bottle which people put change into for the RNLI had been stolen. That was the strange noises I’d heard, not anything of the supernatural!

We saw all manner of natural mishaps from the beer cellar being flooded and many bottles of wine and spirits floating around the basement. Alcwyn Jenkins paddling a small dinghy around to the side door to collect his wife Mary who’d been working in our restaurant. The tremendous snow of January 1982 cutting Aberaeron off from the outside world for a couple of weeks. Waking up on the first day of that snow storm convinced that the children would be going to school but then opening the side door to be met with a wall of snow standing at around 6 foot tall!



L-R: Dray service 1979, Snow which lasted 2 weeks Jan 1982 (x2), Lifeboat bringing provisions into the harbour. Wyn Crustyn (the baker) had run out of bread flour due to the snow storm (Jan 1982).


The Harbourmaster became a summer focal point for so many people; the starting point of the Summer Carnival; the Adamant Band playing its way up the Quay. The games of Spoof they played in the bar (I still don’t know the rules – even if there are any!). The traditional songs resounding through the downstairs of the building. The voluntary firemen coming in for a pint after their training session. Aberaeron Ladies Circle having their dinner meetings there every month. The Winter Dinner Clubs held every month. Thursday evenings with the riders and horses which came down from Gilfach for a drink on the Quay. The people who worked with us. The friendships that were made there last till today.


My three children spent their formative years there; the building was their playground – how they survived that staircase as toddlers is amazing! It was our home until April 1982 and we left it with heavy hearts but knowing it was the right time to do so.

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