WE WERE THERE!: Following the recent feature on the rededication of the clock in Old Cwmbran, I hope the following will prove of interest to your readers.
I was present at the rededication ceremony on Friday, September 7, and I can assure you that several of the elderly gentlemen and women who were present this time, were also there at the original dedication, which took place on June 18, 1936.
The service was conducted by the greatly respected Reverend John Donne, vicar of Llantarnam, and officially unveiled by Mrs Annie Kelly, the oldest member of the local Temperance branch.
Though innovative in being an electric clock, few realise that the mechanism was driven by a slave engine' within the old police station itself, where justice was often harshly served to all manner of miscreants, mostly for drunk and disorderly offences.
How little times and human nature have changed down through the centuries. Nowadays, the building has been tastefully refurbished and renamed The Council House'.
The cells in the building are now toilets - how appropriate.
Perhaps it is also timely to rededicate the clock to those who fell during the Second World War.
by Dr Gareth D John
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