![]() ![]() I was born in and grew up in Pontypridd, but remained close to my Prussian grandmother who resettled in West Germany. They fell in love and married in Cardiff in July 1947. My father, Glyn Jones, was a Welsh soldier serving in the British sector in Germany when he met Gerda who sought refuge there in 1946. She was fortunate to escape with her life. Like most surviving East Prussians she lost everything except the clothes she was wearing when the Russians invaded in January 1945. ![]() My mother was born in Allenstein East Prussia in 1926. Fascinated by the history of the workhouse and Pontypridd it seemed logical to draw on both when I was commissioned to write a book set in the thirties because “If you don’t write it now no one ever will. Many of the stories in my “Hearts of Gold” series were related to me by my father when I asked him about her. My father’s mother (who died when I was three) was Katherine (Kitty) Jones nee John who nursed in the Graig hospital from the late twenties, to the early forties. She was quick to add I was born on the maternity ward and as it was a few months before the introduction of the NHS she had to pay for her care. I used to irritate my mother by telling everyone I was born in the Graig workhouse. ![]()
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