Caroline: Yeah, the name of the farm is... 
[Edward] Howell: The name of the farm is Gïach Ganol, and it's short, the abbreviation for ‘snipe’. ‘Gïach’ is ‘snipe’. So it’s, part is snipe bird in that name… 
Caroline: Well, we've found the family Bible goes back to 1750. 
[Edward] Howell: Going back to 1751, isn’t it? 1750. And, well, I don’t know, they’ve… whether they’ll tell you more perhaps, I don’t know.  
Caroline: The farm was split into smaller farms, wasn't it? You know, the Gïach Ganol itself, how many acres? 
[Edward] Howell: 40 acres. 
Caroline: 40 acres is Gïach? 
Elenora 42 or something. 
Caroline: There we are ..  we know that this house has been here since, well, mam-gu mawr was here. 
Elenora: I had a photo of her, looking this morning of the photo of the old type, like a porch in the front and where…Where that has gone, I don’t know. 
Caroline: Alright. It initially was like two down and two up. 
[Edward] Howell With the pantry in the back. 
Caroline: Which is still here with the concrete um, slab that we call the fainc. This little section by here was built in 1936. And then we've done the extension in 2020 ish. And where mother-in-law lives that used to be the old cart house, and we've made it into annex for her then. From what we can gather, it's been milking since… and very self-sufficient, um… all the time, isn’t it? 
Elenora: They were milking by hand they were at the beginning, weren’t they? 
Caroline: Yeah. 
[Edward] Howell: And before that they used to grow corn below the house, not above. 
Caroline: Although that's sort of wasteland at the moment. 
[Edward] Howell: Wasteland was at the top. And ‘cause every veg, all the veg and corn and stuff… 
Elenora: Everything was then down below. 
[Edward] Howell: Below the house, yeah. 
Elenora: Below the house. 
Caroline: There was a main road, what we call the main road, actually going past the house here and that road that you've just come down wasn't there. So they used to go past here, down into the woods and actually come out by Tyn y Cwm. Um, in Felindre, which is now… was um, a highway until about 10 years ago… 
[Edward] Howell: Hmm, hold on, yeah, about 10. 
Caroline: When it's been now turned into just a footpath. 
[Edward] Howell: It did start as a bridle path then it's gone to footpath now. 
Caroline: Your father took a vehicle down there… 19 what did Gwyn take the car down last? 
[Edward] Howell: ’61, is it? 
Caroline: 1961? 
Elenora: 60 something, wasn’t it? 
[Edward] Howell: That’s the last time the vehicle went down that lane, down that road I should say. So… 
Caroline: We've sort of... 
Elenora: We were married anyway. 
Caroline: So we milked until 1990… a small milking herd [2023[ or something like that, but it just didn't come viable then with the new legislations, new parlour, we just couldn't afford it. 
[Edward] Howell: It wasn’t viable, you know? 
Caroline: And at that time, nearly every farm here milked, now there's only one farm, um, Cil Faen in the village. It's gone from that into … we used to do some potatoes, swedes, quite self-sufficient. Then we went out of that, we had a lot of sheep because we got another farm over the other side, Gelli Gwm.  
[Edward] Howell: We went then to sucklers. The cow will produce her own calf, you know, and rear that up, and we just sell the calves at 10, 12 months old. 
Caroline: We used to do turkeys Christmas time, didn't we? 
Elenora: Yes, yes, we had Christmas turkeys. 
Caroline: Until the legislations came in that you had to be careful with what you were doing, and so we stopped that then, didn't we. 
Elenora: Yeah. 
Caroline: But our son, who's living over the other side, over in Gelli Gwm is actually going back towards um… 
[Edward] Howell: Growing his own… 
Caroline: Growing green crop, it’s just in a very small poly-tunnel this year. He can't grow enough to sell, does his own eggs. He has got a little bit of a round with his eggs and his veg on the weekend. And him and his partner, they're looking now at doing more horticulture, rather than… and they do rearing of pigs, which they get killed then. Well, you can't get enough of them to be able to sell privately, either as meat or sausages, burgers, same with lamb. Unfortunately, the children of all have got to go out to work. We have a son living here that helps on this side. We have a son over the other side, he actually was a qualified chef, is now a plant machine operator, ‘cause he couldn't stand being indoors all the time, and then he does this in his evenings and his weekends at home then. You just can't… whereas back in 1980, there were two, three of you…  
[Edward] Howell: Three of us. 
Caroline: …working on the farm, but now even Hywel goes out to work, there is no one full time worker here anymore, because you just can’t afford it… 
[Edward] Howell: Yes, so there, you know…  
Elenora: All the farms around here, they were about 40 acres, 45 acres or something like that… most of the farms around here.  
Caroline: Well, it was a horse and cart then, wasn't it? And then the small little tractors, of course, big farms… Well, when we got together the whole farm was about 220 acres and that was classed as a big farm. Now, they call it a hobby farm, a small farm. You know, and you're only talking 35, 40 years, there's been such a difference now, and people are just having to diversify instead. Then you know, ‘cause you just, it's just not viable to keep... 
[Edward] Howell: And yet the government can stop you, you know… 
Caroline: Oh yeah. people who work… 
[Edward] Howell: They can’t allow to do certain things, you know, the drainage or whatever. 
Caroline: Well, that's why you and Gwyn retired, wasn't it? 
Elenora: Yeah. 
Caroline: They just couldn't cope with the paperwork, because, you know, they were born and bred to be outside, working the hand and working the land, isn't it? 
Elenora: Oh, yes. 
Caroline: But there's so much paperwork nowadays. Um, you know, you can spend… 
Elenora: And we were buying more land if we could get the, get, get it. 
Caroline: Yeah. 
Old Woman: To start off with… we bought a lot of land then. 
Caroline: Yes, because you were only 40 odd acres when you got married, isn't it. Now, you're up to about 220 all told. 
[Edward] Howell: But land was obviously cheaper then to buy it then than it is now. 
Elenora: Oh Duw, yes. 
[Edward] Howell: It’s frightening now, too. 
Caroline: Never be able to now. 
Elenora: Couldn't touch it now. 
Caroline: I nearly forgot, who was the tailor? There's … a bit of a ruins in the garden of an outside shed, because one of them used to make waistcoats, didn't he? 
[Edward] Howell: My great grandfather, was it? 
Elenora: Grandfather… Gwyn’s grandfather's brother, isn’t it? It's not his is the grandfather. 
[Edward] Howell: Oh. 
Elenora: Llywelyn was his grandfather. 
[Edward] Howell: Oh right. 
Interviewer Vicki Thompson: So, excellent …in terms of family lineage, were you born on the farm? 
Elenora: No. 
Interviewer Vicki Thompson: You married in to the family?  
Elenora: Into the family. 
[Edward] Howell: These two are incomers. 
Caroline: We are the outsiders 
Interviewer Vicki Thompson: Go on, tell me something. 
Caroline: Na, I'm only from the other side of the mountain. Literally.