Yvonne Bowen (nee Williams) of Llandysul.  In conversation with Anthony Rees of the Carmarthenshire Milk stand project. 6 May 2026. 

Yvonne was born in Carmarthenshire, at Penrhiw Farm, Henflwch Road, Newchurch – a dairy farm.  The farm was half a mile from the main road and Yvonne and her sister would walk the farm lane to catch the school bus and her father would bring the milk churns to the milk stand in the transport box behind a tractor. 

Milk stand was made of wooden logs and railway sleepers. It was solid.  Two farms shared the milk stand – Penrhiw and Blaencynnen (Mr and Mrs Harris) 

The milk stand was built across a drainage ditch, but no longer exists.  Most milk stands were concrete. 

Yvonne doesn’t know why their milk stand was wooden, but jokes that her father was a ‘Cardi’ and maybe a wooden one was cheaper. The sleepers were treated with creososte and were black.  Their stand wasn’t as high as the concrete ones and required strength to lift the churns onto the lorry. 

In the summer, her father would drape the churns with hessian sacks to keep them cool prior to collection, as sometimes the lorry didn’t come until 2pm.  The sacks would have been soaked in the river ( Nant Cynnen) 

The milk was tested prior to going to the Cow and Gate Creamery in Carmarthen.  If the milk smelt sour then it would be be returned to the farmer the next day with a red label on top of the original churn label. 

Her father would send 5 or 6 churns in the winter and up to 10 in the summer.  It was hard to get 10 churns into the transport box, but Yvonne’s father had an adapted box.  Sometimes an extra churn would be balanced above the transport box against the driver seat. 

As a child Yvone and her sister would write out the labels for the churns every evening before bed.   There was a number for the top of the label, then farm name and how many churns in the batch – this was so that the factory could check that they were measuring all of ones milk. 

Penrhiw had about 26 dairy cows, this was in the early 1950s until 1970s when bulk tanks were introduced.  At that time, her father, who suffered with his health, retired from dairy farming to keep sheep. 

Yvonne remembers  the cows names – the herd started off as pedigree British Friesian which was dilyed over time.  Artifical insemination (AI) was the preferred method of conception,  but sometimes they kept their own bull. 

If AI was needed, Yvonne would be given 4 pennies ( to pay for the phone call) before school, and go to the Plough and Harrow public house nearby to ask Mr or Mrs Morgan to phone the AI and request their service. With instructions to say Friesan ( 1st time or second insemination). The second time would be if no conception had occurred from first insemination. 

Yvonne didn’t know the lorry drivers as the milk stand was half a mile from the farmhouse. 

It was a happy childhood.  The family would walk up to the hills behind the farm on summer evenings and Yvonne’s mother knew the name of all the wild flowers.  Sometimes, meeting neighbours.  It was a friendly community. 

Yvonne’s father was in hospital for 5 weeks when Yvonne was 14 years old, so Mr Harris Blaencennyn would take Penrhiw’s milk to the stand.  Helpful neighbours – especially during haymaking. 

The farm was eventually sold on to a family from Tregaron and has been sold again now.   The land has been sold to neighbouring farms, and some fields have become wooded. 

Yvonne, sometimes used to get a lift to the school bus stop in the post van.  The school bus went from Capel Foelcwan. Jones Ffoshelig provided the school buses to Carmarthen Girls Grammar school. 

During the big snow of 1963, Yvonne had a mock O’level examination and it was snowing so heavily that the farm lane was impassable.  So Yvonne and her sister crossed the field to the neighbouring farm and then walked to Carmarthen, carrying school bags and getting wet.  When walking up Monument Hill ( Picton monument) she met a party of 3 schoolteachers and 8 pupils coming towards them as the school had been closed.  She was invited into a friends house to have a cup and tea and biscuits, and then walked home again through the snow, getting a lift from Doctor Jones part of the way. 

When Yvonne got home, she was sent to change and then had to help her parents shovel snow in order to get the milk out the following day.  The school remained closed for 2 weeks. 

Yvonne was determined to do her exam and compares that attitude to the children of  today. 

By the time of the snow in 1982, Yvonne was living in Llandysul with children of her own.  Her husband made sledges of wood with metal sheets. A tractor and transport box would tour the village with a milk churn and a jug to provide milk for anyone who needed it.   Yvonne reflects that global warming may have brought an end to such snows.