Remembering Sue George of Dinas

Up above Pwllgwaelod, on the west side, a seat commands a fine view of the beach below and the cliffs of Dinas Island. The seat was placed there in memory of Sue George whose favourite spot it was.

Sue was a member of the local George clan and although she lived in England she spent a large part of her time in Dinas where she had a small house. I believe she may have been brought up in Dinas and she certainly knew a great deal about its history and its people. I got to know her through a shared interest in the past and her delightful WordPress blog called ‘Tegfan, Dinas Cross’ which is fortunately still available online. In it she shares her knowledge of the local area and her pursuits of information about people and places in past and recent times.

Sue’s biggest scoop was her discovery of a gravestone in Nevern’s new graveyard which bears the names of thirteen elderly ladies. They were evacuees from the City of London who lost their homes in the Blitz and were taken into the charitable care of the Bowen family of Llwyngwair. Already advanced in years, they died during the course of their residence at Llwyngwair and were buried in a shared grave at Nevern.

Feeling it was a shame that the evacuees, who died far from their homes, were all but forgotten, Sue, with the assistance of a collaborator, made it her mission to find out who these ladies were. By dint of enormous determination and persistent sleuthing, she succeeded and wrote up the results of her research in instalments on her blog, starting here:
story of the 13 London ladies

In doing so she turned them into individuals each with a personal story. Sue even managed to make contact with their living family members and descendants who were amazed to have information about them and the whereabouts of their grave. And, owing to Sue’s initiative, on the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain the names of the thirteen London evacuees were read out during a service at Nevern Church.

Sue took great pleasure in the village of Dinas, its wider surroundings and the local community and she set her mind to finding out things she was curious about. She died much too soon and must be deeply missed by her family and those who knew her. I think about her whenever I pass this seat and I stop for while to enjoy the view she loved.