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When I started research for my book on the Adelina Patti hospital in the Swansea Valley, a former children's TB sanatorium, I gave it the working title of: "The Lost Children of Craig-y-nos".
I was one of those children.
From 1950-54 I lived in this remote castle, Craig-y-nos, which provided sanctuary for children and young women stricken with a disease which ravaged Welsh rural and industrial life before the invention of the life saving drugs, a disease that struck terror into the very heart of the community.
"If you had 'the consumption' you were sent to Craig-y-nos to die". That's how one elderly relative explained it.
Last year on a visit to Craig-y-nos Castle, now a hotel specialising in weddings and ghost tours, I discovered no records exist of the time from early 1920 to late 1950's when it was a children's TB sanatorium.
It was as if these missing years of Welsh history had been quietly erased.
My search to fill in this historical gap began with submitting an entry to the BBC Mid-Wales community history site, and placing a small article in the Brecon and Radnor Express, and another in the South Wales Evening Post hoping that it might draw out information to piece together those missing decades.
Little did I know I was about to tap into the collective memory of a whole community of people with stories waiting to be told, many of whom had never spoken of their experiences before, some painful, some happy but all with their own unique tales of their time isolated from their families and the rest of the world in this secluded sanatorium on the edge of the Brecon Beacons.
E-mails started arriving from New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the UK along with a flood of letters and phone calls.
I have been deluged with photographs, approaching 600, tiny scraps of history, some barely more than 2" x 2", faded but clearly treasured. Many arrived on e-mail sent in by the children and grandchildren of those who were in Craig-y-nos as children.
But why wait until the publication next year of the book before these memories can be shared publicly? thanks to the internet it is possible to view some of them now. So that is the purpose of this online exhibition, along with the one at The Welfare Hall, Ystradgynlais from September 9th - 30th.
It soon became obvious that the original title for my book "The Lost Children of Craig-y-nos" was inappropriate: not only were many of the former children alive and well but eager for their stories to be told. So I changed it to "The Children of Craig-y-nos".
We made it. Hundreds didn't.
Ann Shaw
5 Pendreich Road
Bridge-of-Allan
Stirling FK9 4LY
Tel: 01786 832 287
email: annshaw@mac.com
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