School Sports – Maesmawr Hall, near Guilsfield, Welshpool

Three teams of children – two from the local school at Maesmawr and one comprised of visiting children from a Dr Barnardo’s home - ardently run, skip and high jump in an effort to win the honour of parading the Welsh flag down to Maesmawr Hall for the post-sports tea. Egg-and-spoon races are also undertaken, and sack races, but it’s a tall order keeping an egg on a spoon and jumping along in a sack that is bigger than you are, and there are tears, but none that cakes can’t mend.

Of the six homes run by Dr Barnardo’s (now known simply as Barnardo’s) in Wales, it seems most likely that the children at the sports day would have come from Roden Villa, Llandudno, which had become a home for boys as well as girls in 1956. The flag is presented to the winning team by the Rev Stevens and the tea is held in the garden of Maesmawr Hall near Guilsfield, Welshpool, the sports having taken place in the fields. This was the home/farm of Janet and Ion Trant, the latter devising, filming, editing and scripting a children’s "Country Close-up" series for the BBC (1956-1962), footage of the sports and tea being used in the 21/7/1959 edition. Trant also worked as a cameraman on the BBC’s weekly farming programme.