Scenes at Bryn-Hafod – good, bad and indifferent

The Merrett girls, bitten by the bug, dance the Charleston, dogs swing, Mrs Merrett putts and a small boy goes head-over-heels!

The family of Cardiff industrialist Herbert Henry Merrett get the craze for the Charleston dance – even the dogs get into the swing! Mrs Merrett practises putting on the lawn and a young friend – John Campbell – demonstrates his talent for head-over-heeling. Chickens are fed by O'Driscoll and Haycroft girls on Barry Island, and winter conditions provide a chance for all to test their feet on the ice (probably at Llandaf Fields, Cardiff).

Herbert Henry Merrett (1886-1959) started work at the age of 13 in the Cardiff docks offices of the Cory Bros. and became Chair of Powell Dyffryn coal company, receiving a knighthood in 1950 and being made a 'Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur' in 1957 in appreciation of the links he forged with France/Europe. He married Marion Higgins and they had 3 children: Norman, Joan and Margaret. They lived at Bryn Hafod, Pwllmelin Road, Llandaf, Cardiff, 1927-1939, during which time he purchased a house (built c.1805) in nearby Michaelston-le-Pit that he had at once demolished and in its place a neo-Georgian mansion built – 'Cwrt-yr-Ala - designed by architect Percy Edward Thomas, into which the family moved in 1940.