"What became of AJC 187? When I was young, we lived in Betws y Coed and my Dad worked for British Railways, not on the trains, but delivering goods from Llanrwst Station, where everything arrived by train. He'd often move enormous slabs of aluminum that were going to Dolgarrog Works.
I had a railway pass all my own and was able to travel for free. Mam could come too, but Dad had another much more interesting and exciting job. When he arrived home at the end of the day, he became an ambulance driver.
He'd done his first aid training with the order of St John of Jerusalem and our new phone had been installed. It soon became my job to listen out for the phone and the first call out of the evening.
His Caernarfonshire Service ambulance was kept in the middle of the village, at the old stables of the Royal Oak Hotel.
On Sunday afternoons, Bobby and Eryl, my big brothers, were always allowed to go and help Dad clean and polish the ambulance. They could sit in the driver's seat, wear Dad's peaked cap and pretend they were driving to the latest emergency.
I really wanted to go too, but I was too small. What a treat it was when I could go with Mam. That lovely cream and green Bedford ambulance would really shine when they'd finished, but I'm sure it would shine just that little bit extra when I'd been there too. Did it ever rain when it was cleaning time?
Dad stopped being an ambulance driver in 1966 and the ambulance was moved from Betws soon after. Dad carried on driving all sorts of vehicles, from container trucks to oil tankers, from the old maroon Ford Anglia to the bright red Vauxhall Cavalier.
But a ride in none of these was ever quite as special; none of them ever had quite the same appeal as a ride in that old cream and green ambulance in the 1960s.
I still wonder what happened to AJC 187."
