The bridge is safe

Strictly speaking this post has nothing whatsoever to do with Plas y Nant but I thought I'd share it with you. Did you watch the BBC One Wales programme about Bangor? It was full of fascinating facts, most of which I knew, but there was one fact they didn't mention so I thought I would.

A clip was shown during the programme of the Britannia Bridge burning down which had me chuckling away. No, I am not an arsonist I hasten to add, but it reminded me that after it burnt down a night watchman was installed to keep an eye on it and, presumably, make sure it didn't happen again. Every night, in the middle of the night, he had to ring Bangor police station and simply say "The bridge is safe". Now, not many people know this happened but we did because unfortunately our telephone number was one digit different to the number the night watchman had to ring. It didn't matter how often my parents told the watchman and the police he still rang to let us know that the bridge was safe and therefore we could sleep soundly in our beds. That is until one night when Nanan, my Mum's mum, was staying with us and had had enough of the nightly calls. So, she sat at the bottom of the stairs - because the phone was in the hall (in case you were wondering why she was sat there) and waited till he rang. He told her that the bridge was safe and then she told him exactly what he could do with his bridge. Needless to say he never rang again. Very determined lady was our Nanan!