Davy Rees Roberts, George Board and the Evangelistic Hall, by Professor Kenneth Board

Davy Rees Roberts, George Board and the Evangelistic Hall
Professor Kenneth Board

The two above mentioned gentlemen are my grandfathers and both in very different ways are linked to the Evangelistic Hall. This is a story about how they both came to be there and how this gave rise to my very existence.
First of all Davy Rees Roberts. For many years he was a leading brother in the Hall and devoted his life to it. He was born in 1883 in Llanelli and was brought up initially in St Paul’s Church just off Ann Street in Llanelli (now demolished). He and his brother left this Church and joined the brethren at Custom House Bank where it was founded and later at the Evangelistic Hall in Arthur Street. Their father was not very pleased. I have little knowledge of any further details, including Davy Rees’ mother or of any other brothers or sisters he may have had. Davy was married to my grandmother, Lily Roberts (nee Thomas) and they had six children Reginald, Glyn, Herbert(Bertie), Beryl, Elizabeth and Davy James. They all were brought up in the Hall and with the exception of the youngest, Davy James, continued to be there with their families throughout their lives.
George Board was born in 1876 in Brixham, South Devon, and was a trawlerman there as were his father and grandfather both named John. One summer in 1867 John senior decided to go to Ramsgate to fish in his trawler for that summer along with his wife. His son John, my great-grandfather, refused to go with his father deciding instead to stay as an apprentice trawlerman with another Brixham fisherman. George senior was drowned outside Ramsgate having been caught in a storm that shipwrecked his vessel on nearby rocks. His wife, my great grandmother, never returned to Brixham but stayed in Ramsgate.
George continued as a trawlerman and eventually bought his own vessel, a sailing trawler called the Cormorant. One year around the end of the Great War he lost two successive trawl nets in storms and went bankrupt. He sold up and joined a company engaged in building the breakwater in Brixham. At this time he was married to Alice Foster my grandmother and they had two children, Mabel who was then fifteen years of age and Herbert, my father who was then five.
When that work finished the company was contracted to build Loughor road bridge between Llanelli and Swansea in South-west Wales. George decided to come, along with his family, to continue with his employer.
On his arrival in Llanelli he stayed, to begin with, in Elizabeth Street and on the first Sunday morning went towards town in search of a place of worship. In Brixham he attended the Methodist Church in Fore Street where he and Alice Foster were married.
They paused outside the Evangelistic Hall looking at the noticeboard and were noticed by Mr Magnus Bowers who was at the door. He invited them in and the rest is history. My father grew up there as did Beryl Roberts, Davy Rees’daughter and my mother. They were married in the Hall in 1938 at the same ceremony as Len and Glenys Jones from Bynea, near Llanelli. Twenty eight years later to the day I married their daughter Meriel.
Subsequently, my father succeeded Davy Rees as a leading brother in the Hall, with his son- in -law John Davies following him. Currently his son Robert Davies (Davy Rees’ and George Board’s great-gandson) is playing a leading role there.