'Good and bad' in a place I love

Hazel Jones cried when her original house in Penrhys was demolished

Hazel Jones, 66, has lived in Penrhys, Rhondda, since 1969 and recalls some of the ups and downs of life on the hilltop estate, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary.

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I would travel from Trebanog to my mother-in-law's in Ferndale and as they were building Penrhys I said to my husband 'I would love to live up here'.

We had a three-bedroom house in Penrhys and I thought it was absolutely marvellous.

The size of the house, the toilet downstairs, the toilet up, I thought it was wonderful. Everything was new.

I was meeting new people, my children were going to a new school, there were safe roads.

I remember the visit of Prince Charles to Penrhys and have lots of many happy memories up here with kids and street parties and who would book the centre first for the street party.

The saddest memory was when my house was demolished in 2002, which I found out from the local newspaper.

The day I moved out, the house cried and I bloody cried too and then I had to move.

I think that broke my heart to be honest with you.

The school catching fire was sad. To see the headteacher so upset and crying.

People don't realise there's good and bad down in the valley, but there's good and bad on the estate and I love Penrhys.

Winter is hard but summer, fantastic. You could go out and leave your door open like that you know, lovely.

My worry now is that our houses stay up, number one.

Work together

I hope they stay up because they won't get me out this time.

I'd like it to stay as it is and I think if they'd got something for the youngsters it would be a far better place for them personally.

There's lovely children up here, beautiful children, and I hope they would stay up here to keep Penrhys going for the future.

I hope the future will be fine, because I've enjoyed my nearly 40 years up here and I would love to see the children saying 'oh well, we want to stay up here'.

We've all got to help together and it's up to the people to make it a nice place.

It's the people who have to work together to make sure there is a future up here.