Sir, The opening of Narberth Castle a few weeks ago brought back many a childhood memory. My mother was born opposite the entrance of the castle at the Castle Hotel, while I was born a hundred yards away in Picton Place. It was at the bottom of Picton Place that my grandfather kept a saddlers shop. He was known to all the people around in his days as Eynon the Saddler. Many elderly people will remember him and his shop where the horses' saddles and many other implements were hung outside. But back to the castle. Many a summer my friends and I played for hours there, as indeed many a day throughout the year, climbing the castle walls and playing in the dungeons, where there was a great zinc shed which we children thought had ammunition from the Second World War. We also pitched our small tents and lit fires, which was dangerous at the time as it was near the ammunition shed, or so we thought. This was our domain in the 1940s. Our territory so to speak. Mostly, youngsters who went to the Church School would be situated down that part of town; a few came from the likes of Princes Gate and Dusty Back, as it was known then, but the vast majority of us kids were from that area. Saying that the castle was our territory was because at the top of the town, or High Street, was a certain school called the Board School, whose pupils were our sworn enemies and where many a dinner time we youngsters would go up to the school or they would venture down to fight each other. Stone throwing, fighting, wrestling and name calling were the order of the day, but once you heard the bell of the Church School sounding us to get back to school, you can bet your bottom dollar everything ceased and we had to rush back, for if late, a certain Mr. Hayden Richards, the headmaster, would be waiting with a caning stick in his hand, which was the order of the day then. Many of us youngsters felt the cane, and in those days you didn't tell your parents or you'd have another caning. So you see why downtown was our territory and the moor was the Board School territory. Sadly, Narberth's Church School has been closed many a year, while the school up town is not known as the Board School anymore. Behind the walls of Narberth Castle was another area where many a day was spent playing in and around a giant oak tree situated there. You see, not for us kids the luxury of televisions, CDs, computers, videos, mobile phones, walkmans and such things; they were never thought of then. We had to make our own fun and games back in those distant times, like my mother and her brothers and sisters before me and her generation of youngsters. All Church School kids as well. Sadly, many of my generation and my mother's generation are no longer with us, but I'm sure everyone alive today can testify to what the castle meant to them in their times. It was a dangerous place to be, where the crumbling and insecure walls were often climbed to the very top, but I cannot remember many injuries; certainly some bloodied knees and cut hands, but that's all. Who'd have thought all those years ago in the 1940s whilst climbing those walls, that years later I would be travelling the world many times over as an international boxing referee, visiting countries that you only heard about in geography or history lessons, Canada, America, France, Norway, Germany, Greece, Poland, Sweden, Finland and many others. They were really great times then, when the summers always seemed warm and pleasant. It's funny, you only seem to remember the good days. No doubt we also had many a rainy day, but you forget them and just think of the sunny days. So as you see, Narberth Castle holds many a memory for us youngsters then. If the kids of today have as much fun as we did in those ancient walls, they too will have many memories to tell. But sadly I doubt it, for as I said, there are more interesting things to do today than in those distant days of years ago. Sorry if I have rambled on, but I had to paint a fuller picture of what Narberth Castle meant to me and my mother's generation.

John Phillips, Welsh ABA and World referee and judge, EABA and AIBA referee and judge,

Treveil Flat, Picton Place, Narberth.