Six longer testimonies from people who have written to the trust, received a small grant, or volunteered alongside us. All names and ages are used with permission. We have not edited the substance of the quotations; we have lightly tidied the punctuation.
Testimonies on this page are taken from letters, conversations at the Memorial Hall, and the comment book we put out at the annual Diwrnod y Cyhoedd. We do not pay anyone to give a testimony and we do not promise that further grants will follow from a kind one. Read these for what they are — six village voices, not six endorsements.
Llaw i’r Aelwyd · 2024
Margaret, 78, Deiniolen.
“I had been a widow for two years already when the heating went and I could not face ringing British Gas. My grandson was the one who said I should write to the trust. I wrote it on the back of an envelope. They wrote back the same week. The cheque was for £60 for the heating, and a note from Brian remembering my brother. I keep both in the same drawer. The thing I want to say, that I do not often say, is that I had not asked for help in any practical way since 1971 and I did not know how. The trust made it easy. There was no form to fill in and there was no question that made me feel small. There was a letter from Brian; that was the whole of it.”
Grantiau Cymunedol · 2025
Rhys, 42, Dinorwig.
“We applied on behalf of the football club. The grant was modest — £250 for new corner-flags and a defibrillator service — but they read every line of what we wrote. We had a short letter back from Glyn saying he had a look at the defibrillator certification standards and would we mind paying the service company at the higher rate so that the certificate was valid for two years instead of one. We had not thought of that. I do not know how many funders would have. The cheque came a fortnight after our letter; the corner-flags were up by August.”
Llaw i’r Aelwyd · 2024
Eleri, 71, Deiniolen.
“They sat with us at the kitchen table — that was the whole of it. Nobody asked me to prove anything. Brian had known Hywel since the quarry. Marina read the meter with me and there was no fuss. They gave me £120 for the heating and I have never been asked what I did with any of it. I bought slippers in Caernarfon with some of it, and I am not ashamed to say so; my feet were cold and the slippers I had were thirty-five years old. The cheque arrived in the post on the Friday with a card that just said cofion, Marina. It is the kindest thing anybody has done in a year that was very hard.”
Grantiau Cymunedol · 2024
Bryn, 67, Penisarwaun.
“I am the chair of Cymdeithas Hanes Deiniolen. The trust paid for the printing of the village-history pamphlet — two-hundred copies, all distributed by Christmas. It is the smallest charitable cheque I have ever cashed and the one I am proudest of, because what it bought was something the village can keep on its shelves. I will say something the trust will be too modest to say themselves: the four trustees know more about Deiniolen than any of the academic historians I have worked with, and they read our funding applications the way a careful neighbour reads a fence-post — with one hand on it, checking it is sound.”
Cylch Meithrin · 2025
Megan, 33, Deiniolen.
“Our cylch meithrin had run out of Welsh-language story books. We had been making do with photocopies. Marina arrived a fortnight later with a wicker basket of new books — the trust’s long-standing £120 annual grant, plus a small top-up. None of it was paperwork; all of it was kindness. We have been reading Sali Mali and Y Tylwyth Teg to a generation of three-year-olds because of this trust. That is not a small thing in a Welsh-speaking village. It is, possibly, the thing.”
Lle i Ddysgu · 2025
Dafydd, 19, Brynrefail.
“I am an apprentice joiner, second year. I asked the trust for £80 toward my apprentice tool kit. Glyn dropped the cheque off himself on his way to the chapel. He asked how my Nain was. We talked on the doorstep for twenty minutes. He said the saw I had chosen was the same one his father had used. The kit is in my workshop now; the saw has a Welsh name carved into the handle, which my Nain insisted on. The trust did not give me £8,000 to set up a workshop and I would not have asked for it. They gave me £80 for a saw, and a conversation on a doorstep, and that is more useful at nineteen than anyone outside the village would believe.”
Three short notes from this winter.
Three further pieces of correspondence from the past three months, with permission. Names used in full where the writer wished them used; otherwise initials.
A letter · January 2026 · M.O., 81, Deiniolen
A letter from Deiniol Road.
“I have not written a letter for a long time, and the trust will forgive a slow hand. I wanted to say thank you. The bag that arrived in November had everything I would have asked for, and a small note in Welsh that I read twice. I am eighty-one and have lived in Deiniolen since 1947. The trust has done more in three months than the council has done in twenty years, and I do not say that to be unkind to the council — I say it because the trust came at the right time, in the right language, with the right amount of fuss, which is to say none.”
A card · February 2026 · S.W., Memorial Hall committee
A card from the Memorial Hall.
“The new door-handle and weather-strip are doing their job. We had three windy evenings in January and not a draft through the porch. Thank you also for the small note on the back of the cheque about checking the latch in March — we have put it in the diary. The hall, on behalf of the village, is in your debt.”
A note in person · March 2026 · L.J., 16, Brynrefail
An apprentice’s note, written at the kitchen table.
“I am writing this from my kitchen table because Mam said that is what the trust likes. The toolkit grant was £80 and it bought me a tenon saw, a marking gauge, a try square, and a steel rule. I am two months into the apprenticeship and the tools are still as sharp as the day Glyn gave them to me. I will look after them. Diolch.”
What people say no to us about.
One short observation, on the record. Not everyone writes to thank us; some villagers write to politely refuse a grant we have offered. The most common reason is that, between application and decision, the need has resolved itself — a relative has stepped in, a benefit has come through, a small windfall has arrived. We write back to say the offer remains open for twelve months, and we put a small reminder in the diary. About half of these grants are taken up later in the year; the other half are not, which is, in its own way, a good outcome.
