Abersoch and Portmeirion - Whit Week 1951

A sign in the woods of Portmeirion reading ‘Please No Picking’ causes the 3 young Healey girls some amusement whilst on their hols in Abersoch.

As a boy, William Healey would visit Abersoch from Lancashire with his parents and 2 brothers for holidays full of sun, sand and sea. He returns now with his 3 daughters who enjoy the same seaside environment. They take a trip to Portmeirion, the Italianate village built by architect Clough Williams-Ellis from which charabancs are barred and the buildings are a world away from the Abersoch beach huts. As his father Percy would do, William records the holiday on film.

William Healey (b.1916) and his youngest brother Brian followed in their father’s footsteps, running Healey Brothers Ltd, a rope and twine manufacturing business established in Heywood, Lancashire, by their great-grandfather in 1843. Their brother, Donald, was killed in 1940, the ship he was on torpedoed. William married F Marjorie Etherington in 1939 - their 3 daughters feature in the film: Angela (b.1941), Vivien (b.1946) and Rachel (b.1948) who all attended Bury Grammar School and Harrogate Ladies College. The business survived the war (via camouflage netting, parachute cords and string vests) and in 1968 was acquired by British Ropes Ltd. Heywood’s Cartridge Ropery est. 1843 still operates.