Family business trades in Amman Valley for more than 100 years
For more than 100 years one family has been selling cockles and laverbread to people in the Amman Valley. Liz Williams of Gower Coast Seafoods can be found at Ammanford Outdoor Market every Friday - as she has done for around 20 years and her husband's family before her. The business was started by Liz's mother-in-law Miriam Williams from Penclawdd who started selling cockles, with her mother, in Pantyffynnon, Ammanford, in 1912 when she was just eight-years-old. "She used to get there by train," said Liz. "Her uncles went to live in Pantyffynnon because they had work in the coal mines, and that is why she ended up going there to sell." As Miriam got older she sold further afield - to Brynamman, Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen and even as far as Trap - travelling by bus. "Miriam would get on the bus with her baskets of cockles and bags of shell cockles. She would ask the conductor to stop the bus at certain places and he would then place a basket of cockles and a ...