Wendy Drew

Wendy made me feel so welcome when we first settled in Deytheur. When Emily was born she was the only neighbour who visited, carrying an enormous pink stuffed dog. Such happy memories of times in The Horseshoes and dancing in the kitchen. A friend fill of kindness and compasdion. My thoughts are with you all and hoping you can look to the future, holding happy memories in your hearts.

Was it just an accident that Ael y Bryn and the Conservative Club stared at each other from opposite sides of a divide rather wider than Welshpool High Street? Had Wendy lived in Ancient Athens, the authorities would have made her swallow the same hemlock as Socrates, on the same charge: corrupting the youth of the town, allowing them - encouraging them - to gather in her home at all times of the day or night to exchange seditious ideas and question the authority of the state. Or Mr Harper. Or anybody else, come to that. My own daughter - see her comments above - was seduced into the world of coffee addicts there and, to this day, refuses to drink tea, the healthful beverage of her childhood home. The kitchen of Ael y Bryn was where she was inducted into the world of roll-ups and rebellion and let nobody try to tell me otherwise. I know. I was, now and then, permitted to be there. Had Welshpool been Paris, Ael y Bryn would have been a café on the Left Bank in the rare old times.
It was Wendy's extraordinary contribution to the lives of so many who sat around the famous kitchen table.

I’m sorry, and rather ashamed to say, I’ve lost touch with Welshpool and almost everyone I knew from my childhhod and adolescence spent there. I returned though, just last year, for a day trip, with my wife and twelve year old son, to show them the places I grew up, and high on the list of sights to see was Ael y Bryn.

Like much of Welshpool High Street now, it looked rather run down, uncared for and sad. It’s a cliché to say that places have seen better days, but Ael y Bryn definitely has. Those days when it was Wendy’s, and was the hub of a whole scene, and the beating heart of a multitude of social lives, were most certainly better. They were good days, and nights, and though they are long past, they are not lost because they live on in so many memories for so many people.

I can’t make it to Aberystwyth today, but I’ll be thinking of Wendy, and her literally fabled kitchen table and the people around it with great fondness and affection.

To Wendy, and to better days.

I didn't really know Wendy, but due to her many years of strong friendship with my dear Aunt (Chris Pryce) I feel like she has always been in my life.
When Chris passed away in 2006 Wendy was such a strength and support to me. I will never forget her kindness ..... especially as she was grieving the loss of her best friend.
Sending heartfelt wishes at this sad time.
Xx
Sheila

I have such happy memories of Wendy and our life together through the 60’s and 70’s as we experienced university life, married and then produced and nurtured our beautiful children.
Wendy and I both loved jazz and the emerging popular music scene. She could jive really well and I remember vividly a joyous night of dancing at the University “hop” when the Beatles song “she loves you yeah, yeah, yeah!” had literally just been released. No one had ever heard anything like it before and everyone, including Wendy and me went wild!
After graduation, my work meant that we moved around the country but that didn’t stop us from having a family….so Trudy was born in Llandudno, Rachel in York, Katie in Chirk and Drew in Essex! In spite of all this movement Wendy devoted her time to the family and was a wonderful wife and mother.
Those were very happy times with dear Wendy ….we had lots of fun and had many dear friends. But I will always remember her so fondly for her support of me at that time and for being such a loving and caring mother of our children of whom she and I are so proud.

With love
Rod xx

Wendy was one of the world's genuinely beautiful souls.
The world was a far better place when she was in it.
The world is a far poorer place now that she's left it.

Wendy,
I can still hear my own footsteps on your stairs going up to the kitchen.
I can still hear me, Ade, Larry and Dave playing in your attic.
I can still hear your voice and your laugh.
I can still taste the rollup I'm smoking at your kitchen table.
Safe journey to wherever, you...
You'll be missed, really.
XXX

JUST PERHAPS

A poem for my dear auntie Wendy with fondest memories by Laurence Gerrans Reeve - April 2026

One
In the sadness of
Dear Wendy’s death
Let us pause and take
A ponderous breath
Just perhaps

Two
To consider the thought
That just perhaps
Nature knows
No pointless lapse
Just perhaps

Three
That all the life
We daily see
Comes back to right
Renewed and free
Just perhaps

Four
Too good to be true
Just perhaps you’ll say
It’s just not possible
It is not the way
Just perhaps

Five
That the pain of death
Is not the end
But a darkened road
With an invisible bend
Just perhaps

Six
And that just perhaps
Again we’ll see
Her smiling face
With youthful glee
Just perhaps

Oh wow, what a stunningly brilliant person Wendy was. So many wonderful memories from the CND march in Manchester with our placards proclaiming that the ‘Talbot Says No’ with Wendy’s permed hair and that distinctive smile and laugh to my last visit to her home in Abergavenny, when sitting and chatting in her kitchen was like being transported back to Ael y Bryn.
She was such an important person in many people’s life, me included. Those formative years of teenage life and early 20s were better for Wendy being there, unquestioning she accepted us into her home. Ael y Bryn, or Wendy’s as it was always referred to was a hub of life at most anytime of the day and nowadays I seldom pass the house without glancing a smile its way.
She was an integral presence during these years and always welcoming and will be sadly missed X

I am blessed to have known Wendy, and to have such wonderful memories of her. I will never forget her kindness when she welcomed me into her home as a wayward stray from Meifod. She did so without question and without judgement at a time when I really needed it. For years I was never sure if she knew how much she helped me during that time, but I am so grateful I finally got the opportunity to let her know last year. One Scorpio to another…

Being around Wendy was like a tonic - social nights with wine and roll ups, honest conversations, sharp wit, always animated and interested. I think about this and can see her vividly, smiling, laughing and eyes shining brightly. Relaxed mornings (she seemed to have perfected the art of the weekend lie-in!), the best toast and marmalade…Being just one day apart in our birthday , we exchanged cards for many years, with a tradition of who could send the most ridiculous “dog themed” card. Every time I opened her card it made me chuckle. I always have and always will, think of Wendy with the utmost fondness and deepest gratitude . With love, Tam XXX

So many memories of Wendy that it’s hard to whittle it down, she was so much the hub of life in Welshpool when I was in my teens and well beyond. I vividly remember going up the dark back stairs at Ael y Bryn, straight into the kitchen, and being welcomed like a member of the family, every single time. I remember her giving me my first ever cup of coffee one night when I was staying over, to go to one of the big CND demos the next day (I didn’t sleep!) :-D
All those coaches she organised to get us to those demos, which were very major events in the life of an idealistic Montgomeryshire teen. I hope she knew what a lodestar she was for us misfit youths back then.
One memorable winter’s day and night, when a severe cold snap made everything freeze up, presumably including the buses, and Wendy had a resulting houseful of impromptu guests including me, and we had to get water from the Buttery, because the pipes were all frozen. (It reached -25C in Shropshire that night, I don’t know what the temperature was in Welshpool but it was bloody cold!) Wendy was quite unphased by having an unplanned houseful and no water… no panic or irritation, just her usual cheerful hospitality.
Sitting on a sunny afternoon in the beer garden at the Talbot - a very characteristic Wendy memory. The roll-ups! Her big husky laugh (possibly related). Her love of Trad jazz. Her general love of fun and bonhomie, and occasional frustration with people who were boring and wouldn’t get into the spirit.
Very cosy (in my memory, candle-lit) winter nights around the fireplace in the sitting room.
Her instantly recognisable handwriting on the birthday cards she sent me almost every year.
Her unforgettable voice, and, again - her laugh. I can picture her now in absolute fits of laughter.
It seems really odd now that we can take photos of anything and everything with our phones, but I have NO photographs at all from those days in Welshpool, and not one single photo of Wendy. So I’m hoping that people will contribute what they do have, here - or that I may get to see more pics at the weekend. Love to you all Xx

Two very fond memories of Wendy to share, both based on her strong values and sense of social justice.
1. A legendary gig in Welshpool Town Hall in aid of CND which Wendy had organised with her local CND members.
2. Spending the evening at Wendy’s house in Welshpool on May 2nd 1997 to see Labour sweep into power after the years of Tory rule under Thatcher and Major. An unforgettable and historic moment.

Proud to have known and spent time with Wendy. X