The Peggy Bus
It all started around 1967 between the not-so-Rocky mountains of Llanbradach and Penyrheol near Caerphilly, in South Wales. Sidney and Phyllis Kitt, and Ann Taylor and their families, were the first pioneers to join the Church. They provided their homes, their enthusiasm, their love, preparing the ground for the seeds the rest of us would be helping to sow.
My next door neighbour Barbara Hall received the message with gladness when missionaries found her door; soon afterwards she invited me to hear that message which I also received with gladness. A short while later our little core of strength increased as Colin and Suzanne Winters and others joined the Church.
We had no meetinghouse in Caerphilly so it was necessary to go to the Cardiff chapel over the Caerphilly mountain. Since the buses didn’t run to Cardiff on Sunday mornings we walked like the proverbial pioneers each week. It was a long trek – about five miles - but we were happy as we walked, pushing not hand carts but pushchairs.
We all had great faith. We had initiative too and soon decided we needed a means of transport. Winter was approaching and our little group of pioneers had no wagons or oxen. We decided on the modern day equivalent… a minibus. We already had a willing driver, Sidney Kitt. Now we needed money. All of us sisters could sew and had sewing machines, so we decided to sew us a bus!
We found the best places to buy cheap fabric and simple patterns for children’s clothes, but most of all we sewed peg bags - novelty bags that looked like little dresses on a hanger. We sewed what seemed like hundreds of them! We got our menfolk selling them and got many orders as our fame spread.
We were beginning to get a little weary, and sales were beginning to drop off, but we were still short of our target when our prayers were answered. Someone sent us a sum of money anonymously, just enough to make up the balance we needed.
We named our old minibus Peggy because of all the peg bags. Peggy wasn’t the most beautiful or the most functional minibus, but she got us over our Welsh mountain. There was always a spot near the top where she stalled, but all except the little ones would get out and push Peggy the rest of the way to the summit. We would then all scrambled back in and Peggy would sail down the other side.
One day, the inevitable happened. Peggy died on the mountain! It was a sad day for us when Peggy expired and was left to an unmarked grave at a car dealership. However Heavenly Father saw the plight of the Caerphilly pioneers and prompted Merthyr Tydfil Stake to start a Caerphilly Branch, renting rooms in Caerphilly, with Brother Kitt as branch president.
We were shortly joined by more members - all pioneers of faith and humour. We had so much between us – it was the golden thread that kept us going through difficult times and increased the love between us.
Our wards and branches have grown now and so have our families. From one seed can come a whole forest of oaks and every member is a seed. We are all pioneers in some way, in some wilderness, are we not? And Peggy had helped us over our not-so-rocky mountain.