I was talking to Hugh Williams, who lived in Ynys Gifftan, a few years before he died, about the change in the course of the river this side of the Island, and Hugh told me that tha last time the river came this side was 1940.
It is now back again on the Minffordd side, but with David Jones working hard this side of the Island and taking a lot of the sand away, I am sure that it wont be very long before we see it back again this side.
The traeth has altered a lot in the last fifty years. When I think that the sand was up to the rocks by Clogwyn Melyn and also by Trwyn Glanmor, now there is acres of it covered by that terrible weed and of course it holds all the mud, at one time it was a lovely beach.
The men used to go down in Winter on the saltings to shoot wild ducks and if they weather was very cold they would get a few wild geese.
A firm came to the traeth to cut turf and the turf was taken all over the Country for bowling greens and football pitches. They treated the turf with fertilisers and they put weed killer down to kill the weeds but owing to a very cold winter they could not cut the turf and they took the railway track up, it was nearly down to the Island. We went to Southend a few years ago and we were shown a bowling green that was returfed with turf from Talsarnau and it would be nice to know of other places that had turf from the traeth.
What does `Ynys Gifftan' mean? Some people think it could be `gitan' a young goat as the farm the Minffordd side is called Abergafran . Could it have come from the word `skiff' - a boat, as some people think?