Events Co-ordinator Sandra Thompson was delighted to welcome Tony Key, OBE, to the March meeting of Narberth Ladies Probus Club.

Tony was in the police force based in Rhondda Cynon Taf for 32 years, and then spent five years as a Community Officer.

In response to the community safety action plan, he and two colleagues initiated an inspirational project to help children from Caerphilly County Borough’s primary schools receive important lessons in safety, crime, and health.

Initially, they transformed a small, disused factory on the Treforest estate into an interactive space for local school students involved with the Crucial Crew initiative. Crucial Crew is aimed at year 6 primary pupils and provides them with an opportunity to acquire essential life skills at an impressionable time in their development.

However, this space soon became too small, so Tony and his colleagues acquired a much larger factory and set out to instal ten rooms, including a firehouse, pub, shop, disability house, police station, prison cell, electricity sub-station, building site, pedestrian crossing, and a railway line. This was all constructed with the help of local firms and businesses.

These theatre-style, interactive scenarios helped pupils learn about the importance of safety as they worked their way around the ten set-ups with ten-minute practical sessions covering safety messages in each of the exhibits.

More than 2,000 children were able to visit the safety zone each year, receiving invaluable advice about underage drinking and antisocial behaviour, road safety, substance misuse, fire safety, first aid, wildlife, and conservation issues.

On behalf of the President, Sandra thanked Tony for his most interesting talk. The next meeting of the Club will be at 11am on Friday, April 14 at the Plas Hyfryd Hotel. New members are always welcome.