Play it again, Roy! The Bryncrug man with a passion for music and motors

July 21, 2026

Play it again, Roy! The Bryncrug man with a passion for music and motors

Roy Crawford is regularly seen out and about in Bryncrug and Tywyn at the wheel of his distinctive white 'cabin car' motorised buggy. It's his main mode of transport these days, since a stroke affected his eyesight and he had to give up his driving licence a few years ago. He's resigned to it, and remains cheerful, but he dearly misses driving out in one of the classic cars he's collected over the years. He beams with pride as he carefully pulls back a sheet in his garage to reveal a beautiful, creamy-white 1951 MG TD that he built himself.

Roy - now 88 - bought the MG as a "bag of bits" after it had been dismantled for scrap, but then discovered half the pieces didn't belong to the car at all, so had to scour the UK for the missing parts.

"It took me a long time to track them down, but I did it eventually," he recalls. "I used to take the car to shows and I won lots of prizes with it."

Roy with his beloved MG TD

Roy didn't only build full-size cars; he made miniature ones too: in what used to be stabling for horses sits an exquisite-looking Jaguar he made "from scratch" and perfectly to scale. "I even made some of the tools that I needed to build it with," he explains. "It took me two years to complete."

Classic cars have been one of Roy's lifelong passions - along with music. The seven-piece Roy Crawford Band, which he started more than three decades ago, and which performed regularly at dances and weddings, is still going today, although nowadays performances are limited to once a year - a summer gig at the Neuadd Dyfi (this year's date is yet to be announced).

"I've always loved music," he says. "Both my parents played the piano and I started having lessons when I was young. Then I taught myself to play the saxophone and the clarinet. By the time I was 15, I was playing in dance clubs once a week."

It was during his National Service in the RAF that Roy first joined a band. "I auditioned for the air force band and got in. We were sent to Sylt in Germany and played on both European and American military bases. But after I went into business, I left music alone and didn't do anything for years and years. Then one day, about 30 years ago, I went out with some friends and we heard a school band play. I said, 'do you know, when I get home, I'm going to get my saxophone out; I want to start playing again'. And that's what I did."

As well as founding his own swing band, Roy also played in a Machynlleth-based band for many years, and for 20 years was involved on the music side with the pantomime in Aberdyfi.

Roy has lived in Bryncrug for 56 years, moving to Wales with his family to join engineering firm Tywyn Turned Parts (TTP) in 1970.

Born in Great Barr, now part of Birmingham, Roy followed his father into the toolmaking trade. After leaving school at 15, he took up an apprenticeship with a local firm. It was here he met Shirley, who worked in the office. At the annual works dance, he sat next to her and asked her out. They were engaged at 18 and got married once they'd saved enough to buy a house. "I was 16 when we met and she was 17. We had a wonderful marriage - we never argued - but sadly she died in February this year after two years of ill-health. I miss her dreadfully."

After completing his apprenticeship - which was interrupted by National Service - Roy remained with the factory for a year before moving to an engineering firm in Aldridge, near Walsall, which had recently been set up by a man called Norman Gardner.

"The company grew quickly until it was employing 200 people," he remembers. "I was made assistant manager and then became a director."

Norman had business connections in mid-Wales, and in 1970 set up TTP on what's now the Pen-y-Bont industrial estate in Bryncrug.

"Not long after it started trading, I was sent down to Wales for a few weeks," says Roy. "I really liked the area and the countryside, and I thought it'd be a better environment for my family than in the West Midlands."

On his return to Birmingham, he announced to Shirley that he wanted them to move to Wales. Happily, she agreed, and they relocated to Bryncrug with their daughter, Maxine, then aged five. "Within several weeks of being here, she had settled into the primary school in the village and was speaking Welsh perfectly," recalls Roy, whose younger daughter, Sarah, was born in Tywyn.

Roy was appointed works director of TTP and remained in the post for 40 years, retiring at the age of 70, just a couple of years before the company closed.

"It was very successful for a long time. When we started, orders were coming out of our ears. At its height, TTP employed 55 people - and we kept ahead of the game by installing CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machines that were fast and could run round the clock. We used to deliver products to the Midlands every day, and every day we'd bring back raw materials. But gradually things started to change. Foreign companies were beginning to boom and could produce products cheaper than we could in the UK."

The house Roy lives in today he designed himself - and he carried out much of the building work too. "A local builder did the main structural work, but Shirley and I, along with friends, did most of the rest, including the interior work."

Quirky features include a model cannon gun in the garden that Roy made out of a streetlight that had got knocked over by a car in Tywyn. "It was all twisted, but I salvaged it and managed to straighten it and turn it into a cannon gun."

The property had enough land to keep horses, and Maxine and Sarah competed in shows around the area. When they left home, Roy took up horse-riding instead.

The horses are gone, now, but Roy still has the cars and the music. "People sometimes ask me if I'm going to move, especially as the house is quite big for one person, but I tell them: 'Why would I move? This is my home. I'm not going anywhere."