Weeks before Christmas, three boys once went foraging for holly and strayed onto land near Conwy. But there was local speculation that a gamekeeper spotted them and what followed ended in tragedy.
The lads fled over a wall but on the other side was the swirling River Conwy. Unable to cope with the power of the water, the boys all drowned.
One of the families never put up holly at Christmas again. As for the Scottish gamekeeper, he is believed to have hastily packed up his belongings and fled his home, according to one family.
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Now - almost a century on from the catastrophe on December 13, 1924 - relatives of one of the boys are appealing for all the families involved to come forward and join a memorial service.
The three boys were Thomas Jones, ten, Henry Hoskins, nine, and seven-year-old Francis Cross. Newspaper reports stated at the time that they had gone onto land near Benarth in Conwy early that morning.
Charles Jones would later tell the "North Caernarvonshire" inquest that his son had been excited to go and collect holly. His mum had even lent him a little knife to cut it from bushes.
But Mr Jones said he would have stopped him if he had known where they were going to forage because he had previously been trapped by the tide there himself. There was no evidence to prove exactly what happened - only speculation about the gamekeeper.
But a police officer found marks as if someone had fallen down the bank into the water, and a broken branch of holly nearby.
Another little boy, who hadn't gone on the trip, revealed he had been asked to join the other lads but didn't as he had promised to run errands for his mother. The boys' bodies were found later.
The coroner's verdict was accidental death by drowning. He asked the council to place warning notices on the road.
The three boys were all from large, working class families with some suffering from ill-health and unemployment.
Their headstone is in St Agnes Road council cemetery and its stark epitaph on the boys' headstone spells out the story of what happened in grim detail.
It reads: "Three children drowned in the Conway River Dec. 13, 1924 Thomas Charles Jones aged 10 years, Henry Hoskins aged 9 years, Francis Evan Cross aged 7 years Safe in the arms of Jesus This memorial was erected by public subscription."
Thomas had 12 or 13 siblings including Peter Jones. Peter's son Allan Jones said: "Thomas was my Dad's brother.
"They came from a big family of 12 or 13 brothers and sisters. My Dad was not born when it happened (in 1924) as he wasn't born until 1928.
"But the effect on him was always there, it had a lasting effect. My Dad would not have holly in the house."
He added that they were poor families and their headstone was paid for by the local community." Peter Jones, who worked at the Hotpoint factory in Llandudno Junction, died aged 69, in 1997.
Allan, of Dwygyfylchi, said is now appealing for relatives of the other boys to come forward for a memorial service expected to be held in the centenary year next year. The headstone, which had fallen over, will be put up properly and the lettering re-leaded.
He said: "We don't know anything about the other families. Some of them may not be aware of what happened. It's such a sad story. I think it needs to be known."
* The Jones family ask relatives of the boys to email North Wales Live at david.powell@reachplc.com and we will forward their details to them.
