The Railways of Romance – part2
The engines of the “Rhymney” Railway do not stand out clearly in my memory. I fear that, in my enthusiasm for the “Taff”, I never did justice to a line that dared to compete by taking folk to Cardiff. It had its advocates, however, and I recall that it was commended for an honest turn of speed. The “London North Western” also suffered the same injustice. In those days of restricted geographical knowledge we were unable to put the credit of the “London North Western” its importance on the way from London to Lancashire. As I remember it then, in its black coat and sleek contours, the “London North Western” engine carried an air of restraint and culture, suggesting, perhaps, an elegant curate. It came among us kindly, but it was never really of us.
But there was one engine that we classed apart from all others. It was the dear old “Brecon and Merthyr” in its faded coat of brown. What degree of precision that line has now acquired I do not know. Since those old days it may have grown meticulous, and, like the “Cambrian”, begun to sub-divide its breathless minutes. But in the period of which I speak nobody ever asked the “Brecon and Merthyr” to run to time. It was not even expected. People were, in the main, quite satisfied if it came in on the proper day. It had, no doubt, good reason for its tardiness; and when it arrived at last the general relief was so charged with fine emotion that pity and forgiveness floated easily to the top.
Looking back I am driven to believe that, for us small boys, the “Brecon and Merthyr” fulfilled a literary purpose quite outside the intentions of its directors. In that stage of literary taste we were, most of us, given to the assiduous study of Deadwood Dick and the whole fraternity of Canyon, Gulch and Bowie Knife. All our young romanticism, which otherwise might have hung loose in the air, centred about the “Brecon and Merthyr”. It was our stage-coach, moving through the terrors of the wild and woolly West. The other railways went through the civilized and ordered belts of Glamorgan; but the “Brecon and Merthyr” wound its way through lonely places in the frowning hills. When, long after the appointed time of arrival, it had not even been signalled, who knew that some “foul-play” had befallen it? Desperadoes might have sent it crashing into the lake at Dolygaer, or it might be that at Cefn masked men had boarded it, covering the driver with their “derringers”, while others looted whatever the guard’s van held as the equivalent of the gold nuggets of our literature.
Many of those who, in that long ago, kept with me the vigil of the trolleys are now staid citizens with small boys of their own. It may be that, with the hypocritical virtue of age, those old companions now chide their youngsters should they come home a little late, bringing with them a faint odour of fish and vegetables. But it may be, too, that if any of those little boys of former time chance to read what is here written they will temper paternal judgement with new mercy, for so they must do if they can remember the thrill of those dark winter evenings when, from that far romantic void, the “Brecon and Merthyr” came home at last – with driver and stoker lit by the glow of boiler-fires to the semblance of heroes more than mortal.
This article was transcribed from the book ‘The Legend of the Welsh’, an anthology of J. O. Francis’ writings published in 1924.
I would recommend anyone to try to track down a copy of the book – it’s a fantastic collection of some of the short works by one of Merthyr’s best, but sadly forgotten. writers.
The Railways of Romance – part 1
Today marks the 140th anniversary of the birth of one of Merthyr’s greatest writers – J. O. Francis. To mark the occasion, one of his excellent short essays is transcribed below, following a short introduction by Mary Owen who wrote a marvellous biography of him.
John Oswald Francis (J.O.) was born at 15, Mary Street, Twynyrodyn in 1882, and lived later at 41, High Street, next door to Howfields, when his father, a blacksmith, opened a farrier shop in the busy shopping centre. In 1896 he entered the County Intermediate and Technical School on the day of its opening and benefited greatly, like many others, from the education he received there. It formed the grounding for the rest of his life. A blacksmith’s life was not for him. In 1900, he gained a scholarship to University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, where he graduated with first class honours in English.
He lived for the rest of his life in London, where he was well known as a dramatist, journalist, broadcaster and a popular public speaker. He found fame in 1913 with his play, Change, about ordinary Welsh working-class people and the problems they were facing as changes were taking place in politics, religion and education. It was the first of its kind and gave a new genre to drama, which influenced writers for decades. Although he lived away from Merthyr Tydfil for most of his life, his knowledge of it in his youth inspired him to write about it in the years that followed until his death in 1956. His many short comedies helped to bring about the popularity of amateur dramatics, especially in Glamorgan. He was a pioneer and he became a leading member of the First Welsh National Drama Movement. He was regarded as ‘a distinguished dramatist, ‘a gentle satirist, and ‘always a Merthyr boy’.
Mary Owen
The Railways of Romance
None of us can determine which of the impressions we are always unconsciously receiving is being most deeply written on our minds. What abides is, often enough, that which might least be expected to remain. It is, too, sometimes a little incongruous, as if memory were in part jester, playing tricks with recollection – perhaps in kindness – lest the past should have too grim a visage.
Setting up to be a serious and philosophic person, I must confess to some perplexity over my remembrance of South Wales. There is an interloping thought that persists in creeping into the midst of more exalted memories. I cannot think of the high places of my early destiny – my home, my school, the houses of my more generous relations, and the chapel of my juvenile theology – but that a railway station crowds unasked into the mental scene. In the station of that Town of the Martyr in Glamorgan, an there, no doubt, small boys, stealing away from the harsh realities of the High Street, still snatch a fearful joy upon the trolleys, and staring away past the signal box, weave for themselves the figments of young romance.
The small boy’s zest in railway stations has, I may argue in self-defence, a basis in the deep instincts of humanity. In the old primitive world the barbarian, looking up on the sun, was overwhelmed by a sense of its vast power. He made a god of it, and bowed in reverence. So, also, that unequivocal barbarian, the average small boy, beholds in a railway engine an example of power well within the range of his understanding. It is, perhaps, the same old instinct of adoration that kindles in every healthy youngster his burning desire to be a railway-guard.
Even in this riper stage, when life holds joys more attractive than the right to blow the whistle and to jump authoritatively upon a moving train, I find that a railway station can still exercise a certain lure. To every good Welshman, Paddington and Euston are wondrous places. He may not be one of the happy pilgrims, but it is a pleasure merely to look at carriages that go out under such banners as “Cardiff”, “Fishguard”, “Aberystwyth”, “Dolgelley” or “Barmouth”, and if he is not quite a curmudgeon he can find a vicarious delight in the blessedness of those departing.
But Paddington and Euston have a strenuous air. They do not encourage people to loiter upon trolleys and watch the pageant of the trains. In that station of the Martyr’s Town there was more tolerance. Over Paddington and Euston it had also this other advantage – it did not monotonously receive and despatch the rolling-stock of a single company. Oh, no! It had trains in a variety that I have never since seen equalled. Almost all the lines in Glamorgan gathered to it, just as all paths are said to lead to Rome.
Simply to enumerate the companies that sent their trains to pause under that grimy but catholic roof is to recover something of the rapture of the schoolboy “with shiny morning face”. We had the “Great Western” and the “Taff”; the “London North Western”, the “Rhymney”, and the “Brecon and Merthyr”. I am sorry that, by some kindly roundabout way, the Barry Railway did not run in also. But I am sure that it was then much more than a project.
We small boys of the station-hunting breed knew the different types of engine point by point. We had each of us a favourite. Bitter indeed were our disputes on the question of comparative worth, and devotion went occasionally to the chivalry of fisticuffs. Squeaky voices were raised in partisan abuse. Young eyes shone with the light of a noble championship. (Grown-up people, I have since learnt, land themselves in the law courts for issues less important than those falsetto controversies).
The engine of each company had its own characteristic quality, fully appreciated in our loving study after school hours and in the joyous emancipation of Saturday. The “Great Western” arrived from some vague place called “Swansea” – made after the “local” model, and with its well-known “tick, tick!” rather like a stout lady in a dark-green costume catching her breath after exhausting movement. To many of us the “Taff” was the most impressive of them all. I daresay that on a general suffrage, with a secret ballot to nullify the influence of some of our brawnier members, the “Taff” would have been voted the finest thing that ever went on wheels. How big and burly was the “Taff” engine as it swung past the signal box! How cheerfully it whistled, and how inevitably did it suggest a robust representation of John Bull!
Often did we wonder what would happen if it failed to stop before it reached the buffers. About our expectant platform hung the legend of a day when an engine had crashed right through and gone in mad career almost to the door of the Temperance Hall without. But not for us were such catastrophes! They were the story of an older era, a reminiscence of giants before the flood.
To be continued…….
Jimmy Edwards, Nancy Whiskey and an 11 year old Boy
by Brian Jones
The atmosphere in the red double-decker bus was a mixture of excitement and apprehension – the experienced pupils were pleased to renew old acquaintances, whilst the nervous first year boys and girls tended to quiet reflection. The bus, with the conductor keeping a watchful eye, meandered down Twyn hill, up the High Street to Pontmorlais, then skirted Merthyr General Hospital and finally reached its destination at Gwaelodygarth, near the top gates of Cyfarthfa Park. A mass of buses disgorged hundreds of Cyfarthfa Castle Grammar School pupils, 120 of whom were about to begin the first day of a new adventure.
The ten minute walk through the park would be repeated innumerable times over the next seven happy and eventful years. Amongst the wave of children, some marched at a brisk pace, others moved slowly and deliberately, whilst a few set off on a hurried race ignoring the beauty of the park. Soon each of the four seasons would pass leaving each of their distinctive colours and smells lingering in the memory – the odour of wet leaves crushed underfoot in autumn, the snow and ice of winter, the showers of rain that heralded a new spring, and finally the shade of the trees providing some relief on the occasional hot days of summer.
The girls peeled away – on the path to the rear of the school while the boys from 11 to 18 years of age followed the gentle downward slope to the front of the school. Only the sixth form and teaching staff could enter through the quadrangle, while the Lower and Middle schools walked a little further through the yard and into the long school corridor.
In 1957 Jimmy Edwards (left) was the star of the B.B.C television comedy series “Whacko” which was shown on small black and white television sets with poor picture and sound reception. Jimmy’s trademark handlebar moustache, mortarboard and black academic gown marked him out as the incompetent schoolmaster, forever jousting with that errant pupil “Taplow”. Their fictitious school mirrored some of the features of “The Castle” – the academic dress of the staff; the occasional corporal punishment; the management of the pupils by the school prefects, all of who seemed like giants to that very small 11 year-old boy. The prefects would dish out lines for the slightest perceived misdemeanours saying “100 lines by tomorrow boy” then to rattle off at breakneck speed, “Deep harm to disobey seeing as obedience is a bond of rule”.
In other respects the school where Jimmy Edwards ruled the roost was very unlike “The Castle”. There all pupils were “posh” whereas at Cyfarthfa the school was a delicious mix of children of professionals, tradesmen and unskilled workers – the sons and daughter of teachers, · electricians and fitters, production operatives at Hoovers, I.C.I, B.S.A and Triang Toys. In the comedy series all of the children were English through and through, with appropriate English surnames. In my class there were Bernstein, Lozano, Jones, Walsh, Robertson, Olsen and Muller reflecting the local ethnic mix, as a result of immigration spread over the previous century.
A few months earlier the 120 new entrants to the school had passed the 11 Plus Examination whereas on that first morning of term they assembled in the old school hall, which would soon be converted into extra classrooms. The stern looking Headmaster, Mr W. Lloyd Williams M.A. (right) began the introductions and commenced the allocations to forms by asking, “All those who wish to study Welsh hold up your hands!” Then thirty or so pupils were placed into form 2A and the remainder allocated into three streamed forms of 2B, 2C and 2D.
Mr Bernard Jenkins (English) took charge of form 2B. A lover of golf he proved a humorous, if strict form master. Later that day we would meet our new teachers such as May Treharne (Latin); Mr J H Davies (French) a short man nicknamed “Twiddles”; Mr A G Harris (Geography) known as Gus who prior to World War II had married a former school P.E mistress, Miss Florence Price, and set up home near Penydarren Park; Maud Davies (Biology) who lived in Treharris and was a cousin of the Headmaster; the History teacher, Mr G L Williams nicknamed “Nero” and Mr Trevor Jones (English) who lived in Twynyrodyn and who joined the staff in 1952.
Mr Harvard Walters (Welsh) (left) had been at the school since 1936 and much later became the Deputy Headmaster. One of his tasks was to begin the long and frustrating attempt to teach the Welsh National Anthem and school song, the first 2 lines of which were:-
Ienctyd y Castell, Caer I Ddysg a Hedd,
Gloewn Ein Harfau I’r Gad Ddi-gledd.
Many a time he would despair at the “Wenglish” of most of the pupils moaning that they were “a lot of Dowlais Cockneys”.
At lunchtime we marched to the canteen sited in its own ground to the rear of the school where under the keen eyes of the prefects we were taught dining room etiquette. Each pupil was careful to walk slowly to each of the afternoon lessons with leather satchels becoming heavier as the day progressed. New friends were quickly made and by the end of that school day new groups ambled back to the buses, however most of the pupils soon had their school tie askew, and gold trimmed school cap set at an angle.
The journey home on the bus was light-hearted although the prefects still remained in firm control. The older boys whistled the catchy tune of the song “Freight Train” which had been recorded by the singer Nancy Whiskey, just at the end period of the Skiffle craze. The new boy alighted from the bus at Penuel Chapel on Twyn Hill, with his school satchel seeming to “weigh a ton”, however as each of the years passed it lost its shine and became as “light as a feather”.
I remember with affection Jimmy Edwards, Nancy Whiskey and that first day at “The Castle”.
Merthyr Tydfil & District Historical Society
The Merthyr Tydfil and District Historical Society is pleased to announce its lecture programme for the rest of this year.
Everyone is welcome, so please do feel free to come along.
The Story of the Merthyr Express
From the Merthyr Express 80 years ago today….
Merthyr’s Chapels: Ebenezer Chapel
Ebenezer Welsh Baptist Chapel, Plymouth Street
In 1793, a schism occurred at Zion Chapel, Twynyrodyn and a group of worshippers left the chapel and began worshipping in a house in Plymouth Street.
Within a year it was decided to build a chapel. A plot of land was acquired opposite the house where the congregation had been worshipping and a chapel which they called Ebenezer was built. Although the official name of the chapel was Ebenezer, for many years, it was known as Capel Isaf (Lower Chapel), with Zion known as Capel Uchaf (Upper Chapel).
Rev William Price, who had not been allowed to preach at Zion Chapel, became Ebenezer’s first minister. Following several prosperous years, Rev Price embarked on a number of collection tours around England on behalf of the chapel funds. As such he was allowed 25% of the funds towards his personal expenses, but questions arose over the authenticity of his expense claims.
Although it was never conclusively proved that there had been any malpractice regarding the funds, and the Baptist Association gave Ebenezer no authority to dismiss him, the congregation, led by a deacon named Evan Lloyd, excommunicated Rev Price and he left the chapel.
In 1808 Rev Maurice Jones was ordained as minister at Ebenezer, and in marked contrast with Rev Price proved to be very devout and popular amongst the members, and under his leadership the congregation grew steadily, and by the time of his death in 1830, it had become obvious that a larger place of worship was needed.
Following Rev Jones death, his assistant Abel Jones became minister and the members decided to build a new chapel. It was soon discovered however that the chapel could not be rebuilt in the same place as the lease on the original plot of land had become invalid due to Rev William Price illegally sub-letting the ground to build several cottages. A new piece of land was obtained for £30 and a new chapel was built in 1831 at a cost of £850
Ebenezer Chapel was plagued by a number of disagreements – in 1834, 52 people left the chapel and eventually established Tabernacle Chapel. In 1902 another serious schism occurred when a number of the congregation left to establish Jerusalem Chapel in Court Street.
In the 1930’s the chapel housed Merthyr’s first ever soup kitchens.
By the 1980’s the congregation had dwindled and the chapel closed. It remained derelict for several years until it was demolished to make way for the Trevithick Gardens housing estate.
Merthyr’s Footballers of the Past
Storming Iscoed House, Pontmorlais 1935
by Christine Trevett
It was a Monday afternoon – the afternoon of February 4th 1935 to be exact, and it had been snowing heavily that day. The women arrived first at Iscoed House, Pontmorlais, which housed the area offices of the Unemployment Assistance Board. There, the plan went, an orderly deputation which would include the district secretary of the National Unemployed Workers Union (NUWM) would be speaking with officials. Perhaps as many as a thousand women were part of the protest outside. They had marched there with around double that number of men, coming from all directions to reach Pontmorlais in a United Front demonstration during the Means Test protests of that year. Such things were happening all over South Wales and elsewhere.
The Unemployment Assistance Board
That had been set up by the government in the previous year (1934). It administered means-tested assistance to those who had no contributions-based unemployment benefit. In the Depression of the 1930s the Merthyr region was very hard-hit economically and many people were affected by Means Test decisions, a Test which at this time was creating even further hardship. Opposition to it was widespread, with the criticism coming from not just the working classes and the unemployed, so that the government was getting jittery. From 1931-June 1935 it was a National Government (a coalition) under the leadership of Labour’s Ramsay MacDonald and with Conservatives, Liberals and others in it.
Protests in Merthyr Tydfil region
Not quite two weeks previously, in January 1935, there had been another United Front demonstration. That Front was a sign of temporary Labour Party/Communist collaboration where The Means Test was concerned and that January demonstration had brought perhaps ten thousand people to Penydarren Park. They had marched there in organised processions from all parts of the Borough. Many women were in the throng, and carrying infants.
The crowd had been addressed by Wal Hannington, one of two organisers of the National Unemployed Workers Union (NUWM). Not a local person, he had also been the Communist candidate in Merthyr’s bye-election in the previous year. The crowd was addressed also by John Dennithorne, Warden of Dowlais Educational Settlement (the seat of all kinds of social and educational work) and by ILP (Independent Labour Party) leaders.
A deputation was agreed (it included two local ministers of religion) to interview officials at Iscoed House. They would present grievances and protest the unemployment assistance legislation. On that day the deputation had been told that its concerns would be passed on. The Western Mail of 23rd January 1935 (p. 10) had reported that the gathering ‘dispersed in good order’.That had been then. But come February 4th at Iscoed House, matters would change from being orderly.
On February 4th traffic was brought to a standstill on Brecon Road as the demonstration took its course and from all quarters marchers were heading for Pontmorlais. The protest was being overseen by a contingent of police not large enough to be effective if trouble broke out on a large scale, given the numbers in the demonstration, but then the organisers of this United Front demonstration did not seem to be expecting trouble.
The actual march and deputation had been organised by the NUWM and by invitation it was also being led by the London-born Warden of Dowlais Educational Settlement, the same John Dennithorne (mentioned earlier). Dennithorne, who had served in World War I, was a Quaker and a pacifist.
Accounts of what happened
There are some first-hand accounts of the events of Fabruary 4th, including one from John Dennithorne and another from Griff Jones, a local NUWM member who had been with those ‘starting off from Pengarnddu with banners’(an interview with him is kept in the South Wales Miners’ Library collection in Swansea university). Also there is a fictionalised account by the Clydach Vale born novelist and NUWM member Lewis Jones in We Live – his novel about those times.
The deputation was doing its work inside the building and thousands were gathered outside. UAB clerks on an upper floor had been ‘making faces’ at the crowd (Griff Jones recalled). They soon stopped, as the slim cordon of police was clambered over by a determined group –‘a mob of men who were prepared for anything’ as John Dennithorne called them.
With no previous sign of their intention they had made ‘a sudden rush’, so The Western Mail recorded. Stones were hurled through the office windows, shattering glass over the clerks; the gate of Iscoed House gave way; Dennithorne expected to be arrested. Inside the building he clambered onto a windowsill to be heard but ‘a howling mob’, now inside, shouted down his appeals against violence. ‘Old bug whiskers’ (a jibe at the bearded Warden, who was 39 years old) was told to ‘get down!’ as furnishings and fittings were being broken up and records angrily plundered for burning. Blood was spattering through the air, John Dennithorne recalled. Only a couple of well known South Wales Communists were suffered to speak.
It was the police which persuaded the violently protesting minority to disperse and to leave the grounds of Iscoed House. Hundreds of thousands of protestors had been on the nation’s streets that day. Given the strength of feeling nationally against the government’s stance there was some rethinking of the legislation. The Western Mail was already recording on February 5th that ‘To-day Mr. Oliver Stanley (Minister of Labour) will probably announce changes in the regulations to meet the special grievances raised. New instructions have already been sent to area officers’.
There is more about this and those times in:
- Lewis Jones, We Live (Parthian Books 2015)
- Daryl Leeworthy, Labour Country: political radicalism and social democracy in South Wales 1831-1985 (Parthian, 2018).
- Christine Trevett Dowlais Educational Settlement and the Quaker John Dennithorne (Merthyr Tydfil Historical Society, 2022)
- Stephanie Ward, Unemployment and the State in Britain: the Means Test and Protest in 1930s South Wales and north-east England (Manchester University Press, 2013)
Captain Nelson Morris Price C.B.E., J.P.
by J Ann Lewis
A Merthyr Express headline 60 years ago today, on 18 August 1962 read “Captain Nelson M. Price: the Man Who Stopped a King is Dead”.
The headline referred to an event in 1936 during the visit of King Edward VIII. Captain Price had organised an unofficial parade of his former colleagues in the old Fifth Welsh Battalion in front of the Castle Cinema. As the procession passed, the Royal car stopped, and Captain Price told the King “These men want you to see them, in the hope that you may be able to bring new industries to the Borough so that they may find work”. The King got out of the car, to the astonishment of his ministers, and spoke to the 52 men on parade. The King again departed from the official programme and paid a visit to Dowlais, and it was there that he made the famous remark, “Something must be done”.
Nelson Price was born on 22 May 1892 near Bethesda, North Wales, and when he was quite young, his family moved to Dowlais, settling in Broad Street. Within a few years however, his father died, leaving a widow and eight children.
Nelson volunteered for service on 4 August 1914, the very day that the First World War was declared. He served in Gallipoli, Egypt and Cyprus before being discharged as no longer being fit for service, and he returned to working in the collieries, where he had been studying to become a mining engineer prior to the outbreak of the war.
Following the armistice, he decided to become involved with welfare work relating to the war disabled, war widows and orphans. He was a founder member of the Royal British Legion, becoming the first Chairman in the Wales Area. He also worked tirelessly for the War Pensions Advisory Committee, and was appointed Chairman of the North East Glamorgan War Pensions Committee, being acknowledged as an authority on War Pensions Regulations. He was a champion for the War disabled for over 42 years, and his work was recognised when he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1939, Officer of the Order in 1946 and Commander of the British Empire in 1960.
It was during his time as Chairman of the British Legion in Wales, that he was instrumental in negotiating the gift of Buckland House in Bwlch (the former home of Henry Seymour Berry, Lord Buckland) to the British Legion as a home for ex-servicemen.
During his lifetime, Nelson Price was also appointed Chairman of the Merthyr Magistrates, Chairman of the Lord Buckland Trust, Lifetime President and Honorary Secretary and Treasurer of the Merthyr and District Angling Association. He was also a lifetime member of the Cardiff Athletic and Rugby Club.
At the time of his death in 1962, he was living in Caeracca Villas in Pant, in a house named ‘Cilfoden’ – the village of his birth. His wife Jane Ann survived him by two years.