Tag: Cyfarthfa School

Vincent Charles Arthur Giardelli MBE, artist, 1911 to 2009 – part 1

by Christine Trevett

Part One: Coming to South Wales 

“When the train finally pulled into Merthyr, I felt I’d come home”
(Arthur Giardelli to Meic Stephens)

There were, a few years ago, still people of very mature years around Merthyr Tydfil who remembered Arthur Giardelli as a teacher of music and language in Cyfarthfa Castle secondary school. One or two I met did not know that he was also (or especially) an artist, and a significant one in the history of 20th century art in Wales. They knew him only as a Cyfarthfa teacher. In 1940 he had arrived in Merthyr with his school as an evacuee teacher, coming from Folkestone. It was the start of a remarkable story for the man who made Wales his home and who had loved Wales ever since family holidays in Pembrokeshire in his teenage years.

Arthur Giardelli was a Londoner, son of an English mother and an Italian father, a father who had become determinedly ‘English’ and had abandoned things ‘continental’. His son Arthur was highly intelligent and talented. He studied modern languages at Oxford and in parallel did some study at Ruskin School of Art. He was also passionate about music and  would use his viola and piano  playing skills (and those of his first wife Phillis, a very talented pianist) to good effect in due course. Unlike his father’s indifference, Arthur became steeped in knowledge of the European scene and of avant garde art. Above all he was a good communicator and widely read, a man who wanted to see the arts appreciated by everyone and accessible to all. Art in Wales would gain from that passion.

In 1940 his wartime pupils from Folkestone’s Harvey Grammar School shared Cyfarthfa Castle school with the local classes on a ‘split day’ basis. Arthur Giardelli soon found himself  unemployed, though, a married man with two young children, sacked by Folkestone Education Authority. This was due to being  a pacifist  and an  admirer of Gandhi and now declaring himself a conscientious objector (C.O.). Fortunately the Dowlais Educational Settlement was on his doorstep and it had been involved in adult education and social care since 1929. Giardelli had been volunteering there. Its Warden, the sculptor and Londoner John Dennithorne was a Quaker, pacifist and fellow admirer of Gandhi. With the agreement of the Settlement’s Quaker committee he took the Giardelli family into Trewern House (the Settlement base), provided a maintenance grant while the result of the teacher’s Tribunal appearance was pending and employed him as a teacher. In Merthyr Central Library, in one of the boxes housing the John Dennithorne papers is a copy of the letter Dennithorne wrote on April 10th 1941, to the the Chairman of the Appeals Tribunal at Cardiff.  He was advocating Giardelli’s unconditional exemption from service because he was valuable as an educator and on other fronts. Through the Settlement, for example, he had oversight of a newly-formed mixed-sex social club for young factory workers; he led members of Settlement classes in a new allotment scheme in which produce would  also be shared with the elderly, infirm and those feeling the loss of their gardening menfolk who were now away at war. As he reported himself, Arthur Giardelli was also a part time fireman. Interestingly, in his letter John Dennithorne made no reference to Giardelli as an artist, for that was not how he was known at the time.

Arthur was exempted from war service. It would be some time before he regained a teaching post, in Cyfarthfa school where he taught music, languages and English. At the time there were objections to the Education Committee from people who felt someone who had been a C.O. should not be given such employment.

Through the war years Giardelli with his wife provided very regular classical music recitals and recital lectures at The Armoury, Dowlais (advertised in the Merthyr Express, free entry but contributions welcome to defray expenses), and with Mervyn Fry (another Settlement employee) provided recorded music sessions, lectures about musicians, painters and the interrelation of music, painting and literature, while John Dennithorne the Warden gave scheduled lectures on the theory and practice of sculpture. It was all part of the morale building activity which the government wanted to see. Significantly during the war Arthur Giardelli also worked with CEMA (Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts), the forerunner of the Arts Council. It sent art exhibitions and theatrical performances around the country at this time, including to Merthyr and Dowlais, with very well known artists and performers. Among the artists exhibiting were Cedric Morris, who was already part of the story of the Dowlais/Merthyr art scene in other ways, and he had encouraged Giardelli.

In 1940 Dowlais must have seemed an unpromising place for an evacuee but there, Giardelli said,  he had encountered ‘a whole mixed body of people’, not just evacuated teachers and Merthyr’s middle and professional classes but miners who gathered to view art, ‘people of all classes’, as he recalled in an interview included in Derek Shiel’s 2001 published study of him (Arthur Giardelli: Paintings, Constructions, Relief  Sculptures, Bridgend: Seren).  In Dowlais, though, his own art work and move to a professional artist’s life had been encouraged.

To be continued…..

Remembering Professor Gwyn A. Williams (1925-1995) on the centenary of his birth

by Mary Owen

Gwyn Alfred Williams was born on September 30th, 1925 in Lower Row, Penywern, Dowlais. His parents, Thomas John and Gwladys, were schoolteachers. The family attended Gwernllwyn Independent Chapel, where they worshipped in Welsh and where young Gwyn and his friends, the ‘Gwernllwyn Chapel Gang’, absorbed the scriptures and played a lively part in social activities. He was educated in Cyfarthfa Castle Grammar School, where he enjoyed school life and many successes, becoming Head Boy and winning a David Davies Open Scholarship to study History at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth.

Sadly, he was unable to begin these studies immediately because, as Geraint H. Jenkins wrote in his 18-page tribute to Gwyn on behalf of the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies 1996, ‘the demands of war took him instead to the battlefields of Europe where he learnt a great deal about human suffering. Indeed, the experience of wartime service stayed with him for the rest of his days. Having witnessed the liberation of Paris and stood amongst the ruins of Berlin, he was then persuaded that he should help to build a better world in Yugoslavia, where he joined gangs of labourers who built a road linking Zagreb and Belgrade.’

His belated studies began ‘at the feet of Francis Treharne, Professor of History since the 1930s and a fellow native of Merthyr’ who veered Gwyn to specialise in medievalism. He graduated with an ‘outstanding first-class honours in 1950 and ‘was showered with prizes.’ A master’s degree and a doctorate followed and in 1954 Gwyn was appointed to teach Welsh History at the College. Jenkins states, ‘It is entirely appropriate that we in Aberystwyth should pay tribute to Gwyn for it was here that he served his apprenticeship as a historian and made his reputation as a scintillating lecturer. His senior colleagues ‘were rather staid, undemonstrative and solemn lecturers… lacking improvisation and lightness of touch…It was all clearly too dull and complacent for the young ball of fire from Dowlais. In his classes Gwyn was erudite and entertaining and his penchant for irreverent statements meant that the classroom where he delivered lectures to first year students was always filled to the brim.’

The strong views and quick wit of Gwyn’s early lecturing days  had been evident in his 1940s school days and honed to perfection when  I once heard him recall, in a Prize-giving event in the 1970s at Cyfarthfa High School, when he told us of the day when Miss Davenport, Head of  the Girls’ Section, based upstairs, where the boys were not allowed to tread, asked him (then the Head Boy) to come to see her.

‘Mr Williams’, she said, ‘There are boys hanging about upstairs. I want you to do something about it.’ His reply to her complaint was:

‘Miss Davenport, what do you want me to do about it? Cut them down?’

His early research as a keen medieval historian widened and Jenkins relates, ‘he became obsessively interested in the French Revolution and in the Atlantic world. Nor was the early history of Merthyr Tydfil, the cradle of the Industrial Revolution in Wales, ever far from his mind. Indeed, the first articles of Welsh history -published in 1959-61 were devoted to the Merthyr Riots of 1831.’ All helped to make this historian ‘the people’s remembrancer’ he wished to be.

Gwyn’s fame spread and in 1963 he was invited to become Reader in History at the new University of York ‘a major turning-point in his career.’ Two years later he was awarded a Chair and for the next eleven years, the swinging sixties! the young professor enjoyed furthering his career with his own exhilarating, modern style of teaching, delighted by classes, again ‘filled to the brim’.

In 1974 he returned to Wales to become Professor of History at Cardiff University. It was a sea- change: his aim to liven up and modernise the study of Welsh History was met with indifference by senior colleagues, who did not share his left-wing values and enthusiasm for the need to focus on the evils of capitalism and the struggles of the exploited working-class of 19th and 20th century industrial South Wales. His new post brought friction and bitter disappointment to the ambitious 49-year- old Welshman. His health suffered and, after battling against the odds for five years, he was persuaded to retire.

Nevertheless, there was life after academia, and he was saved by his need to research, write and to impart his views and his knowledge via active political work and then through radio and television. In 1979 his book, The Merthyr Rising of 1831 was an outstanding success, displaying his scholarship and masterly command of language and written in his fast and furious style. It still has a place on many a bookshelf in Merthyr Tydfil and elsewhere. Revolutions, riots and risings in France, Italy and Spain became favoured topics of his writings. Gwyn, who had already relearnt his Welsh, was a gifted linguist, reading and translating from original documents, often studied in those foreign countries. He won great success as a broadcaster too. His passionate performance in the 1988 TV series, The Dragon has Two Tongues, (A History of the Welsh) proved that the ‘ball of fire from Dowlais’ was still blazing.

He died of cancer on November 16, 1995.

Doing a John Redwood

by Barrie Jones

At the time I attended Cyfarthfa Grammar School, Roman Catholics were not permitted to attend non-Catholic religious services. Thus, as each morning’s school assembly started with a short bible reading by one of the boys followed by singing hymns, Catholics were exempt from attending and instead we were corralled in Mr Dewi Bowen’s art room, which was just up the corridor from the entrance to the boy’s assembly hall. There we were usually supervised by a school prefect or occasionally by a master, such as Mr Vincent Lee who we discovered was a Roman Catholic.

Mr W Lloyd Williams

Once the school service was over, we were trooped into the hall to join the rest of the boy’s assembled to hear the day’s announcements. On one occasion in my first year our Headmaster Mr Lloyd Williams (Flash) became annoyed when we were singing the school song. He had noticed that many of us first years were not singing the words correctly or even not at all. He ordered that all the new boys should learn the words and that we would be tested on a later day’s assembly.

The school song, Can y Castell (Song of the School), played to the tune of Captain Morgan’s March, with lyrics written by T J Thomas, the school’s chemistry master soon after the school was established was regularly sung at school assemblies from then on. Thomas was chaired bard at the National Eisteddfod at Abergavenny in 1913 for his ode: Aelwyd y Cymro (the Welshman’s home), using the bardic name Sarnicol.

When the day of the test dully arrived, I must confess I had not learned the lyrics as well as I should have. We were lined up before Flash in groups of ten or twelve to recite the song in unison. I managed to survive the ordeal, in part by mouthing the words I did not know or how to pronounce correctly. It reminds me of the way that Sir John Redwood, Secretary of State for Wales (1993-1995), had done when the Welsh National Anthem was sung at the Welsh Conservative Conference in 1993. I was more successful than he, as he was caught out mouthing the words, although I understand that he learned the words after that. Naturally, over time I learned the words of the school song, which was sung with great gusto by us boys over the years.

Philip Madoc – a 90th Birthday Tribute

by Laura Bray

There is a story a friend of mine relates about the time he worked in a theatre in London. On this particular occasion he was working with someone called Lowri.

“Lowri” said my friend thoughtfully, “Lowri Madoc. You aren’t by any chance related to Philip Madoc are you?”

“Oh my God!” said Lowri “You must be from Merthyr!”

“Why?” asked my friend

“Because only people from Merthyr ask if Philip Madoc is my father.  The rest of the world asks if Ruth Madoc is my mother!”

Merthyr never forgets its own.

Philip Madoc, born Philip Jones, would have been 90 today – the 5th July 2024.  He is probably best remembered now for his classic appearance as a U Boat Captain in “Dad’s Army”, with the much-quoted line to Pike (Ian Lavender) who was being cheeky and singing a variant of “Whistle while you work”:

“Your name vil also go on zee list. Vot is eet?”

Captain Mainwaring responded with the feeder line “Don’t tell ‘im, Pike.”

Madoc, immediate repeated: “Pike!” and wrote it down on his list.

There is special something about Philip Madoc playing a German, as he was fluent in German, having completed a degree in Classics and Modern Languages in Cardiff before moving to the University of Vienna to train as an interpreter. He eventually spoke seven languages including Welsh, English, Russian, German, Swedish, Albanian, Italian and he had a working knowledge of Huron Indian, Hindi and Mandarin.  In fact, he was the first foreigner to win the Diploma of the Interpreters Institue in Vienna. However, Madoc tired of interpretation. According to Wikipedia, he said  “I did dry-as-dust jobs like political interpreting. You get to despise politicians when you have to translate the rubbish they spout.”

And Dad’s Army was not his only German role; he played Germans several times, for instance in “Operation Crossbow”, “The Spy who Came in from the Cold”, “Manhunt”, “Hell Boats”, “Soft Beds Hard Battles” and “Operation Daybreak”.

Madoc was born in Twynyrodyn, went to Cyfarthfa Castle Grammar school and played for the local cricket and rugby teams as mentioned here, https://www.merthyr-history.com/?p=6854, where there is also a photo of him. After university and his stint in the Language Institute in Vienna, Madoc decided to follow his love of acting and secured a place in RADA. That launched him in the British Theatre and TV industry; he was, what we call in my house, with no disrespect intended, “a jobbing actor” i.e. one, whose face you may not know, or may only partially recognise, but one who has been in everything!

His first break was on stage with the Welsh Theatre Company playing Thomas Cromwell in a 1962 tour of “A Man for All Seasons” and from there he went onto the Royal Shakespeare Company, playing the roles of Iago, Othello and Dr Faust. His television debut was in the 1961 BBC Sunday Night play “Cross of Iron”. He came to internal recognition, however, playing Magua in “Last of the Mohicans” for which he learnt Huron Indian.

Over the next five decades, Madoc was cast as David Lloyd George, in the 1981 TV series; he played Russians, including Trotsky and Stalin; a Welsh speaking detective DCI Noel Bain in “A Mind to a Kill”; he had cameos in “The Good Life” with Richard Briers, and of course “Dad’s Army”. He appeared as King Lear, was cast in various villainous roles in “Doctor Who”, was seen in “The Avengers”, starred as Cadfael in the radio production. He worked with, among others, Judi Dench, Kenneth Branner, Emma Thompson, Fiona Shaw. He appeared in theatre in Stratford on Avon, the West End, and in regional theatres such as Theatre Clwyd in Mold; he did television, he did film, he did radio. He was a versatile, all round actor.

He was also a man of varied and unusual interests. In an interview for the Wolverhampton Express and Star on Thursday 3rd March 1977, he is cited as saying that he played a lot of squash and badminton, and had recently started studying hieroglyphics. From his obituary in the Guardian on 5th March 2012 we learn that he went walking in the Himalayas, camel-trekking in the Gobi Desert and motor-cycling in south-east Asia, and in an interview in the Liverpool Echo on 18th March 1988, he states that he often took holidays in, what was then, the Eastern Bloc countries.  And yes, he was married to Ruth Madoc, who was Lowri’s mother, along with her brother Rhys.

Madoc died in 2012, from cancer, aged 77, having worked to the end, and Merthyr’s boy was laid to rest, far from his native land, in London.

A Massacre and a Merthyr Hero

On 9 July 1943, Allied forces invaded Sicily. This was just a prelude to the long-awaited allied assault on mainland Europe which took place at Salerno in Southern Italy on 3 September that year. Five days later, on 8 September, Italy surrendered to the Allied forces. The German forces, however, continued to fight on.

Despite fierce resistance from the German forces, and having to cope with increasingly difficult terrain, most notably during the Battle of Monte Cassino between January and May 1944, the Allied Forces made steady progress, eventually taking Rome on 4 June 1944. By the end of the month, Allied troops had reached Tuscany, and the German forces were in retreat.

On the afternoon of 18 June 1944, four German soldiers who had lost contact with their unit found themselves in the ancient hill-top village of Civitella in Val di Chiana near Arezzo.

They made their way to the local Dopolavoro, a Fascist social club, and settled down with some drinks and began playing cards and listening to the radio with the locals. Unfortunately, news of their presence in the village made its way to the local group of partisans. They went to the club and killed three of the soldiers. The fourth hid behind the bar and was uninjured, and subsequently reported the incident.

On 17 June 1944, Field Marshall Albert Kesselring, the German Commander in Italy had issued the directive:

“New rules in the war against partisans.

The partisan situation in the Italian theatre, particularly central Italy, has recently deteriorated to such an extent that it constitutes a serious danger to the fighting troops and their supply lines…….The fight against the partisans must be carried on with all means at our disposal and with utmost severity”.

Many of the inhabitants of Civitella, fearing retribution, fled from the village the very next day. Those who remained, in an attempt to show disassociate themselves from what had happened, attended a ceremony for the dead soldiers who were buried on the outskirts of the village. After a few days, as no reprisals had been forthcoming, most of Civitella’s inhabitants returned home.

On Sunday 29 June, the feast day of Saints Peter and Paul, however, SS units of the Hermann Goering Division surrounded the village at dawn and systematically slaughtered all of the men of the village (and several women who impeded them), before setting light to many of the buildings. In all 244 innocent civilians were killed in Civitella and in surrounding hamlets.

By 16 July, the Germans had retreated North, and British soldiers had arrived at Civitella. One of the soldiers was Captain John Morgan of the Royal Army Service Corps. John Percival Morgan was born in Merthyr Tydfil on 17 March 1916, and lived with his parents, Arthur and Louisa at No 9 The Parade in Thomastown. After attending Cyfarthfa Castle Grammar School, he became a clerk at Lloyds Bank in Blackwood, before moving to the Dowlais Branch of the bank where he worked until he joined up in January 1940.

When John arrived at Civitella in July 1944, what he saw appalled him. He was confronted by the charred ruins of houses, and he wrote in his report:

“Almost completely destroyed by Germans on 29 June 1944, the few remaining residents being chiefly women and children. Large areas on the pavement adjacent to the wall are still covered by dried blood, mute but powerful testimonials to this exhibition of brutality. The village is now a place of utter desolation”.

The ruins of St Maria Assunta Church in Civitella, taken by John Morgan in July 1944

As he was exploring the village, two boys rushed towards him and begged him for water. He knew something must be done – two bowsers of water arrived in Civitella that afternoon.

Over the next five months, John, helped by Father Clement O’Shea a catholic priest who was seconded to his unit, did everything within their power to help the villagers, procuring food, clothes, medicine and anything that was needed, cajoling their fellow officers and men serving under them to even forego some of their own rations to help. By December, John Morgan’s company were preparing to move north, so he and Father O’Shea decided to organise a grand Christmas party with entertainment as a way to say goodbye.

The people of Civitella never forgot John Morgan and Clement O’Shea and the help, kindness and compassion they showed in 1944. They eventually erected a plaque in memory of John Morgan which stands today in the village.

Captain John Morgan died on 15 February 1968.

If you would like to read more about this story, I would recommend Dee la Vardera’s incredible book, ‘The Road to Civitella – 1944. The Captain, the Chaplain and the Massacre’.

I would like to thank Dee la Vadera for allowing me to quote from her amazing book, and I would also like to thank Terry Jones and Mansell Richards for supplying me with additional information. Finally, I would like to thank Keith Morgan, John Morgan’s son for allowing me to share his father’s remarkable story.

Thomas Jacob Thomas – Sarnicol

by Barrie Jones

Wales has provided a number of prominent twentieth-century poets with the surname Thomas, for example: Dylan Thomas (1914-1953), R.S. Thomas (1913-2000), and Edward Thomas (1878-1917)[1]. However, all three poets wrote solely in the English language.

A prominent Welsh poet who wrote in both Welsh and English was Thomas Jacob Thomas (1873-1945). Born 13th April 1873 near Rhos-yr-hafod, Capel Cynon, Cardiganshire, he was the fourth of the five children of David Thomas (1841-1922) and Mary nee Jacob (1837-1919), David was an agricultural labourer and the family lived in Sarnicol farm cottage.[2]

After an early education attending Capel Cynon board school and later Talgarreg school, owing to his frail health it was advised that he attend New Quay grammar school. Here, he stayed for four years taking Department of Science and Art examinations. In 1891 he won a £20 scholarship for the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, reading for the University of London B.Sc. degree.[3]

At that time, it was normal for most well-educated working-class men and women to pursue teaching careers. So it was with Thomas, who halting his degree course, accepted a teaching post in mathematics at the Hartley Institution in Southampton in 1894. Returning to Wales in 1896 he obtained a post as science master at Abergele intermediate school, Denbighshire. Here, he completed his final B.Sc. examination. The following year he moved to teach science at schools in South Wales, Merthyr Tydfil County School, (1897-1901), and Abertillery Secondary School (1901-1913). In September 1913 he accepted the post as assistant master at the newly established Cyfarthfa Castle Municipal Secondary School, Merthyr Tydfil, teaching Chemistry and Welsh. In his final year at Cyfarthfa he took an external B.A. degree of the University of London. In 1922 he was appointed headmaster of the newly established Quakers Yard Grammar School, Treharris. What is unique is that Thomas was associated with the early years of Merthyr Tydfil’s three grammar schools: ‘The County,’ ‘Cyfarthfa Castle,’ and ‘Quaker’s Yard.’ In 1931, at the age of fifty-eight, owing to ill health he took early retirement and moved with his wife ‘Katie’ to live in ‘Llywel’, Laura Place, Aberystwyth, ‘where he found kindred spirits interested in literature and etymology with whom he could discuss the subjects which despite, his science training, were nearest to his heart’.[4]

Throughout his adult life Thomas wrote prose and verse contributing to numerous publications such as Ymofynydd, Cymru, Y Geninen, the Western Mail, the London Kelt, Y Lienor, Y Ford Gron, Y Beirniad, and Y Cymro. He also edited a Welsh column for the Merthyr Express newspaper for a number of years. His chief publications on collections of his poems were Ar lan y mor a chaneuon eraill, (1898), Odlau Mor a Mynydd, (1912), Blodau drain duon, (1935), Storiau ar gan, (1936), Catiau cwta, (1940), and Chwedlau cefn gwlad, (1944). Ready for publication at the time of his death in 1945 was Odlau’r aelwyd, which he considered to be his best poems. The manuscript is currently held at the National Library of Wales.

Thomas entered his odes (awdlau) to numerous National Eisteddfodau; London, (1909), Colwyn, (1910), Wrexham, (1912), Abergavenny, (1913), Birkenhead, (1917), and Bangor, (1931). At the Abergavenny Eisteddfod he was chaired Bard for his ode (awdl), ‘Aelwyd y Cymro,’ (The Welshman’s home) using the bardic title’ ‘Sarnicol,’ after the name of the cottage where he was born. He also judged the awdl at Llanelli, (1930), and Bangor, (1943). In addition to his odes, Thomas entered translations of verse to the National Eisteddfodau at home and in the United States of America. These covered Welsh into English, English into Welsh, and even French into Welsh. In 1915 he won a forty-dollar prize for a translation of verse from English into Welsh at the San Francisco Eisteddfod, California.[5] In July 1901 Thomas passed the National Eisteddfod examination for Gorsedd degree as a bard.[6]

Following his bardic achievement at Abergavenny in 1913 he was much in demand to give addresses to groups and societies throughout Wales. His favourite topic at that time was the Welshman and humour, (Y Cymru yn y cywair llon), drawing upon examples from Welsh literature both ancient and modern. ‘The suggestion that the Welshman was a sad, morose individual, devoid of all sense of humour, was contrary to facts, as revealed in Welsh literature and life.’[7]

Following the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, Thomas demonstrated that he could be carried along with the war fervour that gripped Britain at that time. In typical jingoistic fashion in November 1914, he wrote the lyrics of ‘Men of Cambria’ to the tune of ‘Men of Harlech’, the song finishing with the following lines:[8]

Face the Teuton’s fire and thunder,
Rend the Kaiser’s hosts asunder;
Strike again the World with wonder,
Show that right is might!

His penchant for writing verse to popular tunes was most notable when while teaching at Cyfarthfa Castle Grammar School he wrote the lyrics to the school song; Can y Castell (Song of the School),[9] to the tune of Captain Morgan’s March[10]: –

Can y Castell

Ienctyd y Castell, caer I ddysg a hedd,
Gloewn ein harfau I’r gad ddi-gledd;
Byddwn yn deilwng blant I enwog lu,
Dewrion wyr Morgannwg y dyddiau fu:
Byddwn yn deilwng blant I enwog lu,
Dewrion wyr Morgannwg y dyddiau fu.

Ienctyd y Castell, awn ymlaen o hyd,
Galw am ein gorau mae’r eangfyd;
Gorau gyda chwarae, gorau gyda Gwaith
Gluda glod ein Castell drwy’r ddaear faith;
Gorau gyda chwarae, gorau gyda Gwaith,
Gluda glod ein Castell drwy’r ddaear faith.

Song of the School

Youth of the Castle, fortress of learning and peace,
We burnish our weapons for the swordless battle;
As children we’ll be loyal to a host of famous people,
The heroes of Glamorgan in days past;
We’ll be loyal children to the famous hosts,
The heroes of Glamorgan in days past.

Youth of the castle going forward at all times,
The wide world is calling for our best;
Best at play and best at work
Carry the renown of our castle throughout the earth,
Best at play and best at work,
Carry the renown of our castle throughout the earth.

The song was sung regularly at school assemblies up until the 1970’s and surely is well remembered by many ex-pupils of the ‘Castle’ school, although I for one found learning the words so difficult in my first year at Cyfarthfa.

In April 1914 Thomas married Catherine Elizabeth Thomas (1876), (A.R.A.M.), at Frederick Street Presbyterian Chapel, Cardiff. ‘Katie’ was the daughter of Edwin Thomas (1853-1918) and Sarah Ann nee Owen (b. 1857). Edwin was headmaster of Aberfan Boy’s School, and Thomas and Katie lived at Katie’s parents’ house; ‘Llywelfa’, Aberfan Road, Aberfan.[11] Katie and Thomas knew each other from their time teaching at Merthyr Tydfil County School, both joining in 1897, barely a year after the County school had been established.[12] Thomas died 2nd December 1945, and following his death Katie returned to live in Merthyr Tydfil. Katie died 8th July 1960, and both are buried at Bwlch-y-groes (Congregational) chapel cemetery, Llandysul, Cardiganshire, the cemetery where Thomas’s parents are also buried.

[1] Although not born in Wales, Percy Edward Thomas was of Welsh parents.

[2] Evan David Jones, ‘Thomas Jacob Thomas (Sarnicol),’ Dictionary of Welsh Biography, 2001.

[3] Jones, Sarnicol, DWB.

[4] Jones, Sarnicol, DWB.

[5] Cambrian News, 21st September 1917, p.5.

[6] ‘Gorsedd Degrees,’ Evening Express, 2nd August 1901, p. 4.

[7] ‘Wales and Humour,’ The Amman Valley Chronicle, 26th February 1914, p. 5.

[8] ‘Men of Cambria,’ Aberdare Leader, 28th November 1914, p.6.

[9] Mansell Richards, A farewell to Cyfarthfa Castle School, Merthyr Tydfil Library Service, 2014, ps. 16 & 72.

[10] A traditional Welsh tune by an unknown composer, most probably written in the late eighteenth century.

[11] Cambria Daily Leader, 15th April 1914, p. 3.

[12] ‘Merthyr County School,’ Merthyr Times, 29th October 1897, p. 8.

Memories of Cyfarthfa School…..again

Many thanks for all the comments regarding the previous post about memories of Cyfarthfa School – they are all fascinating.

To make things a bit easier, and a bit more structured, here are some guidelines that might help.

If you can tell us about any or indeed all of the subjects below, please e-mail them to any of the addresses below, or to the email for this blog merthyr.history@gmail.com

Laura Bray – jasonbray@aol.com

Steve Brewer – stevebrewer68@hotmail.co.uk

Carole-Anne Johnson – c.harris51@yahoo.co.uk

Please get in touch via e-mail rather than by commenting – we can then organise things more ‘formally’ to make sure that nothing is overlooked or taken out of context.

Thanks

Memories of Cyfarthfa School

Did you go to Cyfarthfa School? Did you teach at Cyfarthfa School?

Next year Cyfarthfa Castle celebrates its 200th anniversary. To mark the event, Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery in association with the Merthyr Tydfil & District Historical Society are planning to produce a book and exhibition recording people’s memories of Cyfarthfa School.

Castle School Geography Class 1914. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

If anyone would like to share their memories, big or small, in writing or orally, please contact one of the people below and we can let you know what sort of thing we are looking for:-

Laura Bray – jasonbray@aol.com

Steve Brewer – stevebrewer68@hotmail.co.uk

Carole-Anne Johnson – c.harris51@yahoo.co.uk

Let’s try for a good book with as many memories as possible.

Castle School orchestra 1950s. Courtesy of the Alan George Archive

Geoffrey Olsen

Today marks the 80th anniversary of the birth of the influential painter Geoffrey Olsen.

Born Geoffrey Robert Olsen in Merthyr Tydfil on 4 November 1943. He was a pupil at Cyfarthfa Grammar School, and later attended Newport College of Art, the West of England College of Art, Cardiff College of Art and the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich before teaching in Oxfordshire. In 1978 he joined Oxford Polytechnic (now Oxford Brookes University) where he lectured in art and design and became Principal Lecturer in the Visual Arts. From 1997 to 2001 he was Senior Lecturer in Fine Art.

Olsen exhibited widely from the 1970s including exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, Wales, the National Library of Wales, the British School in Rome and Florida International University. His work was also included in a number of group exhibitions, including “Painting the Dragon” at the National Museum of Wales, the “Wales Drawing Biennale 2000” at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, the 1992 National Eisteddfod of Wales in Aberystwyth, the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, Ikon Gallery, Camden Arts Centre, the Corcoran Museum of Art and other locations in Europe and the US.

Olsen’s artwork uses abstracted geographical forms and memory from the places he knew best, including Merthyr Tydfil, the Cotswolds, Rome, Florence and Miami. Together with painting, during his later life in Miami, he also worked on producing books in collaboration with the writer Jerome Fletcher using both hyper-text and conventional narratives.

Poet, art historian and critic Tony Curtis described his collaborative artist book with the bookbinder David Sellars, as “one of the outstanding artists’ books of recent years”. The book combined images of Florence alongside those of Merthyr Tydfil, using laser prints, screen-printing and acrylic paint on Khādī paper.

On retirement from Oxford Brookes he began a particularly fruitful period: he took up the post of Artist in Residence at Florida International University in Miami in 1996 and there responded to the very different light and landscape with the series The Miami Wall-Paintings (1996-97), and a new collaborative approach to book production, both in a conventional form and using hyper-text narratives with the writer Jerome Fletcher. In 1999 he was granted an Abbey Award in Painting at the British School in Rome. He returned to Florida to teach on the MFA course in Visual Arts.

Diagnosed with leukaemia in 2003, he continued to paint until his death in Gloucester 6 December 2007.

*I am unable to include copies of any of Geoffrey Olsen’s works as they are copyrighted. You can, however, see a number of them here….

https://artuk.org/discover/artists/olsen-geoffrey-robert-19432007

Ursula Masson

by Laura Bray

You may have seen Keith Lewis-Jones’ piece on this blog about Ursula Masson (https://www.merthyr-history.com/?p=5547), who is cited in a purple plaque outside the library, and wondered who is.  She was, in fact, one of those people who had a large, but quiet, effect on the prominence of Welsh women’s history in the 20th century, so I wanted to expand on Keith’s excellent but brief citation, as we should know more about Ursula and be rightly proud of this child of Merthyr.

Ursula was born into the Irish community of Merthyr in 1945, attending Cyfarthfa Grammar School and then Cardiff University. She went on to do her Master’s degree in Keele University, the subject of which was the history of the Irish in Merthyr.

Following her Master’s degree, Ursula worked as a journalist in South Wales and Australia, before returning to teach adults in Swansea. In 1994 she became a lecturer in history at the University of Glamorgan, and it was here that she became known for her pioneering work in the social and political history of women in Wales. She co-founded the Women’s Archive Wales (Archif Menywod Cymru) in 1998, was a committee member of the South-West Group of the Women’s History Network (later renamed South West and Wales Group), and co-edited Llafur, the journal of Llafur: The Welsh People’s History Society. She encouraged and and promoted a series of Wales Women’s History Roadshows, where people were invited to bring material relating to the social history of women’s lives; edited the Aberdare Women’s Liberal Association 1891–1910 papers, and became involved in Honno Welsh Women’s Press. Much of this material has been copied and saved for the nation in the People’s Collection Wales.

Janet Aaron, of Honno, remembers her fondly:

“Ursula edited and introduced 2 volumes in the Welsh Women’s Classics series, an autobiographical volume by the pioneering Welsh socialist Elizabeth Andrews, A Woman’s Work is Never Done, which was published in the series in 2006, and an anthology of Welsh women’s political writing, The Very Salt of life: Welsh Women’s Political Writings from Chartism to Suffrage, which she co-edited with myself, and which was published by Honno in 2007. I enclose above reproductions of the covers of the two books, and a photograph of Ursula at the launch of A Woman’s Work is Never Done which was held in what is now the Senedd building.

Ursula’s contribution to each volume was considerable: as well as writing introductions to both, she included in the Andrews’ volume a number of articles by Andrews as well as the autobiographical text itself, and nobody but her could have found all the material republished in The Very Salt of Life, particularly the suffragette material. Many previously forgotten political women, who contributed significantly to the advance of women in Wales, feature in that volume.”

 

Sadly, Ursula became very unwell during 2001, but not being one to give up she continued her research, completing a doctorate entitled For Women, for Wales and for Liberalism: Women in Liberal Politics in Wales, 1880–1914, which was published posthumously by the University of Wales Press. She died in 2008, but her legacy remains: the public Ursula Masson Memorial Lecture on the subject of gender studies is given annually at the Centre for Gender Studies in Wales at University of South Wales; as is the annual Ursula Masson Memorial Prize  for the best undergraduate dissertation in women’s or gender history.

So next time you pass the library, stop and look at the plaque – and remember one of Merthyr’s forgotten heroines.