Tag: Merthyr Express

Ladin y Telynwr, Aladdin Gibbs Harpist

by Barrie Jones

The following is a transcript of an obituary for Aladdin Gibbs by John Devonald printed in the Merthyr Express on the 23rd of May 1931. The author, John Devonald (Eos Ynysowen), (1863-1936) was a professional singer and musical director who in his later years was a regular contributor of articles for Y Cerddor (The Musician) titled “Notes from Merthyr”, as well as writing pieces for the Merthyr Express[i].

What John Devonald does not mention in the obituary, is that Aladdin was of Romany descent, his parents, Deladdus (Aladdin) Lovele/Gibbs and Pheobe Colin, migrated to South Wales from the Welsh Marches in the mid-nineteenth century. Aladdin senior was also a knife and scissor grinder and may also have been a harpist. The account of Ladin y Telynwr and his son and grandson is an example of the rich contribution Romany harpists made to the long musical tradition of harp playing in both Merthyr and Wales.

Aladdin Gibbs – An Appreciation by Mr. John Devonald

A few weeks ago (23rd April 1931), one of Merthyr’s most notable characters in the last century was buried at Llanfabon churchyard (Nelson)– Aladdin Gibbs (1851-1931). At one time in his career, he was noted as a runner and walker and held the record for the one mile walk for some years. He was known far and wide as “Ladin Gibbs y raswr (racer),” “Ladin Gibbs y cerddor (musician),” or “Ladin Gibbs y telynwr (harpist).” His profession was that of knife and scissor grinder and repairer of umbrellas, and he carried on his trade almost to the end. Last year I saw him at it in Aberfan, although he told me he was 82 years of age. I remember him coming to Aberdare when I was a boy. He was different to all other grinders inasmuch as he had a shaft attached to his machine and a fine pony in it, while it was one mass of glittering brass. He himself was always spick and span. He was supposed to be one of the best built men in Merthyr: indeed, Drs. Ward and Webster, the old Merthyr surgeons, said he was. But what drew me to Aladdin Gibbs was his passion for the harp. He played for years on a harp made by himself and would frequent the fairs in the Glamorgan and Monmouthshire towns, when it was the custom to have a “telyn ymhob tafarn” (a harp in every public-house). He believed in the old triple string harp[ii], and insisted that his son Aladdin, should be taught in that method, that is, playing with the instrument resting on the left shoulder, and not on the right, like the more modern pedal harp, although his teacher was one of the most up-to-date in Wales, Mr. Taliesin James[iii], who is still with us, and the son of Mr. James James, the composer of “Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau.” Aladdin Gibbs would not be considered by Merthyr Eisteddfodwyr as an eisteddfodwr, yet he probably attended more National Eisteddfodau than any other Merthyr man. Be the eisteddfod in North or South, Gibbs would be there with his son. The later competed in the harp solo contests and won more than once. I shall always remember the pride of the old gentleman at the Bangor National (1890), when the boy won and was invested by the then Queen of Romania (Carmen Sylvia)[iv], who kissed him. The last time I saw them was at the Caernarfon National Eisteddfod. The son did not win, and the father, like a true sportsman, did not complain.

Aladdin Gibbs junior was a member of a troupe[v] travelling the United Kingdom and Ireland, of which I was musical director, and the question often came, “What’s the matter with your harpist?” The answer was always the same, “He is playing in the Welsh style.” I mentioned to his father once that his insistence must have been a drawback to the son, but his answer was, “The Welsh way is the correct way.” His name would not suggest that of a Welshman, yet how many of our countrymen are prepared to stick to a Welsh custom with the same tenacity?

Aladdin Gibbs was born in Caerleon in Monmouthshire, came to Merthyr when he was very young, and although an enthusiast in running, walking, boxing – his son-in-law being Patsy Perkins[vi], once well known in the boxing world – and all sport, yet his great passion was the harp. His last conversation with me was concerning his son’s harp, which he described as a beauty. His son[vii] is a harpist of great ability, and he has a son 10 years of age who is coming on very well indeed on the same instrument.

[i] More information on John Devonald can be gleaned from notes compiled by Dr. Fred Holley in the Merthyr Historian, Volume 22 (2011), pp. 87-123.

[ii] Triple harp (telyn deires), commonly known as the Welsh harp, comprising of three parallel rows of strings.

[iii] Taliesin James, also known as “Professor James”, of Aberdare was a renowned music tutor, his father James was a harpist who together with his father Evan composed Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau.

[iv] Elisabeth of Wied, Queen of Romania (1843-1916), she was a prolific writer under the name Carmen Sylva.

[v] Either the “Four Royal Welshmen” or the “Welsh Wanderers”.

[vi] George (Patsy) Perkins, featherweight boxer and boxing promoter was married to Aladdin’s daughter Rhoda Gibbs.

[vii] Aladdin Gibbs (1874-1939) was also landlord of the Rose and Crown, Quar, and later the Brecon House Inn, Brecon Road. His son Reginald (1921-1999) studied music in London and was a professional harpist performing with leading British orchestras.

The Growth of Football in Merthyr Tydfil – part 6

Transcribed by Phil Sweet

These articles which appeared in three consecutive editions of the Merthyr Express in March 1921 are Harvey Boots’ own reminiscences of the development of three football codes in the town up to that date.  

ARTICLE 3 MERTHYR EXPRESS 19TH MARCH 1921 (continued)

THE GROWTH OF FOOTBALL IN MERTHYR

(By Harvey Boots)

We had some really good men with us now and to mention a few here would be in keeping with the rest of the story. I don’t think they played in the same season, but about those doughty days to which I have just referred. To recall a few, I can remember now the first two backs who played for the club. I had forgotten for a moment, but I was reminded of these names by the genial Vicar of Cyfarthfa (whom we all regard as Paterfamilias apart from things pertaining to football). They were Carrier and W. Davies, the latter of whom hailed from Bristol; Jack White, a good back; little Holmes, also a back; Sam Wightman who went from us to Middlesborough (at what I think was a record fee as transfer to date), Fisher, Gates, Churchill, Whittaker, F. Taylor, Spriggs, Costello etc., etc.

As I have brought this little history nearly up-to-date, I must obviously refrain from comments. I can only say in passing that some of these served the Club really well. Just here came the parting of the ways as far as the Merthyr Athletic Club was concerned. Although the game had undoubtedly come to stay, it was not by any means a paying proposition, and we felt that if the public wanted Association Football, they should help to support it, and so the Merthyr Association Football Club, Ltd., came into being. A limited liability company was formed, and we of the old Athletic Club retired gracefully in favour of the new company formed to carry on. The only one of the old pioneers remaining was Mr. W. T. Jones, who still acted in the capacity of secretary. A strong directorate was elected, embodying the various interests of the district, and everything seemed on a sound basis, but alas! Football, like life, is very uncertain, and the new regime had to encounter the same vicissitudes as formerly. But I think the culmination arrived when that great holocaust of world war smote us all. Football was out of the question, and for five years the game was not seen or even spoken of. The Park was still there, but owing to these unforeseen circumstances it was becoming sadly dilapidated. However, as soon as things became normal, and the menace that had been threatening us as a nation had been laid by the heels the old Club was once again resuscitated. The chairman of directors (Dr Duncan), who has held that office since the formation of the Club into a limited company, called a public meeting in the Drill Hall, presided over by the esteemed president, Mr. Seymour Berry. I was at that memorable gathering, and I shall recall how the enthusiasm of the President gripped the meeting. Money was wanted and he got it! I think the sum promised that evening was over £2,000. I am not going to relate how many or who subscribed but it was a goodly sum, and just depicted how willing the public were to foster the game that had now become so popular. But I believe a great portion of this went to put the ground in proper repair again. After an interval of five years things had sadly got out of repair, and although £2,000 seems a great del of money, by the time the necessary repairs, etc., were done, it was not a great deal for a fresh “dip” into the uncertain waters of Association Football. However, Dr Duncan, with that spirit of the “dour” Scot, with the aid of his loyal board, has now at last seen the fruits of his labours.

In conclusion, I trust, too, that the Merthyr Club will make history in the football world and that our genial President, who has for so long been in loco parentis, will in the near future have the pleasure of seeing that insignificant, elusive, but highly interesting trophy, “The Cup” gracing his sideboard.

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…..

Merthyr’s Bridges: A New Bridge at Quakers’ Yard

The article transcribed below appeared in the Merthyr Express 100 years go today…

QUAKERS’ YARD BRIDGE.

A GREAT AND MUCH NEEDED IMPROVEMENT.

MAYOR OF MERTHYR PERFORMS THE OPENING CEREMONY.

In the presence of about 5.000 people, the Mayor of Merthyr (Councillor F. A. Phillips) on Thursday afternoon opened the splendid bridge of reinforced concrete. built by the Corporation at Quakers’ Yard, by cutting a silken ribbon with a pair of silver scissors presented to him by the contractor. Major Rugg of Westminster. Afterwards the Mayor and his party of Aldermen Councillors and friends, drove across the bridge and declared the same open for traffic, after which the children of Woodland School passed across in procession carrying flags.

At a meeting subsequently held the Mayor said:-

Ladies and Gentlemen.—The history of the reinforced concrete bridge which I am privileged to open today dates back as far as 1909, at which time the Town Clerk received a letter from the Road Board stating that advances were available from the Development and Road Improvement Fund in respect of works to highways.

In December, 1910. Councillor Edward Edwards moved a resolution that the attention of the Corporation should he called to the state of the Quakers’ Yard Bridge, and the Borough Engineer, Mr. Harvey, was instructed to report upon a scheme for widening the old structure. In January, 1911, plans were submitted showing the widening of the bridge to 28 feet between the parapets at an estimated cost of £250, and the Council gave instructions for detailed drawings to be prepared, but the matter deferred owing to the difficulties experienced in negotiating with the land owners.

There was now a lapse of ten years before the question was revived, as in January, 1921, two schemes were submitted for the Corporation’s consideration. Scheme No. 1 was for a proposed widening of the old bridge on both sides, destroying the existing arch and constructing in lieu thereof a concrete decking over the river. This proposal was intended to lower the level of the roadway and thus improve the dangerous inclination towards Mill-street. The estimated cost of this work was £1,350.

Scheme No. 2 proposed to entirely divert the main road filling in the Friends Burial-ground and adjoining meadow, culverting the Taff Bargoed for the width of the roadway, together with the necessary masonry wing walls. This proposal was specially recommended to the Council, and sub-committee who visited the site unanimously adopted the same, and abandoned all former proposals as inadequate. The estimated cost of this work was £4,200, the intention being to carry out the necessary filling by tipping house refuse obtained from Treharris and Quakers’ Yard.

When the committee’s resolution was brought before the Council an amendment to the scheme was proposed anti carried on the grounds that the interference with the burial ground was objectionable.

The improvement was again deferred until July, 1922. when the Ministry of Transport intimated to the Corporation that they were prepared to consider schemes of road improvement which would find useful employment for the unemployed during the autumn and winter of 1922-1923. In the same month the Borough Engineer submitted plans and estimates for various road improvements and diversions. one of which was the subject of our meeting to-day.

In view of the trend of former discussions a new line of diversion was chosen and plans prepared showing the non-interference with the Friends Burial-ground, but which involved the removal of the dwelling known as Hawthorn Cottage. The scheme was approved by the Ministry of Transport, and tenders were invited for carrying out the work. The width of roadway was intended to be 30 feet, being 24 feet of carriage-way and one six feet footpath.

When considering the tenders the committee after careful deliberations came to the conclusion that a wider structure would be advantageous, and eventually a 39-feet unit carriage -way with two 5-feet paths, was definitely decided upon.

Messrs. Lewis Rugg and Co., whose tender for the narrower scheme had been provisionally accepted, were asked to quote for the widened structure, and after examples of their work had been seen and approved of they were entrusted with the contract.

The bridge, which has a length of 360 feet, is comprised of 10 spans, each of 30 feet. and one span over the Taff Bargoed of 45 feet, together with a skew span at the lower extremity. The height of the spans vary between 12 feet and 24 feet above the ground level, whilst the river span is 26 feet shove the normal flow of the water. The carriageway on the bridge has a gradient of 1 in 36, and the kerb level of the outer side of the curve is super elevated to the extent of 7½ inches.

The work was commenced in January of this year, so it will he observed that no time has been lost in getting ever many difficulties which have presented themselves. The structure was tested in presence of a Ministry of Transport Official yesterday, when the following trains were passed over the bridge at a speed of six mike per hour: No. 1. a train composed of two 13-ton steam rollers, two 11-ton steam rollers, and two 4-ton lorries; No. 2. two trains composed of two 13-ton rollers side by side, two 11-ton rollers side by side, two 4-ton lorries side by side: No. 3.  trains as in test No. 2, passing in opposite directions. the 13-ton rollers passing each other at the centre of the bridge. The deflection as observed by instrument at three points – one at the centre of the 45-feet span and two at the centres of the 30 feet spans, was negligible, which is highly satisfactory.

The general scheme was designed and the specification and conditions of contract prepared by Mr. A. J. Marshall, Borough Engineer, whilst Messrs. Lewis Rugg and Co., Westminster. were responsible for the carrying out of the work. The cost of the bridge and appurtenant work is £8,650.

Merthyr Express 3 October 1925

Quakers’ Yard ‘New’ Bridge. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive