Second World War – Page 7 – The Melting Pot

The Temperance Hall

Most of us have passed, or even visited the Temperance Hall (or the Scala to those of you who were born after the 1960’s), but how many of you realise that it was in fact Merthyr’s first purposely built public meeting place?

The Temperance Hall was built by the Merthyr Temperance Society as somewhere to provide “instruction and amusement for the masses of the people”. The Temperance Movement began in the 1830’s. At first temperance usually involved a promise not to drink spirits and members continued to consume wine and beer. However, by the 1840s temperance societies began advocating teetotalism. This was a much stronger position as it not only included a pledge to abstain from all alcohol for life but also a promise not to provide it to others.

The Temperance Hall was opened in September 1852 by Henry Bruce, the M.P. for Merthyr. The original building measured approximately 80 foot by 40 foot, with a 12 foot wide platform, with a capacity of between 100 – 150 people.

In 1873, the Hall underwent major enlargement, was said to hold up to 4,000 people. For the next 20 years the Hall was the main theatre in Merthyr, mostly seeing off competition that came and went, from the Drill Hall, the short-lived Park Theatre and the many visiting portable theatres. Performances at the Temperance Hall ranged from musicals like “Les Cloches de Corneville” and the marionette spectacular “Bluebeard”, to performances of plays by Shakespeare and other leading dramatists.

As well these, the Hall was also used to host lectures and also religious and political meetings. One of the most famous of these was the meeting held in 1872 by Rose Mary Crawshay, one of the leaders of the Women’s Suffrage Movement in the late 1800’s, which led to a petition for Women’s Suffrage being sent to Westminster.

A picture entitled “Emigration Agent Lecturing at the Temperance Hall” that appeared in The Illustrated London News 6 March 1875

In 1885 the management was controlled by a group of four brothers: Charles, Joseph, George and Harry Poole who continued with the mixed policy, and encouraged local amateur groups to use the premises as their regular base. By the turn of the century, however, the Temperance Hall was gradually becoming a music-hall and variety theatre, with the touring productions of musicals and straight plays tending to go to the Theatre Royal.

By 1914, the Temperance Hall was listed in the Kinematograph Year Book, so it was clearly an early cinema conversion. The manager of the theatre by now was Mr Israel Price, who would become a legendary theatre manager of the South Wales area. From the outbreak of the War until the start of the “talkies” Israel Price provided variety performances and reviews as well as silent films. In 1927 he was able to advertise that the Temperance Hall was “now the only live theatre in the town”.

A group of performers outside the Temperance Hall in the early 1900s. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

The Temperance Hall was renovated and re-seated in 1930 and re-opened in August of that year, promoting itself as “Now one of the most comfortable theatres in the provinces”.

In 1939, Israel Price’s son (also called Israel) took over the running of the Temperance Hall, and he also eventually took over the management of the Theatre Royal. The Hall seems to have been used almost exclusively as a cinema during the Second World War, but in the post-war years it resumed live theatre, and in 1948 ran a forty-week repertory season under the direction of Barney Lando.

An advert for the Temperance Hall from the Merthyr Express 5 June 1937

By the 1953 edition of the Kinematograph Year Book the proprietors were listed as Messrs Price and Williams, and there were 624 seats, and by 1980 the Theatre had ceased presenting live shows and was used exclusively as a cinema having been renamed the Scala Cinema. It was owned by Dene Cinema Enterprises Ltd. and had 480 seats.

The cinema closed in the early 1980’s and in 1985 the building was converted into a bar and snooker club.

Merthyr’s Chapels: Ebenezer Chapel, Trelewis

The next chapel in our regular feature is Ebenezer Welsh Independent Chapel in Trelewis. Today is an apt date for featuring Ebenezer Chapel, as 130 years ago today (30 September 1889), the foundation stones of the chapel were laid.

In 1870, members of Libanus Chapel, Quakers Yard started a Sunday School in Trelewis, firstly at Penygroesheol and then at Pontsquire.

In 1875 a schoolroom was built on a piece of land belonging to Bontnewydd Farm, and in 1877 the cause was instituted as a branch of Libanus Chapel under the pastorate of Rev G B Williams.

Within two years however, the Deep Navigation Colliery opened and the town of Treharris was built. When it was realised that Treharris was developing more quickly than Trelewis, a number of the members of the congregation wanted to move the chapel to Treharris, and in April 1880 about 40 of them founded Tabernacle Chapel in Treharris.

Ebenezer was then left with only thirteen members, but they were determined to carry on and the congregation gradually began to grow again. By 1883, the congregation had grown to over forty people and Rev John Evans, minister at Penuel Chapel, Nelson became minister of Ebenezer in a joint pastorate with Penuel.

By 1889 the congregation had grown to an extent that it was decided to build a more substantial chapel, and the foundation stones of the chapel were laid in September 1889 by Sir Alfred Thomas M.P. (Lord Pontypridd), and Thomas Williams of Merthyr. The chapel was designed by Mr John Williams of Merthyr and the builder was Mr D Jenkins of Dowlais.

The total cost of the building was £900, a large amount of which was raised at a grand bazaar in 1890.

The chapel was a very successful cause for many years, but like nearly all the chapels in the borough, numbers dwindled after the Second World War, and the chapel eventually closed and was demolished.

Fitting of Gas Masks

Following on from the last couple of posts, even though war was not declared until 3 September 1939, the threat of war had been hanging over everyone since the previous year.

As early as January 1939, the government were supplying the population with gas-masks as can be seen in the article below, courtesy of Mike Donovan, which appeared in the Merthyr Express on 28 January 1939.

Merthyr Memories: The Second World War – part 2

by Margaret Lloyd

The arrival of the American soldiers in the town was quite a cultural shock. These brash, noisy young men, in their smart uniforms of fine wool, stood on the pavements outside their billets and cat-called and whistled after any female between the age of sixteen and sixty. To me – a young girl approaching puberty with trepidation (the word teenager hadn’t been invented then) – they were both embarrassing and intriguing. My intense shyness caused uncontrollable blushing as I stalked past, eyes front, head held high. The more outgoing of my friends seemed to take delight in making frequent detours so as to pass through the barrage of invitations.

Later, during visits to an aunt who kept a hotel in Briton Ferry, I was often commandeered to play the piano for many young GIs. The homesick, frightened young men sang about Broadway, Dixie, Texas and every state in the union. I’m afraid I wasn’t impressed – I was still a prudish fourteen-year-old who defended her virtue by insisting that all American men drank too much, swore a lot and cried a great deal.

War to me was the horror seen on the Pathé News in the cinema, or the news on the wireless tat had to be listened to in silence several times a day. It was women wearing scarves around their heads, smoking, working in factories, smelling of oil. Things I hadn’t experienced before. Saturday afternoons meant strolling up and down the High Street. The factory girls always appeared to have extra-large heads as their scarves covered curler-wound hair. I couldn’t fathom how they expected the ‘boys’ to forget this afternoon image when they met again at the dance that evening – hair exposed in either corrugated waves or ‘victory rolls’.

War was bedroom walls plastered with posters calling for ‘Aid to Russia’, glamorous Generals, newspaper cuttings on plane recognition and uniforms. Uniforms…everywhere uniforms. Men in uniform, women in uniform. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, wardens, firemen, home-guards. To belong, one had to be in uniform. I joined the St John’s Ambulance Brigade. I don’t remember learning much first-aid, but I do remember receiving a parcel from America sent by schoolchildren. Mine came from a ‘Barbara Babitt’. It contained a bar of scented toilet soap, which was too precious to ever use, and, amongst other forgotten things, a pair of hair-clips with bows of red ribbon and white stars. They were kept for that special occasion which never came. I would take them out of the drawer in my bedroom and look at them, and wonder about the little girl who had sent them to me.

‘The day war finished’ I was to be found at the same farm where my story began. As the news of peace came of the wireless, the church bells echoed across the fields. We all gathered at the church hall, precious food was brought, and a grand tea put on. Young wounded servicemen from a local convalescent home arrived in their bright blue suits, red ties and white shirts, accompanied by pretty Red Cross nurses. During the evening I was asked if I would play some dance music. My father had never approved of my playing such rubbish, so I had kept secret my daily stint of piano playing during school dinner-times. I think I was forgiven my frivolity that evening as the dancers swirled to the fox-trot, dipped to the tango and whooped to the hokey-cokey and the conga.

I way not have made much contribution to the war effort, but I think I made a contribution to the beginning of peace.

If anyone has any local memories or stories about the Second World War they would like to share, please get in touch.

Merthyr Memories: The Second World War – part 1

by Margaret Lloyd

‘The day war broke out’ was a catchphrase first coined by an old radio comedian, Rob Wilton, to imply that it was the day that life began. For many people, certainly it was the beginning of a life-style hitherto undreamt of.

When war broke out on 3 September 1939, I was being hurried along a country road by my aunt. I spent every school holiday with her and my cousins on their farm, six miles outside Builth Wells, and I was being taken to catch the local bus to begin my three-hour journey back to Merthyr Tydfil. As we arrived at the village, a telegram boy in his smart, short, navy jacket and pill-box hat, came tearing up to us on his bright red bicycle. He took a telegram out of the leather pouch on his belt and handed my aunt an ominous yellow envelope. Telegrams meant trouble on those days before private telephones, usually a death in the family. My aunt tore open the envelope. It was from my parents instructing her to keep me with her until they could collect me. The adult conversation of ‘troop movements and the uncertainties of public transport’ meant nothing to me, a diminutive nine-year-old. All that concerned me was that I was to have an extended holiday on my beloved farm.

Some weeks later my parents persuaded the local baker to come and fetch me. The interior of his small van had been swept clean of its crumbs, and my mother and I took our seats on the two deck chairs that had been placed in the back. As we bounced and swayed our way of the winding roads of the Brecon Beacons, I knew life would never be the same again.

School (Twynyrodyn) had still not started as the building was being used as a distribution centre for gas-masks. When it did re-open, I was one of the ‘honoured’ girls chosen to knit khaki socks and gloves for our soldiers fighting the war. I became quite skilful at knitting socks on three needles, turning heels with aplomb and completing the complicated procedure of knitting glove fingers. We chosen few were expected to carry out these tasks during story-telling sessions, assembly and play-times. The less able were conscripted to wind wool into balls from the prickly drab-coloured skeins, of which our teacher seemed to have an endless supply.

At this time, I noticed that all the insignificant little men in Twynyrodyn acquired navy uniforms and wore black tin hats with ARP written on them. They developed voices that boomed in the darkness ‘Mind that light’. They seemed to have gained a mysterious power over the neighbourhood and what was described by my granny as the ‘goings on in the black-out’.

War, to many of my school-mates, meant fathers going to work after years of squatting at street corners and being on the dole. It meant better food as regular wages came in, and rationing made it compulsory that everyone had the correct number of calories to keep healthy – something not considered essential to survival during the Depression. I was lucky, my father had always worked. Before the outbreak of war he had joined the Auxiliary Fire Service, which was formed to release the police force from fire duties. When war was declared, he and his fellow firemen were employed full time and were later to become the National Fire Service.

My father was issued with a stirrup-pump to keep at home in case any incendiary bombs fell in our neighbourhood. He would insist my mother and I practice fire drill. My poor mother, who was rather large, would puff up and down the garden steps with buckets of water, refilling the water bucket in which the stirrup-pump stood. I had the task of pumping it up and down to get the pressure going, no mean task as the pump as nearly as tall as me. My father would direct the thin erratic stream of water onto an imaginary fire. On certain days he would insist we wore our gas-masks, but as the visor misted over with condensation from our sweat, I never did see the point. He called these gas-mask drills at such odd times as when we were laying the table for supper or listening to the wireless. My father was very conscientious!!!

When the siren sounded, usually at night, never mind how often, we had to get up from bed and sit huddled on small stools under the stairs. The flickering light from an old miner’s lamp threw up shadows more frightening to me than the war. I wouldn’t be allowed back to bed until the ‘all clear’ sounded some hours later. Next day, it was school as usual; tiredness was no excuse for ‘mitching’. Only once do I remember any semblance of a raid. I was awoken one night by the violent shaking of the windows. Next day it was rumoured that a bomb had been dropped in Cwmbargoed and the vibrations had travelled a great distance. That was the night we weren’t sitting under the stairs.

When my father was at home, I was allowed to view the bombing of Cardiff, twenty-four miles away. Standing in the back doorway I’d watch the searchlights sweep the night sky and cheer when an enemy plane got caught in the beam like a hypnotized moth. The exploding shells from the ack-ack guns added to the spectacle.

Sometimes my father was away for days when the local brigade were sent to help out in badly hit areas like Coventry or Bristol. He rarely spoke about it in front of me. Only once did I hear him tell my mother that it had been so cold that their saturated jackets had frozen on them as they fought fires throughout the night.

To be continued….

Second World War Memories

Please see the flyer below about this fascinating project.

Josh Powell – A Tribute

In September this year, Merthyr lost one of its most esteemed historians, and indeed one of its best known and most respected citizens, when Josh Powell passed away at the age of 97. With the blessing of his family, and with thanks to his grandson David who provided the following narrative, I would like to pay tribute to this great man.

Josh was born on 1 May 1921 at Inspector’s House, Cwmbargoed to George and Selina Powell. His mother cared for her two younger sisters and brother, whilst his father was employed as a waterman by the Dowlais Iron Company.

Josh was named after his grandfather, Joshua Owens, a farm labourer who moved his family to Cwmbargoed from Gladestry in Radnorshire. Whilst many of the children in Cwmbargoed went down the Bogey Road to Twynyrodyn School, his house was to the north of the railway line and in the Dowlais ward, so he had to attend the famous Dowlais Central School.

In 1935, Josh passed his scholarship even though he had to miss some academic years due to ill health. He went on to study Latin, Welsh and chemistry. As he grew up and moved further up the school, examinations and reports became of vital importance but Josh still continued to play school rugby matches. In 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, he returned to sixth form to study Maths, Chemistry and Physics.

In 1940, Josh was called up for National Service before he could sit his Higher School Certificate exams. When he told his mother that he wanted to join the RAF, she was not willing. However, when he explained the alternatives, she reluctantly agreed and filled in the application form. He reported to RAF Uxbridge (No.1280653 AC2 J. Powell) in the May of that year.

He travelled with his friend Leslie Norris, from Merthyr Station to Uxbridge, but upon his transfer to RAF Norfolk, he caught Meningitis and was put under quarantine. Shortly after this illness, he was sent home back to Cwmbargoed on sick leave so he could rest.

Later, in 1941, Josh was transferred to Innsworth where he had to spend a lot of time in a tent (this put him off camping for the rest of his life!) Whilst he was there, he was able to go on weekend leaves and that’s when he met his future wife Nancy. On 2 January 1943, Josh and Nancy were married in Disgwylfa Chapel, Merthyr Vale. However, there was no honeymoon and they spent the weekend in Cwmbargoed before they travelled back to Gosport Camp where they lived in a haunted house. It was said that when Josh and Nancy left their house, the radio switched on and the doors swung open!

During this time, Josh became a Maths lecturer for airmen going to leave the RAF for new careers and completed his Inter BSC in Maths and Geography.

After his time in the RAF, Josh decided he wanted to embark upon a teaching career. He was demobbed on 9 April 1946; however, he wasn’t able to start Cardiff Teacher Training College until the September so he needed to find a job for five months. Josh joined a large gang of navvies digging and fitting trenches to connect the Bargoed gasworks to the ones at the bottom of Town and the Bont, due to lack of coal. Fortunately for Josh time flew by and as the front trench neared Cwmbargoed, he had finished work as a navvy and started college, to study Maths and Geography. When he passed his studies, he went on to work as a fully qualified teacher at a school in Nailsea as a Maths and Games teacher and then at Bromyard.

In 1953, Josh went to work at Troedyrhiw Secondary Modern as a Science teacher. He was more than pleased when he was allowed to take over the school soccer team, and he became chairman of the Merthyr League in 1957. His love for sport, and in particular school boy football, led him to become Secretary of Merthyr Schools FA in 1966; Chairman of Glamorgan Schools FA in 1971 and Chairman of Welsh Schools FA in 1973.

In 1967, Josh started teaching at the newly-opened Afon Taf School and whilst there he had set up a project to record the weather in Cwmbargoed for the MET Office. Every morning before breakfast and after school each evening, Josh recorded the wind, the cloud and the temperature in a log book. He was paid a small salary but the money didn’t matter to him, he wanted to get a record of the highest temperature. He absolutely loved recording the weather (Afon Taf even gave him a weather station, situated on the roof of the school!).

Afon Taf School Under 15s League and Keir Hardie Shield Winners 1967/68. Josh Powell is at the far left of the photo. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

In 1981, Josh retired from Afon Taf after 33 years of teaching and knew he had lots of time on his hands. During this time, Josh became secretary of Zion Welsh Baptist Church in Merthyr Tydfil, a church he was part of for 48 years. Josh visited so many chapels and churches in the borough, as a lay preacher, a member of the congregation and to talk at Prayer meetings and Sisterhood fellowship.

Josh’s love of the past led him to joining and becoming a founder member of the Merthyr Tydfil Historical Society and he wrote entries for the publication, Merthyr Historian, and published several books including: ‘Living in the Clouds’, ‘All Change’ and ‘Gone But Not Forgotten’.

Apart from all this, Josh cherished his family – six children, 13 grand-children and 10 great-grandchildren.

Josh was a font of knowledge, always willing to help anyone with his extensive knowledge of local history, and as Carolyn Jacob once remarked, no-one had a bad word to say about him. He will be sorely missed.

Merthyr Memories: Merthyr’s Railways

by Kenneth Brewer

The railway has played an important part in Merthyr’s history, but also in my own personal history.

My earliest memory of the railway stems from the beginning of the Second World War when the evacuees arrived in Merthyr. Quite a number of them came to live in Abercanaid, and I remember them arriving at the old Abercanaid Station. I don’t remember any details however, as I was only a small child myself at the time.

Abercanaid Station. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

I have many more memories of Abercanaid Station – it is where we would start out on our annual holiday to stay with my father’s auntie at Castlemorton near Malvern. This wasn’t a straightforward journey – we started out in Abercanaid, changed at Quakers Yard, and again at Pontypool before catching the train to Malvern, and then a bus journey to Castlemorton. The great excitement of the journey was going over Crumlin Viaduct – it was so high and so rickety-looking there was always a sense of trepidation mixed in with the excitement.

My other childhood memory of Abercanaid Station was having to catch the train from there to Quakers Yard to go to school at Quakers Yard Technical School. After a while I came to realise that from where I lived in Pond Row, I could watch the train passing Rhydycar Junction, and if I ran like the clappers I could make it to Abercanaid Station in time to catch my train. Little did I realise in those days that I would end up working on the railway.

I started my career working on the railway in November 1952, and ended up working there for almost 50 years. I first started working at Merthyr Railway Station as a carriage oiler and greaser.

Merthyr Railway Station. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

The old Merthyr Station bears no resemblance to the small station we have today. Originally designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, by the 1950’s, Merthyr Station had five platforms and was covered by a huge glass roof. There were two waiting rooms (ladies and general), and also a refreshment room. There were many staff there, including the stationmaster and his clerk, four booking office clerks, two inspectors, seven or eight porters, Mrs Watley who announced the trains, and many others. I particularly remember Mrs Pritchard who was a cleaner – she lived to the grand old age of 106.

I left Merthyr Station to do my National Service, and having completed it, I went to work at Dowlais Caeharris Station. I trained as an examiner (or a wheel-tapper as it was called), and my job was to examine passenger rolling stock at Caeharris and Dowlais Central Stations, as well as freight rolling stock at the Ivor Works and the ICI Factory. Although much smaller than Merthyr, Caeharris was a very busy station, and in the time I worked there, there were four people in my department (Carriage & Wagon) as well as a stationmaster, booking clerk, two porters and four carriage cleaners.

Dowlais Caeharris Station. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

Whilst I was at Caeharris Station, Dr Richard Beeching, chairman of the British Railways Board, produced his report to streamline Britain’s railway system. This resulted in the closure of dozens of railway lines and hundreds of stations. Caeharris Station was one of the casualties, and Merthyr’s railway network was decimated. I returned to work at Merthyr Station, and one of my lasting memories of that time was catching the last goods train from Brecon to Merthyr – a very poignant occasion. Merthyr Station eventually closed to be replaced by a smaller building, and my job moved at that time from Merthyr to Pontypridd.

Looking back on the way the railways played such a pivotal role in Merthyr’s history, and thinking of the different lines and stations there were in the borough, it is sad to see what we have lost – all in the name of progress.

Dr Merlin Pryce

Was it Fleming or Mr & Mrs Pryce’s boy from Troedyrhiw?

by Irene Janes

Parents, Rachel and Richard Pryce owned a tavern in Troedyrhiw. Little did they think, in 1902, when their son was born, he could save millions of lives forever, but did he?

Their lad Daniel Merlin Pryce was a bright boy. He attended Merthyr County School, Pontypridd Grammar School, and at the age of seventeen, the Welsh National School of Medicine Cardiff. However, the call of a Junior Research Scholarship to study at St Mary’s Hospital, London, with Alexander Fleming lured him away from Merthyr Tydfil.

Aged twenty-five, and now known as Merlin Pryce, he worked alongside Alexander Fleming in his Bacteriology Department and it is here this fascinating story begins.

Apart from being hard working colleagues the two men became close friends. Fleming was at times a bit untidy and did not always clear away what he had been working on. In 1928 he was experimenting with the culture Staphylococci. In his eagerness to go on holiday for the summer a number of Petri dishes were overlooked.

Several weeks later, Merlin called in to St Marys Hospital see his old friend, who was due back from holiday. Alexander was late so Merlin pottered around tidying up Fleming’s laboratory. It was then he found the Petri dish, which had held the Staphylococci culture. His attention was immediately drawn to a fungus which had grown and how it had destroyed the Staphylococci.

So who did discover penicillin? Was it Merlin for finding the dish and showing his friend the exciting possibilities of investigating the mould? All the accolades have fallen to Fleming. In my untrained medical mind, it seems to be a matter of luck. It all hangs on who picked up the Petri dish and became aware of the destroyed Staphylococci.

Luckily for us Merlin’s sister, Mrs Hilda Jarman, lived in London when this groundbreaking discovery occurred, and had no doubt it was her brother that drew it to Alexander’s attention. He praised Fleming for his re-culturing of the mould as seminal and crucial, and felt disqualified for any glory and praise. She told how Fleming wanted to include Merlin as a significant contributor but her brother ‘would not accept the suggestion’, Merlin’s children confirmed this.

Time moves on and Merlin is a Professor and Alexander a Knight of the realm. During World War Two when Fleming’s house was bombed his whole family stayed with the Pryce family.

Merlin’s wife Molly, in her career as a nurse, encountered many unmarried mothers. They often welcomed some of the girls into their home before and after their babies were born until, they were strong enough to leave.

In 1945, The Nobel Prize for ‘Physiology or Medicine’, was collectively awarded to Alexander Fleming, Sir Howard Florey and Earnest B Chain. Foley and Chain further investigated the possibilities for penicillin. The rules state only three names can be on the Nobel Prize medal.

Merlin was a shy modest man, a co-operator more than a competitor. He was loyal, warm, sincere, and tolerant and had a great a love for his fellow men. Is this why he was more than happy for Fleming to take the praise? Did he see his role as no more than an opportune moment rather that of discovery? We will never know any more than who first set foot on the top of Mount Everest, Hillary or Norgay.

Nevertheless, we know the two men remained close friends all their lives so obviously animosity was not cultured in or over that Petri dish.

Fleming’s papers are in the British Museum Library and not available for inspection. The Pryce diaries have been lost.

Where every the tribute should be laid Professor Merlin Pryce had an unblemished reputation as a Doctor and teacher and for that alone Merthyr should be proud of him.

**I have received the following e-mail in response to this article:-

I have read the article by Irene Janes and I think you should know of Merlin Pryce’s other Merthyr connections. His father’s sister married Enoch Morrell who was Mayor of Merthyr Tydfil from 1905 to 1906. Therefore Merlin was a cousin to Will Morrell, Enoch’s son. Merlin’s sister, Hilda, told me that Will Morrell had taught her mathematics at the Merthyr County School and that he later became the headmaster there. I think he retired about 1946. His daughter became a doctor and married a Swansea surgeon, Eric Morgan.

Vivian Thomas (son-in-law of Merlin’s sister)

Jack Jones – Merthyr’s Literary Great

by Laura Bray

Many of you reading this blog will have heard of the book ‘Off to Philadelphia in the Morning’ charting the early life of Joseph Parry and his family as they try their luck for a new life in America. Some of you reading this blog may have been on the cast of the television series that was made in the late 1970s. Remember that?

But how many of us know anything about its author – Jack Jones?

It’s an interesting story.

Jack’s given name was John Jones, and he was born on 24 November 1884 at number 14, Tai Harri Blawd, which, from what I can work out, is somewhere around the Theatre Royal/Taf Vale Brewery/ Dan y Parc area of town.

He was the eldest son of David, who was a collier from Merthyr, and Sarah, who was from Swansea and only 19 when Jack was born. David and Sarah, both Welsh speakers, had 15 children, only 9 of whom survived beyond infancy, and by the time Jack was six he already had three brothers – William, Francis and baby David – and also shared his home with two cousins, the eldest of whom, aged 15, was also a collier. By 1901 the family had moved to Penyard, by which time Jack, and his three brothers, had been joined by three more brothers and two sisters.

By this stage Jack was 16. He had left St David’s Elementary School three years earlier and gone to work underground, but was of an age to enlist and so joined the army – Militia Battalion of the Welch – and was sent to South Africa to fight in the Boer War. Hating it, Jack went AWOL, but was recaptured and sent to India, where he remained until his demobilisation in 1906. He then returned to Merthyr. In 1908 he married Laura Grimes Evans, who was 6 years his elder, and for the next few years the family moved between Merthyr and Builth Wells, their two eldest sons being born respectively in these places. Times must have been hard – Jack worked as a bark stripper and then as a general labourer for the Railway Service Company in Builth Wells before finances forced Jack back underground, this time in Pontypool. These were turbulent times however – and when war broke out in 1914 Jack, as an army reservist, was called up back to his regiment, and sent to the Western Front, where he was mentioned in dispatches. After suffering shrapnel wounds, however, he was invalided out and returned to Merthyr where he became the recruiting officer.

During his 20’s Jack was becoming more interested in theatre, writing and in politics, and by 1920 had joined the Communist Party, representing his Miner’s Federation Branch at Pontypool in the formation Conference of the British Communist Party in Manchester 1921, from where he was chosen to become temporary corresponding secretary for the South Wales coalfield. For months he sought to establish a branch of the Communist Party at Merthyr, and gave active support to the Communist parliamentary candidate for the Caerphilly constituency. But Jack was not a life-long communist and his political affiliations vacillated. By 1923 he had left the Communist Party in favour of the Labour Party, and had been appointed full time secretary-representative of the miners at Blaengarw, a job which necessitated him moving his family again, this time to Bridgend. Although active in the Labour Party, criticism of his controversial first article for the press, ‘The Need for a Lib-Lab Coalition’, and his increasing disillusionment with Labour’s stance over nationalisation, resulted, towards the end of 1927, in his resignation from the post at Blaengarw, another house move – from Bridgend to Cardiff – and another political move – from the Labour Party to the Liberal Party. In the meantime he had also written and submitted a play, ‘Dad’s Double’, into a competition in Manchester where is had favourable reviews.

1929 saw Jack working as a speech writer for the Liberal Party and standing as a (defeated) Liberal candidate for Neath in the election but only a year later, Jack was unemployed and having to make ends meet by doing whatever he could – working as a platform-speaker for Oswald Mosely’s far right party, as a salesman, a cinema manager, a navvie and also as a writer. Now nearly 50, these must have been tough years, but Jack persevered and in 1934, he had his first novel published: ‘Rhondda Roundabout’.

More success followed and by 1939 Jack had written two more novels – ‘Black Parade’ (1935) and ‘Bidden to the Feast’ (1938); a play ‘Land of My Fathers’ (1937) and the first volume of his autobiography ‘Unfinished Journey’ (1937). A short run of the stage-version of ‘Rhondda Roundabout’ on Shaftesbury Avenue added to his fame.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, Jack carried out lecture tours in the USA and Canada, worked as a speech writer on behalf of the Ministry of Information and the National Savings Movement, wrote radio-scripts and articles, visited troops on the battlefields and also had to deal with the death of his son Lawrence, who was killed in action in 1942. He also changed political allegiance again – this time supporting the Conservative, Sir James Grigg in the 1945 election. Jack still found time to write, producing ‘The Man David’ an imaginary presentation, based on fact, of the life of Lloyd George, in 1944, and then after the war, and in quick succession, two volumes of autobiography (‘Me and Mine’ in 1946 and ‘Give Me Back My Heart’ in 1950), three new novels (‘Off to Philadelphia in the Morning’ (1947), ‘Some Trust in Chariots’ (1948), and ‘River out of Eden’ (1951) and a play (‘Transatlantic Episode’ (1947). Personally these years were difficult: Laura died in 1946 and his other son, David, in 1948; although Jack did find love again, marrying Gwaldys Morgan, a library assistant from Rhiwbina, in 1954.

Jack wrote five novels during the 1950’s although these were not as well received and although he continued to write until his death, his last published novel was in 1956 – ‘Come Night, End Day’.

In terms of accolades, Jack received many. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1948, the first president of the English section of Yr Academi Gymreig; and, in February 1970, he received an award from the Welsh Arts Council for his distinguished contribution to the literature of Wales. He died on 7 May 1970 and is now all but forgotten outside Merthyr.

Perhaps it is time to reappraise this lad from Merthyr, who led a life so unlike many of ours and recorded his experiences so skilfully, depicting, in the words of Phil Carradice, “…an accurate and powerful picture of life in the industrial valleys of South Wales in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Arguably, it has never been done better.”