Keir Hardie Estate – The Melting Pot

Family Firsts

by Barrie Jones

My paternal Grand-parents, Caradog and Margaret Jones, lived at number 12 Union Street, Thomastown, Merthyr Tydfil. Occasionally, in the early 1950’s when attending St Mary’s infant school in Morgantown, my grandmother would look after me in the late afternoon until my Mother or Father were able to call in and collect me for home. By then, my two older brothers were attending St Mary’s primary school in Court Street; presumably they were old enough to fend for themselves but not to look after me. So, instead of getting off the school bus to the stop at Penuel Chapel, Twynyrodyn, a short walk away from my house on the Keir Hardie Estate, I would get off at the stop by the Brunswick public house in Church Street, which was just around the corner from my grandparents house.

My Grandfather, (Dad), was born in Troedyrhiw and was a coal miner for all his working life. Firstly, for Hills Plymouth Collieries, and in the years close to his retirement in 1961 his last pit was Aberpergwm drift/slant mine, near Glyn-neath. In those later days, Dad was a haulier, guiding his pit pony that pulled the dram full of anthracite coal from the coal face to the pit surface. On one occasion when staying at Nan & Dad’s, I recall him being brought home by ambulance after having received a bump on the head from a minor roof fall at the mine. He was sitting in his chair by the kitchen fire with his head bandaged and with a vacant look on his face, which I now know to have been a severe case of concussion.

My Grandmother, (Nan), supplemented the family income by ‘taking in’ travelling salesmen and theatrical artists, (see ‘A Full House’ http://www.merthyr-history.com/?p=3526 & http://www.merthyr-history.com/?p=3527), as well as helping to pay towards the purchase of the house, this extra income allowed my grandparents to buy some luxury goods. Nan held accounts in several shops in the town.

One, in particular, was Goodall’s Ltd., which was located on the corner of Masonic Street and High Street, on the opposite corner to the Eagle Inn. In the 1940’s Goodall sold general merchandise but over the following decades concentrated more and more on electrical goods and lighting. Nan’s account there, allowed her to buy items on extended purchase and a number of what may be called prestige electrical items were bought over the years.

Above and preceding photo – Goodall’s Ltd in 1947. Photos courtesy of the Alan George archive

The most memorable item Nan purchased was a television set, fitted in a fine wooden cabinet with a ten inch screen, which was placed pride of place in the front sitting room. Staying at Nan’s meant that I could watch the BBC’s Watch With Mother fifteen minute programme for children, before being collected for home. ‘Watch with Mother’ was initially broadcast from 3.45 pm and marked the start of BBC’s television’s broadcast for the day. If I stayed later I would watch the older children’s programmes that were broadcast up to 6.00 pm. Up until 1956 there was a programme free slot between 6.00 and 7.00 pm, known as the ‘Toddler’s Truce’, from that year onwards the ‘Television Ratings War’ with commercial television had well and truly begun. Television was such a novelty then that even the ‘interludes’ would be watched avidly no matter how many times they were broadcast. Memorable interludes were the ‘potter’s wheel’ and the ‘kitten’s playing with balls of wool’. The first television in our house came much later in the 1950s, courtesy of Rediffusion’s wired relay network that was installed throughout the Keir Hardie Estate. Similar to my Nan’s, the set had a ten inch screen in a wooden cabinet on which we could sample the delights of commercial television’s advertisements and their jingles, such as Murray Mints, the “too good to hurry mints”.

I recall that my Nan’s next big purchase was a radio-gram, again installed in the front room, this was a large cabinet with the radio on the right hand side, and, on the left was the gramophone with a drop system for the single 78s, large heavy records that made a crashing noise when they dropped on to the turntable. Between the radio and gramophone was a compartment for holding a small number of records. Among the records there were some by the tenor singer Malcolm Vaughan (1929-2010), formally James Malcolm Thomas. Although born in Abercynon, he moved to 63 Yew Street, Troedyrhiw, when a young boy. This was not my first introduction to gramophones, in our house we had a large ‘up-right’ gramophone with built-in speaker and storage cupboard below. However, Nan’s was the first powered by electricity and her records were far more up to date!

Another of Nan’s luxury purchases was a Goblin Teasmade, which was placed on the bedside table in my grandparent’s bedroom, presumably on my Nan’s side of the bed! Apparently, still manufactured today but now far more sophisticated than the machine of the 1950’s. The Teasmade was a combined clock, kettle and teapot, the clock’s alarm would start the heating element in the water filled kettle, once boiled, the hot water would be transferred into the teapot, ready for that early morning cuppa. Strange that such a modern contraption was kept alongside a bed that hid a chamber-pot underneath.

Having a television on the day of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II (2nd June 1953) must have improved my Nan’s street cred. Then what family, friends and neighbours who could squeeze into the front sitting room, watched the televised ceremony. I was four at the time and probably I was more interested in the street party that followed and so I can’t recall watching the coronation itself. I can recall sitting with my mother, and my brothers and baby sister at the head of the long row of tables near to my grandparent’s house. All the children were given ‘Corona’ Red Indian headdresses and mine had fallen off my head just before the picture above was taken.

The street’s residents had decorated their front parlour windows with patriotic bunting and pictures, and the photograph to the right shows my mother standing by the decorated front window of number 13 Union Street, Mr & Mrs Bray’s house. I also recall that there were some street races for the children with small prizes given by one of Nan’s ‘regulars’ who was lodging at Nan’s house at the time.

It is more than likely that in the next decade another coronation will be held and I wonder if my grand-children will remember that ceremony in their later life.

Strong Horses, Weak Donkeys (Tal-y-Bimp)

by Barrie Jones

The autumn season with night’s drawing in reminds me of the childhood games of the 1950s and 1960s. After tea our play outdoors in late September and October would often over run into the dark hours before our parents would call us in for bed. One of the games that suited the need to stay active and warm on dry reasonably mild nights was ‘Strong Horses, Weak Donkeys’, also known as ‘Tal-y-Bimp’. Not altogether rough play for us older boys but certainly one that would not be allowed in today’s health and safety culture.

Tal-y-Bimp: Illustration by Mansel Jones, in School and Play in the Parish of Vaynor, From 1650 to the Present, 1983, reproduced courtesy of the publisher: Merthyr Tydfil & District Naturalists Society.

Two sides were chosen with about four to six in each, once chosen one side would ‘go down’; one boy, usually the smallest , stood with his back to a wall or post, to act as the cushion for the ’horse’. Then the other boys ‘scrummed’ down in a line , the first boy placing his head in the stomach of the standing boy and holding tight to the boy’s middle. The others, in turn, then placed their heads under the next boy’s legs grasping firmly around the boy’s thighs.

So the ‘horse’ was formed and was ready to be mounted by the other team. In turn, each boy would leap-frog upon the back of the ‘horse’ with the purpose of trying to make the it collapse to the ground. The best jumpers went first so that they leaped as far up the line of the ‘horse’ to make room for the other jumpers. It helped if they could manage to leap upon each other, as this added weight upon the back of just one boy. When all the boys had jumped, and the ‘horse’ hadn’t collapsed already, then they chanted “strong horses, weak donkeys, one, two, three, four, five”, If the ‘horse’ stood strong without collapsing they were the winners of that round; if they collapsed then they were weak donkeys and lost that round. If, any of the jumpers slid off the ‘horse’ and touched the ground before the chant was completed then their team lost that round also.

Picking sides needed a measure of fairness so that the smaller, weaker, heavier or more agile boys were evenly distributed between the two sides. The game could be both noisy and boisterous, with the occasional bruising and torn clothing but they were always enjoyable events. In our street the lamppost outside number 33, Wheatley Place, Keir Hardie Estate, was the ideal spot: well lit, and on a level stretch of roadway, and with no houses on the opposite of the side of the street a long run up for the leap on to the horse was possible.

There were numerous variants of the game which can be traced as far back as the sixteenth century, called ‘Buck, Buck’; it was played in Europe and the near East. The game appears in the bottom right hand corner of the painting ‘Children’s Games’, (1560), by Pieter Bruegel (The Elder) right.

In Britain the game was particularly popular in the 1930s and 1940s, continuing into the 1970s, and has now probably disappeared from our modern playgrounds and streets. In Wales it had numerous names, for example: ‘Strong Horses, Weak Donkeys’ in Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, ‘Tal-y-Bimp’ in welsh speaking areas, and ‘Stagger Loney’ in Cardiff. While, across the regions of England and Scotland it had the interesting names of ‘Leap Frog’, ‘Mountie Kitty’, ‘High Jimmy Knacker’, ‘Hi Cockalorum’, ‘High Bobbery’, ‘Mobstick’, ‘Mount-a-Cuddy’, ‘Rigamajee’, and’ Pomerino’, to mention just a few.

Needless to say there were other ‘night’ games that we played, such as the hide and chase game ‘fox and hounds’ and the daring commando game of sneaking through our neighbours’ gardens without being seen. These are memories of nights that were always mild and dry and where time seemed to stand still until our mothers’ call to come home for bed.

In Search of the Dowlais Railway

by Victoria Owens

When the Taff Vale Railway between Merthyr Tydfil and Cardiff received its authorisation in 1836, the Act gave the Railway Company leave to construct a branch to the tramroad at Dowlais. For various reasons, the Railway Company procrastinated over the work, with the result that the Dowlais Iron Company eventually took responsibility for making the Branch themselves. The terms of the 1849 Dowlais Railway Act authorised them to build not only the line, but also a passenger station, situated close both to the Iron Works’ lower entrance gate and the Merthyr-Abergavenny road.

Although the 1849 Act allowed the Iron Company five years to complete the railway, it was in fact ready in three. Financed by Sir John Guest, MP for Merthyr Tydfil, promoter of the TVR and soon to be sole partner in the Dowlais Iron Works, at a mile and sixty-eight chains in length, the steep gradient of its route up Twynyrodyn Hill meant that its lower part operated as an inclined plane. The Newcastle firm of R & A Hawthorn designed a stationary engine capable of drawing trains of up to six carriages in length and 33 tons in weight over s distance of 70 chains and 30 links, up the 1 in 12 slope. It had two horizontal cylinders of 18 inch diameter and 24 inch stroke and worked at 50 strokes per minute. The steam pressure was 30 lbs psi.

Viewing its erection in March 1851, a local newspaper drily enquired whether in ten years’ time, a ‘chronicler of local events’ might have reason to report the completion of a notional line ‘from Dowlais to the extreme point of Anglesey.’

Modest it might be, but at the Dowlais Railway’s official opening in August 1851, Royalty graced the ceremony. Three days before the event, just as Sir John and his wife Charlotte were about the set off on a carriage drive, the horse-omnibus drew up outside their home, Dowlais House, bringing Charlotte’s cousin Henry Layard, known as ‘Layard of Nineveh’ on the strength of his recent archaeological discoveries in Assyria, and with him, his friend Nawab Ekbaled Dowleh, whom the newspapers called the ‘ex-King of Oude.’

With the help of Works Manager John Evans, Charlotte organised every stage in the celebration, from welcoming a party of Taff Vale Directors who had travelled down from Cardiff for the occasion, to pairing up her ten children to walk in the procession: ‘viz. Ivor and Maria; Merthyr bach and Katherine; Montague and Enid; Geraint [Augustus] and Constance; Arthur and little Blanche.’ Flanked, probably as much for show as for protection, by the local police, they made their way to the station, decked with greenery for the occasion, with the school-children and company agents following. The ‘trade of Merthyr and Dowlais’ joined them along the way, all to the accompaniment of music from the combined bands of Cyfarthfa and Dowlais.

An 1880 map of Merthyr and Dowlais showing the Dowlais Railway – shown in red from top right to bottom left

From Dowlais station, the passengers travelled to the top of the incline where their locomotive was uncoupled. Messrs. Hawthorn’s engine lowered the carriages down the slope, and the intrepid travellers made their way on to Merthyr. Some of them chose to continue by TVR to Abercynon, but the Guests and their visitors preferred to return to Dowlais.

Later in the day, a ‘small party comprising about five hundred ladies and gentlemen’ enjoyed a sumptuous meal at the Iron company’s Ivor Works, to be followed by speeches and dancing. Sir John, whose health was none too good, left the festivities early but Charlotte remained on hand to propose the healths the Directors of the Taff Vale railway and to open the dancing with Rhondda coal owner David William James as her partner. With Layard as his interpreter, the Nawab set the seal upon the day’s pleasures by expressing his delight at the hospitality that he had received in Dowlais and asserting that he had never enjoyed himself so much as he had during his ‘brief sojourn’ in Wales.

Although Sir John envisaged the Dowlais Branch primarily as a mineral line, he seems to have been perfectly happy with the requirement that it should also accommodate passenger traffic. Records indicate that over 1853,it came in for usage by 755 first class, 1884 second class and 7253 third class passengers but, sad to say, disaster struck at the end of the year. December 1853 witnessed an ugly accident when a passenger carriage over-ran the scotches to hurtle down the Incline unchecked and two passengers lost their lives, with five more suffering serious injuries. Officially speaking, passenger traffic on the railway ceased in 1854.

Unofficially, as Merthyr Tydfil writer Leo Davies would explain, it was usually possible – given a combination of unscrupulousness and agility- to obtain a lift. In an article of 1996, he described the whole unorthodox procedure in graphic detail. Access was obtained via the wingwall of a bridge and through some railings. The sound of the hawser gave advance warning of the approach of a train on the incline – ‘four ballast trucks, each half-filled with sand.’ Travelling typically at ‘a nice, sedate trotting pace’ there was evidently ample scope for the non-paying passenger to grasp the outside rim of the buffer, and ‘swing both legs up and around the buffer spring housing.’

An aerial view of the Twynyrodyn area. The Keir Hardie Estate is being built to the left and the route of the Dowlais Railway can clearly be seen running vertically in the photo. Twynyrodyn School is visible middle right. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

The Dowlais Railway closed finally in 1930 and the trackbed would be filled in sixteen or so year later, over 1946-7. In the 1990s, when Leo Davies reminisced about the ‘Inky’ as he fondly calls it, the ‘straight, green, grass grown strip of land’ ascending Twynyrodyn Hill remained visible. Perhaps, with the eye of knowledge or faith it remains so. Admittedly, former pupils of Twynyrodyn School remember the old line’s route, but without local knowledge it is not easy to trace. Only a few yards of broad green path survive to mark the site – perhaps – of the old trackbed and the name ‘Incline Top’ given to a hamlet at the edge of a plateau of rough ground extending towards Dowlais and its great Ironworks commemorate the location of Sir John Guest’s last great enterprise.

Sign for Incline Top, photographed May 2019

Good Housekeeping – How to Manage your Coal Shed

by Barrie Jones

Coal is a ‘dirty’ fuel and its emissions are partly responsible for air pollution and global warming with their adverse impact upon our health and climate change. Strange that 50 years ago coal was the primary domestic fuel for our heating needs. Since the mid 1970s I have not lived in a house with a coal fire and my sons have no knowledge of how to light or manage one. As well as knowing how to clean a fire grate and light a fire, there was one other thing I learned when helping bring in my grandfather’s concessionary coal delivery; that was how to manage your coal shed efficiently.

At my parent’s house on the Keir Hardie Estate coal was delivered by the coalman by the sack full and was dropped unceremoniously into the coal bunker. Over the weeks as the coal pile diminished, scrabbling about for suitable sized lumps of coal amongst the ‘small’ coal became ever more difficult. It was so much easier in my grandfather’s coal shed with his system of coal storage.

The concessionary coal scheme was a perquisite for all employees of the National Coal Board (NCB) as part of their contract of employment. The concession had been in existence long before the nationalisation of the coal industry in January 1947, with individual mines, lodges or districts negotiating schemes as part of their wage bargaining. Attempts were made in the 1950s to standardise the various schemes within the industry but with little success as some districts faced a reduction to their existing arrangements. I am not sure how much coal my grandfather received each year or how many deliveries it needed. In 1951 it was estimated that some district schemes provided about 10 tons per year.

The concession still persists today as the Government’s National Concessionary Fuel Scheme (NCFS). The Government became legally required to implement the scheme in 1994 following the privatisation of the coal industry. The scheme provides free solid fuel or a cash allowance for fuel for ex employees of the NCB or British Coal Corporation (BCC). Widows or widowers of ex employees are eligible to receive free fuel or cash allowances. Fuel is delivered on average about every 4 to 5 weeks, while cash allowances are paid every three months. In 2010, nationally, there were about 15,400 recipients of free fuel and 68,700 recipients of cash allowances, an overall total of just 84,000 recipients! Then the average annual quantity of fuel was 4 tons at an average cost of £1,400. It is estimated that the scheme will eventually peter out by 2064 on the deaths of the final recipients. The demise of the coal industry accelerated over the 40 years after the Second World War. In 1921 in south Wales alone there were 270,000 miners, and at the onset of nationalisation in 1946 there were 116,000 miners in Wales.

Dad (Caradog Jones) retired in 1961 at the age of 65, and afterwards never enjoyed good health, suffering from a weak chest and heart, the result of ‘coal dust and woodbines’. Sometime in the mid 1960’s when in my mid-teens my father instructed me to “go down and help Dad bring in his coal”. My grandparents lived at no. 12 Union Street, Thomastown, and the coal was delivered by lorry and ‘dropped’ on the kerbside outside their terraced house. Fortunately, theirs was an end of terrace property with a side gate onto their garden; the coal shed was at the end of the garden, so no need to carry the coal with our dusty shoes through the passageway. Coal isn’t a particularly heavy stone and large blocks although bulky can be carried short distances with relative ease, a full bucket of coal is another matter altogether and takes more effort. Dad was stubborn and would insist on doing his share of the workload, so I just helped halve both the workload and the time taken to clear the road.

The coal had to be collected in precise stages: firstly the large blocks had to be carried in and only broken if too heavy to carry, these blocks were laid about a third of the way into the coal shed and laid on top of each other until a wall of blocks was constructed. Next, the smaller lumps carried in buckets were tipped behind the wall and piled up against the back of the shed wall until a mound of coal lumps was formed. Finally, all the ‘small’ coal and scrapings from the road was carried in and deposited in front of the wall of coal. A low wooden board across and inside the entrance of the shed door stopped the ‘small’ coal from spilling out.

Dad’s system of storage makes sense when you consider how the coal was collected from the shed when the coal bucket/scuttle needed filling for my grandparent’s many fires. Firstly suitable lumps of coal were collected from the mound at the back, if too large to be considered manageable for the grate then they would be broken into smaller lumps in front of the wall. As the mound of coal diminished then the larger blocks were taken from the wall and broken up and the lumps placed on the mound at the back of the shed. Over the weeks breaking the coal into manageable lumps raised up the layer of ‘small’ coal. ‘Small’ coal was never wasted, once sieved to retrieve the smaller pieces; the remaining finer coal was used to ‘bank’ the fires when a full blaze was not needed. Covering the fire with a blanket of small coal maintained the heat but slowed down the burn. To stop the small coal from falling through the coals, moistening the coal with water helped bind it. Emptying the teapot dregs on the fire at regular intervals was a good way to maintain binding. The only tools needed in the coal shed was the ‘coal’ hammer to break the large lumps, a short handled spade for scooping up the small coal, and a sieve/riddle, all conveniently hanging from nails on the shed wall.

I don’t know if my grandfather’s system was commonplace or how long this method had been used in my ‘family’, Dad was one of five brothers who worked underground and their father, grandfather and great-grandfather were coal miners before them. I presume that hardly anyone in this country stores their coal in this fashion today.

A Full House – part 2

by Barrie Jones

The ground floor of my Grandparent’s house comprised of the traditional front parlour, a back room with window looking onto the garden and a back extension of kitchen/scullery. All three rooms were heated by coal fires, the one in the kitchen having the traditional Victorian cooking range. All three rooms were connected by a wide hallway, from which the staircase leads up to the three bedrooms. The bathroom was in the extension over the kitchen/scullery comprising of a bath and wash hand basin, although, quite spacious there was no toilet. The WC was outside at the far end of the garden, a novelty for me as I lived in a Council house on the Keir Hardie Estate which had two toilets! As a small child staying overnight at my grandparent’s house, use of the chamber pot kept under the bed took some getting used to.

My father’s comment on not knowing where he would be resting his head each evening had some resonance with me when studying the 1939 Census. On the Census night of the 29 September there were a total of 11 people residing in number twelve:

Caradog JONES

Margaret JONES

Jack Bailey JONES (my father)

Betty Bailey JONES (my aunt), and

Stanley HENDON, Journeyman baker, aged 20 years

Albert WHITLEY, Music hall artist, aged 28 years

Thomas BONNY, Music hall artist, aged 36 years

Eric RYAN, Music hall artist, aged 28 years

George WILDER, Music hall artist, aged 32 years

Thomas KEITH, Music hall artist, aged 28 years

Charles SMYTHE, Travelling stage manager, aged 29 years.

One of my grandparent’s boarders that night, Albert (Eric) WHITLEY, was the lead singer with the Teddy Joyce Orchestra. WHITLEY performed under the name of Tony LOMBARDO and was born in Wrexham in 1910; he died in his ‘home’ town in 1991.

For all that week from Monday 25 September to Saturday 30 September the Joyce Jamboree was appearing at the Theatre Royal. The ‘Jamboree’ comprised the Teddy Joyce Orchestra and a number of variety acts. Teddy JOYCE, real name Edmund CUTHBERTSON was born in Toronto Canada and came to Britain in the 1930s after a short career in the USA. Part of the pre-war ‘Big Band’ era, Joyce was known as “Hollywood’s Dancing Bachelor” and the “Stick of Dynamite”. However, his career was cut short, dying in Glasgow, February 1941, aged 36 years.

One can only guess where all these men slept at night, both downstairs rooms must have been jam-packed and some must have slept on the floor. The census does give us some insight into the kind of life these young men spent, with late night performances, makeshift accommodation and constant travelling to contend with for weeks/months on end.