The Heritage and Culture of Merthyr Tydfil
The Merthyr Tydfil & District Historical Society is pleased to announce its 2024 History Day, which will revolve around the Second World War.
Everyone is welcome, but pre-booking is essential.
If you would like to come along, please contact stevebrewer68@hotmail.co.uk.
From the Merthyr Express 80 years ago today…..
From the Merthyr Express 80 years ago today…..
From the Merthyr Express 80 years ago today….
From the Merthyr Express 80 years ago today…..
by Laura Bray
During the Second World War an initiative was introduced in the form of Gliding Schools. The schools came out of the Air Training Corps, itself a successor to the Air Defence Cadet Corps, which had been founded in 1938 with the aim of training boys aged between 14 and 18 in “all matters connected with aviation”.
The ADCC was a huge success – it organised itself into squadrons of 100 boys subdivided into 4 “flights” and within 5 months of its foundation, 41 squadrons had been formed. During 1939 more than 16,000 boys and 700 officers were members of the ADCC.
Indeed, by 1940, ADCC was making such a contribution to the recruitment for the RAF that it was decided by the War Cabinet to establish an organisation to provide pre-entry training for candidates for aircrew and technical duties for both the RAF and the Fleet Air Arm. Thus the Air Training Corps was born. It became one of the most important pre-service training organisations, providing the RAF with recruits who were “air-minded” when they enlisted.
Merthyr, it will not surprise you to learn, had an ATC, founded in the summer of 1941, and on 5th August 1944, a gliding school was opened, by Air Marshall Sir Robert Brook-Popham. The Gliding School was situated at the top of the Swansea Rd, and the opening was attended by the usual civic dignitaries. Before the presentation ceremony, the officers of the various squadrons in the area, the cadets and members of the Women’s Junior Air Corps were inspected by the Air Marshall. It was noted that Merthyr had sent several hundred boys into the RAF from the ATC and that they had benefited hugely from the training they had received there, training which would now include gliding. Indeed, so committed were the ATC to this that the boys had worked all winter to build a hanger for their glider, without any help from the Air Ministry or Council and squadrons from Aberdare, Treharris and the surrounding area would be using the base as part of their training.
It is clear from the Merthyr Express report of 5 August 1944 which covered the opening, that the ATC sent boys into the army as well as the RAF, as Air Marshall Brook-Popham was keen to stress that the skills learnt in the glider school were just as valuable to that branch of the armed services.
The Gliding School was disbanded in 1945 and is now largely forgotten – unless perhaps you were there…..
By Laura Bray
Following on from an earlier post, which discussed the scarcity of fish in 1943 (https://www.merthyr-history.com/?p=7863), the Merthyr Express of the same month (February 1943) printed a “potato plan”.
Potatoes were not rationed, as from 1939 farmers had been encouraged to increase potato production, and potatoes had also been a key message in the Dig for Victory campaign, with the caveat that they should be planted as part of the official cropping plan and not at the expense of other vegetables.
It is not surprising then that there was a lot of information available about innovative and interesting ways to cook potatoes.
The Express’s “Potato Plan” came up with five ways of using them:
It seems that this advice was used by the Express from that provided by the Ministry of Food as the same photo and plan crops up in other papers from elsewhere in the country.
The message was clear: “Bread costs ships. Eat home grown potatoes instead” and it would appear that the Merthyr public did just that.
by Brian Jones
The next family to take up residence in the large house was Richard Harrap and his wife Mary with 5 children and just 3 servants. Richard was born in Yorkshire and prior to taking up residence in Gwaunfarren he lived on the Brecon Road. He was a brewer, and in 1871 he went into partnership with another brewer to form the growing company “Giles and Harrap’s”. They owned the “Merthyr Brewery” and marketed “Merthyr Ales” from their brewery on the Brecon Road, and grew the company to own 62 public houses.
Eventually they were bought out by William Hancock and Co. in 1936 and brewing ceased on the Brecon Road. In 2010 the brewery was demolished however the company name lives on etched in the glass windows of “Y Olde Royal Oak” public house in Ystrad Mynach (built 1914.). Richard died in 1895 with his wife remaining at Gwaunfarren House and she decided to give the house a personal name “Glenthorne”. She passed away in 1916 whilst her son James Thresher Harrap, resided there until 1921 when he moved to the Grove.
There is a gap in the historical record after the Harrap family vacated the house sometime in the early 1920s so I was unable to ascertain the use of the property until 1937. It is likely that the downturn in the economy of Merthyr and the dearth of very large wealthy families made the occupancy of this large house uneconomic.
The house, although apparently empty, seemed to have continued in a reasonable state and not vandalised in the inter-war years. There are numerous references to the future of the house considered by various committees of the Merthyr Borough Council during the years between 1921 and 1937. The house remained in the ownership of the freeholder with the Council making enquiries about its purchase for a variety of uses. For example, in 1934 the Education Committee thought it could be used as a training centre for unemployed boys and girls. They sought the approval of the Ministry of Labour for funding to purchase the property for £6,100 but were unsuccessful.
There was a suggestion that the house be used to accommodate children with Learning Difficulties but again nothing came of these proposals until the freehold, house, garden and lodge were acquired in 1937 by The Merthyr Tydfil Community Trust. This began life as the Merthyr Tydfil Educational Settlement and was formally opened in July 1938 by Earl Baldwin and Countess Baldwin. At that time there were many such Settlements providing education and welfare services to people during the Depression of the 1930s. The Settlement continued for four years at Gwaunfarren until the building was requisitioned by the government for use by the Emergency Medical Services in 1941. There were two possible wartime uses, either for the care of injured World War II servicemen and women or for expectant mothers.
Dr. Joseph Gross wrote an essay in Volume Two of the Merthyr Historian in 1978 on “Hospitals in Merthyr Tydfil”. He stated that injured service personnel were treated at Merthyr General Hospital, St. Mary’s Catholic Hall and the Kirkhouse Hall. Instead, the house was to provide 25 beds for pre- and post-natal maternity services when the Welsh Board of Health took responsibility for the house then renamed as “Gwaunfarren Nursing Home”. Babies continued to be born there for the next 30 years.
The ownership of the building was transferred to the Ministry of Health when the NHS was formed in 1948 and it was agreed to use the proceeds of the sale for charitable purposes. However, it took until 1954 to agree a price for the building. In 1948 Gwaunfarren Nursing Home became Gwaunfarren Maternity Hospital managed by the Merthyr and Aberdare Hospital Management Committee (HMC) The beds were increased to 30 beds with similar units at Aberdare General and St. Tydfil’s Hospital. Many adults alive today were born at Gwaunfarren often staying with their mother for a considerable number of days unlike current maternity practice of short hospital stays. The unit continued for some years until there were further improvements to the maternity unit at St. Tydfil’s Hospital, including a small Special Care Baby Unit. Gradually the number of births at Gwaunfarren decreased and confinements ceased at the end of the 1960s. Some post-natal transfers were continued for a short period of time until the hospital closed in the early 1970s.
Gwaunfarren Hospital then remained empty for some years although it was put to occasional and varied use to include a location for television filming. The land, together with the house and lodge was sold, the house demolished, and plots allocated to accommodate the present makeup of Gwaunfarren Grove. Gwaunfarren Lodge still remains today at the entrance to the original position of the drive.
Today the vast majority of the general public look at the way land is used very much in the here and now without giving much thought to its history over the ages. A review of the use of the land at post code CF47 9BJ allows us to peel away the pages of history. Now passers- by at the entrance to Gwaunfarren Grove will not know that the access road once served as the driveway to a substantial Victorian family home, educational centre, maternity hospital and that prior to all of those uses it had been a farmstead known as “The Dairy”, part of a farm of considerable antiquity.
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.
From the Merthyr Express 80 years ago today…..
