by Mary Owen
‘…he has made for us a tender, deeply understanding picture of the home-life of simple, patient, incredibly diligent workers in the mining towns of South Wales, and the regal heroism of their wives and mothers.’ D Lloyd George. (in his 1937 preface to Jack’s autobiography, Unfinished Journey)
‘…no other Anglo-Welsh writer’s experience comes near to Jack’s in variety, pace and richness.’ Glyn Jones (eminent Merthyr-born writer in his book, The Dragon Has Two Tongues – 1968)
Jack Jones was born on 140 years ago today, November 24th 1884 in Tai Harry Blawd, a row of small cottages on a bank of the Morlais Brook, a squalid area of Merthyr Tydfil. His father, David (Dai), was a collier and his mother, Sarah Ann (Saran), was typical of her kind, who, having worked as a young girl in the local brickyard, continued her life of hard labour in the home, struggling to bring up a large family, especially when money was scarce at times of pit strikes and lock-outs. Saran gave birth to fifteen children of whom nine survived. Jack was the eldest. His education at St Davids Church School and Caedraw Higher School was sporadic because his mother often needed him at home. He left school at the age of twelve to become a collier with his father. Always energetic and eager to help the mother he adored, he worked in his spare time as a butcher’s delivery boy and as a pop and orange-seller at the new Theatre Royal, where his love of the stage and the literary life was born. Fortunately, he grew up strong and healthy, surviving to tell and to write countless tales of his life, the working-class life of families particularly in Merthyr Tydfil and in South Wales in general. In his wordy, simply stated recollections of his long and eventful life he presents us with a true social and cultural history of the times of our grandparents and great-grandparents. His writings, first published in 1935, comprise eleven novels, three plays, a biography of David Lloyd George, newspaper articles, radio scripts, speeches and much material that was unpublished. Those considered his best are the novels: ‘Black Parade’, ‘Bidden to the Feast’, ‘Off to Philadelphia in the Morning’; the autobiographies: ‘Unfinished Journey’, ‘Me and Mine’, Give Me Back My Heart’ and the screenplay of the film ‘Proud Valley’ in which Jack also had an acting part.
Jack made popular appearances on television in the 1960s and became known to many more admirers as a self-educated ex-collier whose love of writing had led him, after service and injury in the Great War, to realise his true calling. After his first successes he settled in Cardiff, where he made up for his lack of education by reading regularly at the central library and being allowed by an understanding librarian to borrow far more than the allotted number of books to read at home. With the knowledge he had gained of the history of South Wales and of his beloved Merthyr, he improved the book he had first called ‘Saran’ to honour his mother, the determined woman who steered her large family through many hard times. He told, honestly and without exaggeration, of the squalor and destitution that had existed in some areas of the then prosperous town, which Merthyr’s wealthy businessmen and professionals had helped to create. ‘Saran’ disgusted and disappointed much of Merthyr Tydfil’s reading public and this attitude,
sadly, lingered – and still lingers! among people who recall what their parents and grandparents had regarded as the author’s treachery. The book, later renamed ‘Black Parade’, is now known as a Welsh ‘classic’. It is an impressive cavalcade of past times and a fine tribute to his people and his hometown. It was not written to shame and scorn his beloved Merthyr, but with great pride and compassion. In book-signings he always used the same two words above his name: Yours sincerely.
Unlike his father, who worked underground for half a century from eight years of age, Jack led a far more varied life. Before becoming a successful published writer when he was fifty Jack had been a soldier, navvy, communist agitator, political protagonist, trade union official, book salesman and cinema manager. In the following thirty years he was a freelance journalist, playwright, author, fluent public speaker, film actor, script writer and television personality. Success bought him a comfortable bungalow home, which he named ‘Sarandai’, located in Rhiwbina, a pleasant garden suburb of Cardiff and close to a direct bus route to Merthyr. Amidst a community of noted Anglo-Welsh writers and academics, Jack, whose writing and character had so impressed Lloyd George in 1937, would cut a striking, silver-haired figure as he strolled and chatted easily with them, no doubt sounding sincerely every bit like the Merthyr man he was proud to be.
To round the year off, here is a quiz for you about Merthyr’s history.
But how many of us know anything about its author – Jack Jones?
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.