Jessie’s Stories by Jessie Thomas (1901 to 1991)

Date: 1901 to 1919
Location: Rhondda, Glamorgan, Wales
Surname/tag: Thomas

This page contains stories and memories in her own words of the childhood of Jessie Thomas in the Rhondda Valley, Glamorgan, Wales. It includes references to material that clarifies places and events mentioned.

Jessie’s Stories by Jessie Thomas (1901 to 1991)

It was November. Light snow had fallen, enough to make the grass slippery underfoot. Dad (John Thomas (1861-1942)) took the four of us younger ones up the mountainside, leaving Mam (Lizzie Thomas (1865-1929), born Whitcombe and previously Watkins) and the older ones to put the house straight.

I was three years old (must have been about 1904) and we had just moved from Glyntaff, near Pontypridd, to the top of the Rhondda; Blaen-y-Cym meaning end of the valley and, until the railway was built, it was literally the end of the valley.

The little village of Glyntaff, where I was born in 1901, consisted of a school, a Church and a cemetery which served as a park for us. During the school holidays, our Mothers took us there for picnics. We could play and romp about but had to keep fairly quiet. There weren’t much more than about a dozen houses in a terrace. Two rooms upstairs and two rooms downstairs, with the loo a long way off at the bottom of the garden and the water carried from a communal tap. Next door to us on the other side from the terrace were two round houses. They are still there today but the others have been replaced by modern dwellings.

It was from one of these round houses that Dr Price of Llantrisant ^{[1] [2]} made one of his escapes to France from the hands of the law. He was always in trouble with the authorities because of his endeavours for Human Rights, as they are called today.

Then, mainly, was the Common on which was the Rocking Stone. ^[3] This stone was as big as any two dining-room tables set on end, but just a touch of the finger would set it rocking (see photo). It was very old and was set at what might have been at the centrepiece of a snail or a snake, for one could trace the shape of a tail leading from it, and at the other end was a flat stone, carved to look like the head of a snail. It was a meeting place for the Church many years ago. I hear that nowadays the stone has been blocked to prevent it rocking for with the mis-use of the modern age, it had become dangerous.

There was a pond on the Common and the story goes that Mother had dressed us in our best clothes and sent us for a walk on the Common with the injunction “don’t go near the POND”. I was just two years old (must have been about 1903). On the way home I had it instilled in me by my older brothers and sisters to say “No!” if Mum asked if we’d been in the water. She didn’t mention WATER. She asked if we had been in the POND and I promptly said “Yes!” but as it turned out I needn’t have answered; she already knew that I had been in the water, for they had put my boots on the wrong feet.

Father had no time for gardening. He worked long hours in the pit and had a five mile walk there and back each day, so after his meal and his bath, he was ready for bed.

Not far away was a Workhouse, ^[4] and anyone could ask for a man from there to do some gardening for a meal during the day and sixpence (6d) for tobacco. We had such a one to do our garden sometimes. One day one of these men was busy and I was out in the garden chattering away – until he could stand it no longer! He went to the house and asked Mam to take me indoors as I was giving him the “creeps”! I was telling him how to do the garden, as I wanted it done the same as it had been when “I was here before”.

The village of Glyntaff was a part of the town of Pontypridd. ^[5] Pontypridd was, and indeed is, well known for its open-air market, held on Wednesdays and Saturdays. People flock from the Valleys and the streets are thronged, especially on Saturdays. Three Valleys converge at Pontypridd; the two Rhonddas ^[6] (Rhondda Fach and Rhondda Fawr – small and large) and the Taff Vale which leads back to Merthyr Tydfil and the Brecon Beacons, the source of the River Taff. The three rivers join at Pontypridd and continue on to Cardiff as the River Taff.

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Whereas in Pontypridd we had lived in a small old-fashioned cottage, two up and two down, now we had three rooms upstairs and three rooms downstairs, but even this was to become crowded as we grew up. There were many such houses in our village with children growing up, getting married and sharing the family home until they would find a place of their own. Talk about overcrowding; that was it, but it never became slummy and they didn’t rear thieves, muggers, murderers and rapists.

These new houses were built by the coal-owners to encourage miners to the village as a new seam of coal had been found. ^[7] It was on the mountainside. There was a steep climb up to it and the miners walked in to work.

Some years previous to this a shaft had been sunk on the other side of the village and at the bottom of the mountain. Whether the seam had petered out or it was closed through flooding, I don’t know, but it was now derelict.

In later years the water was pumped out and the pit worked again. In another field a new shaft was sunk and both were worked for some years. Now all that is gone but you can imagine how dusty our homes and pavements were. It was hard work but our homes were kept spotlessly clean, even to scrubbing, on hands and knees, the pavements in front of the houses and the small backyards.

My father and brother preferred working in the “level” as it was called, to working in the deep pit. ^[8] In a very short time it was feared that the “level” would close because there was no coal but my father saw the owners, men he knew well, and told them that there was another forty years work there and so it was proved, almost to the day. By that time my father had finished work and the boys had long since left the pit, one to go to Australia (Frederick Thomas (1900-1966)) and the other two (Richard Theophilus Thomas (1887-1943) and John Thomas junior (known as Jack - 1895-?)) because of accident and ill-health had found work elsewhere.

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In the meantime, we had to grow up. The street and the mountain-side were our playgrounds, and, often on the railway-line. We liked to hop from one sleeper to another to see who could keep it up the longest. The sleepers were just that too far apart for a comfortable hop, so it was hard work. Another foolish thing, but we enjoyed it, was lying pins and pennies on the track then hiding low on the embankment until the engine came along and crushed them. The pins were like little swords but the pennies were just squashed pennies. Not that our pennies were often treated in this manner; they were far too precious.

One use for them was on the Round-About. In the summer months, a man would bring his horse-drawn Round-About to the village. It would seat eight children. Some grown-ups liked it as well. We paid our pennies and the man set it going by cranking a handle. Thinking back, it must have been hard work but wasn’t it hard work for everyone?

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There was a fairly wide brook running through the village, one of the two tributaries that formed the River Rhondda which later joined the River Taff twelve miles away at Pontypridd and then flowed out to the sea at Cardiff.

Our brook was called the Selsig. That, too, was a favourite playground in the summer. There were some large flat stones that two or three of us could sit on and picnic, while dangling our feet in the water. It was a dream in the summer.

In the winter the brook became a raging torrent. During a heavy storm, it would keep us awake at night. A huge wooden beam, eleven inches in thickness and twenty feet long, had been placed across the river. This was held firmly in place by strong iron supports and from this beam hung two gates. In all it was about twelve to thirteen feet (3.5to 4 metres) high. We liked to swing on these gates. Luckily in our time, no one fell in; had someone fallen in, they would surely have been killed. These gates (there were two sets of them on the Selsig) had been placed there to check the large stones that kept falling into the water from one corner of the village where there was a waterfall and a lot of loose rock. There was one night to remember. No-one went to bed. We were all downstairs, with our out-door clothes at hand, ready to make a dash. We were the end house of the street, nearest the river and the water was too close for comfort. Between the noise of the thunder and the roar of the river, it was very frightening. Next morning when the storm had abated, we looked to see what the river was like. To our amazement, our gates had disappeared; hidden under rocks, some of which must have weighed two, three and five tons each.

That, then, had been the cause of the dreadful cracking noise which had disturbed us in the night. These huge rocks were being buffeted by the force of the water and some had splintered, or should I say exploded.

Naturally, child-like, we had to climb and clamber over the huge pile of rocks but River-Board and Council-Men were sent to warn people to keep their children away from the river at the end of Llewellyn Street for, should one of the stones move and disturb the others, any child would be badly injured or, most likely, crushed and killed.

Our gates never swung back and forth after that but were still useful to get us to the opposite bank to a field where some people kept pigs and chickens. We were soon stopped from playing there.

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The railway embankment was also taboo. There were some pretty little trees growing on it and lots of wild flowers but we had an enemy there “Old Cochin”, so-called to us because he was old and had red hair. It was his duty to keep us away from the railway line, and to us he was just a nasty old man. Once over the line and it was another world at the foot of the mountain with very little grass and mostly shingle. But there were some stunted trees that we could climb and a very pretty stream where a few kingcups ^[9] grew. There were other flowers – bluebells, buttercups, daisies, and what we called “milk flowers” and there were others, and various rushes, and occasionally a kingfisher would be seen, but it was the walk where Dad took us that was our favourite spot.

Summer holiday times; our Mother and the other mothers would prepare a picnic. Under the rocks and where, for a distance of 50 yards, the waterfall had settled into a steady stream before it took a plunge into the farmyard below was a nice flat spot ideal for picnicking. There was a patch of lovely green grass to play on and, of course, we enjoyed paddling in the water. The farmer warned us that the stones were very slippery and that we could find ourselves in his backyard with, possibly, a broken leg or two but we had found a good spot and his warning did not disturb us.

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Our village was like a large basin with a chip in the side. The mountains, Penpych and Graig-y-Ddelw ^[10] almost meeting at the bottom. There were many waterfalls; two of which we could see always, from our back-kitchen window. One fell over rocks like a cascade; the other, soon leaving the mountain top had a drop of ninety-feet. One, that we children were not attracted to, was in a corner and always looked dark and gloomy but one day we heard that some hawks were nesting there. It had been a nesting place for hawks for generations but it was the first that we children had heard of it and a few of us decided to investigate, but some men came after us, calling us to come away.

Not only were we in danger of being attacked by the hawks but the terrain on which we walked was very dangerous; loose shale and, had we slipped, nothing could have prevented us from a nasty fall and a sheer drop of about thirty-feet into the flow of the waterfall.

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It was fairly easy to get to the top of the mountain if you followed the sheep tracks but it was dangerous to try to cross them, unless you knew your way or had someone with you who knew the way. But we were not to go up there because of the cracks and crevasses. Even today, sheep fall down them and men risk their lives to get them up. They are treacherous and deceiving, and it is easy to get lost up there. Quite a few times in my childhood, men from the village would be called out at night in answer to a feeble call of “Help” from somewhere up there.

They would set off, some with Davy Lamps, ^[11] some with candles fixed in empty tomato or fruit tins. Others would make themselves some sort of torch. Someone was lost up there, afraid to move further, or perhaps fallen down some rocks. One fell down our waterfall. He was badly injured and died before they got him down. It was ghastly, watching those lights bobbing away on the mountainside and hearing the call for “Help” with the rescuers shouting out “Call Again”.

There was one memorable climb. It was at the time of the Coronation of King George fifth. ^[12] A huge bonfire was built on top of one mountain. Lots of our people were climbing up our side of the mountain to see it. Mother couldn’t be left out so she took the five youngest (probably Frederick (1900-1966), Jessie (1901-1991), Elizabeth (1903-1981), David James (1905-1973) and Alfred Edward (1907-1984)); there had been one addition to the family since coming to Blaen-y-Cwm. It was mostly grass underfoot, and soon our boots were shiny, like glass, and we could not stand up. So, off came the boots then we tied the laces together and hung them around our necks.

Our stockings were soon worn through and our feet like glass before we reached the top. It had been hard work and what for? Just to see a large pile of railway sleepers, massive logs, barrels of tar for making a jolly good bonfire.

We came down an easier way, following the track that the horses and donkeys had used to haul the stuff up there. When we eventually got down, we were two miles away from home. Poor Mum! She was in bed for some days, suffering from exhaustion.

It poured with rain the night the bonfire was lit! Hundreds of people went up just the same but we were content to watch it from our front windows. The bonfire itself was too far back for us to see the flames but it was still worth watching. It was a wonderful sight, against the black sky, with myriads of sparks shooting up into the sky.

Another great event was round about the same time. The publican’s daughter was getting married. She was to be driven to the Church in a Motor Car. The whole school was allowed out to see this wonderful sight. Today there is a motor car to almost every house.

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We went to our village school up to standard two, between 8 and 9 years of age, then we were transferred to a bigger school for the rest of our schooldays. That school was about a mile or two away. The first half of the journey was down a very dreary road. When we first moved to Blaen-y-Cwm it was just a farm track. Later it was laid out with chippings made firm by a steam roller. Then, of course, came the usual MacAdam road.

On one side of the village was Penpych, towering above us. Occasionally rumour would go around that it was slipping. True enough, it does have a go. Only a few years ago it was reported to be slipping an inch in seven days. I read once that, starting in Penpych, there is a crack in the earth’s surface that can be traced across the country, under the North Sea and into Germany. We also had the railway on that side and the brook. On the other side was the river, the working of the Ty Draw Colliery with Graig-y-Ddelw and the coal tips.

In the winter this torrent of a river could overflow on to the road, making it quite impossible for us to walk home. Luckily it only happened once in my lifetime and we had to make a detour. This was over a rickety bridge with men waiting to pull us off onto the colliery yard. Just as the last child was pulled to safety, the bridge disappeared.

The wheels of this pit were worked by steam. Coal was used to provide the steam and the hot ashes from the boiler were strewn over a fairly large area of the mountain-side. During the day, steam and dangerous fumes could be seen rising from the ashes. It was a No Man’s Land. Still I remember the time when some man, presumably drunk, had somehow got on to it and other men risked their lives and burned their boots and feet to get him from there. He was very dead! Now, I don’t suppose any of our village children of nine or ten years of age had ever been down this road after dark but one day we were kept waiting in school for the Curate to come and take us in our Religious exam. It was the rule for him to take the boys first and then the girls.

Women’s Lib had not begun at that time! On this particular day the boys were brought from their school into ours to wait. Part of the Lesson must have been God’s Promise not to drown the World again but that FIRE would destroy us and when we got to Blaen-y-Cwm Road, sure enough, it had started! For there was this “FIRE” burning bright red by the Ty Draw Pit.

Were we frightened?

We just fell indoors. It was the talking point of the mothers for many days. Whatever could the Curate have said to those little ones to cause such a fright, until someone came up with a solution? Of course, it was getting dark when they passed Ty Draw Pit and the ashes would have been glowing red. If the world had started to burn, it would not have been of much use running home to Mum! Still it was to Mum and the safety of those four walls that we ran.

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There was another incident of my schooldays which makes me laugh at the remembrance of it. Dad was teaching me to Box. I enjoyed it, but Mum put an end to that. My brother next oldest to me (Frederick) must have been a bit of a weakling. I never knew what was wrong with him but when he would be taken ill at school, some teachers taught the other boys to form an armchair and carry him home. No-one was allowed to be rough with him if I was about. Something happened one day that caused me to let fly at a boy, older and much bigger than me and this is where Dad’s boxing lessons came in handy. I punched and marked his face! He had to tell his Mother what had happened and she wrote to the Headmaster. He sent for me and our Governess took me into the Boy’s School. I was tall for my age and she was much shorter than I. Our nick-name for her was Tottie. As we walked to see the Headmaster, she gave me some peculiar looks but said nothing.

I didn’t know why the Headmaster wanted to see me, so I couldn’t have told her, had she asked me. When we got to the Headmaster’s desk he called the boy to him and asked “Is this the girl?”. The answer was “Yes Sir”. What else may have been said, I don’t know. I wasn’t very happy standing there in front of this class of boys.

The Headmaster told him to bend over a desk and he beat him with a cane. By this time it had dawned on me what it was all about. NOW I had a tremendous fear. I was the culprit. If the Headmaster was doing that to the boy, what was he going to do to me?

He gave Tottie the nod to take me away. He followed us to the door, put his hand on my shoulder and said Little ladies don’t use their fists. That poor boy blushed whenever we happened to see one another ever after.

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One job of work that I enjoyed doing was scrubbing our stone floors. They were very smooth and various colours; some brown, some sandy or blue or slate-grey. It was hard to keep them nice for when the men came in from work, they were soon dusty again. They were always warm because we kept such bright fires.

The men and boys, working different shifts, were, nearly always, soaking wet. Some worked in a two foot seam of coal and were lying in water whilst cutting it. All those clothes had to be dried for the next day; some needed mending. Our Mother never tired of patching and mending. She couldn’t see her men go to work in ragged clothes. Speaking to other women, that I have met, who experienced life as I knew it, we ask one another “How many hours were there to our Mother’s days?” for there were four sometimes five to get to work, children to look after, washing, baking, scrubbing and, generally, stockings being knitted. Our Mother kept the bedroom floors and the stairs scrubbed, white as the kitchen table.

We each had to help her as best we could. Often I have stood on a stool and kneaded twenty pounds of flour into dough in order to ease her back. The bread was baked in a public bakehouse and to stop us picking at the loaves as we carried them home, she would over-fill one tin and as it rose, it would spill out over the sides. Lovely crusts for us to munch on.

We didn’t have a lot of fancy food. Jellies and tinned fruit for Sunday Tea but through the week it was real Welsh country fare. Mostly, porridge for breakfast with an occasional fry of bacon and fried bread. Sometimes we could be sure of black -pudding and belly pork when a pig was killed.

One day, one of the older girls had given us our breakfast but we had run out of tea, so she couldn’t give us any. The story goes that we went to school crying and when we were asked what all the tears were about, we said that we hadn’t had any breakfast. The village shop was opposite the school gates so our Governess went over and bought a loaf of bread and some bacon and sent us home.

Poor Mother, it was a long time before she could meet any of those teachers without being very embarrassed and there was another time when she had to suffer much the same embarrassment. There weren’t any children better clothed or better fed than us, even if it did mean a patch or a darn here or there. But my one brother was always being sent out on messages and, if it meant passing our house, what was more natural than he should pop in to show Mam that he was the boy chosen for messages. One day, quite in jest, she said “If those teachers want you running messages they should buy you some boots”. He came home with two pairs, one pair for best and one pair for school. Was her face red!

When in the Junior School, at the time of the strikes, ^[13] it was fun to take a basin to school for some soup. Everyone lived near enough to the school to be able to run home, get their basins and a piece of bread – if they wanted bread – have their soup and take their basins back home before the afternoon session. Not so when you went to the Senior School. I hated having to carry a basin all that way. When life was normal, we went home at mid-day. There was always a substantial meal ready for us and then we rushed back to school but at the time of the strikes, if there was a soup-kitchen we didn’t have time to go home – but I would forget my basin! I had a friend who lived near that school and if she could get served quickly, she would go back for a second helping for me. Otherwise I went without until teatime but my pride would not let me carry a basin all that way.

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As I have said, the mountain-side was our playground. One day, about a dozen of us of all ages, and the ground gave way under us. SUBSIDENCE, but we hadn’t heard that word then. We dropped about six foot into a neat round hole. One boy of my age and I got out and with a lot of pulling and pushing, we got the others out. Our fear was that the ground would drop more before we got all the others out but it never did. Not in our time.

Then there was a small pond at the foot of a colliery tip that we were warned against. Since the Aberfan affair, ^[14] I can understand why but there were planks floating on this pond and we liked to tie two together and, after a fashion, form a raft. It was fun until one day a girl brought her baby sister along and laid her on one of these planks whilst she had her ride but by us disturbing the water, the plank and the baby drifted out to the centre of the pond. Tom and I were afraid that the baby would wake up and move a bit, and it would be in the water. No-one could swim but we got the raft near the plank and the baby, and so safely to the bank. Realising that we could not swim, we never played that game anymore.

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In this new home, we had a front room but it wasn’t furnished much, just a couple of chairs and perhaps a small table. No upholstered furniture for us in those days. We hadn’t even got a sofa. When Mam wanted her forty winks, as she called it, she would tilt her armchair against the wall, put her feet on a stool and she was away. Ten minutes sleep and she was bright as a button again. But she had other uses for her Front Room. For many winter months it was our Church Sunday School for the young ones. Monday night it was Church Band of Hope. I forget about Tuesdays but Thursdays it was the turn of the Salvation Army for their youngsters. Friday night one of my brothers had it as a Club Room for teenagers. She would not take any payment for it.

Then came the day of more daughters getting married. So there was much re-arranging to be done. The front room now became a bedroom. Little Front Room. It experienced everything, from birth to death. Illnesses of all sorts.

Mam had five of us with Scarlet Fever at one time. The Isolation Hospital was overcrowded and many children had to be nursed at home.

When a girl married, not only in our home but in many others as well, they had a bedroom and the back-kitchen. In our house, the fixed rule was that the men bathed out there. Sometimes there were five, sometimes six men to get the grime of coal off.

It was hard work but we thrived on it. There was always singing and laughter. The boys had good voices and would sing in chorus. I didn’t have much of a voice but my sisters had good voices and would join in with the boys. Anything from the latest Music Hall songs, through Oratorio to Hymns. Until the First World War.

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Our oldest brother (Richard Theophilus (1887-1943)) was already a serviceman. He went through all the War and was demobilised early in 1919. He worked in the level for a while but was taken ill with a gastric ulcer and died quite suddenly. The next brother (John Thomas (1895-?)) joined the RAMC ^[15] as he was already in the St John’s Ambulance but he fell while carrying some wounded; he hit his head badly and this caused epilepsy. So there were many years of sorrow. He ended his days in a Psychiatric Hospital in Bridgend. ^[16] The years before he was admitted to the hospital were a great strain for the family.

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In the summer months, Mam liked to sit out on the front-room window sill and soon she would be surrounded by others. Sometimes they too would sing. There was always plenty of laughter but she never allowed bawdy jokes or much swearing. One day we were a group gathered like that. I remember that the river was in full spate, after the summer rain. They had just waved to a neighbour who had been across to feed her livestock and was now returning over a bridge that her husband had built of railway sleepers. She wore one of those long capes (they were just going out of fashion then) and the wind got under it and carried her out over the water. No-one or anything could help her. Already many of the people in our group were crying. I can still feel the tension of the grown-ups today, when I think of it. For suddenly, it changed to a great gasp of awe! For the wind veered and had lifted the woman back onto the bridge.

Mam was well liked and was one of those women always at hand when needed. Staying up many nights with sick people or injured men, for our nearest Hospital was at Cardiff, twenty four miles away.

As many women of my age ask, I ask it again. How many hours were there to their days?

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When men worked different shifts, it was too much for her to wait for the late one to come in somewhere around 11:30pm to midnight for he worked at a pit some distance away and had a long walk. So I would offer to wait up for him. One night I heard someone in our backyard. Whoever it was, was there to steal our coal. So I took the poker, a heavy piece of steel about eighteen inches long, and threw it. What a nine year old (must have been about 1910) hoped to accomplish I didn’t know, but there was a tremendous yell that brought Father and Mother downstairs. It was a pitch-black night and I was scared and mad at anyone having nerve to steal our coal. Dad investigated and, sure enough, someone had been there but this time he had run and left his coat behind. Did I get praise or even sympathy, for I was still trembling? No fear, I was packed off to bed with a scolding and the words “you could have hurt him”. Sure enough, he was hurt; they found a trail of blood over the wall that he had to climb.

I was a terror to throw. Someone ask me to pass on a book, a pencil or perhaps a newspaper, I would throw it to them. The cure came one day when I was sent to get the plates for dinner. Ten of them. When I got to the step that led down into the kitchen, I threw them. Such a clatter, I was petrified, expecting worst, but Mam just laughed and said “that will cure her” and you may be sure – it did!

There is another trip to the pantry that is worth recording. I had been sent there for something or other and when I opened the door, I found the whole place alight with such a glow that I let up one yell and flew. On investigation, it was a big plate of mackerel throwing off its phosphorescence. ^[17]

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The railway line was the Rhondda and Swansea Bay. It ran from Treherbert to Swansea Docks. Anyone wanting to go lower down the valley or on to Pontypridd or Cardiff had to change trains at Treherbert. That was the terminus of the Taff Vale Railway that ran to Cardiff Docks. Hundreds of trains of coal passed daily and the stations en route were very dusty. You wouldn’t have seen boys and girls in white slacks in those days.

About our first or second winter in Blaen-y-Cwm we children were in bed; we must have had an older sister staying with her three children. (We were aunts and uncles at five and six years of age.) I remember that we were packed like sardines. It was dark and - suddenly - a THING came in at our bedroom window and travelled around the room and out again, but not before we had the household on the run from our yells. Mam had just distempered the bedroom a pale green and it helped to give this THING an eerie light. It was creepy and the conclusion was that we had not been in the room at that time before, or, that we had been asleep when the train had passed on previous occasions and that with our house being at such an angle with the railway, the lit carriages reflected their light in our front windows.

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After passing our street on the upward line, the railway soon reached a two mile long tunnel. The first time I went through it, the carriages were not lit; people carried candles. I was with a sister and her children and I was to stay with her at her home near Swansea. She forgot to close the windows of the carriage. We were soon in darkness. A horrible journey. What with the noise that a train makes in a tunnel and her babies crying, it was nice to get out in the Llynfi Valley. Much narrower than the Rhondda Valley and with many pits but it was not de-nuded of its trees. A very pretty valley and this same journey would be taken to get to Aberafon. This was the much-favoured spot for Sunday School trips. Miles and miles of sandy beach and sand dunes.

It is in Swansea Bay, a great sweep of beautiful sand, broken now of course with Port Talbot and Swansea Docks. It was possible to walk the twenty miles from Aberfan (Aberafon ?) to Swansea, only whoever attempted it had to be wary of the quick-sands. That didn’t concern us – we had our beach. We had to walk half a mile to reach it from the station and if it rained, there was no protection. Still we found it and it is still quite a favourite with the valley people, although there are now many houses built on the dunes and there is a huge sports centre, ^[18] a bit of a fairground, and miles of esplanade. Princess Margaret opened it even before it was completed. Now there are lovely little flower beds and lawns with seats. There are still miles of sands and that is the attraction.

We had one special trip. Almost everybody went to see a huge fish, washed up on Aberafon beach. I never learned what it was but it was estimated that it was anything between twenty and thirty feet long. To a seven year old (must have been around 1908), it might have been a hundred feet long.

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Anyone anywhere who has heard of the South Wales Valleys will have heard of the sheep that roam the streets. Well!! It was their ground before the humans took over and they don’t give up easily. They were not so much a menace in the days of the horse-drawn vehicles but the trams, motor cars and buses have changed all that. They are a few men with dogs employed to try to keep them off the roads but the odd one still finds its way down.

Not much more than a hundred years ago the Rhondda was a thick forest. The three rivers “Rhondda”, “Rhine” and “Rhone” derive their names from “Dark water flowing among trees”.

It is said that one could have travelled the whole length of the Rhondda just going from tree to tree. Why the colliery owners stripped the hills, I don’t understand. They needed room for the colliery workings, we must admit, but it was sacrilege. There was an odd clearing here and there for a farmhouse, but most were down near the river. They were mostly sheep farmers and, today, many of the old sheep trails are to be found.

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Back in 1919 I was with my brother on the top-deck of a tram-car when we halted. Eventually he went to find the cause. It was a ewe on the track, struggling to have her babies. As soon as they were born, she and her family were helped to safety and we were on our way.

When we were young, our doors were never locked, so that the older ones could come in, either from work or any social activity that they were interested in. That was until one old ram found that he could force the front door open and lead his sheep in for the night. All very well – until someone forgot to close the door into the living room!

Mam came down at 4:30am to get the fire going, not that it was ever quite out, and to get the breakfast for those going out for the day-shift, only to find the two rooms and the passage full of sheep. She tried to “shoo” them out but the old ram tried to butt her so Dad had to get up and sort things out. That day a strong lock was fixed to the front door but the back door was left off the latch. That was not the end. The old ram led his sheep over the wall and even learned to pull the latch down, but soon that too had a strong lock and everyone had a key.

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That's the end of Jessie's stories and I hope you have enjoyed this glimpse into her life in her own words.

Sources

1. ↑ Explanation of Dr Price: William Price (4 March 1800 – 23 January 1893) was a Welsh doctor known for his support of Welsh nationalism, Chartism and his involvement with the Neo-Druidic religious movement. He has been recognised as one of the most significant figures of 19th-century Wales, and one of the most unusual in Victorian Britain. He was born 4 March 1800 in Rudry and died on 23 January 1893, Llantrisant. He was educated at The Royal London Hospital. (Source: Wikipedia) For more information about Dr Price, see next reference.
2. ↑ More Information about Dr Price: Born to a lower-class household in Monmouthshire, Wales, Price trained as a doctor in London, England before returning to Wales, becoming interested in the Chartists' ideas regarding equal democratic rights for all men. Following their failed 1839 uprising, he escaped government prosecution by fleeing to France, where he became convinced that an ancient prophecy predicted that he would remove Wales from English rule. Returning to Wales, Price tried reviving what he believed to be the religion of the ancient druids, the Celtic Iron Age ritual specialists of western Europe. In doing so, he became one of the most prominent proponents of the Neo-Druidic movement, something that had been developing since the Welsh nationalist Iolo Morganwg's activities in the late 18th century. After cremating his dead son in 1884, Price was arrested and put on trial by those who believed cremation was illegal in Britain; however, he successfully argued that there was no legislation that specifically outlawed it, which paved the way for the Cremation Act 1902. Upon his death, he was cremated in a ceremony watched by 20,000 onlookers. Known for adhering to such principles as equal democratic rights for all men, vegetarianism, cremation and the abolition of marriage, some of which were highly controversial at the time, he has been widely known as an eccentric and a radical. Since his death he has been remembered by some people as "one of the great Welshmen of all time". A permanent exhibition and statue dedicated to him being was opened by these people in the town of Llantrisant, where he had lived for much of his later life. Source: Wikipedia [[1]]
3. ↑ Rocking Stone Background: The Rocking Stone or Y Maen Chwyf in Welsh is a glacial boulder remaining from the Ice Age. It formed the central point for a Gorsedd or Gathering of Bards in 1814, which was organised by stonemason, Edward Williams, known as Iolo Morganwg. The Gorsedd Circle of smaller stones was constructed in 1849 by Evan Davies, Bardic name Myfyr Morganwg and has often been used for Bardic gatherings, and as a focal point for other public occasions. Source: [[2]]
4. ↑ About the Workhouse: Your quality of life during the Victorian times depended on whether you were rich or poor. Poor Victorians had a rough and hard life, often ending up in the workhouse or early death. Workhouses were first introduced to Britain in 1576. It was not until 1 April 1930 that they were officially closed and even then many continued under other names into the late 20th century. In England and Wales, a workhouse (Welsh: tloty) was a place where those unable to support themselves were offered accommodation and employment. Life in a workhouse was intended to be harsh, to deter the able-bodied poor and to ensure that only the truly destitute would apply. They earned their keep by doing jobs in the workhouse. Also in the workhouses were orphaned (children without parents) and abandoned children, the physically and mentally sick, the disabled, the elderly and unmarried mothers. The women mostly did domestic jobs such as cleaning, or helping in the kitchen or laundry. Some workhouses had workshops for sewing, spinning and weaving or other local trades. Others had their own vegetable gardens where the inmates worked to provide food for the workhouse. The main constituent of the workhouse diet was bread. At breakfast it was supplemented by gruel or porridge — both made from water and oatmeal (or occasionally a mixture of flour and oatmeal). Workhouse broth was usually the water used for boiling the dinner meat, perhaps with a few onions or turnips added. Read more about the Glyntaff Workhouse at [[3]]
5. ↑ The Development of Pontypridd: [[4]]
6. ↑ The Two Rhonddas: RHONDDA, formerly named Ystradyfodwg, an extensive parish and parliamentary borough comprising several hamlets, is one of the largest coal-producing parishes Glamorganshire, and is 20 miles south-west from Merthyr Tydfil, 20 north-west from Cardiff, 25 east from Swansea and 180 from London; it is in the hundred of Miskin, petty sessional division of Lower Miskin, Pontypridd union and county court district, rural deanery of Rhondda, and archdeaconry and diocese of Llandaff. [From Kelly's South Wales Directory 1923]
7. ↑ Growth of Pontypridd: As Pontypridd entered the two decades of the nineteenth century the pace and extent of its growth was about to increase dramatically. According to the 1881 census the town's population remained below 8,000. By 1891 it had increased to 13,000 and to 20,000 by 1901. Small wonder that the town's Member of Parliament Alfred Thomas said in a speech when opening the municipal buildings in April 1906: “fifty years ago Pontypridd was smaller than any of its suburbs. When we compare or rather when we contrast the picture we draw in our mind's eye with that which we see today we are reminded more of the abnormal growth of some new world town say in the United States”. The town's population continued to increase into the twentieth century at a striking rate and peaked at the 1921 census. The reason for Pontypridd's phenomenal growth can be attributed to the equally phenomenal growth of deep-seam coal mining. Previously, coal mining was a small-scale operation with small labour forces. Deep-seam mining allowed the development of large-scale labour intensive enterprises.
8. ↑ About the Coal Mines: The first mines to extract deep seam coal were located at the Great Western Colliery, Hopkinstown and the Albion Colliery, Cilfynydd. Although these were bordering villages demand for labour was so great that building activity proceeded quickly in the town itself in an attempt to keep pace with the need to house workers. The Maritime Colliery was deepened to the steam coal seam in 1906 and also became the first pit in the South Wales Coalfield to have by-product coke ovens. As a result of the aforementioned collieries' expansion, Pwllgwaun, Maesycoed, Trallwn and the Graig were areas of Pontypridd that developed considerably as coal owners built row upon row of terraced housing.
9. ↑ Kingcups: The large, golden flowers of Marsh-marigold look like the cups of kings, hence its other name: 'Kingcup'. It favours damp spots, like ponds, meadows, marshes, ditches and wet woodlands.
10. ↑ Welsh Waterfalls: I have not included additional information here, however if any readers are interested, just type “Penpych” or “Graig-y-Ddelw” into YouTube or Google and you will find plenty of information and videos about these beautiful locations and the waterfalls in the Welsh countryside.
11. ↑ Davy Lamps: The Davy lamp is a safety lamp for use in flammable atmospheres, invented in 1815 by Sir Humphry Davy. It consists of a wick lamp with the flame enclosed inside a mesh screen. It was created for use in coal mines, to reduce the danger of explosions due to the presence of methane and other flammable gases, called firedamp or minedamp.
12. ↑ Coronation of King George : The coronation of George V and his wife Mary as king and queen of the United Kingdom and the British Empire took place at Westminster Abbey, London, on 22 June 1911.
13. ↑ Miners Strike of 1910-11: The Miners Strike of 1910-11 was an attempt by miners and their families to improve wages and living conditions in severely deprived parts of South Wales, where wages had been kept deliberately low for many years by a cartel of mine owners. What became known as the Tonypandy riots of 1910 and 1911 (sometimes collectively known as the Rhondda riots) were a series of violent confrontations between these striking coal miners and police that took place at various locations in and around the Rhondda mines of the Cambrian Combine, a cartel of mining companies formed to regulate prices and wages in South Wales.
14. ↑ The Aberfan Disaster: The Aberfan disaster was the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip at around 9:15 am on 21 October 1966. The tip had been created on a mountain slope above the Welsh village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil, and overlaid a natural spring. A period of heavy rain led to a build-up of water within the tip which caused it to suddenly slide downhill as a slurry, killing 116 children and 28 adults as it engulfed the local junior school and other buildings. The tip was the responsibility of the National Coal Board (NCB), and the subsequent inquiry placed the blame for the disaster on the organisation and nine named employees.
15. ↑ The Royal Army Medical Corps : The Royal Army Medical Corps is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace.
16. ↑ Death of Jack Thomas: According to Lynne Worker (née Hinton and Great Granddaughter of John and Lizzie Thomas), sometime after returning from World War 1, Jack Thomas ended his days in Parc Hospital (Welsh: Ysbyty Parc), which was a mental health facility at Bridgend in Wales. Parc Gwyllt Farm and Gelliau Farm were identified in 1880 as forming a site suitable for the purposes of building an asylum and opened as the Second Glamorgan County Lunatic Asylum in 1886. It became Parc Gwyllt County Mental Hospital in the 1920s and joined the National Health Service as Parc Hospital in 1948. The hospital went into a period of decline and closed in 1996; it was subsequently demolished and the site redeveloped as Parc Prison in 1997. The old clocktower from Park Hospital has been restored and remains visible to the public on the Parc Prison site. See https://hellohistoria.blogspot.com/2012/07/parc-gwyllt-timeline.html for more information.
17. ↑ Phosphoresence in Fish: Many kinds of fish, which can make no claim to luminosity when in life, become brilliantly phosphorescent after death. Mackerels and herrings especially, when their dead bodies are exposed for a short time to the air, become luminous in the dark, and have often appalled some rustic youngster by their strange phosphoric glitter as they hang outside a cottage door. Stretch forth your hand and touch them, and you will find your fingers covered with a greasy substance, and luminous, as if rubbed with phosphorus. Should the greasy substance be separated from the dead fish, and placed on a piece of glass, it continues to shine in the dark, but, as in all other cases of phosphorescence, there is no heat—only light.
18. ↑ Aberavon Sports & Leisure Centre: This is now called the Aberavon Sports & Leisure Centre located on The Princess Margaret Way, Port Talbot .