She had on a straw bonnet with flowers down by her cheeks, and broad green ribbons tied under her chin and blowing about her face. A big dark green cloak was curling all round her as she walked, opening to show her dress and white apron that reached below the ankles of her button boots. Even though the Hill was steep and the basket big and heavy she made no nonsense of it. Up she came, looking at the houses on our side till she saw me peeping at her from our doorway, and she smiled.
Indeed her eyes did go so bright as raindrops on the sill when the sun comes out and her little nose did wrinkle up with her, and her mouth was red round her long white teeth, and everything was held tight by the green whipping ribbons.
“Hullo, Huw,” she said.
But I was so shy I ran in to Mama and hid behind the wall bed.
“What is the matter with you?” my mother asked me, but I only pushed my face in the blankets.
And then Bronwen called softly from the front.
Mind, my mother had never seen Bronwen or heard her voice, but I am sure she knew who it was. She put her head on one side, and put down the fork she had been cooking with, and went to the little looking-glass to take off this old blue cloth and do something to her hair.
“Is that you, Bronwen?” she asked, while she was still looking at herself.
“Yes,” Bronwen said, though indeed you could hardly hear.
“Come in, my child,” my mother said, and went out to meet her. They looked at each other for a little time without speaking, and then my mother kissed her.
In five minutes my mother knew all there was to be known, and Bronwen had been told most of the little tricks Ivor had got up to when he was small, and what sort of things he liked to eat, and how he would never drink his tea hot and things like that. Indeed, talk got so warm that Mama nearly missed sitting outside and my father was shouting a chorus with my brothers almost at the door when she screamed, and ran to push out the stool, sitting down quick, and putting her hands tidy to wait.
“There is something radically wrong here,” said my father, coming in. “You have never been late before, my girl.”
Then he saw Bronwen behind the door and he laughed.
“Wrong?” he said. “No, indeed. Right, that is what it is. Ivor.”
My father put his fingers down the back of my neck and pulled me out of the kitchen just when Ivor, coal and dirt and all, was going to kiss Bronwen.
“Those things are not for you, my son,” he said, “you will have your turn to come.”
My sisters came back from the farm just then and my brothers were bathing out in the back, so the house was full of noise and laughing, and the smell of the cooking made you so hungry you would have pains inside.
Bronwen came over plenty of Saturdays after that, but I was always shy of her. I think I must have fallen in love with Bronwen even then and I must have been in love with her all my life since. It is silly to think a child could fall in love. If you think about it like that, mind. But I am the child that was, and nobody knows how I feel, except only me. And I think I fell in love with Bronwen that Saturday on the Hill.
Still, that is past.
Chapter Two
A GRAND TIME we had at Ivor’s wedding. There was nearly a fight about where the wedding was going to be. Bronwen’s father wanted it done in the Zion chapel over the mountain, but my father was sure our chapel would be ready in time.
Every man in our village had been helping for months in the evenings to build our chapel. I used to play in the bricks and blocks and plaster with the other boys while the men were working, and fine times we did have.
Indeed, the Chapel looks the same now as the day it was opened by some preacher from Town. We had no preacher of our own for a long time because the village was not rich enough to pay one, so the grown-ups took turns to preach and pray, and of course the choir was always there.
Ivor got married to Bronwen in our new chapel as my father wanted, and you should have seen the fun after.
For a miracle, it was a fine day. My father wore his top-hat, my mother had a new grey dress and bonnet, all the boys had new black suits and bowlers, and I was in a new black overcoat with a velvet collar. There is a swell I was.
But you should have seen Ivor and Bronwen. He had a new black suit too, but my father lent him his white waistcoat, and it looked a real treat on him, with a bunch of pinks in his buttonhole.
But Bronwen.
Everybody said how beautiful she was. She had her great-grandmother’s dress on, so her mother said, and indeed even though it had been washed special, the lace was still looking a bit brownish, or so I thought and no wonder being that old.
There was my mother and Bronwen’s crying down on the front, and my father and Bronwen’s standing next to them, and then my older brothers, Ianto, Davy, and Owen.
I was down farther with my sisters and my other brother, standing with my aunts and uncles. The Chapel was packed so full there was no room to lift your arms, and opening a hymn book was out of the question. It is a good job they all knew the words of the hymns backwards.
The preacher gave a fine sermon. He used some big English words I had never heard before because our meetings were taken by the grown-ups in our language. But I remember the tunes of some of them and asked my father afterwards. I suppose I must have got the tunes wrong because although my father tried and said them over again, we never found out what they were and I am still in ignorance to this day.
But everybody there listened very close, some leaning forward holding their ears, and some leaning back with their eyes shut, and some just sitting down.
Whenever he said something extra, some of the men hummed to themselves and you could see all the older women’s bonnets nodding like the wind passing over a field.
I hummed myself, once, when nobody else did, and of course it was in the wrong place, and my uncle gave me a push with his elbow that sent me flying in the aisle with a bump. I got up trying to wipe the dust off my new coat and the preacher stopped what he was saying to look down at me, and everybody turned round to look at me, and you could hear them clucking their tongues all over the Chapel. I wished I could have dropped through a crack, and indeed I often dream of it, and I can still feel how I felt, as though I was still small, and all those people were still alive.
It is very strange to think back like this, although come to think of it, there is no fence or hedge round Time that has gone. You can go back and have what you like if you remember it well enough.
I will never forget the party after the wedding when Ivor and Bronwen had gone up to the house to go away. They went in Dai Ellis’ best trap with the white mare that used to take the Post.
In the big tent they had the food and in the small one the drink. There were tables for the grown-ups under the trees by the Chapel garden, but the children had theirs in their hands on the grass by the baptism tank.
The big tent was a picture inside with all the food laid out on tables running round the sides, and the women in their best dresses and bonnets, and flowers in jugs and buckets.
Bronwen’s father had baked till all hours and you should have seen the stuff he brought over. There were pies so heavy that two men had to lift them, and the crust on top so pretty with patterns it was a shame to cut. The wedding cake was out under the trees, white and going up in three rounds, every bit of it made by Bronwen’s father, with horse-shoes and little balls of silver spelling out Ivor and Bronwen’s names and the date.
And, of course, everybody in the village and from all the farms, and the friends of Bronwen’s family had brought something made special, because everybody knew everybody else would be looking to see what had been brought, so by the time it was all on the tables, it looked as though it could never all be eaten, and in any case, it would be a shame to start and spoil the show.
But when my mother clapped her hands at the crowd and told them to eat, you would be surprised how quick it went. Indeed if me and Cedric Griffiths had not found a hole i
n the back of the big tent we would have been empty. Not, mind you, that anybody rushed with their plates, but they were all so busy talking and eating, and the grown girls were full of small children to be fed, and the grown-ups were serving other grown-ups, and Cedric and me were the wrong size, too big to be fed by girls, and too small to be with the other boys, that we had to make the best of it, and indeed we did very well for ourselves under the long table.
The women were walking right by us, but all we could see was their boots and the bottom of their dresses, and the table cloth covered the rest. When we wanted more, we crawled out, and one would kneel while the other worked whatever came handy. Every time Cedric got up to get more he chose jelly or blancmange, but I took cakes or a pie.
“Go on, boy,” Cedric whispered, “there is soft you are to eat old cake when you can have jelly with you.”
I think perhaps he kept to that way of thinking all his life because he always did very well. Last time I heard, he was running a boarding house on the coast and doing splendid.
Still, we had to suffer for being pigs later on when they started the races for all of us. My brothers had been looking for me to go in the little boys’ race and never mind how I shouted and struggled, I had to go in too. I always hated people in crowds, and it was that and the thought of being beaten in front of them all that made me kick and shout.
But in the end I started because Davy threatened to take off my trews in front of the girls and smack my bottom.
That was enough for me. Davy was never one to promise and not keep his word. So I went in the race with about a dozen other boys and I won and I was sick.
Davy thought I was dying and indeed I was so giddy I kept falling over, till Dr. Richards gave me a glass of cold water, and that did it. Then Davy and Ianto gave me a whole sixpence each and I won the prize too, and my father gave me a shilling for that. Mama called me in the tent and took all my money away for the box, and gave me three pennies to spend instead, and put a chair to the table for me to sit on for more jelly and cake.
In the evening after we had finished tea we all sat on the grass on horse cloths and sang hymns and songs, and we had prizes for the best. Indeed if I was not chosen again for the best voice among the small boys. There is pleased my father was. I will never forget the way he looked when Mr. Prosser, St. Bedwas, gave me the sweets.
Singing was in my father as sight is in the eye. Always after that he called me the family soloist. That night he held my hand tight all the way home, with my mother on his other side, and my sisters behind us.
There is strange how things come back if you start to think of one thing and become tangled up in memory. Because sometimes you think of a thing, and it reminds you of something else, but nearly always you forget why it should remind you, and you find you have forgotten the link between them.
Ianto was married after that to a girl in the village who was staying with relations. I never saw much of her because her father invited Ianto to go and work with him after they were married, and go he did, and got married up there. I was out of that picture because I had the mumps, but my mother and sisters went, and they were sorry for Ianto when they came back. He had got in with the wrong lot, my mother said, and we heard nothing from him after that for years.
Mama always worried after him but it was no use.
Davy was the brain of the family. He always wanted to go in for doctoring, but Dr. Richards said he was too old. Whenever there was an accident in the pit you would know Davy was about with the bandage box, and if anybody was hurt in the village Davy was always sent for. He never charged anybody only for what bandage and ointment he used, and he was very well thought of all over the district.
He began to get very moody when I was going to school, and soon I stopped asking him questions about sums because he would never answer. My father asked him after supper one night what was the matter.
Davy was a long time answering. Such a long time I was afraid my father would take his mind off him and think of sending me to bed. He was always strict that I should be in bed by eight at night.
“Dada,” Davy said, and he was staring into his empty cup, “I am not a bit happy.”
“I am sorry to hear that, my son,” my father said.
“What is wrong here, Davy?” my mother asked.
“Everything,” Davy said. “Everything. And yet nobody seems to notice. And if they do, nothing is done.”
“Let me hear you,” my father said, “and if it is something a man can do, you shall have it done.”
“No, Dada,” Davy said, “there is nothing you can do. It is something for all of us. It is this. Next week our wages are going to be cut. Why? Just as much coal is coming up, in fact, more than last year. Why should wages be cut? And then, look, the ironworks are closing and going over to Dawlais and they are calling for men for Middlesbrough. Are the men from the ironworks going to follow iron to Dawlais, or to Middlesbrough, or are they going to the pit for work?”
Davy was staring hard at my father, and his eyes were shadowed by his hair which was long and fell down over his forehead.
“Well,” my father said, moving his pipe as he always did when he was worried, “wherever they will find work, I suppose.”
“To the pit,” said Davy, nodding, “and the pit is well supplied with men. The Owain boys have had to go over the mountain for work. So what chance have others, when their uncles and fathers have been here years? I will tell you what will happen, Dada,” said Davy, and he got up to go to the mantelpiece and tap the box, “you will soon have this as empty as my pipe.”
“Nonsense, my son,” my father said, very surprised and looking at my mother. “Goodness gracious alive, that will never happen while there is coal.”
“We will see, now,” said Davy. “When those ironworkers gather round the pit for work, you will have some of them offering to work for less, and the manager will agree. You will see, now, and the older men and them with more pay will be put outside, too. And you will be one if you are not careful.”
“There is silly you are, boy,” my father said and laughing. “Come on, Beth,” he said to my mother, “give us a good cup of tea, will you. And you,” he said, catching sight of me, “off up to bed. Quick.”
As Davy said, so it happened. The ironworkers started to work in the pit for not much more than some of the boys. Some of them even started pulling the trams in place of the ponies. A lot of the older and better-paid men got discharged without being told why, although it was put out that they were too old and could not work as well as they ought. But that was nonsense, because Dai Griffiths, one of them, was one of the best in the Valley and known for it.
My father had been working for some time on the surface as checker. When the coal came up, he put down how much coal was in the tram and who had worked it. On that figure, the men were paid. So he was a kind of leader, and indeed the men looked to him to settle most of the troubles that arose among them. And there were often plenty.
One night he came home from a meeting at the Three Bells and very glum he was. Davy was sitting at the table reading and I was doing a bit of drawing in the bed corner.
“Davy,” my father said, “we are going to strike.”
“All right, Dada,” Davy said, with quiet. “Have you decided what you will do when you have had your discharge?”
“I will have no discharge,” said my father, angrily. “That is what the fight is for. Proper wages, and no terms that are not agreeable to us all.”
Davy looked up at the box and smiled. That only made my father angrier, although he kept it to himself.
“Why were you up here when you should have been at the meeting?” he asked Davy.
“Because I wanted to see what they would do, first,” said Davy. “Now I know, I can do something. And the first is, you keep out of it, Dada, and let me do the talking.”
“No,” my father said, “I will not. They have asked me to put the case, and put it I will.”
“The
n,” Davy said, “Gwilym and Owen and me will soon be keeping this house going. You will join Dai Griffiths and the rest of them.”
“We will see about that,” my father said.
And indeed Davy was right again.
My father and two other men went to see the manager and came back quiet and cheerless. There was nothing to be done, they said, only strike work.
So strike work they did.
For five weeks the strike lasted, the first time, and the men were only back two days when they came out again because a dozen of them were discharged, my father among them.
The second time they were out for twenty-two weeks.
Pits were working all round the Valley, but nobody outside our village seemed to care. So on it went, right into winter. Then some men came down from Town with somebody from London, and my father went to see them by himself.
By that time people were feeling the pinch. Food was scarce and so was money, and if the women had not been good savers in better times, things would have gone very hard. As it was, savings were almost at an end, and my mother was dipping into our box to help women down the Hill who had big families still growing. Poor Mrs. Morris by the Chapel, who had fourteen, and not one older than twelve, had to go about begging food, and her husband was so ashamed he threw himself over the pit mouth.
My father came back worried but steady after speaking to the men. My mother asked him no questions.
“We have finished the strike, Beth,” he said. “But our wages must come down. They are not getting the price for coal that they used to, so they cannot afford to pay the wages they did. We must be fair, too.”
“Are you having your job back, Gwilym?” my mother asked.
“Yes, my girl,” he said. But I thought he looked queer at my mother when he said it.
I found out why a couple of mornings later.
The men went back the morning after my father had spoken to the owners, and you should have seen the Hill as they went down.
It was early morning and cold, and the moon had not yet gone down. White frost was hard and thick on the roadway and roofs, and all the lit windows threw orange patches all the way down.