大象传媒

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I am writing this story as, 鈥淭he Devils Advocate.鈥� It is a true account of the happenings to my aunts, uncles and cousins on my mothers side of the family during WW2. Being born in 1936 has given me the opportunity to consider their experiences as told to me during and also after the war. More importantly, I have seen the demise of my grandmother, my parents, uncles and all but one of my aunts during my own lifetime. This leads me to the conclusion that the path of their lives and where they lived during WW2, was influenced by the family's circumstances and poor work prospects at the time of the 1925 depression. To consider this in detail, the reader needs to be aware of the family background.

My widowed grandmother Kate Brighty-Stevens was born in 1870 and married William Thorne at Peterborough Registry Office on 28th November 1897. He was 23 years her elder and they had the
following children.

1.Maude was born 25th July 1899 and married John Robert Jones.
2.Florence was born in March 1900 and Married John Smith.
3.John William was born 1st Oct 1901 and married Winifred Lloyd.
4.Rose Elizabeth born 11th July 1904 and married George Henry Mort.
5.Mabel Kate born 11th May 1908 and married Alfred Glover.
6.Richard Henry born 9th May 1910.
7.Gladys May born 13th Nov 1911 and married Arthur Reed.
8.Frederick born 25th June 1916 but died.
9.Ronald Albert born 23rd April 1919 and married Annabelle Mills.

The list is of a large family which was not uncommon in those times. From the family history it is known that Ronald was seven when his father died from a strangulated hernia, sustained whilst winding the handle of their large wooden rollered laundry mangle for his wife on a laundry day at the age of 79. Grandmother Thorne was 56 at that time.

He had worked most of his life as a Licensed Hawker, traveling around the country with his horse and cart, living in different towns, in rented houses with his wife and children. Usually for a few years at a time, selling metal pots and pans for a living.

In 1928 my uncle Harry (Richard Henry), being unable to get work, joined the Army as a regular soldier and served until 1935 as a Trooper in the 13th/18th Royal Hussars. After joining them in Shorncliffe in Kent, he was sent to serve on the North West Frontier in India and later to Egypt. When he was discharged from the Army after completing his contract of service, he was placed on the army's reserve list and attended civilian resettlement training as an electric arc welder. However, his duties abroad were mainly keeping order and providing a British presence to deter trouble.

Whilst uncle Harry was away, my aunts were all in domestic service working for the better off families to assist their mother with the upkeep of the home. My mother was matron's maid at Epsom College. My rather outspoken and hot tempered aunt Florence and one of her sisters, worked as a cooks for an affluent London family and expected to do other duties as well. They were allowed half a day off a week. However, matters came to a head one day, when the lady of the house reprimanded her for peeling too much of the potatoes away. Her reply to her employer was, 鈥淒on't tell me how to do my job.鈥� She picked up the bowl of potatoes, threw them to the floor shouting, 鈥淪ince you're not happy with my work I'm leaving. You can peel your own damn potatoes!鈥� Needless to say, she took her sister home to Newport with her as well.

My aunt Maud worked as a cook at Allt-Yr-Yn Hospital in Newport, which in those days was in Monmouthshire, but which nowadays has become a part of Gwent.

My grandmother also did washing, cleaning and ironing to bring in money to support her family when they could not find work during the depression, because asking the Parish fund for financial help in those days was considered demeaning. Besides, the interviewers were most personal with their questions, to try and discover if other family members could offer financial help to the unfortunate claimant.

My father George often talked about the use and abuse of workers during the depression. To him there were two categories- Have got's and have not got's. The problem was that: 鈥渢he have got's wanted everything doing for nothing, but were always prepared to pass their over inflated bills on to the customers.鈥� He made the point of telling me that as soon as boys had finished their apprenticeships and became entitled to a pay rise, they were given their notice to leave and another apprentice was taken on. As many garage owners employed only the minimum number of skilled mechanics, it was customary for the foreman to stand outside the door and offer casual work on a daily basis, to those who were prepared to work for the lowest wage.

At the start of WW2 my parents were living in Bristol and buying their own house in Stoke Gifford. My father was working on aircraft engines at Filton. When our house was bombed we went to live with grandmother Thorne on Malpas Road, Newport, Mon. My father went to work for the ROF in Newport, until being transferred as an engineering inspector to the ROF at Rhigos near Hirwaun, the nearest small town about six miles away being Aberdare in the Cynon Valley. My mother and sister (Shirley)and I remained with my grandmother and aunt Maude enduring many a cold, sleep interrupted night in the Anderson shelter in their back garden. Also living with us was my uncle Ron, who worked as a salesman in the Skinner Street shop of the 鈥淏rand鈥� Electrical Contractors. He had been rejected by the armed services, due to a slightly twisted foot. Despite his disability, he could still run and knock up his score for the local cricket team. Consequently, during the air raids he was a fire watcher.

Before the war, my uncle Arthur worked for H. Samuel Jewelers and lived in Gaer Street near Belvue Park opposite the Whitehead Steel Works, situated on the other side of the high wall running alongside the Newport to Cardiff Road. On the same side of the wall as the steel works, was an important railway line heading into the dock area. One morning he awoke and in the presence of my aunt May and their two children named Jean and Richard (always called little Arthur), opened a letter to discover he was about to give up his job selling jewelery and join the Fire Service at very short notice. A German air attack resulted in a number of bombs being dropped near to where they lived, which shattered their windows and brought down a ceiling, slightly injuring aunt May.

My uncle Bill, aunt Winnie and son Derek and daughter Iris, lived in Sutton Road. Uncle Bill was too old to be called up for war service and worked for a small Newport engineering firm manufacturing bolts for assembling Bailey Bridges. In addition, he was sent to serve in the Home Guard and was required to guard strategic places with risks of attack in the Newport area.

Derek joined the Merchant Navy because he was unable to get work after completing his apprenticeship as a carpenter. Derek told me that he still remembers the occasion when he was sailing in convoy on the SS Thistledale owned by DOD Thomson of South Shields, when one evening in the luminescence of the clear water, the deck gun crew saw a torpedo traveling towards the port side of the ship in an arc. To their amazement, it passed beneath them and hit a French troopship about three quarters of a mile behind on the starboard side, which had been belching a filthy black smoke from its funnel. Such was the penalty they paid for ignoring previous warnings about burning wet coal which draws the attention of the enemy and gives away the convoy's position. Derek was unable to tell me what happened to the troopship, except that it dropped behind as the convoy scattered and moved on into the night. He mentioned that on one voyage they experienced a terrible storm lasting nearly a week, near the Magellan Straits where the waves estimated at about 100 Ft high. At times the ship dropped off the peaks of the waves with its bow submerging itself with a shuddering crash, followed by it rising up on top of another wave before crashing down again, as the ships propeller was lifted partly out of the water allowing the engine revolutions to race until its speed governor operated and reduced them until the propeller once more
submerged beneath the water, with the changing noise pitch as the engine took the load again. As an afterthought, he added that on one occasion the Baroness, one of the Houlder Line ships, had loaded coal at Montevideo during the voyage to Freetown and a fire had started in one of the holds which had burned all of the way to Freetown, where it was discovered that two incendiary devices had been loaded with the coal as sabotage. By the time the ship got to Freetown, little but cinders remained in the hold.

Although the Royal Navy escort ships gave as much convoy protection as they could, Merchant ships were expected to to be at the rendezvous points by the required dates and sailing times. However, many ships experienced were attacked after departing from convoys, to head towards their discharge and loading ports. Life in the merchant navy was hard compared with that on Royal Navy ships. The reason being, that MN ship owners are motivated by making profits, which in addition to the war risks, could be very stressful for ships masters, who lived a lonely life and shouldered the responsibility for the success of the voyage and safety of their ship and her crew. Derek added: 鈥淢any ships in those days were already about twenty years old and little more than rust buckets capable of barely making eight knots (9 miles per hour).鈥� Derek talked about several of his experiences, including being in one port unloading tanks, where the German Afrika Corps and Italians had been captured by British forces. However, the German reinforcements which were about an hour's drive from the port, started to advance, which resulted in the tanks heading straight off into battle as soon as the deck winches had landed them on the Oran quayside. The prisoners were herded into the holds of some of the merchant ships under guard and were quite unaware that they were fully loaded supply and ammunition ships.

Derek's sister Iris worked in a Government Department office at the Corn Exchange in Newport.

After the war, Derek returned to work as a carpenter in the building trade. After working for a number of years for some of the large firms, he got married and set up in business on his own. They had two sons who qualified as accountants.

Alfred Glover cycled all of the way from Newport to Coventry to get work as a milling machine setter/operator with the General Electric Company during the depression and was later joined by his wife Kate, once he had found a house for them to live in. When the war started, he was involved with project development work in the model room and was not called to serve in the armed forces. However, when he went to work one night, he experienced the fire bombing of Coventry. During the rest of his life he never forgot the experience of riding home on his bike on the following morning, wondering if his wife and house were safe. He was a very steady, hard working, homely man, who always lit up his pipe before sorting out arguments and problems. His BSA 650 and side car were his pride and joy. They had two sons who gained University Degrees. Alf worked for GEC until his retirement and somehow never got around to buying a car. When I once suggested buying a Reliant three wheeler with the reverse gear blocked off, which was common with motorcyclists in those days because it would protect them from the cold wet weather, he told me that he wouldn't want to
even be seen dead in one.

John Jones who married aunt Maud served in the army during the war. After the war, he worked as the groundsman at Newport High School. Whilst in the army, he had been involved in the guarding of Italian war prisoners. Unfortunately, an incident occurred where he was struck on the head with something heavy by one of them which resulted in a brain tumor, which subsequently killed him in 1961.

John Smith and aunt Flo, with their two daughters Olwen and Ceinwen, lived at Nant Bran farm in the village of St Nicholas, near to Duffryn House and were referred to as the family in the sticks.
If they went to a Cardiff cinema, it had to be an afternoon performance because of getting the last bus home at 7.30 pm. The Bridgend Western Welsh Bus dropped them off at the top of the narrow country road, leaving them with a twenty minute walk to the field gates near Duffryn House, then to be faced with another twenty minute walk along the stoney road and through the fields, before climbing the short steep hill to their cottage, carrying their shopping from Cardiff Market. Outside the cottage were two large water tanks to catch the rainwater. Water for cooking had to be carried up from the farm about five minutes walk from the bottom of the hill. There was a fair sized sloping garden in which they grew vegetables and whatever else was needed. Oil lamps provided lighting in the cottage. There was a large coal fired grate with an oven and two hobs for cooking. The toilet was outside, on the side of the house. It had a wooden seat with a hole cut in it and a large galvanized bucket beneath. Needless to say, that it was left to uncle John to empty it when the time came. They had several chickens in a wooden hen house built by uncle John to provide them with eggs and meat. From what I remember, they were more worried about the chickens being attacked by foxes than they were about any air raids. John worked from dawn to dusk and was nearly always at the beck and call of the farmer who owned the cottage in which they lived. Aunt Flo was always chiding John to stand up for himself and tell the farmer to stop treating him like a slave. He told her that living in a tied cottage always gave the farmer the upper hand and that he would have to bide his time until the war was over. However, it was not until about 1965 that he gave up his farming job and went to work as a tractor driver for the parks department at Newport. It was only after joining the union, that he realised the extent to which he had been exploited by his previous employer. He eventually got promoted to gang foreman and dreaded doing the time sheets and working out the weekly wages and overtime amounts for the gang members. Whilst that was being done, nobody was allowed to interrupt him in the front room. As a result of this promotion, they were at long last able to buy their own house. He took a keen interest in horticulture and by the time he retired he knew several people who wanted him to keep their gardens in good condition. Strangely enough, uncle John Jones also looked after peoples gardens in his spare time, which gave him some extra money for his summer holidays and trips with aunt Maude to the seaside.

After my father was allocated a bungalow in Beacon Rd, Rhigos, my mother, sister and I went to live with him.

Please refer to the map and the numbers to identify the locations:

1. Rhigos Road from Hirwaun.
2.Penderyn Road.
3.Hirwaun Ponds.
4.Coal conveyor and Railway line.
5. Coal Washery.
6. Sinkings Drift Mine.
7. Mountain View Bungalows.
8. Beacon Road.
9. Community Centre.
10. Bungalows and Billets with one used as a Church and Sunday School.
11. Tower Colliery with the passing road starting to climb towards the Craig Y Llyn Lake at a height of 1,968 Ft above sea level, before descending the other side of the mountain to Treherbert.
12. ROF Boundary Fence.
13. Halt Road.
14. Rhigos Road.
15. New Inn and Smiths Avenue.
16. The Don Transport Cafe.
17. Rhigos Village Road.
18.Halt Close.
19. Rhigos School.
20. Mount Road.
21. Coal Tip.

The map that I have drawn illustrates the WW2 situation and is not to scale. Over the years, much has changed. After the war the ROF became known as the 鈥淗irwaun Trading Estate鈥�, on which many firms set up and provided work for the people who travelled in daily. The green area on the map, is of the climbing hills towards Penderyn. The Rhigos road climbs steeply, passing the New Inn public house and also the houses known as Smiths Avenue, where it is joined by Mount Road and then passes the Don Cafe, to eventually descend the steep Glyn Neath bank, on which many a vehicle came to grief in the fog, ice and rain and which caused considerable wear and tear to the breaks, clutches and gearboxes of heavy lorries as they negotiated the hill.

Continued in Part 2.

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