Jim Williams
CD Track Listing: CD No.3A
Interviewee: Jim Williams
Interviewer: D. Davies
Technician: G. Sprackling
Indexed by: Jenny Houston, tel. 01873 860638 e-mail: jenny@houston1773.fsnet.co.uk
Length: 67’33”
No. of tracks: 1
Index
Tracks No.1 (only track)
00:01 Early Days
Born at the Blaen, top of Olchon – 18 months old moved to Upper Turnant (18 March 1918). Now lives at Wayside, Lower Maescoed (there for past 22 years).
01:40 Nine in family at Upper Turnant, five girls, four boys, Jim oldest. Mother died 1932 – just left school – helped father to bring up rest of children. To Upper -Wernddu till 18 – there 10 years 3 months till married, no house here so went to work at Broadfield Court, Bodenham.
01:43 Moved to Shop Vach, Lower Maescoed in 1948.
02:00 School aged 6 – 130 children there – walked to school over Olchon via Cayo bridge – 16 children came to school over bridge – poor children
03:14 Schooldays
Head Teacher said if all present they could have day off
03:40 School – went with grandfather to see Mr Howell Nicholls in bed – Jim last one to see him alive. Mr.N. told Jim to shut gate.
04:38 School at 6 – Mr Belfield Head Teacher plus Miss Florrie Lewis
05:00 In winter paid 1d. Per week on Monday for cup of cocoa.
05:20 Two gardens at school -10-12 spades – boys sent to dig gardens and grow vegetables – Mrs Belfield cooked vegetables for dinners for four boys who came to school with no food.
Four cobblers in village mending boots then – many poor children had no boots to wear, Parish bought boots for them.
06:55 Day off never happened.
07:14 Ted Davies (Slate House) never missed a day – had watch – he’s still alive today – lives Hay way.
07:42 Football team – Belfield played on one side.
08:00 Girls hockey with Florrie Lewis.
08:10 One hour dinner – to Olchon and Escley and dived in without any clothes – boys to Monnow – millpond – Fox and Hounds game.
09:40 Riding unbroken horses – George Johnson (Llanwonnog), Wilfred Powell (Dolward) – Penbailey meadow – jumped on horses from shed. Horse fell on top of Jim.
10:50 Hoop and guide – Blacksmith’s Shop (Harold Williams) – conkers.
11:30 The Village (NB Interviewer says not recording but voice recorder is still running!)
Three Mills – Clodock, Pontynys and Tan House in Long town – Tan House Mill driven by engine not water – five shops.
12:25 No garage – only 2 cars, 3 with Lanveynoe – the Parson, Nicholls’ three-wheeler, and Jones, Llanveynoe. Bakers delivered by horse also delivered to Llanthony.
13:20 Clothes from Cornewall Arms – Pugh the tailor made clothes there – four pubs.
13:47 School was the centre of entertainment until Hall bought in 1939 – Hall built for waterworks.
[The following is the start of re-recoding on video, but with more information on the village.]
14:21 Three mills – one of the grocers shops sold flour – Tan House was called The Farmers – ground with engine. Sawmills at Ty-Button.
15:25 Blacksmiths, just tum up and wait turn – three men shoeing, two horses in at a time – other man mending machinery.
15:55 Five shops including Post Office selling grocery – two butchers, Proctor and Don Prosser (he slaughtered at the Comewall) – had shop in Abergavenny, 1920.
16:33 Pigs kept – after War started only one pig kept.
General Stores – shoes – Top Prothero’s.
17:24 Four pubs – Cornewall, Greyhound, Crown, New Inn (Mr & Mrs Jones)
17:50 Entertainment centre at school – two classrooms – extra teacher Leila Lewis (Palisaides) – curtain across to make two rooms.
18:12 Pig killing – some people killed own – two or three pig killers around – pig bench – burnt bristles off etc.
19:22 Market – stock markets Abergavenny and Peterchurch – walked there and back.
19:42 Wells in village – brought water to school and butcher’s shop (Monty Harris) – water in Harris’s houses.
20:00 Water tank half way up mountain – enough men to hand buckets from Longtown to tank – renewed in 1935 – track dug by hand – lengths – Proctor (Greyhound) in charge – renewing pipeline down – break tank in Witch’s Meadow – pressure caused burst pipe.
22:32 Wells – four houses up Longtown 2/6d per week off Parish – well by Perth-y-Perton – man said he poisoned mother and father – boys put Flour on top of well, thought it was arsenic.
23:30 Dr Morgan – motorbike and sidecar – walked all round mountainside – Doctor before had horse and went over to Llanthony – getting on – afraid to ride horse – harness on horse to travel up Rhiw Cwrw – Dr Thane.
24:35 No nurse in village – a few ladies attended to childbirth.
25:00 No vets – Watkins (Moody) – H.Johnson (Lower House).
25:33 Jim drawing Iambs at 8 years old.
26:04 Money from mole traps – catching moles 2d – tails – Augustus Edwards, Hereford, bought skins – sent Postal Order for 11s 1½d. Sent white skins back.
27:10 Characters – tramps – give cider and turn muck heap – aftermath of 1914-18 War.
28:22 Wagons to Pandy – coal came in truck to station – bought it there and Fetched – wool to station.
29:00 Two buses from Longtown – loaded, ladder at top – chickens, etc,
Butter, loaded on top – Hay Fair – bus three times – Police – walked out of Hay – 8 or 9 boys on roof. Boys got off bottom of Slough and walked to top.
30:29 Sales – cattle, horses – Charlie Greenow – 7 horses to Ewyas Harold – Horses from bridge to Home Farm gate – sold by hand – back to Longtown.
32:00 Pit ponies, 14.2hh geldings, £40 each, put on train at Pandy.
32:40 Rest.
[Voice recorder still running – cut chatter and go to 34.30]
34:30 Over 30 pupils from Clodock at school – some came 3 miles – 26 Cottages gone down at Lower Maescoed – 16 men cutting wheat with Hook and crook – a lot couldn’t get jobs – George Williams (Bryn) and Brian’s grandfather walked to Blaina – Abertillary and Pontypool, etc. to get jobs – (before Jim’s time) – chapels full.
[Cut to 38:00]
38:00 Working Life – cutting bracken with horse, 19 acres and fencing 12/6d
(Muriel Watkins’ father)
39:00 Matchboard from old house – made cots (chap hasn’t long died)
[Cut to 40:54]
40:54 Working life
42:15 Cutting fem at night – 19 acres – paid 12/6d.
42:44 Next year man at Hillside (George Howells) worked for father – Let him have job, did it for £1. Given matchboard out of old house Made cots, sold for 2/6d each.
43:34 Hiring fairs Abergavenny or Hay – Brecon and Radnors farmers liked boys from Herefordshire – 1/- to bind deal – Clifford Francis hired – Told not to send boy there – paid 1/- and sent back – girls hiring –
2 boys from Longtown had to by extra food.
45:38 Shooting crows – manure heap – vanished – had for dinner.
46:25 Ploughing – 144 acres at Upper Wernddu 1936-46 – Jim ploughed whole farm while there with horses and tractor.
47:09 Met Doris – she worked at Depot.
47:29 Horse to Hereford to sell – Mrs Pritchard’s husband, Guy Pritchard (Upper Bryn) helped to break horse – Guy dropped dead next day, only 44 – horse to Hereford on train from Pontrilas – horse box ordered – Hereford – take through High Town – judge from Manchester gave 2nd prize – made 73 gns.
49:43 Ponies to Abergavenny – £2, 2 years – 7/6d for foals just weaned.
50:35 Tractors with steel wheels – threshing machines – flail (“Philip and Mary”) – horse works and gears.
[Sound goes quiet here – microphone fell off]
Cut to
51.59 1926 Strike – two men from Ebbw Vale worked for only their food.
53:00 Father had small thrashing machine (“Only thrashed it out, chaff and all”) – big improvement on (?) nyal (Philip and Mary) – big thrashing machines heated with coal – father travelled down to Pandy – winnowing machine.
54:13 Employment – sawpits – “top dog” – one on every farm – quarrymen .
55:26 Cottages 1948 – 50 acres Shop Vach – 8 scrap houses on it – 50 acres in 39 fields.
56:00 Rented Shop Vach for first two years – stone – buried 5 houses with bulldozer – 26 houses Lower Maescoed gone down.
56:50 Trades – tin maker, sweep, people who cut corn with hook and crook.
57:15 People left – tractors – ploughing in wartime, 9-10 acres – no corn from abroad – 3 acres per 100 acres potatoes – picked by hand – 36 cartloads at Wernddu – over produced – 2½ cwts sold.
59.00 Chapels – school at Baptist – 17th century school at Lower Maescoed – 20 inkwells – house lot bigger then, double dwelling.
[Pause – cut chatter and go to 60:28J
60:28 Chapels – great-grandmother to Baptist School – 1d per week plus books – Dame school over the road.
61:20 Wood bumt to heat baking oven.
61 :45 Chapels – Longtown Baptist – Jim Christened by Rev Dafis – he had long staff higher than his head – Anniversary – Trafford from Michaelchurch flew over in plane – his chauffeur lived in Terrace – Trafford dropped bag of corn in garden with message.
63:30 Great grandmother to Baptist Chapel School – Mrs Griffith (Olchon) Paid 1d or 2d – Mr Howells (Silver Tump), grandfather of Howells (Ty-Mawr), teaching then.
64:20 Social – preamble… .Dances, watching only – went to Eisteddfod – School concert every year – trip to Barry on proceeds – never went to whist drives.
[Cut chatter]
66:00 Social events – boys and girls met up at chapel do’s – dances, fairs, together – fishing – tickling trout – strip off and get in water to catch fish – fish went upstream to spawn – went to eisteddfod – didn’t have Hall till 1939.
67:33 ENDS.
Transcript
Early Days
I was born at the Blaen, top of the Olchon Valley on the 18th March, 1918. I stayed at the Blaen for 18 months and then moved to Upper Turnant. For the past 22 years I have lived at Wayside, Lower Maescoed. At Upper Turnant, there were 9 in the family; 5 girls and 4 boys. I was the oldest. My mother died in 1932. I had just left school at 14 and helped father to bring up the rest of the children until I was 18. I then went to Upper-Wernddu, Dulas where I stayed for 10 years and 3 months, until I was married. We didn’t have a house, and so went to work at Broadfield Court, Bodenham for a year and 8 months. We came back to Shop Vach, Lower Maescoed in 1948.
Schooldays
I started school when I was 6. There were 130 children in the school, with 4 teachers. We had to walk to school over a mile across fields over Olchon Valley via Cayo Bridge. 16 kiddies came to school over that bridge There were many poor children in Longtown coming to school and they were never all there because they worked on farms, although they weren’t all farmers. The headteacher said they would have a party or a day off if they all turned up. The Headteacher’s name was Mr.Bellfield and there was a teacher named Mrs. Florrie Lewis. In the winter, we used to take a penny on a Monday morning for a cup of cocoa. Ones off the farm had to bring a drop of milk and some of them bought a bit of sugar. The school had two gardens. There was 10-12 spades, and the big boys were sent outside to dig these gardens and grow a lot of vegetables. There were 4 boys from Clodock who came to school who never had any dinner and Mrs.Bellfield cooked the vegetables for their dinner. Their father was a cobbler and he was the last one to come to Longtown. There were 4 cobblers mending boots and I expect he wasn’t getting as much trade as others. He was the last one there. There were many poor children coming to Longtown who didn’t have boots, until the Parish bought boots for them so they could go to school.
I remember my grandfather — I couldn’t have been more than 3 years old — we went to see Mr. Howell Nicholls who had bought something for my mother and we went to fetch it from there. Mr. Nicholls’ wife took me upstairs to see him in bed and they tell me he died within half an hour of my seeing him. I was the last one to see him alive. I remember him telling me “Mind to shut the gate Jim on the way back home”
There was one boy who used to come to school — I think he had a watch but I’m not sure — but he never missed a day. His name was Ted Davies from Slate House, Longtown. He’s still alive today, he is a lot older than me, and lives somewhere Hay way.
There was enough of us boys for 2 football teams, 11 on each side, and we went out once or twice a week. The schoolmaster played on the one side. Mrs. Lewis had enough girls for a hockey team. We had one hour for dinner and in summertime the girls mostly went to the one brook and we went to the other — either the Olchon brook or the Escley brook and dived in without any clothes. The boys mostly went to the Monnow where we bathed in the millpond. Sometimes if we both went together, we got into trouble with the girls for bathing in their brook.
Now and again, the schoolmaster had a game of Fox and Hounds. He picked four of the biggest boys to go fox right across the countryside, giving them 10-15 minutes start. They used the alphabet cards from the classroom — about 6” square – for the scent of the foxes. You started off with A and when you turned off the road or went over a different stile, you dropped one as a scent for the hounds who had to find them.
Something we wasn’t supposed to do was riding unbroken horses at dinnertime. George Johnson came from Llanwonnog with his father and brought down a lot of working horses, and Wilfred Powell from Dolward. (I lived at home and we kept a lot of ponies on the Black Mountain.) Three or four of us boys went up in Penbailey Meadow behind the Police Station in Longown and drive these horses into the shed, shut the door on them, get up on a big rack, jump on each other onto the horses, and just loose them out the door. One day one went over the top of the hedge and fell on top of me and my foot has never been right since.
We also played with a hoop and guider; if it broke, it was down to the blacksmith to repair it. Harold Williams was the blacksmith. The blacksmith shop is still in Longtown now. We were always swapping things with other boys, which caused trouble sometimes. Played conkers as well when the conkers were about.
The Village
(NB Interviewer says not recording, but voice recorder still running)
There were three mills in Longtown – Clodock, Pontynys and Tan House. Tan House Mill was driven by engine in those days, not water. I’ve been to all three, using the horse, taking the wheat to Clodock to grind into flour.
There were only two cars in Longtown when I went to school, there was no garage. The Parson had a car and George Nicholls had a little three wheeler, and Jones in Llanveynoe used to take people to town in a big car. There was two bakers in Longtown and they did all the deliveries with horses, and went right up Llanthony from Longtown.
There was a general store that sold boots, at the Cornewall Arms.
There was a tailor — Mr.Pugh – that made clothes and there were four public houses.
The school was the centre of entertainment and was used for voting, until they bought the hall in 1939. The Hall was built for a waterworks when they sold water and took it up to London but that was before my time.
(Recording re-started with additional information on the village)
There were three mills — one of the grocers shops sold flour as well. The Tan House was called The Farmers in those days. There was a sawmill at Ty-Button where they fetched all the big timber to. I’ve queued at the Blacksmiths. You never booked appts., you had to wait your turn. There was three men shoeing, two horses at a time with men doing other work, mending machinery and things like that. There was five shops selling grocery including the Post Office. There was two butchers, Proctor at Longtown, and Don Prosser who did the slaughtering at the Cornewall Arms in Clodock, but he had a shop in Abergavenny in 1920. There was only one shop that sold new shoes.
Everybody kept two or three pigs up until the war. When the war started cottagers had only 1 pig.
There were pig killers around, but most people killed their own pigs. My father did a few. Caught the pig, 3 holding him and stuck him on the bench and with forked sticks got straw put around him to burn the bristles off him, then they scrubbed him down with a butcher knife and things they made with sticks and treacle tins with holes in to tear all the black off him.
There was four public houses in Longtown and Clodock — the Cornwall Arms, The Greyhound, The Crown, and the New Inn which Mr & Mrs. Jones kept when I went to school.
The centre for entertainment was at the school; only two classrooms until and they got an extra teacher in, Leila Lewis from the Palisaides. They put a curtain in the big room and made it into two.
When I was a boy, there was a stock market at Peterchurch and Abergavenny. You walked there and back, and sometimes you never sold the cattle — nobody there to buy them. Trade was bad in those days. No-one asked you what you took them there for, you just walked all the way back home. There were a number of wells in the village, more than I know about I’m sure. All relied on the wells until the mains water was bought from the Black Mountains. It was in the school and in the butchers shop and it belonged to Monty Harris the auctioneer from Abergavenny that put the water in and built the Hall at Longtown and he had a few houses in Longtown; the water was in them and the rest was on wells. It was done before my time. My Uncle told me it was just before the 1914 war. There was a big tank halfway up the Black Mountain. They took four horses and bricks up there to build a tank and enough men to hand the buckets one to another all the way from Longtown to the tanks. I remember when the track was renewed in 1935 and they had all the local people digging the track by hand. Each one had his own length to dig. Proctor from the Greyhound was in charge of renewing the pipeline down. He stuck the pegs in and they had to draw for each lot. They put a break tank in after in what they call the Witches Meadow about a quarter of a mile from the mountain down. After they put the break tank in, the pressure on it used to burst the pipes at the river because the pressure was too much to drive it up. After they put it in the second time, the top of Longtown had no water because the pressure had gone.
There was four houses at the top of Longtown when I was going to school. There was 3 gentlemen and a lady living there and you wouldn’t let an animal live like it today. All they had off the parish was half a crown a week, and they wouldn’t have lived on that except for people who helped them. There was one chap there who they said was a “bit funny” and he always carried water out of the well by Perth-y-perton and they said years ago as it always played on his mind that he had poisoned his mother and father. But these boys used to put flour on the top of the well and I can remember him carrying two buckets from the river and he said “those boys have put arsenic in that well again.”
Dr.Morgan at Longtown had a motorbike with sidecar, but he walked all round the mountainside.
The doctor who was there before him had a horse, and went right over the top of the mountain to Llanthony and as he was getting on, he used to tell the chap in Longtown who looked after the horse when he got up to Rhin Cwrw he was frightened to ride his horse as it was very dangerous up there so he put a harness on the horse and put it round his middle and pulled him up — other chap rode the horse and pulled him up to Llanthony. I think that was Dr.Thane
There was no nurse in the village. My grandmother done a bit and there was a few ladies who attended to childbirth, but there were no nurses at all.
There were no vets. I was ten years at the Wernddu and never saw a vet on the place, nor did I see a vet around Longtown. They either fetched Watkins from the Moody or Harry Johnson, Lower House when there was any trouble with stock. My uncle used to fetch me to draw lambs when I was 8 years old and I done that up until a few years ago. I was called up in the middle of the night to go to get lambs.
We didn’t get pocket money when I went to school, but I would be late sometimes and was asked “where you’ve been this morning?” The schoolmaster said “I wish you would be finished with them mole traps.” I used to catch moles for different people on the way to school and they would give me 2d for every tail that showed. I used to skin them. I can remember Augustus Edwards had a skin shop in Hereford and he used to buy all the skins. We’d take them in on a Wednesday. I can remember there was 78 in the first lot I took in and there were 7 white ones in with them. I thought I’d get a lot of money for the white ones They graded them and sent me a postal order for 11s.&3 ha’pence. They sent the white skins back saying there wasn’t enough for them to make anything from them.
There were some characters in the village. I can remember when we was a long way off the road you would see someone coming by every day either wanting a job, a drink of cider or a bit of bread and cheese, or a cup of tea. Sometimes they would put them on some sort of a job. If there wasn’t anything to do they would give him some cider and put him on turning the muck heap over as they said it would rot faster in them days. I think they were chaps who had nothing which broke their hearts after the 1914 war. When they had a bit of money they would go to the pubs. There was nowhere for them to go; it was wrong really.
Wagons used to go down to Pandy. All the coal came in tucks to the station, and you fetched it with horses. When you sold your wool you loaded it onto a wagon and took that to the station to go to Abergavenny. There were two buses going from Longtown; there were no cars about. The busses were loaded with as many as they could let stand on them. Chickens, dressed poultry, eggs and butter were put into hampers and put on top of the bus using a ladder. Anything that wouldn’t fit in the bus was put on the top. Going to the Hay Fair I have seen them put 8 or 9 men on the top, Bus would go three times to Hay, to fetch them from the Fair. Last time the police was there and said no more hanging on the bus or riding on the front. The driver told them to walk out of Hay and then put the 8 or 9 boys on top of the bus to take them to Longtown. When the bus got to the bottom of the Slough at Vowchurch, the bus wouldn’t take them up to Bob’s Shop and the driver put them off the bus, they walked to the top, and the driver let them on again.
When I was about 12 I helped a chap named Charlie Greenow from Longtown take 7 horses to Ewyas Harold all the way from the Bridge all the way to Home Farm Gate and sold the horses by hand. Just slapped their hand and sold them by hand. He had two horses that hadn’t done much and he said “you ride this mare” and he got the foal with her big enough to follow. The others was laced up, cord round their neck back to the next one, and we never meet a car. But as I was coming up to the top of the Bryn, we did meet a car. Horses were always afraid of cars in them days, especially the ones behind us that had never been on the road. They pulled back and pulled my mare round on the road. I got my leg inside the rope instead of outside and tore all the skin off my leg.
We had a lot of ponies, and we sold ponies to the pits. That was the best thing going — if you could rear horses for the pits, 14.2hh. Geldings they bought for £40 each. Three chaps from Cwmbran who had horses underground and they were always wanting these horses. We put them on the train at Pandy.
(The following is transcribed during “chatter time”)
There were over 30 kiddies going to school from Clodock, some of them walking 3 miles. There was 26 cottages “gone down” around Lower Maescoed. There was 16 men from this common cutting wheat with hook and crook. A lot of them couldn’t get jobs even in those days. They walked from here to Blainavon, Abertillary and Pontypool to get jobs. This was before my time.
People wonder why there are so many chapels, but these chapels were always full. (End of chatter)
Working Life
Before I left school I went cutting bracken with a horse, and some fencing. I cut 19 acres at night and got 12/6d. I was going to do it a 2nd year but I had to help father do the harvesting. He told me there was a chap up at Hillside, Olchon would do this for money worse than me and he was a married chap, and he cut it for a pound, same as I had done. And he gave him the matchboard. It was an old house falling down and there was matchboard in the roof in the bedrooms that had gone a bit. He made a lot of kiddies’ cots out of that matchboard and sold them in Longtown for half a
crown apiece (2/6d). This chap hasn’t long died.
Watkins from Longtown used to rent this ground for £19 per year. (……………,..„…………. .. transcriber unable to understand next two sentences)
When he went from the Cwm, he bought the Lower Bryn. Mr. Watkins couldn’t get anyone to take it after so he kept it himself and he bought some cattle to come there. When my Uncle had it, he had a bargain as he had to give £12 a year and cut all the bracken on it. Well, Mr. Watkins worked on the road and wouldn’t expect he was getting more than £1 per week in them days, wouldn’t know for sure. But he come by one day to see his cattle at this ground and he said to me “could you cut the fem on there.” I said I had to help father, but l would do it. I did it at night, and cut 19 acres and he said he would bring some more cattle there, but the hedge wasn’t very good between there and the next man. I had done a lot of hedging. We cut some limbs off and stopped up the worst places. He said “when you do that I will pay you.” He gave me 12/6d in those days.
There were Hiring Fairs in Abergavenny or Hay. The only time we had an outing was to the Hay Fair on the bus. A lot of the main farmers come from Brecon and Radnorshire. They liked boys from Herefordshire and they paid more money than some of them in Herefordshire. But I don’t think the food was very good in some of those places. You stood on the side of the street and they was coming up and asking you “looking for a job boy?” And those they did hire, they gave them a shilling (1/-) to bind the deal. Clifford Francis was up there when he was a boy and he hired on to one, but there was a lady that lived near the same place, and said to his Mother, “don’t you send your boy there. They have nothing but fat meat and bacon raw for breakfast.” So they sent the shilling back and he never went. Girls were the on hiring as well, and I know a couple of boys from Longtown went up there getting good money. They stuck it for a year, but they said they couldn’t have lived without buying biscuits and things from the shop as they did not get enough to eat so they were no better off. One chap told me they were shooting crows as was coming on the corn, and we chucked them outside and these crows were on the manure heap. Then one day there were no crows on the muckheap — and that is what we had for dinner on that day.
When I went to Wernddu, in 1936, Upper Wernddu had 144 acres and I ploughed the whole farm with horses and tractor, besides 6 acres. I came from there in 1946.
I met my wife Doris while was there. She worked at the Depot in Ewyas Harold during the war. They took all the girls, and they had to either go into the Land Army or in the Depot, no matter what you were doing.
I took a horse to Hereford once. Mrs. Pritchard that is 105 today, her husband, Guy Pritchard, (from Upper Bryn) helped me break a horse. The horse went pretty good; you never know with a young horse whether he is going to go. Her son came across to me the next morning and said his father had dropped dead last night. He was only 44. I couldn’t believe it. I done a bit of work to help Mrs. Pritchard, and her son come back and helped me. She said she had a horse ready for the Hereford Horse sale. Will you take him. I’d taken several horses to the sale in Hereford from the farm I was at, on the train from Pontrilas. So the son come along to me said he would go down to Pontrilas station as was going in them days, and order a horse box to drop off ready for the train next morning. We took the horse to Hereford and he was pretty frisky. We had to take him through High Town – which wouldn’t be very good today – he should have had the 1st prize. The judge was from Manchester and he gave him 2nd prize, and he bought him when he came up for sale, and he made more money than the 1st rize made. He made 73gns.
We took ponies to Abergavenny, 2 year old, for £2 apiece. We have sold foals which were just weaned for 7/6d.
When tractors came in they had steel wheels and couldn’t be used on the roads. Threshing machines not many used them. I used the flail when I was a boy only to knock a bit out for the hens and things like that. Father had a small one as nobody else had got. (Phillip and Mary was name of the flail)
(Sound goes quiet — not able to transcribe; microphone had fallen off)
I can just remember the strike in 1926 which lasted a fair time. I remember two chaps coming from Ebbw Vale in Autumn and asked father if he could do with someone for the winter. They had no job and no money and would work for their food in the winter. Father said he couldn’t do with the two of them, but the next farm may have room for one. So Father put one on for the winter and he worked for only his food. I can remember my father had a small thrashing machine as only thrashed it out, chaff and all together. It was one improvement on “Phillip and Mary”, nyal as it was called. I can remember the big thrashing machines were heated with coal and they never went out that winter as they had no coal to get the steam up, so people were coming to my father for him to thrash corn out with his small thrashing machine; he travelled as far as Pandy with it. It was thrashed out with chaff and all together and it had to be put through a winnowing machine. I have turned a winnowing machine forever at night to winnow it out for different people.
Other employment.
There were sawpits on every farm. But I never saw anyone working on the sawpit. There was one underneath and one on top and they used a briartooth saw. That’s where “Top Dog” came from — the one on the top. He was the bossman. There were also quarrymen. There were lots of people living in the area. When I came to Shop Vach in 1948 we had 50 acres and there was 8 scrap houses on it. 50 acres was in 39 fields, which was too small for horses or orchards. They wanted it all cleaned up. I only rented Shop Vach for the first two years.
When it was mine just after the 50’s, they wanted it all cleaned up to plant corn in corn. Nobody wanted the stone. We buried 5 houses with the bulldozer, which would be worth a lot of money today. There was 26 houses in Lower Maescoed, with people working in different trades. There was a shoe repairer, a blacksmith, a tin maker, a chimney sweep and people went round reaping wheat with a hook and crook. There were lots of people living here then, but people left to find work elsewhere.
Tractors made less work; there wasn’t so much land ploughed until the war came. You had to plough 9-10 acres during the war, as no corn was coming from abroad. it all had to be grown here. The wheat and everything. The first year people only planted enough potatoes for their own, but later had to put 3 acres per 100 acres to potatoes which people couldn’t abear. There were no machines in those days, and potatoes had to be picked by hand. It was too much work. Then there was too many about and they couldn’t be sold Hauled 36 cartloads at Wernddu and the pickers was picking them into a cart and then tipped them into a heap and I don’t think more than 2½ cwt was sold out of them. They all rotted down. Over production. Working on the farm was 7 days a week.
Chapel
Some of them were used as schools. There also were other little schools (has an inkwell from 17th century. Found about 20 of them altogether; put them somewhere and don’t know where they be.) When we first came here it was much bigger. It was a double dwelling, but we pulled pieces off it and there is still a lot of stone there now.
My great grandmother went to the Baptist School and paid a penny a week and paid for her own books. There was a Dame school over the road, but I don’t remember anything about it.
Every farmhouse heated the baking oven with wood.
I went to Baptist Longtown — different do’s and things that were going on. I was christened by Rev. Dafis. I can only just remember him — a big tall chap who carried a long staff higher than his head. I remember one Sunday coming away from there after an anniversary or something, and Trafford from Michaelchurch Court flew over pretty low in a plane. I’d never seen a plane before. There was a chap who lived in the Terrace who used to be his chauffeur and Trafford dropped a bag of corn in his garden with a note on it saying: ” get on your bike and go up to Michaelchurch Court and get my car and fetch me from Gloucester.”
My Great Grandmother and another lady, Mrs. Griffith (Olchon) went to Baptist Chapel School.
They paid a penny or twopence a week and they found their own writing paper and all that. Mr. Howells, Ty-Mawr, it was his grandfather, from Silver Tump, Llanveynoe as was teaching in those days. It was used as a school and chapel before they opened Longtown School.
Social Events
I went to dances, but went to the back and watched them. That was as much as I done. I’ve never been to a whist drive in my life. We went to the Eisteddfod. We had a concert every year at school and the money from that and what they sold out of the garden, paid for a trip to Barry in the summer.
Boys and girls met up at dances, and chapel do’s and different things and went to the fairs together. Used to go fishing. Tickling trout up the dingle. I never done much fishing by the line. You had to strip off and get in to catch fish in the rivers. Fish went upstreams very near to the Black Mountains to spawn. We kept fit by working. Didn’t have a village hall until 1939.