Introduction by Rhodri Evans, (Mary Ann’s grandson):
The following article was written by my grandmother Mary Ann Aubrey (my mother’s mother) in 1968 when she was 83 years old and covers the period from her birth in 1884 to the time she left to work as a chambermaid in London in 1901.
The photo above was probably taken around 1902 at a guess (she was born 1884). She would have been Mary Ann Morgan at the time – later she married my grandfather John Henry Aubrey (who died following a mining accident when he was hit by a runaway tram around 1946).
I was very fortunate in being brought up in an ‘extended family’ – pretty much a thing of the past now. For years we lived with my grandmother in New Street, my great aunt Sarah and husband Ned next door, ‘Our’ Will and Dolly across the road, and ‘Our’ Dai and Ada just up the road a bit. For years (and this is true!) I thought ‘Owa’ was the welsh word for ‘uncle’!
(Ed Note: Rhodri lives in North Uist in the Outer Hebrides at Lochmaddy, and is an artist; to see some of his work go to:
https://rhodevans.com/?fbclid=IwAR3mr547bVZnO2EqSYdqCKBV7glW82t-76TcI1C7f_nNxzW7qJOaL2RDoX0)
SOME EARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS:
Mary Ann Aubrey,
22 New Street,
GLYNNEATH
(written approximately in 1968 when MA was 83)
Dear Friends,
The following account is necessarily personal, but I shall try my best to avoid making it an autobiography in the normal sense. When I do make references to myself, I hope this is only to illustrate these events that took place whilst I was a child. Unavoidably, I must give my year of birth in order to fix the period.
I was born in 1884 in a house which has now been converted into Morgan’s, Green-grocers. From there, in a short time, we moved to ‘Pentre Maes Hir’ next door but one to ‘The Crown’. Only two of the houses in the row had lavatories, the old ‘closets’. The rest of the row was dependent on the good offices of the landlord of ‘The Crown’ for the use of his convenience.
Mr. Rowlands, the Landlord, I imagine must have been a very busy man as well as a versatile one, for he was also a tailor and an Attendance Officer, besides having the first ‘brakes’ in Glynneath to run to and fro to the railway station to meet the train. This latter service was a boon as far as the village was concerned. Incidentally, it might be interesting to mention here that when the first train made its epic journey from Glynneath to Merthyr and volunteers were called upon to take the ride, my great-grandfather was one of those who thought he was taking his life in his hands when he boarded-the train for the first time.
From Maes Hir the family moved to Oddfellows Street, next door to the school. I was still quite small. You will appreciate that in those days it was quite easy to rent a house, as the population was so small in comparison to the number of houses available. Some idea of the value of houses in those days can be gathered when I mention that the houses in that row were at one time offered for sale at £30 each.
Benefit Clubs:
The whole row of houses opposite the Oddfellows Public House was owned by the Oddfellows Benefit Club. In fact, it was called ‘Club Row’.
I should like to say a little about the Benefit Clubs. Besides the one in the Oddfellows (bearing the glamorous name of ‘The Lily of the West’) there were others in ‘The Rock’, ‘The Lamb & Flag’ and ‘The Woolpack’. There might have been more.
As well as being in the Oddfellows Club, our family were in the Woolpack Club, where my father used to pay his dues when he went for band practice there.
The Benefit Clubs were indispensable. Most families paid the ‘Clubs’ in that time before the welfare services. They were the only form of security people had to fall back on in difficult times outside of The Parish Relief. People struggled to pay ‘The Club’ as an insurance against hard times, as there was no ‘Dole’, no National Insurance or compensation for injury in the works. Later my father was very ill for four years and we had to depend mainly on the Club. Benefit dropped to half after six months and to a quarter in another few months. Club officers were mostly local miners.
Schooling:
I was about two or three when we went to live in Oddfellows Street. I remember that living next to the school had its advantages. I was often late – children from Pen-Comyn, Derlwyn Fawr and Penrhiw arrived more often than not before me – but if in the rush I’d miss my breakfast, my mother could always pop it over the back wall to me in the break, the wall being conveniently adjacent to the school yard. You could start school then at whatever age you liked, there appeared to be no restrictions. In those days you feared the old ‘attendance officers’ like the plague, they were always after the ‘truants’ – sometimes truants through no fault of their own, lacking a pair of boots perhaps, or a decent trousers.
The important event of the school year was Examination Day, when an Inspector visited the school for the morning to inspect the school. Teachers and children were all dressed in their Sunday best; all breathed a sigh of relief afterwards when examination morning over, they were free to emerge into the sunshine of the afternoon – which, of course, was a holiday.
We attended the school then from infancy until we left in our early teens. The children of families who could afford it (such as the local trades-people) went to the Intermediate School in Neath – now the present Grammar School. For the boys of our village school there were only the labour exams at the end of their schooling. Those who ‘passed’ had the doubtful advantage of leaving school earlier than their fellows and of going to work in the mines.
There was one other school open in the village besides the school I attended. This was the ‘National School’ where the church peoples’ children went, in the main. Dances were held here, and skating too, on occasion.
My father used to talk about ‘Yr Hen Ysgol’, the old school near Addoldy Chapel which he attended around the years 1865-1868. Few children went to school then, certainly there was no compulsion, as in later years – that figure of ‘the attendance officer’ had not yet put in an appearance. At ‘Yr Hen Ysgol’ if only three or four children turned up for school the old master would tell the boys to go back home and return with their musical instruments to have a ‘practise’.
My father and his friends left that school quite early, inevitably so perhaps. They were all, for the most part, destined for the mines. He was working underground at the age of ten opening the wooden doors for the hauliers. I suppose men missed part of their childhood. Certainly my father didn’t waste any time; at ten years of age he was smoking a pipe to show he was as much a man as any of them.
The Boer War:
Whilst I was at school the Boer War was on. The great event I remember was when Mr. Tom Williams, the Headmaster, announced that Mafeking had been relieved by the British and that we were to assemble in the yard and march up to Pontwalby, each carrying a little flag. This was to be followed by a half-holiday. We were very excited by it all. The same thing occurred at the ‘Relief of Ladysmith’.
At the time of the War, the row of houses in Glynneath known as ‘Transvaal Terrace’ was built. It was unfortunate for the people who moved into these houses that the war occupied peoples’ minds so much that the new tenants were nearly all given the names of generals and other famous war leaders.
I can’t remember daily newspapers as we have them now; no doubt some were received in the village. I do recall the ‘Echo’ and the weekly ‘Darian’. Otherwise, we obtained news of the outside world via the telegraph at the post office. I remember that one day my grandfather came home from work saying that on passing the post office the post-mistress, Miss Parry, had come out to him and said:-
“Dafydd Rees, mae hi wedi mynd trwy nawr i Abertawe –
Miss Parry, the post mistress.
mae’r hen Frenhines wedi marw”.
The news had just come through that queen Victoria was dead. My grandfather had tears in his eyes when he told us the news.
One other thing relating to the Boer War. I remember coming out of morning school one day with the other children and seeing a crowd and a commotion out on the main road. Of course, the ‘main’ roads then before the days of tarmac were either a rutted mess of mud in wet weather, or very dusty, something like the old silent pictures of the Wild West. Anyway, we rushed up on this day and were told that the Vale’s hero of the Boer War, Dai St. John from Resolven, was passing through. I remember a tall, powerful-looking man. He was also a well-known boxer. Later he was killed in the Boer War.
The Neath Canal:
My mother was brought up in Tai’r Felin, the old mill houses next to ‘Y Ffatri’, the old flannel mill at the Lamb-and-Flag. My mother, like all the people who lived there, knew the ‘batwyr’, the boatmen on the canal. One of my earliest recollections was travelling on a barge from Mill Row to visit my aunt at Deri Fach (this aunt, incidentally, was known affectionately in the family as ‘Y Gwdihw’, meaning ‘the owl’, from her habit of staying so late whenever she visited us in the village that one of the young men always had to go back with her to Deri Fach, sometimes in the pitch dark). To me it was a wonderful experience, travelling on the barge. I remember the gates opening, and the water rushing like a waterfall. My small brother who was with us, was terrified. “Oh! Mam! Mam! Mae’r bad yn crafi’r ochr”. I remember him crying. (Oh! Mam! the boat is scratching the sides). We travelled on and disembarked finally at Llina Lock. The names of the two barges bringing gunpowder from the Powder Works were Alfred and Henry.
People travelled quite a lot on the barges. The children of the Lamb and Flag used to come up to school on them. Someone fell into the canal one night. A passer-by heard the struggling and shouted:-
“Who’s there?”.
Back came the answer, quick as a flash.
“Captain Webb.”
(Editor’s note – Captain Webb was the first person to swim the English Channel, in 1875. He was a great celebrity at the time)
I do remember the factory working – water from an aqueduct from the canal forced the great wheel around. I was thrilled to see the water spouting from it.
There was a man who had the unenviable job of going around the houses collecting the ‘slops’. Apparently the urine was used for fixing the dye in the cloth. Our family possess a skirt made from the old mill flannel.
The Williams Family of Aberpergwm:
By far the most important people in the village at that time were the Williams’s of Aberpergwm. Whilst I was at school a great event was the coming of age party of Mr. Godfrey Williams the heir, eldest son of the family. All we children had tea on the Morfa Glas field in front of Aberpergwm House. There was plenty of everything to eat, including sweets, and entertainments such as donkey rides. in the night we had a lively display of fireworks, it might have been the first time we’d seen real fireworks in the village, though of course, on Guy Fawkes eve we set off ‘squibs’ the men had from the works.
(Editor’s note – presumably these were detonator caps!)
The Williams family were very much respected in the village. Those who worked as servants at Aberpergwm House– seemed to give a good name to their employers.
Once every year the Benefit Clubs had their club feasts, very important affairs indeed. I can’t quite remember now, but either before or after the feast (which would be enjoyed at about one o’clock in the afternoon) there would be a procession, led by the band in full uniform, and followed by two men carrying the club banner with, in the case of the Oddfellows Club, ‘Lily of the West’ emblazoned across it.
These would be followed by the club officers dressed in the finery of their regalia, the club scarves would be worn by others. I believe that some of the clubs would march down to Aberpergwm, and enter the big hallway. Certainly the village band used to be invited to entertain at the big house on a Christmas time.
The Tamers:
Just as our mud roads could sometimes look like those of the Wild West, so did we, in our time, have our band of ‘vigilantes’, in the village. But they were not called Vigilantes – our name for these twelve young men were ‘The Tamers’. I suppose you could say that they were a kind of ‘secret society’ dedicated to righting what they believed to be the wrongs of the day in our village. The Tamers, for instance, would mete out punishment to a man who abused his wife; or to a man who drank all his money on pay day, leaving his wife with nothing to buy food and clothing for her and the children. As you probably know, it was a particularly bad time for this sort of thing, perhaps because men were sometimes driven to despair and drink by the bad times. Anyhow, if these young men thought a particular man deserved a good hiding, he usually got it. This was how they came to be known locally as ‘The Tamers’.
Entertainment and Industry:
To return to ‘Y Ffest’ a moment, ‘The Club Feast’ – in the evenings there would be entertainment at the Oddfellows where Will Dwyll, William Lewis, the blind harpist played, and there was tap-dancing and singing, such as ‘ Ferch of Blwyf Penderyn’ and ‘Bwthyn Bach ar y Bryn.’
Before I go on to say something more about some of the entertainments we had in those days, I should like to remark on the village as I remembered it. There were only a few houses, which tended to be concentrated near the inns; twelve houses in two rows near the Crown – Pentremaeshir. Then there was nothing until you reached where the Midland Bank is today, nothing but fields, indeed Newtown was all fields then.
Besides the mines there were two brickworks, a sand works and the powder works at Pont-Nedd-Fechan, as well as Y Ffatri at the Lamb and Flag. I can’t myself recollect the old ‘gwaith haern’, the iron works, going down by the brickyard near ‘pen-cnel’, but I do remember the stack being brought down with explosives. The main iron industry in those days was in Dowlais, and many a night we’d see the glow lighting up the sky over the mountains when the furnaces were opened up.
In many ways these days were extraordinarily hard, and people had a struggle to live. There were incidents such as ‘strike yr haliers’ (The Hauliers’ Strike) when I was at school, when the procession of men appeared to be threatened by two women brandishing sticks and shouting that the strikers had better not bring their boys into the strike, nor harm them. I don’t think it is the kind of thing you would see today. This incident occurred just below Chain Bridge.
People often had to turn to the ‘Parish Relief’ – certainly the elderly. If they could not manage, they had to go down to the Neath Union – Lletty Nedd, the Work-house. I remember my mother taking tobacco to an old man down there.
In these days sanitation was very poor. I can think back to a typhoid epidemic. And, of course, the great Cholera epidemic which took place before my time, but I knew the story of my great-grandmother who was terrified when she saw the funerals of the victims passing as the weeks went by. One day whilst working in Aberpergwm hay-field she felt the cramps and symptoms of the disease. She was dead next morning. She was only 25, and left three children. I have it from another member of the family that during the cholera epidemic people left their homes in the village to live in ‘glowtys’ (Shelters) in the mountains, such was their terror of the disease. The tombstone of Dr. Brodie, who died of cholera through tending the sufferers, can be seen to this day in Ebenezer Churchyard, Pont-Neath-Vaughan.
It is funny in these times to think of us using the old tallow candles and later the composite candles in our homes; and the roads and streets outside pitch-dark, lit up only when there was a bright, full moon. I remember how marvellous it was when the first oil-lamps came just outside the Oddfellows. We children were drawn to play under the light like moths to a candle.
Through the year there were entertainments, big events we looked forward to with excitement like the Sunday School outing and Ffair Castell Nedd.
The annual Sunday School trip would be either to Swansea or to Briton Ferry Road, where we might allowed to climb up the old ‘look-out’ and gaze over the sea. The look-out still stands today. On one such trip there weren’t enough brakes to carry the party, and some of us had to ride in Rees Jones, the grocer’s cart. Off we bowled to Swansea, and on to Mumbles.
Much could be said about Neath Fair – that the event had an ancient history dating back to the Middle Ages was not in my thoughts as a child, all I wanted to do was to ride on the roundabouts. One Neath Fair there was a terrible storm. High winds brought down some of the trees that made up the avenue down Chain Road.
There were many other kinds of entertainments throughout the year; there were the performing players putting on the drama. the ‘Maid of Cefn Idfa’ at the National School – there were no halls in the village then, and the schools served as our community centres for plays and concerts.
Then there was Ffair y Bont; I remember the naptha lamps there, and the excitement of being allowed a penny or two for the swings. There was also ‘Eisteddfod y Bont’.
I remember the Mari Lwyd coming to the houses, the grinning horses’ skull, the jaw jerked up and down by a string as the verses were exchanged. The man holding the horses’ head would recite a verse such as:-
“Dyma ni’n dwad, fel bobl di-niwed Yn gofyn am gennad i ganu”.
The people in the house would have to reply with another verse in rhyme. Several verses were sometimes exchanged, and if they failed to reply with an apt verse, then the people in the house would have to entertain the ‘Mari Lwyd’ & Co. with food and drink. I remember I was terrified of it.
Then there were the German Bands, the travelling bears. Later came the circus, the Magic Lanterns, and there were also the cheap-jacks who were always thinking up new sensations to attract the crowds, such as competitions in their tent when a man had to sing a song with a small pig under his arm, or maybe a goose.
We also had, our local entertainers, like Shoni Shimla, who could throw his voice and make it seem that someone was hiding up the chimney. And there was that memorable night when people passing Bethel Graveyard heard a voice coming out of one of the graves , ‘Mae’n oer! Oh! Mae’n oer!’ (It’s cold! Oh! It’s cold!) That too, was Shoni Shimla, up to his tricks.
Summary:
Now I must draw to a close. There is so much more I could say, I have here merely expressed one person’s view of these times, seen mainly through the eyes of a child. No doubt there are confusions in which I have said, it is a long time to look back to, and perhaps many of you could say as much, or more, looking back on your own experiences. The end of my childhood and youth really came when I left Glynneath in 1901 at the age of seventeen to go to service in London. This would be a convenient time to end this account, but perhaps you will allow me, in conclusion, to give passing mention to two events of these later years.
First, in 1905 occurred the Revival, which roused religious fervour throughout Wales. This was the outstanding happening in that period, it aroused religious fervour through the valleys. As I was away at the time, however, there’s not a lot I can remember about it.
During my stay in London I was on a bus one day, going to Battersea. From my seat on the top of the bus, I saw a news-poster with the words:
“Earthquake in South Wales, especially in Glamorganshire”, on it.
Later, I learned that during this ‘earthquake’ the chimney of our house in Glynneath had fallen, and plaster from the ceiling had come down on my brother and sister in bed.
It was whilst I was in London that the Centenary Celebrations of the Battle of Trafalgar took place. Thousands stood in silence in Trafalgar Square., it seemed that the whole rush and turmoil and noise of London had ceased. The awesome silence was to me, a young girl in her teens from the valleys, something I shall always remember.
I thank you all for your patience in listing to me. And in conclusion, I am sure you will support me, also in thanking Mrs. Jones for her kindness in coming along this evening to read out this paper, and my daughter Beti for typing my words.
“P.S My Nan would have been thrilled that these memories, originally written and read out at a meeting of the local OAP group in 1968, would have a second lease of life over half a century later. I’m really glad I was able to share it”.
Rhodri Evans
References and Resources:
The memories and photograph of Mrs Mary Ann Aubrey was provided by her grandson Rhodri Evans.