Voices from the Past Part 3

Blog Post

In the third installment of our blog looking at the Museum's oral history collection, Assistant Curator Dave Gwyer takes a look at the life local man Peter Jones of Barry Road, Pwllgwaun.

In compiling the first 2 parts of this blog, I’ve been conscious that, so far, the ratio of women to men written about is 4 to 1. This isn’t deliberate bias. In fact, it faithfully reflects the overall make-up of the collection of taped interviews conducted with elderly Pontypridd residents at the end of the 1980s. Why is this? Was it that the women of that generation lived noticeably longer than the men? Or are women just more naturally chatty and willing to talk about themselves? Surely not! Whatever the reasons, this piece focuses on the story of one man who was happy to talk - Peter Jones, who was born in 1907.

Peter was the youngest of 4 brothers and lived most of his life in Barry Road, Pwllgwaun. He had no memories of his father, Samuel, who was hit by a train and killed while walking along the railway line to work at the Great Western Colliery – it was a winter’s morning and a thick, enveloping, fog muffled the sound of the approaching engine. Peter was only 2, and his mother was left with the 4 boys to bring up. Each of them was expected to begin earning a living as soon as possible. One of the boys joined the Royal Welsh Fusiliers at the outbreak of the First World War. Peter had a clear recollection of holding his mother’s hand as a youngster, and hearing his brother telling his mum, ‘I won’t be back.’ His premonition proved accurate, leaving just the 3 brothers.

Peter never enjoyed school and was glad to leave at 14, going straight to work at Pwllgwaun Colliery – ‘Dan’s Muck Hole’, where he stayed until 1946. His first wage was 14 shillings and 6 pence for a 6 day week. The pit was where Pontypridd Rugby Club’s ground now stands, and was once owned by the eponymous Dan Thomas – a bare-knuckle mountain fighter who eventually found religion and became a highly-respected member of the community, often invited to lay the foundation stone of chapels under construction.

Conditions at the pit were horrible. The walk in meant wading knee-deep in water, and the colliery workings ran for 1½ miles under the hillside. The coal seam was only 2 foot 6 inches high, and working at the face involved lying on your side while hacking at the coal with a miner’s pick called a mandril.

By 1930 Peter wanted something better, and trained as a fireman (or colliery deputy) at the Treforest School of Mines. He qualified, but by 1946 he was suffering from pneumoconiosis, a lung disease caused by prolonged exposure to breathing in coal dust. He decided to leave the pit before working there killed him.

At the start of World War 2 one of his brothers, Fred, also left mining to become a stoker in the Royal Navy. He earned an extra shilling a week which he was able to send home to their mother. At the end of the war Fred returned to work at the Ty Mawr Colliery in Hopkinstown, and was eventually diagnosed with silicosis, an even more serious stage of lung disease.

Peter initially had a mining pension of 10 shillings and 6 pence a week, but settled for a lump sum of £300. He was still living in Barry Road with his mum, who supplemented their income by taking in washing for people who were more comfortably off and living on Graigwen. They found it very hard to make ends meet, and Peter needed a new job. Like many other local men and women in the post-war period, he found work at the newly-established Treforest Industrial Estate. He trained first as a welder/fitter at the power station, and later worked at Fram Filters in the Simmonds Aerocessories building, eventually going to Llantrisant when Fram Filters moved there.

Peter was always a committed Labour Party supporter. He recalled marching through Market Square as a 14-year-old with his fellow miners during the 1921 miners’ strike. This political commitment stayed with him throughout his life. At Fram Filters he became Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU) shop steward, convenor and Trades Council representative for 22 years. He took great pride when the AEU’s leader, Hugh Scanlon, named his branch as the third best nationally. On Peter’s retirement there were 500 people in the factory canteen to say goodbye, and the send-off brought tears to his eyes.

Some of Peter’s memories of old Pontypridd did this same...through laughter. He remembered the horse-drawn Dr. Griffith’s tramroad that brought coal from Trehafod to join the canal at Treforest. The canal was a major attraction for the local kids who might cadge a short ride on one of the barges, or use the water course as an informal swimming pool.

One day a local printer, by the name of Percy Phillips, somehow managed to entangle himself in a canal barge tow rope, with the result that his false teeth popped out of his mouth and disappeared into the murky water. Looking at the children gathered around him, Percy announced, ‘I’ll give anyone who jumps in a halfpenny, and the one who finds the teeth sixpence.’ Before you could say ‘Jack Robinson’, forty or so kids were in the water, trawling the depths for the missing molars.

Alas, to no avail. The diving dentures were never traced. Percy Phillips trudged sadly home minus his teeth, and with his wallet much lighter.

Pwllgwaun Colliery

The Depression of the 1920s and 30s saw novel, and sometimes illegal, methods of supplementing meagre earnings. Organising a book (taking bets) was one. Peter started a book in a small way. Alternating with a pal, he’d stand at the end of Barry Road, on what was known as ‘Penniless Corner’, taking bets on upcoming horse races - maybe 3d, 6d, or a shilling, which was regarded as a fortune. If the money taken reached a point where they might struggle to pay out winnings to the punters, they’d lay off, or hedge, the bets with another bookie at the Ivor Arms, a pub at the northern end of the park. Unfortunately, Peter’s enterprise came to attention of some of the town’s more established bookies, who warned him off. His friend wouldn’t take the warning, and turned up on ‘Penniless Corner’ next day only to be arrested by 2 policemen who’d been hiding across the road in St.Mark’s church yard. Taken to court, he paid a £10 fine.

Underground at the coal face

Some of Peter’s other tales were anything but amusing, and bring home the desperation experienced by so many during these years. Peter’s mother was fined 1s 6d for picking small pieces of coal from the Gelliwion stream after they’d been washed down from the Maritime Colliery.

In the early 1920s, looking to improve his family’s conditions, Peter’s oldest brother, Fred, built his own house – the first on the hillside above Maesycoed. He worked in the pit while doing so, but came home and put in another shift afterwards. Using 300 yards of rope and a winch, he hauled all the stone he needed from a quarry on the mountainside and commenced building.

Fred, Peter and a few friends actually dug and laid a connecting sewer by hand all the way down the mountainside, using just picks, shovels and hard graft. It took them 3 years. There were no roads there at the time, so they had to put the first road in too. Even their water supply came from a spring on the mountain, filtered before use.

Pwllgwaun Coal Dram

The resiliance, enterprise and sheer guts of people like Peter and Fred is truly astonishing. From virtually nothing they fashioned a future. Thousands of other Valley folk did the same. They probably saw themselves as ordinary people, just trying to make a living. Peter never married, as he cared for his mum until her death. Before she passed away they moved in with his brother Fred, to live in that first bungalow built on the Maesycoed hillside. It was where Peter spent the rest of his life.