When the recent coalmine tragedy at the Gleision mine at Cillybebych was announced on the news, it stirred feelings and thoughts in me that had lain dormant for many years. My first thoughts were of a Max Boyce song "Duw its hard". Many think of Max Boyce as just a comic, but he also wrote and sang some quite thoughtful folk songs about Wales and its culture. He lives in the next village to where I was brought up and has been a miner himself.
The song tells of a time when the local mine is closed and how he was not really sad, because "Duw (God) its hard" because of the fear and conditions miners lived with every day.
Let me say why these thoughts of mining hit me more strongly than I thought possible. I grew up in Resolven, a mining village in the Vale of Neath, South Wales. The Vale of Neath is a beautiful valley with its river and waterfalls, and is a valley where the scars of its industrial past are hidden on the mountain tops. Resolven was a relatively small village until the mid 19th century when the deep anthracite mines started to be exploited. The mine owners (Cory Brothers) built several streets of terraced houses for the incoming population who had left the countryside for industrial centres in search of work. Both my grandfathers were miners as were all of their brothers, uncles and cousins.
My paternal grandfather died 18 months before my birth as a result of the "dust" solidifying in his lungs. My maternal grandfather was retired from the mines in his mid-fifties with dust, my mother said it broke his heart when they retired him due to the loss of comradeship of his fellow miners.
In his 80's he had a bout of bronchitis and I vividly remember him coughing up black dust into his handkerchief. He lived to his early 90's and I was pleased to be able to chat with him about family and his life, time I value now greatly. He told me that to get to the coalface he had to walk a mile up the mountain, went down a mile in the cage and walked a mile underground. One day in the 1930's he walked to the mine up to his waist in snow only to be turned away. He was one of ten mining brothers who daily returned home from work dirty and wet (there was no pithead bath in those days) to wash in the tin bath.
As a boy I remember miners in the village and remember the time of Miners Fortnight (when the mines closed for the annual summer holiday). The event that had the greatest effect on me happened when I was 16 and had been rushed into hospital with a burst appendix. Being an emergency I was deposited in a spare bed next to an old miner who took 2 days to die gasping for breath. When you are that young and relatively innocent the realities of life (and death) do concentrate and effect your mind and beliefs.
When the miners strike occurred in the 1970, despite being from a welsh mining background and having social democratic beliefs I was against the strike. I understand the effect on communities, as shown eloquently in the film "Brassed Off", but I felt that the strike was lead by Arthur Scargill for his political purposes, but also the price of coal mining for the individual miners was too high.
The final point that contributed to my sad mood was the fact that one of those miners killed in the accident came from my village.
The accident brought back thoughts that had slipped from my mind, it shows we should never forget where we came from and what fashioned our beliefs
