Miss Purdy's Class

by Annie Murray

  ‘Except it hasn’t turned out like that.’ It was sunny again now, and they were walking along a shining sward of green. Gwen unbuttoned her cardigan.

  ‘But your father was Spanish – he didn’t grow up in the valleys.’

  ‘No – he started off in the steelworks. 1907 they were brought over – he was twenty. Came over on a ship to Cardiff and then they sent them to Dowlais . . .’

  Gwen frowned. ‘But why did they come from Spain?’

  ‘Dowlais Iron Company owned one of the Spanish iron ore companies from some way back. So –’ his tone became hard – ‘true capitalists, they thought they could bring cheap Spanish labour into Wales and undercut wage rates, and that Spanish workers would toe the line . . . Our da worked there for a time. The heat in there – phew! It was terrible! So bad their clothes were smouldering. Had to throw buckets of water over each other. He left after a bit and went to Aberglyn down the pit, became a collier. That’s where he met Ma.’

  They walked, staring at their feet, the worn path edged with sodden grass. To Gwen’s surprise, Daniel chuckled suddenly.

  ‘They made a street in Dowlais for the Spaniards – Alphonso Street. Da said it gave them the shock of their lives – a quiet Welsh town and suddenly there’s him and the others with their garlic, playing music on a Sunday and being Catholics with their strange ways and that. I s’pose they didn’t know what’d hit them to begin with! Course, there were Italians in the towns too – same with them really. Our da played the accordion – it was the one thing he brought over with him.’

  ‘Can you play it?’

  ‘No, I never got the hang of it. Our Paul’s the one – he can squeeze some tunes out of it when he puts his mind to it. He’s got the touch with it, and Ma likes to hear it.’

  ‘So . . .’ she asked hesitantly, ‘your father died young, didn’t he?’ Theresa had told her this, but she wanted to hear Daniel’s account of what had happened.

  ‘Dead at forty-three. Heart gave out. He was a strong man, you could see that to look at him. But he was working every spare moment for the federation, the movement, the action committees. Some weeks he hardly slept, barely ate. Ma was forever keeping on, but he wouldn’t listen. “What choice is there?” he’d say. “Our energy and determination is the only thing we have left.” Everyone came to him – knocked on the door with all their troubles. It was the big strike, did it, made him see what the bosses were capable of. Changed him. He was never the same after . . .’

  Gwen was only dimly aware, as they walked on, of heavy grey clouds covering the sky again and in a few moments the rain started to come down, slanting across the side of the hill.

  ‘Oh, here we go!’ Daniel said, starting to run towards the trees. ‘Come on – let’s get under here!’

  She ran after him and they huddled together under the branches as the rain poured down. Daniel arranged his jacket over their heads and Gwen felt it rest on her hair, scratchy against her ear. She peered out from under it at the tippling rain. Her left side was pressed close against Daniel.

  ‘It goes hot and cold so quickly!’ She shivered, buttoning her cardigan again. She would have liked to put her coat on as well, but it was too difficult to move.

  ‘Come on, I’ll keep you warm.’ Almost with a sense of panic she felt his arm round her, pulling her closer. Once again it was as if every hair on her body was standing on end, her heart thudding, while she tried to show nothing, to be light and careless about this closeness.

  ‘That better?’ Daniel said.

  She could feel his gaze on her and did not dare turn her head to look into his eyes.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ she murmured.

  The rain fell more and more heavily, so that for a few moments they could barely see the other side of the path. Its force exhilarated her, making her want to run and jump, but Daniel’s arm burned into her back so she hardly dared to move.

  He moved his arm further down until it was curved round her waist and then, as the rain gradually let up and the sky lightened, they were left with the sound of the dripping trees and the sun came out. They both knew they had to move. For a second Gwen turned and their eyes met. His gaze was deep and serious. Emotions twisted in her and she looked quickly away again. Daniel released her and removed the sodden coat from their heads, tossed what water he could off it then laid it over his arm. Shaken, Gwen followed him back to the path, her shoes shiny with water. The silence between them was so electric that she had to do something to dispel it. She knew what she had seen in Daniel’s eyes, and wondered if her own had spoken in the same way. The strength of it was frightening. She had to keep it at bay.

  ‘Your family are so different from mine,’ she said brightly. ‘Will you tell me about growing up there, about the politics and everything. And why it was all so hard for your mother? You know me – proper old ignoramus.’

  Daniel was silent for a moment.

  ‘Ma doesn’t like to think about any of it,’ he said at last. ‘She’s put it away, in the past. She prays – offers it up. The Church comes first for her always.’

  ‘What about you?’

  He looked ahead along the path.

  ‘Oh, I think about it, all right.’

  Nineteen

  They walked on, along the paths of the Lickey Hills, paying no attention to where they were going or the other Sunday afternoon walkers and kissing couples they passed on the way. The heavy clouds stayed away for a time and, bright sunlight brought out the vivid spring greens of the grass and trees. But Gwen paid attention to nothing but Daniel’s face, heard nothing except his deep lilting voice. Though she had never seen him in action, addressing political meetings, she realized as she listened that he must be good at what he did, that his fluency and passion would convince people and carry them with him.

  ‘It was the big strike, the General Strike – that’s what set me off. You couldn’t do anything else, see, once you’d lived through all that. That’s what it did for our da as well. Course, there were other strikes before – plenty. The year before, over in the west at Ammanford – there was all sorts of trouble there. It wasn’t the same over our way, on the east side, but there were all the politicos – Bolshies, some would say. Opinions were divided. But we weren’t paying much attention – not then. I left school, started down the pit soon as I got to fourteen – 1925, the year before the strike. I went down with Da and my pal Gomer, who lived along the street. We left school together. Rosa had been born just at the turn of that year.’ He paused for a moment and she saw he was smiling.

  ‘Ma stood at the door with her in her arms the day I left for the pit the first time. Dark, it was, light coming out of the house and she was telling us both to hurry, the train’d leave us behind. She used to talk to Da as if he was a child at times.’ His face had quickly grown serious again. ‘Things were hard enough then for her already, keeping food in all our bellies and that. Thin as a pole, she was.

  ‘So I started off with all the other old butties who’d been working the pit for years, coming up for their tobacco and beer in the evening. Got my lamp, caught the colliers’ train: my life was dictated by the pit hooters – I didn’t think of any other way. That’s what my da did and there was nothing else I could see. You soon pick up the ways of the pit: keep the ventilation doors shut whatever, all the gases down there that could send the place up in a flash – methane, carbon monoxide, black damp. Keep out of the way of the drams – those are the coal trucks. That’s what did for my cousin, Billy. Hit by a dram, fifteen years of age. He’ll never walk again.’ He looked down at his feet. Bread and butter to colliers, all that. And the pit ponies – I knew all their names. You learn fast.

  ‘Then came the strike. Course it was brewing the year before, but the government held the miners off by subsidizing the pits – Red Friday they called it, when Mr Baldwin paid out to the coal owners. I don’t s’pose you remember any of this.’ His tone was teasing again.

  ‘I was only ten at the time,’ she retort
ed.

  ‘Ten? So you were! Well, they said the pits were losing money. None of us could work fast enough for them so they put some money in for a time, but it had run out by the 26th of May. So the crisis started off again, just as the Communist Party said it would. They were losing markets for the coal, see. The United States were taking markets, that was part of it. So, they said – we’ll cut your wages, and you work longer hours. That’s how we’ll do it. Bleed the workers while the owners milk the profits. Anyone with a grain of sense could see it was downright pillage of the rights of the working man.’ He paused as they reached a fork in the path and steered her to the left.

  ‘When the strike started, I didn’t realize at first how big it was, what it meant. That all over the country the unions were coming out on strike in solidarity with the miners – railwaymen, dockers, builders – hordes of them, all because they stood together against exploitation and injustice. The working class had unified and raised its voice as one!’ Once again, Daniel was becoming heated, his voice rising.

  ‘For those days, the pit was silent. Ghostly, like. But the town streets were full of people, police right up to the isolation hospital, just waiting for any hint of trouble. They’d brought them in from all over – Birmingham, you name it. Everyone was excited, see, on the streets every day reading leaflets, and the Labour Bulletin, wanting to know what was going on with the strike all round the country, what Parliament was saying. There were couriers on motorcycles carrying news over the mountains, town to town. The atmosphere was electric. Everyone pulling together, no choice, and the more it went on the more united everyone was. We thought we were going to win against the pit owners. We were all in it together, see, with food and everything – corned beef stew from the soup kitchens every day. The Council of Action met across the road from our house. Da was there nearly every moment, with meetings and speeches and that, and they were making sure the blacklegs couldn’t get their coal transported out from the Aberglyn pits, by blocking off the roads. Course, some of them wanted to get going and hound the police out of the town. Why should we have them there? Why should we put up with being victimized for asking for a living wage? Da wanted to stop a fight. “You’re playing into the hands of the government if you start on them,” he kept saying. “That’s what they’re waiting for – an excuse to go for us, baton us and shoot us. We’ve got to keep the peace.” They found out that some of the ones calling for riots weren’t from the valley at all – they’d been planted to cause trouble. Da was having none of it.’

  Gwen was struggling to follow everything he was saying, but she didn’t like to interrupt.

  ‘And then . . .’ Daniel kicked hard at a clump of grass, shaking his head as if even now he couldn’t believe what had happened. ‘Next thing is, they’re calling us all back to work. Strike’s over. The Labour Party’ – Gwen heard the bitter contempt in his voice – ‘and the trade unions sold out on us. Called it off. Ten days, that’s all they managed, and then everyone else was back at work. That was the first time . . .’ He stopped speaking so abruptly that she looked round and saw he was struggling with his emotions. ‘. . . I ever saw my da with tears running down his face.’ She could hear the thickness in his voice and was moved by it. ‘Wasn’t the last time that year either. Labour was supposed to be the party of the working man and it sold us down the river in a leaking boat. We miners were left on our own.’

  Daniel fell silent for a moment. The sun was still hot and bright. Gwen wasn’t sure whether to speak, to acknowledge his emotion, but she didn’t want to interrupt the flow of his thoughts. She could feel the force of the strike, the effect it had had on him at fifteen years to watch his father weep helplessly at the betrayal of everything he cared about.

  ‘It was seven months the strike went on, then, and we were locked out of the pits. There was nothing else, see. The foundry in Aberglyn was closed. It’s just a rusting heap, no work for anyone. There was no strike pay: all the Federation funds had been drunk dry. Only thing keeping the soup kitchens going was the subsidy from the Co-op. We used to go to the school and they’d give us stew and a bit of bread. Cocoa, when they could. There was Ma with seven children and another on the way and not a penny for food.’

  He smiled, suddenly. ‘It wasn’t all gloom. There was always singing, choirs and that, and the men got up bands – kazoos, tin whistles, anything they could find – banging on a tin chest for a drum, dressing up and making a show. There was a great spirit in the town, but as the strike went on it bit deep. You could see it all round – the children’s clothes. There were plenty without shoes through the cold months. Ma hardly had a stitch to put on Vincent and Dominic and they were poorly and pinched.’

  He glanced at her, as if to check she was still listening and their eyes met for a second.

  ‘And there was always trouble with the police. They were vicious bastards – ’scuse me, but they were – tried every trick to make you go over to the scab union in Aberglyn, to work for them. The police round us had been drafted in from the West Country somewhere – in England, I mean. Anyway, a couple of them came round to the house one day with the colliery manager. Da wasn’t in at the time and nor was I, but they said to Ma, your husband’s known as a good worker (which he was, one of the best). Course, they knew he was one of the best organizers in the town as well. Any group meeting, they’d stamp it out – charge you with unlawful assembly and you’d be straight to the assizes in Swansea or Cardiff. So, they said, we want him at work – he’s needed. If he goes back, he’ll be given protection. They didn’t say much more but they left a florin on the mantelpiece. Well, Da wasn’t having that. He sent our Ann to take it back to the manager’s office. He knew she was a good one to ask – better to send a girl, he thought, and Ann was full of fire then, even though she was only thirteen. Made her who she is, that strike did.

  ‘Anyway, that was that for a day or two, then two policemen started standing outside our house. They’d follow Ma home if she’d been out and that. Well, my da asked what they were doing and he was told to shut up. But we knew all right. They were trying to make it look as if they were protecting us – turn everyone against us. It made it look as if Da was up to something, as if he was a blackleg.

  ‘“You get away from my door,” Da said to them. “I’ve never worked for a scab union and I’m not going to start now.” They went for us then – pushed us in through the door, right in front of Ma and the others, out the back, and they gave us both a beating. Broke Da’s nose. He was a strong man but they were about twice the size of him. Both of us were all blood by the time they left. They went for him another time too, when he’d gone out digging a seam out on the mountain. The valley’s full of coal, but only the owners think they have the right to dig it up! Sometimes we’d be that desperate we’d be picking cokes out of the ash paths as they were laying them. Anyway, they caught him and beat him about the face.’

  Daniel laughed suddenly. ‘Didn’t get him when he went up and got that sheep off the mountain, though. Best feast we had all year that was! Kiddies on the farms round about, see, they were better off. The miners had almost nothing. We were under the Poor Law. Ma was in a terrible state come the autumn. Starvation levels we were at. Bread and taters and not much of them. The baby came weeks early and it was born dead. She hardly had the strength to birth it.’

  He stopped for a moment.

  ‘How awful,’ Gwen said gently. It was as if she could feel his pain inside her.

  ‘Da made a little box to bury him. We thought Ma was going to die. There was nothing to her. She was ill for weeks after. Pernicious anaemia, the doctor told her. You’d never think it to look at her now. She was skin and bone. Frightened you to look at her.’ He paused. Gwen looked up at him, his set, serious expression. He glanced at her.

  ‘We were all trapped like animals. Nothing we could do, that was how it felt. She’s strong, though, Ma. Stronger than she knows. Father O’Connor used to come to the house and see her. She’s never forgotten
his kindness to her. She pulled through.

  ‘The strike went on to the close of the year. All through, and after, Da still wanted to believe in the Labour movement, the Labour Party. Couldn’t let go of the idea that Parliament was where the power lay, that that was where change would come from. We had a branch of the NUWM in Aberglyn and he gave it everything he had. But I was learning other things then, see. I used to walk over to Tredegar – there’s a library there full of political books. Best for miles. There were talks and discussions and I joined the Socialist League – me and Gomer set up a branch in Aberglyn, in a room behind the chapel. We had a big poster of Lenin in front of a red flag. That was the first time I began to read Marx.’

  ‘And you joined the Communist Party?’

  ‘Not straight away. But yes – when I became sure that the only way was the revolution. And Da joined soon after. He was . . .’ His voice thickened again. ‘He was so proud when I got into the college, down London. And then, while I was there, he died. Ma was left with no breadwinner in the family. Ann was working in the bakery up the road and did what she could. I came home and tried to go down the pit but there was hardly any work to be had. Ma was in a bad state. Lucy was born after Da passed on and she was sickly, what with her gammy leg and being small. The fits didn’t start till later, but she was a sickly baby and Ma was poorly herself after. That’s when Auntie Annie said we had to come to Birmingham.’

  ‘But your mother had so many young children! How on earth did you all manage?’

  ‘Annie and Pat were good to us, but they had their own troubles. There was only Ann and I who were old enough to work. Our Mary was a year off leaving school. Ann got a job first – in a shop. But then they hit us with the means test. You got your twenty-six weeks unemployment benefit and then they transferred you to Public Assistance. They come nosing round to see if you’ve anything in the house to sell, or if anyone’s working, because then they say you don’t need assistance and take it away! They’d be asking questions of the neighbours, expecting people to spy on one another, the lot! Ma had a struggle on her hands, even though there was more work over here. In the end, best thing was for Ann to go and live with Auntie Annie and I went back home. Pat had a job and they weren’t claiming assistance so Ann was working, giving Ma the money. And me, later – even after she was married she put money my way where she could. Ann was always totally committed to the party and the cause. She’s solid gold, my sister. And I was up and down to the valleys, keeping up the politics, working if I could . . .’