How Green Was My Valley

by Richard Llewellyn

  “See if he asks Dada after Chapel to-morrow,” I said. “Then you shall start.”

  But she was running down the path, and I was too unsteady to catch up with her, so when I got in the house, she was making tea for them all as though nothing had been amiss.

  They were all talking about the Unions when I got in, and Mr. Evans looking very black indeed.

  “I pay my men well,” he said. “The best wages in all the valleys they have from me and always have.”

  “But your colliery is only a small one,” Mr. Gruffydd said, “and the rest of them think differently from you. And they pay differently, too. That is the evil. You manage your own colliery. But others are managed by paid servants with the owners interested only in the profits. Rich, lazy lordlings and greedy shareholders are our enemies.”

  “And middle-men,” said Davy.

  “Keir Hardie says the mines should belong to the people,” said Ianto. “Like the Post Office.”

  “Hyndman says the land should all belong to the people,” Davy said, “and I am with him.”

  “Marx has always said so,” Owen said.

  “I am not in favour of anything put up by a lot of old foreigners,” my father said. “Owain Glyndwr said all there is to be said for this country hundreds of years ago. Wales for the Welsh. More of him and less of Mr. Marx, please.”

  “The peoples of all countries should own their countries,” said Mr. Gruffydd. “This world was created for Mankind, not for some of mankind.”

  “It is a good job some of us have done something with what land we have got, whatever,” Mr. Evans said, still sour. “Enterprise is in the individual, not in the mob.”

  “Then let enterprising individuals pay rental to the mob,” said Mr. Gruffydd, “and the mob will be that much better off. It is money that enables men to come from the mob by education, and the purchase of books, and schools. When the mob is properly schooled, it will be a less a mob and more of a body of respectable, self-disciplined, and self-creative citizens.”

  “We have come off the Unions now, properly,” said Mr. Evans.

  “The Unions are only part of a whole,” Mr. Gruffydd said. “Let the Unions become engines for the working people to right their wrongs. Not benefit societies, or burial clubs. Let the Unions become civilian regiments to fight in the cause of people.”

  “We are trying to join the Social Democratic Federation, now,” Davy said.

  “Have you got members in this Valley for a Union, yet?” Mr. Gruffydd asked him, and looking at his pipe.

  “Only a few,” Davy said, and went a bit red in the lamplight.

  “Have a strong Union of your own first,” said Mr. Gruffydd, “then you can join fine sounds and names.”

  “The sliding scales are stopping us,” Owen said. “They are not even wanting to join the Miners’ Federation because of it.”

  “They are fools,” Mr. Gruffydd said. “Tell them so and tell them why.”

  “You do it,” Ianto said. “I had a try last week.”

  “I have other work to do,” Mr. Gruffydd said, and got up. “You do it, and when you have done it, you will find that my work has met yours, like forks in a road. Then we shall help one another.”

  “That meeting last week showed,” my father said, and helped Mr. Gruffydd with his coat. “With the sliding scale the men know they have got something to work for and take home. The women are behind them and that is their strength.”

  “If more coal is sold at a cheaper price,” Mr. Gruffydd said, “wages will go down. The cheaper the selling price, the less the wages, and the more the selling price, the more the wages. That is sliding scale, and it’s working, is it? Now think, knowing your enemies, what could be done by using a little guile. Has coal gone up? No. And not likely to till your sliding scale is thrown aside and a fair living standard adopted as a basis for a working wage. Not only by the miner but every other working man in the country. Good night to you, Mr. Morgan, and good night, boys.”

  When they had all been seen off down the Hill, the boys came back very quiet indeed and stood about the fire.

  “Well, Dada,” Ivor said, “what shall we do? I kept my mouth shut by there, but I wanted to tell old Evans, the old hypocrite.”

  “Is this our Ivor?” Owen said, looking at him and pretending to be fainting. “Never.”

  “Who put the pepper into you?” Davy said.

  “Nobody, man,” Ivor said. “Do you think I have been living and working here with my eyes fast shut? Old Evans only pays a few pence more because he knows the men would work at an easier pit if not. A fine one to talk.”

  “How about having a crusade on our own?” Davy said. “We can take a valley each. After work.”

  “After whose work?” Ivor asked him. “You and Ianto and Owen are gentlemen of ease.”

  “We are starting work in the colliery on Monday,” Davy said. “We went down this afternoon. We will pay our way, Dada.”

  “There was no need for that, boys,” my father said. “This is your home and there is no question of paying.”

  “And live off the box?” Owen said. “No, indeed. I can do my work after I have been to the pit.”

  “What about the crusade?” Davy said.

  “To-morrow is Sunday,” said my father. “We will speak more on Monday. Quiet to bed, now, or you will wake Mama. Then you will have another crusade.”

  There is good it was to walk to Chapel on a Sunday morning when the sun was shining, everybody in Sunday clothes and polished boots.

  All the people on the Hill started about the same time, and you would hear nothing for a long time but Good-Mornings and How-Are-You-This-Mornings all the way down to the road at the bottom, all the men taking off their hats, and the women nodding their bonnets and the boys touching their caps and the girls dropping a knee.

  Our family started with me and little Olwen, walking now, with her little hand in mine and very important with Owen and Angharad behind, then Davy and Ceridwen, then Ianto with little Gareth, and Ivor and Bron behind, with my father and mother last. The Tribe of Morgan my father called us, but there were lots of other families as big, and many bigger, that we met on the way, and knew well, of course.

  We used to walk quietly for a bit till we were out of the houses of the village, and then my father or mother started a hymn softly, and the girls caught up with their parts, Angharad and Bron in contralto, Ceridwen in soprano, and then the boys all came in, and you heard the echo running to catch up, all over the Valley.

  Beautiful were the days that are gone, and O, for them to be back. The mountain was green, and proud with a good covering of oak and ash, and washing his feet in a streaming river clear as the eyes of God. The winds came down with the scents of the grass and wild flowers, putting a sweetness to our noses, and taking away so that nobody could tell what beauty had been stolen, only that the winds were old robbers who took something from each grass and flower and gave it back again, and gave a little to each of us, and took it away again.

  And as we all climbed the mountain side to the Chapel, there was Mr. Gruffydd, big and strong with the blackness of his beard gone gold in the sun, waiting for us, and everyone starting to sing the same hymn, from those nearest the Chapel to those down at the bottom of the mountain, and to listen, you might think the mountain himself was in song with him.

  The Chapel always smelt the same, of wax, for the woodwork in the gallery and the big seat and pews and pulpit, of soap and water for the stones, of paint a bit, and of hymn books, and camphor from the best suits and dresses, and of people, and of smoke from the wood in the stove.

  But when you were near Bron, there was only lavender. My mother always made rose water from the wild roses of the mountain, and though it was a lovely smell, it kept close to her. The girls used it, too, and little Olwen was drowned in it. But Bron was lavender, and three away from her, you could tell Bron. It was faint, so faint as a baby’s breath, yet there.

  We had two pews, one behind the
other, and my place was just in front of Bron’s in the back, so I was always with lavender, and thankful. I could never have a liking for old camphor, and just in front of me was old Mrs. John, who must have bathed and cooked food in it, so strong it was with her.

  My father went up to sit in the big seat with the other deacons, and then one of them would choose a hymn, while Mr. Gruffydd was coming in with the last of the people.

  Sing, then. Sing, indeed, with shoulders back, and head up so that song might go to the roof and beyond to the sky. Mass on mass of tone, with a hard edge, and rich with quality, every single note a carpet of colour woven from basso profundo, and basso, and baritone, and alto, and tenor, and soprano, and alto and mezzo, and contralto, singing and singing, until life and all things living are become a song.

  O, Voice of Man, organ of most lovely might.

  When Mr. Gruffydd started his sermon, he always put a few sheets of paper on the ledge by the Bible, but never once was he seen to use them. He started to speak as though he were talking to a family, quietly, in a voice not loud, not soft. But presently you would hear a note coming into it and your hair would go cold at the back. It would drop down and down, until you could hear what he said only from the shapes of his mouth, but then he would throw a rock of sound into the quiet and bring your blood splashing up inside you, and keep it boiling for minutes while the royal thunder of his voice proclaimed again the Kingdom of God, and the Principality of Christ the Man.

  That is how we came from Chapel every Sunday rearmed and re-armoured against the world, re-strengthened, and full of fight. As we came, so we went back home, but now some of the elders would stop to talk outside the Chapel, especially those living far apart, with the mountain between their homes, and the children would go to talk together, too. So there might be a crowd of people outside the Chapel, all talking, with laughing going on, with black bowler hats and top-hats nodding and bonnets with feathers bobbing, and the crowded black clothes and white linen very plain against the green of the mountain and the grey of the Chapel.

  Back home, we had time to eat dinner in our house or Bron’s, and then off to Sunday School at the Chapel again, Angharad, Ceridwen, Owen, Davy, Ianto, and me. Going to Sunday School was not so serious as going to Chapel, so we could join the other boys and girls on the way, and pick flowers, or nuts and berries for our favourites to eat on the sly in school. I had no favourite, then, neither was I the favourite with anybody. That came later. But we always had a few sweets in the pocket. Sunday School was very flat, indeed, without a sweet or two when teacher was looking in the book.

  Who was outside the Chapel when we got there, but Iestyn Evans, very smart, with a buttonhole. That was wrong, for a start, on a Sunday, but I thought it looked very good, indeed, and I have worn many a hundred since. There is good to have a little flower so near to you, good colour and good smell, too.

  “Hulloa, Angharad,” he said, the fool, with Owen and Davy and Ianto right behind her.

  “Who are you talking to?” Ianto said, and stopped, white in the face and pale in the eye, quiet, with a small shake in his voice. Murder, to anybody with sense.

  “Angharad,” Iestyn said. “Your sister, perhaps?”

  I was looking at the face of Angharad, but from the side of my eye I saw Davy’s fist flash in the sun and heard the fat click of it meeting Iestyn’s jaw. When I looked he was falling backwards, flat, out.

  “You devil,” Angharad screamed, and went to claw, but Owen and Davy took her by the arms and dragged her inside the lobby and shut the door on her.

  “There is a swine for you,” Ianto said.

  “What shall we do with him?” Davy said. “Throw him in the river?”

  “London tricks,” Ianto said, looking at his knuckles. “He must be taught. Leave him there for everybody to see.”

  “If Dada hears about this,” Owen said, “he will have it out of Angharad.”

  “Say nothing.” Ianto said. “She knows what will happen if there is more of it.”

  We went through the quiet, big-eyed crowd and Owen opened the door, Angharad was crying under the notice board, and Ceridwen trying to hush.

  “I will not allow my sister to be treated like a pit-woman,” Ianto said to Angharad, but so quietly that only a few could hear. “Next time, if there is a next time, I will kill him. If he wants to speak to you, let him ask permission. We have a home and he knows well where it is. Now go in to Sunday School.”

  The text for the lesson that afternoon was “Love ye one another,” and when it was read, everybody was looking at Ianto over their books, but only when he was not looking up. Mrs. Talfan must have chosen it on purpose, because when she read it, she stopped and looked straight at Ianto, and then to each of us about him. But we all looked up at her as though there was nothing behind it, so her score was nothing.

  After Sunday School we always had a play on the mountain, the boys chasing the girls, or the other way about, or Red Indians among the boys only if there were no grown-up people near us. But that afternoon we went straight home.

  And there was Mr. Evans and Iestyn, with my father and mother and Iestyn pale, with a swelling round his chin.

  “Did you hit Iestyn Evans?” my father said to Ianto.

  “Yes, Dada,” Ianto said, and put his hands behind him.

  “Outside the Chapel, on such a day?” my father said.

  “That was where he was,” Ianto said. “Buttonhole and all.”

  “I will have you in Court, young man,” Mr. Evans said, and went to get up, but Iestyn stopped him.

  “Doubtless you had a reason,” he said to Ianto, but speaking as though Ianto were four foot the shorter.

  “Doubtless,” Ianto said. “And doubtless I will break your back if I will have another reason.”

  “Ianto,” my father said, “why did you hit him?”

  “Let him tell you, Dada,” Ianto said.

  “I spoke to your daughter, Angharad,” Iestyn said.

  “O?” said my father, “and how do you come to speak to my daughter?”

  “Well,” said Iestyn, and there is surprised was his father, “I have seen her several times.”

  “Did seeing her give you the right to speak to her?” my father asked him.

  “This is a civilized community,” Iestyn said. “We are not brute beasts.”

  “That is because there are men here who use their fists,” my father said. “If you had spoken to her in my hearing, you would have had worse.”

  “Gwilym,” my mother said, and looking with her teeth in her lip at Mr. Evans’ face.

  “Hisht, girl,” said my father. “There is too much of this slack talking done.”

  “I was coming here with Angharad after Sunday School,” Iestyn said.

  “There is kind,” said my father. “We are honoured, indeed.”

  “Look here, now, Gwilym,” Old Evans said. “I knew nothing of the girl. I only knew there had been a fight. I will have back what I said of your son, for if a man spoke to Iestyn’s sister, there would be murder done again. I will shake hands with you, Ianto, my son.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Evans,” Ianto said.

  “Now, where is the girl?” said Old Evans. “Let us see the bone these two dogs have lost hair over.”

  “She is upstairs,” said my mother, “and she will be down tomorrow morning, not before.”

  “There it is,” said Old Evans, and got up to go. “No malice anywhere, is it?”

  “None,” said my father.

  “I will call to ask your permission to-morrow evening, Mr. Morgan,” Iestyn said.

  “Good,” my father said. “I will wait for you.”

  Mr. Evans gave my father a wink and a little punch as he went, and Iestyn shook hands with Ianto, but an unhappy little shake, like boxers touching hands.

  “Iestyn Evans and Angharad,” my mother said, and looking in the fire to dream. “Too young.”

  “How old were you when we were married?” my father said, with his
hand over his mouth not to laugh.

  “Much older, boy,” my mother said.

  “Go on with you, girl,” said my father. “You were younger still than Angharad. A good cup of tea now, quick. Nobody is too young to be married. That is a law. Where is the tea with you, girl?”

  After that, there was nowhere in the house to go without coming in to black looks from Angharad and Iestyn, or Ceridwen and Blethyn, and sometimes Davy and Wyn when he brought her over to us, instead of staying at her house over the mountain.

  So I spent a lot of time with Owen in the back, trying to make his engine go. There is a noise the old thing made. But it did go at last, and that was a night of nights, indeed.

  It was a long way from our house to Gwilym’s and with little Olwen, and the meals for my father and the boys on different shifts, my mother had plenty to do all day and little strength left for walking, though she went over sometimes twice a week.

  Extra tired one afternoon, she asked me to take them the basket, so off I went, down the Hill, and round into the flat of the Valley, along the path by the river.

  I have never liked that road since.

  That way, I had to pass the two heaps of slag that had grown and grown till they looked half as big as the mountain. Even grass was growing in some places, as though to take pity on us and cover the ugliness of them. The river running between was drying up, so sick it was of the struggle to keep clean, and small blame to it.

  Farther on, past the last of the cottages, green grass grew again, and happy it was to see a flower growing after all the brute sadness, though the river was still running black and the plants and reeds dead and dying on both banks.

  Up the mountain it was better, and on the top it was good to look back and see all the filth hidden behind trees and blackberry bushes, even though I knew it was still there.

  Gwilym’s house was the end one in a row on the other side of the mountain from us, a tidy little house, but open to the weather, and the winds had choir practice whenever they could on every side of it. There was washing hanging when I got there, so I felt it and found it dry, and gathered it in to take inside with me.