He set off, it seems like yesterday. A valley born boy from the western edge of the South Wales coalfield, the census reported religio-mill-working-mining stock with a farming heritage.
A strong community held together by hard work, hard living and a religion. The green valleys scarred indiscriminately by industrial activity shaped his mindset. Echoes of the chapel pulpit bounced off the walls of the cottages lining the road to the pithead where he lived.
He arrived. The dirty, humanity littered streets didn’t feature in the ad. Still it was an adventure. An adventure mapped out by a job offer and piece of paper with an address to hide in.
Everyone succumbs, for at least a part of their lives. Some make it, some don’t. Those that don’t stay trapped, cage-bound in suffocating concrete, bars gripped desperately through which the stares of the lost meet but don’t see.
Outside these prison bars was a jungle. Stark inner city schools and hospitals, emerging still from a bombed-out, war-ravaged London. National service fresh in the mind, petrol rationing a periodic feature, grey surroundings with splashes of occasional colour relieved the monotony, the smog smothered red of the Routemaster bus.
Nurse! An Irish country girl with a strong character that the convent couldn’t kill. A large family meant farming out the kids. Childhood meant driving the donkey and cart into the town dairy to deliver milk. Green fields the playground unaffected by the war that waged on outside the dream.
Country migrants with eyes open wide and gaping mouths learned the language of the streets. They found new words that spelt feelings. There were moments. Cliff Richard, Tommy Steele and the Two I’s coffee bar, rock and roll and the sound of skiffle.
They met and lost touch. An age sped by and the jungle forced them together again. Age old instincts cut through the formalities.
19th December 1959, Ammanford Roman Catholic Church. Interdenominational with a hint of inter-racial. It rained. It could rain all it liked. No-one cared. Then back to reality and the return to the city. The time stamped struggle of a young family fighting their way upriver.
For Alun and Eileen Davies