As
everything in the world varies, so do human beings. Therefore what is humour to
one person is not so much humour to another, and it may be that this sermon of
mine will be boring and not interesting. So I will mention a few incidents in
my life, which have interested me and given me some pleasure to look back on
and smile.
A misty dreary wet morning, the 30th day of November 1871, has been the most important day in my history as it was the day I was born. I was the fourth child of a family or six children and it happened on a small holding In Cardiganshire, within a stone throw or the River Teify, the boundary between the counties of Cardigan and Carmarthen
The first next incident in my life that I remember in
my life was being christened. It was the custom in Cardiganshire then at any
special occasion such as an invalid or anyone convalescing after an Illness to
have the minister or the Chapel, which the family belonged to, to hold a
service on a Sunday night at that house, instead of at the Chapel. And
in the summertime these services were held in the open air, and this happened
on the occasion of my christening. I was then between three and four years of
age, and by then another baby had arrived and we both were christened at the
same meeting. An old wag in the village who was a deacon in the chapel of
another denomination, and who I was very fond of, used to tell people what was
going to happen to me the following Sunday. The preacher will have a lot to say
about sprinkling, (and he would turn to me and tell me “You tell him to shut up
my boy” little thinking that I would take any notice) but in front of a vast
congregation and I was sitting on the preacher’s leg I looked up at him and
said “Shut Up”. I was censured and I can feel my mother’s fingers on my arm
this minute. I am very sorry that I said it, as I am for many words that I have
said since during my life. Most of them people are now dead, also the preacher,
but I am known by those that live, as the boy who told the preacher to shut up.
I grew
up to be a strong healthy boy, full of mischief, in fact the wickedest boy in
Llanwennog church school. My mother used to say that she beat more of me than
the other children put together. When I reached Standard V in the Parish
School, I was sent to a Grammar School at Llanybyther. I was about the youngest
boy and also the dullest as most of the students who were there at the time
have Managed to get a living without much hard work, one of them being Dr.
Jenkins the 1ate M.O.H. for the Rhondda District Council.
My father was the Steward at the mansion and over the
estate of Highmead (but a carpenter by trade). All my family on my fathers side
were carpenters except one, he was too small to make a carpenter of him so his
parents made a tailor of him but he made a fine tailor. My elder brother was a
full-fledged carpenter then and working in Cardiff so it would be a tragedy and
a disgrace to the lineage not to put me to the carpenter trade. So I was at 14
years of age apprenticed to a first class carpenter. There were then carpenters
and carpenters, building carpenters and cart-house carpenters. The building
carpenters were considered a pip above the cart-house carpenters; the latter
and his apprentice were carrying their tools on their backs from farm to farm. Every
farm of any class had its cart-house fitted up with benches and all their carts
and gates and barrows, their furniture
and also their coffins were made in the cart-house by this poor tramping
carpenter and his apprentice for a very small wage and their food and about
half a dozen farms were keeping this carpenter going and he was a busy hard working
man, having been planning so much hard wood that he had developed a big hump on
his back. These farmers
were either cutting trees down on their own farms or buying them at sales, and
when they hadn’t much to do in the winter, they would take them to the sawmills
and have them cut into boards and scantlings and the best buts of oak were cut
up into very nice inch boards and put up to dry for the coffins of the family.
When a member of the family died the carpenter was sent for and at once,
wherever he was working, he and his apprentice would be on the job. While he
would be at the house measuring and taking orders the apprentice would be
taking boards down from the loft and as a rule they were very hard and lumpy
and covered with chicken manure, then he would take them to a pond, soak them a
bit and with a handful of straw he would wash and scrub them. It would take a
couple of days for these two to make the coffin in the cart-house. This coffin
would have a lead-lace trimming and lead plates and cast iron bronzed or black
handles, and they were artists at covering the black spots that they could not
plane so that the plates and the lace would cover it. When a wedding came off
at the farm the timber was there ready and the carpenter had to make the furniture
in the cart-house It did not matter if he was there twelve months preparing as
that would not cost very much comparing the price of furniture at the shop. I
may say that this custom to a great
extent now has doled out and some of' those apprentices have made a mark in the
world being the heads of large firms of furnishers, and coach builders, and
some of them house builders in Liverpool and London and all over England But 1
was apprenticed to a builder and also making a piece of furniture occasionally,
and also coffins to rich and poor. My master did the whole of the new building
on two estates so he also had to tramp from farm to farm and we would also come
in contact with the carpenters I have just mentioned. We very often had to
tramp a long way from home and sleep at the farms. The boss, and me the
apprentice and the foreman mason and his boy were allowed to sleep in the
farmhouse, the rest of the workmen slept out in the storehouses with the farm
servants.
l remember at
one farm we were building a new barn too far to walk home. The farmhouse was a
large one, thatch covered. The farmer and his wife slept in the parlour. Which
was a small room on the ground floor. The loft was only one large room with a
bit of the far end partitioned off to make a little room for the preacher man
when he would be staying there. That was called the preacher’s room and the bed
was nice and clean, no one else should sleep in it. In the large room, the
whole of the loft there were 5 beds. In three of these beds slept 5 maids and
one daughter, and in the other two beds slept the boss and me, and the master
mason and his son. My master was a
deacon with the Methodists and the master mason was a deacon with the
Wesleyans. Those poor maids were worked very hard at the hay in the summer and
also did all the milking and butter making etc. They were so tired in the
mornings that it was difficult to get them out of bed, and they had to get up
at five to churn every morning, and we were also getting up at five in hot
weather and taking two hours off at middle day. So this was the procedure. The
farmer’s wife would shout from below “Girls get up”. We would get up, the girls
wouldn’t move. The farmer’s wife would then get up herself and come to the foot
of the stairs and shout, “Now girls come on”. No move again. Then she would
hear us on the boards and come back in a bit of a temper and shout “John
Williams” that was the mason’s name “Pull the clothes off those girls to see if
we can get them from there. Then John would walk up quietly, catch hold in the
corner of the bedclothes, pull them down on the floor off the girls’ three beds
and then they had to get up, and sometimes there would be a bit of a fight
between the older men and the girls but we boys had to be neutral. When it was
raining in the morning we did not want to get up so early but the girls had to
get up so off came the bedclothes off our beds, the tables were turned.
About half a mile away from where I was apprenticed
there was a little shop, kept by two good religious old maids. They were not
sisters but an aunt and niece and that is where we youngsters went at night in
the winter to have a chat and talk about what w e were doing daily, apprentices
of all trades and also farm servants. The old aunt was always in the choir.
Here all the tricks of the district were arranged, they were always censured by
the old aunt and the niece was generally the one to make the plans and we boys
would carry them out to the letter.
I was a
twelve-months old apprentice before I had a chance to make a coffin and hearing
the other apprentices talking about what fine coffins they were making, even
those cart-house apprentices, I developed a mania to make a coffin and wished
some of our customers would die for me to try my hand and show these fellows
up. There was a poor old woman who belonged to the Methodist chapel close by,
very old and ill and my boss was going to see her very often. I was asking him
how she was and he used to say that he did not expect her to see her in the
morning, that lasted a long time but I didn’t tell anyone my wish. At last the
news came that the o1d Iady was dead and I naturally asked who had the coffin
to make, and 1 was told that another carpenter had made the coffins for the
family for generations. That was a shock to me 1 can tell you and I was ill for
days and felt quite nasty to the old woman for dying.
We were living
within a mile of Maesycrugiau Railway Station and I very often went to the
station in the evening to see the 8.0 p.m. train, the Iast train going up to
Aberystwyth. This was a one man Station, single Iine, and the
Station-master was the porter, signalman
and all, and he was pleased to have a bit of help to shunt the trucks from us
boys.
0ne very wet
winter night on the way to the station I was passing a small mansion, which was
close to the road. lt was occupied by two maiden ladies and two servant girls
(I worked there sometimes). I knew all these people were afraid of frogs and
mice and such things. I saw a big black toad crossing the road, I picked it up
and carried it as far as the mansion. The side door was slightly open and I put
the toad on the doorstep and off I went to the Station and forgot all about it.
On my way back I saw the four young ladies running out in the rain, properly
frightened and they armed me in to see the toad walking quietly across the
flagged floor of the kitchen. They asked me to pick it up with the tongs and
take it to the river close by which was in flood. I pocked it up with my hand
and they came with me to make sure it was thrown to the river. Then I had to go
back to the house, wash my hands in three hot waters and I had a nice supper. I
tried the toad trick several times again, but the toad would not go in, as I
wanted it.
We would very often go to small
concerts and Eisteddfods, coming home late generally through the fields for
short cuts and we often passed a bog in a hollow which had a lot of Willows
growing in it. I heard a little bird singing in the night dozens of times in
the Willow of the bog. I noticed that it was singing very nicely, sometimes I
would stop a minute to listen to it, and no more notice made of it. A few years
back now I heard that same bird on the wireless, it came back to my memory
quite fresh. That little bird was a nightingale. Time will not permit me to
relate more of my country reminiscences. So my apprenticeship came to an end
and I was to make room for the next apprentices. I may say that the apprentice
that left for me lives in Aberdare, a successful builder, a district councilor
and a JP. He had been through similar circumstances that I have related to you.
On the sixth
day of July 1889, I booked my ticket at the station I had visited hundreds of
times. The farewell meeting had been held the night before at the little shop
and some of the boys prophesied that I was going on tramp too young and that I
would be back among them in less than a twelve month. My ticket cost me nearly
all I had in my pocket. If ever I had prayed in my life I prayed then and my
prayer was that God would give me plenty of work and that I would be able to
stick it for one year whatever. I prayed sincerely with tears running down my
cheeks. You may say “What a selfish prayer”, but it was answered and I have
been short of plenty of things in this world but never short of work. I have
never been idle for want of work for one day from that day to this. I had a job
ready at Treharris and I landed at Quakers Yard at one o’clock mid-day. It was
a Saturday and the man I was going to work for came and asked me to go and help
him to make a coffin that afternoon and I worked till late and we took the
coffin “Home” as they used to say. I worked for that man for the year round and
then took a week off to go home. I had more money in my pocket going back than
I had coming. I had cast away the old clothes and had a new suit of the latest
style. I bought a silk umbrella, a pair of kid silk gloves and a bowler hat the
colour of a pigeon. It took a whole day to go to the country by train then.
When I got to Neath I had two hours to wait for the London-Fishguard train to
come, so I put my gloves and my umbrella by my side on the seat, and at last
the train came in and I got a bit excited and entered one of the carriages and
after it had started I could see my new umbrella and my gloves left behind on
the seat and I never saw them again as this train didn’t stop again till it was
in Carmarthen. When I was passing Ferry-side, I had my head out through the
window enjoying the scenery. The river Towy and the fishermen with their
coracles on it, and the speed of the train created a little wind, and it blew
my pigeon coloured bowler hat clean off, and I could see it like a little boat
on the river Towy. I had an hour to wait at Carmarthen and I went to buy a new
hat, a black one this time, and God told me now, “I have been true to you now
you be true to me and go home more like the way you came from there, drop that
pride and don’t try to take the rise out of those poor little apprentices that
are left in the country”. I never bought a pair of gloves of any sort from that
day to this, and always avoided being a swank. I think I learned a lesson that
stuck to me all my life.
Eventually I
went to Barry. The Barry dock had been opened there, and Barry was being built,
and the Mecca of all the speculative builders of England and Wales.
Circumstances moved me back to Pontypridd and then to Porth. I had a job in the
Timber Yard in the carpenters’ shop. I was the biggest, strongest man there and
I think about the dullest too and those were the qualifications appreciated
there then. There were about five apprentices there most or them the children
of well to do people who could pay a high premium, and they were a mischievous
lot. Work was harder the than now as it had to be done all by hand. There were
no machines then but there were carpenters worthy of the name, first class
crafts. There was a little man calling at the carpenter’s shop then selling
books, and being a friend of the late Mr. Jenkins he was allowed to go around
the men canvassing these books, and also receiving money from those who had
bought books previously. This man was getting to be a bit of a
bore and the men objected to being bothered in this way, but could not very
well I stop him, because he was being permitted, but the apprentices settled
the matter. When he used to
come to the shop he always left his bag by the foreman’s bench by the door,
there was no loft over this part so they waited for him and when he came and
dropped his bag they dropped a rope down with a hook on the end of it and up
goes the bag and contents. He never saw it again and we never saw him at that
shop either.
It was a custom
then to give sawdust free and the Rheola hotel, the Porth hotel and the
Imperial Hotel used to invite the men of the Timber Yard to a nights free beer
once a year. That night was called ''Sawdust Night” and it was a very
interesting night.
We had to go out to do jobs occasionally from the shop
and the same man was always sent to certain houses.
When there was anything to do at the Porth hotel I was
always sent to do it. One day they were preparing a big dinner and they were
expecting many visitors to stay the night. I was sent for to put up some beds.
Mrs. Howells, the landlady then was very worried because she had a very peevish
little boy of fifteen months and she had to nurse him and could not attend to
the duties of the hotel. I proved to be the only one who could consol him and I
had to nurse the baby and work overtime at it and another man sent for to put
up the beds.
Time will not
permit me to mention many more incidents but I remember the carpenters making a
flight of stairs for the old Tylorstown Co-operative. They made it one step too
many and decided to come back quick breakfast time and cut a step off so that
the other men not to know anything about it. Anyhow one of them stayed and
cut off a step and the other one also
hurried back and cut a step off so when they put up the stairs it was a step short.
One said to the other, “It was right at first as I only cut one step off. ''
''Well said the other I have cut a step off also'', and there was some very
select language.
Many years ago
the late Mr. David Jenkins and Col.
Watts-Morgan, Dai Watts-Morgan then were candidates
for a seat on the County Council for Porth and Hafod. We all had to canvass for
our candidate and Watts-Morgan was well known among the colliers more so than
Mr. Jenkins. He went to a house on Monkey’s Tump and asked the wife where was
John, her husband, as he had not been to vote and it was drawing on towards
8-0.p.m. She told him he would most likely find him in the “Sants” so off he
went and found John enjoying a pint. He was coaxed to go to the school to vote
and standing by the fire was the other candidate and the returning Officer, Mr.
Evan Llewellyn, and they said ''Come on quick as it is closing time but John
did not know the way to vote s the Presiding Officer asked him who he was going
to vote for.” For Dai of course” said John. “But which of the two” he was asked
“They are both Dais”. “With Dai Jenkins of course” replied John, “Because he
gave me some boards to build a chickens cot”. Dai Jenkins got in by 16 votes
but did not contest the seat after, so Col Watts-Morgan got in afterwards and
held the seat all his life.
In the
year 1898 I was sent to Mountain Ash to work and we had a lot of work there
that year and the old foreman mason there was from by Llanrhystud, and a crowd
of masons and carpenters from the neighbourhood of Aberayron and Llarhystud followed him and there
was a little boy from Aberayron also a curate in the Welsh Church there. These
boys and him came from the same place and we used to take a walk together in
the summer with us was the little curate. We also went on Sunday nights to
church to hear him preach and we used to tease him that he was a poor preacher,
but he was a good preacher all the same. I eventually left Mountain Ash and
lost sight of the curate for 30 years until I heard his name. Timothy Reese
appointed Bishop of Llandaff.
When we
were building the Nythbran houses and after we had got in the swing of the job,
and in the fine weather, we were putting these houses up pretty smart. We built
a batch of 28 houses in 28 days, that is at the rate of a house per day taking
the 28 together. We had 2 very large portable engines, 25 H.P. each driving 5
motor mills. There was a man from Ynysybwl working one of the motor mills,
walking night and morning over the mountain. He was living in a caravan at
Ynysybwl and one morning he lost a quarter and did not turn up until breakfast
time. The head engine driver asked him what the matter was and he replied that
an old pal of his had come over to see him from Ystrad and it was such a rough
wet night that he stayed the night with us. The foreman said “I thought you
lived in a caravan John, if he stayed the night with you he must have slept
with you and your wife”. Oh, yes he did “ said John, that is how I lost the
quarter, I couldn’t leave them until it was light then I could trust the old
girl as long as she could see who was there with her.
About
the time I started at Porth most of the young masons and some of the carpenters
belonged to the Militia at Aberystwyth and the service time, 21 days in the
summer, were their holidays and they would spend all the money they had saved
in the first few days, and they were not having any pay until they were
terminating the training, so a few of these invented a scheme to make a bit of
money on fair day at Aberystwyth. There was a chap from Lampeter in the Militia
who was not quite 16 ounces. They were billeting in private houses that year
and so there was no camp. One of our masons pinched a feather bed from the
lodging and another one found some tar and they tarred and feathered the
Lampeter chap and put him in one of the stables of the Black Lion and they
shouted at the yard gate, “Come and see the wild Prince just sent home by one
of our battalions in India. Threepence each” People crowded in and they made a
good morning. They would throw pieces of raw Iiver to him till head was covered
with blood. By and by the officers of the company saw a gang of soldiers in the
yard of the Black Lion and went in to see what was going on. They all ran away
and left the Black Prince on his own in the stable. This chap was known as the
Black Prince until his dying day.
Life is made up of tragedies and worries and an occasional humourous incident is like a spring of fresh water in the desert. Thanks be to God, a great deal of the troubles and worries of Iife get more humorous as we grow older hence the old Welsh hymn “O Fryniau Caersalem Ceir Gweled”, and by the time we grow old all the circumstances of life harmonise together and we are like a flower bed with all its colours blending together, and many of our troubles of the past have become later to be humour and joy.
Footnote by granddaughter Anne
Evan Davies 1871 – 1940
Evan Davies wrote the above towards the end of his life. His brother Shem had been drowned in the river Teifi at the age of 16. Evan married Mary Jenkins, the daughter of the blacksmith (John Jenkins y Gof) from Llanwennog. They married in 1892 at Splott Chapel in Cardiff. They had three children, Griffith Robert 1893 - 1917, Sydney Austin 1895 – 1984 and Henrietta Elizabeth (my mother) 1902 - 1973. Griffith and Sydney served in the Great War and Griffith lost his life at age 25 in Ypres.
http://www.cwgc.org/cwgcinternet/results.aspx?surname=Davies&initials=G%20R&war=1&yearfrom=1917&yearto=2000&force=Army&nationality=6
|
2 |
Sapper |
134954 |
10/11/1917 |
25 |
Royal Engineers |
United Kingdom |
III. A. 16. |
ST. JULIEN DRESSING STATION CEMETERY |
Mary suffered from puerperal insanity after the birth of Henrietta and she was committed to the mental institution at Bridgend in 1909, and remained there until she died in 1940.
Evan’s life had seen great sadness.
