CLYDACH VALE

A trip to Clydach Vale. Going on the motorway and then on the Llantrisant bypass, it seems as if I'm forever on roads designed to avoid places and consequently they have numerous roundabouts with smaller roads off to somewhere else. The last of these thoroughfares follows the line of the Ely Valley Railway from Tonyrefail to Penygraig - a train journey long since ceased. Quickly it seems that I arrive on the valley road of Clydach Vale without any preparation for the change of mode required for travelling on the long narrow residential streets. The road is steep, the terraces tight and the shops are infrequent unlike one area where there seems to be a plethora of chapels, for opposite St Thomas’ church there are three in a row. Only Noddfa, the Welsh Baptist Church appears to be meeting the purpose for which it was built, for the English Baptist Chapel, Bethany, is for sale and the Calvinist Chapel, Libanus, is now a centre for parents and children. However, to ensure that the spiritual needs of the area are not entirely bereft, the Bethel Bush Free Mission is only a few yards down the valley. But then, further up the road the Zoar Welsh Independent Chapel has long given up its initial sacred function and now serves as a home for the elderly. 

Clydach Vale - Three Chapels

At least some chapels seemed to be surviving institutions and this in line with the pubs; ‘The Central’ is now a convenience store; ‘The Bush’ has boards over some windows and looks run down but is reputed to be open, but thankfully ‘The Clydach Vale’ appears functioning.

I drive past the school, where, in 1910, 3 children were killed when all the pupils were trapped by water which had suddenly broken out of old mine workings. In flooding the village, the deluge also killed a woman and two babies. A portent of the Aberfan disaster.

I’ve come to Clydach Vale to look at a place where Tommy Farr boxed and which is now the ruin of Clydach Vale Workingmen’s Club. On the 25th January 1930 aged 16 years, Farr fought his 66th fight against another boxer originating from Clydach Vale, Llew Hadyn. In those days there were not the same rules about weights and ages for professional fights - any kind of matches were made to make up programmes in local venues. Haydn was older and he fought mainly at bantamweight; Farr although younger was probably heavier - but he still had some growing to do as later he fought Joe Louis for the Heavyweight Championship of the world! Farr lost on points to Haydn over 10 rounds on that Saturday afternoon. He had fought 8 days earlier and he would leave the venue, then named the New Inn Hotel, to travel the 16 miles to Blaengarw for an evening contest where he beat Rees Owen of Treherbert also over 10 rounds. Llew Haydn’s victory means that there are likely to be descendants of his, perhaps still living locally, who can says that their grandfather beat Tommy Farr! I hope this private memory is held and cherished by someone.

I arrive near the end of the valley road and the burnt out building. As I take photographs, a woman comes to chat. 

Clydach Vale Workingmens' Club - 'Top Club'

We talk about what was and what now is in the village. She asks why I am taking a photo of the old “Top Club”. I explain to her that I am interested because it was a location of a Tommy Farr fight. “I didn’t think there was boxing there.” she says. She even seemed uncertain as to who Tommy Farr was. “My Dad never told me about that happening in the club,” she said in a confident manner making me wonder about local memory and supposed heroes. She can see that I am disappointed and seemingly to make recompense she points to a building across the road and says, “That was where we had our dances. We called it the Assembly Rooms. Like a lot of things it’s all boarded up now.” But the thought of her dancing as a young woman seems to buoy both of us up and jauntily she confides that she is now going to visit her friend to see if she wants to go to a 60’s night in Tonypandy.

After our chat by the old club, I park at the end of the valley road and amble the short distance along the path and over the little river bridge to the Cambrian Colliery Memorial. Walking up to slope I noticed the ground is made up of the detritus of demolition, bits of broken brick, concrete chippings and lots of shaley stones all embedded in the black of the slag dust - every now and then glinting in the sun a  few shining coal pebbles.

Cambrian Colliery Memorial

I sit on the bench in the Memorial looking at the usual features of the winding gear wheel and the tram with coal concreted onto the top. Just outside the stone wall is a lift cage which would have been used to carrying the trams up and down the pit shaft. Weeds are establishing themselves in the stones around the memorial objects together with Coke cans, Lucozade bottles and packaging from KFC.

Clydach Vale from Cambrian Colliery Memorial

I recall the history. 1905, an explosion with the loss of 33 lives and serious injury to 14 others. 1941, at the 'Gorky' drift mine 7 men killed and 53 injured when a trolley transporting  miners ran out of control. 1965, an explosion in Cambrian Colliery killed 31 miners. I read the memorial stone to those of 1965 which also makes mention of the “many who have died and continue to die as a result of industrial disease”. I try to read the words on the fading messages on the now rotting flowers brought as tribute. “In memory of William Richards (1860 - 1915) A fatal accident victim in No 1 Pit of this colliery, December 17th 1915 and his son Thomas Richards (1904 - 1969) a workman in No1 and No 2 Pits.” A private grief and treasured remembrance of fathers which escapes the public history with its focus on multiple deaths. Another card honouring the three disasters pays tribute to “the women… whose contribution caring for men and families was immense….many of these also found early graves.” Some memories are held and the 'heroes' all live in families.

I sit quietly and hear the sounds composing the quietness of the place. The wind in the trees, a crow cawing, dogs barking. I see some dog walkers, no doubt following their own routine, synchronised with nobody except those at home. There are domestic noises in the distance, somebody is hammering wood and friends are calling to each other. For a few moments the sound of an aeroplane way up high, hidden by the clouds and then a return to the silence of nature. A wood pigeon flies past and I hear the flap of its wings. The sun moves slowly across the sky, casting changing highlights on the spokes of the pit head wheel. As I sit, occasionally, the wind stirs up the industrial ghosts, the clunky bangs of heavy machinery, the falling thuds of stone and coal, the shouts of working men, all echo in the still background. 

above the ghosts 

a buzzard circles 

indifferent to my leaving