Chapter IX: Married Life
The year 1935 can be looked upon as the ‘Annus Mirabilis’ of my life. It was the year of my marriage, it was the year when I was awarded the M.A. degree of the University of Wales, it was the year when the Wales XV had one of its rare wins against the New Zealand All Blacks.
April the eleventh, 1935, was the beginning of a long and happy married life – long, because by now it has lasted over fifty years, the Golden Wedding having been celebrated on April the eleventh, 1985. The wedding day was, of course, a happy occasion, but it was not without its anxieties, anxieties which would appear rather odd to the modern generation.
Rural areas like Panteg and Llanfynydd had continued to follow wedding-day customs that had been long abandoned by urban dwellers. Early in the morning shot-guns would be fired and neighbours would congregate along the route taken to the chapel, and every now and then the children would hold a rope across the road in order to stop the bridegroom’s car or that of the bridesmaid and would allow the car to continue on its way after dues were paid.
My parents, and indeed I myself, had no wish to be subjected to such frolics and merrymaking, even though quite innocent. So every effort was made to keep the wedding secret, at any rate in my home area. I suppose most of the neighbours had a shrewd idea that a wedding was in the offing, but we were fairly sure that the actual day was not known. My cousin Cyril was to be the best man; he was to be fetched from Gwaun Cae Gurwen on the previous evening and transported to Bryngwyn in the hours of darkness. After breakfast on the day itself, the problem that confronted us was how to make sure that no-one was approaching on the road outside the yard. The manoeuvre, seemingly ridiculous after this long lapse of time, succeeded, and so we were able to leave in the hired car without being molested in any way.
It was Carrie’s wish too to have a quiet wedding, but as she by now lived in the middle of Llanfynydd village, the villagers had noticed the various preparations in Brynteg, and so through the bush telegraph the day and the time of the wedding became known. Therefore we were not able to escape altogether the customary jollification and merrymaking of a wedding day.
The reception was held in Jeremy’s Commercial Hotel in Carmarthen. This was a temperance hotel, and so there was no excessive wine-drinking, no alcohol even for the toasts. In spite of the happy atmosphere and well-wishing, we were both relieved to set out in the Austin Seven in the afternoon for the start of our honeymoon – first night in Cardiff, second night in Oxford, and then on to Romford to stay a night or two with Rachel and her family, before making our way to our new home along the south coast of England. The usual comment in those days in marriage reports in the local newspapers was ‘The honeymoon was spent touring’.
We had a right royal welcome when we arrived at Brynteg, Alan Road, several of our relatives having arrived on the day to set the house in order and to prepare a meal for our homecoming. Even the vegetable garden had been set. Gomer, Carrie’s brother, had spent the best part of a week digging and planting. Unfortunately his labours were not rewarded with the best results. The potatoes were well up when an untimely heavy snowstorm on May 17th blackened the haulms, giving a crop of very small potatoes later on. The irony of it was that on May 5th, the celebrations for the Silver Jubilee of King George V and Mary were held on the School field in beautifully warm weather.
We had been fortunate to have on rent a house in Alan Road that had been previously occupied by John Jenkins, our History Master. He had bought a house in Crescent Road and had moved there a few weeks before our wedding. We had viewed a few weeks before a brand new house in Diana Road, which was for sale at £700, a fairly high price at the time. But looking back over the years, we wonder what would have been the better proposition – a new house at £700, which is now valued at more than £40,000 or a house on rent at ten shillings a week. Of course, the main consideration at the time was the fact that ten shillings a week could be met by newly-weds much more easily than £700.
Brynteg was an old-fashioned house with a string of three rooms along a passage and a rather primitive kitchen and pantry at the far end. This really explains Carrie’s rather traumatic experience of cooking her first Sunday dinner. The Sunday joint had to be cooked in the wall-oven in our living room. She intended having the dinner ready by half past mid-day, but it was half past two when we were able finally to sit down to an adequately cooked meal. I suppose I must also accept part of the blame, as neither Carrie nor I had realised that in order to heat the oven to the right temperature, the fire needed to be lit early in the morning and then kept burning brightly. Soon after, an oil-stove was bought for the kitchen, and from then on a high standard of cooking was maintained by the mistress of the house.
The second highlight of the ‘Annus Mirabilis’ was the award of the M.A. degree of the University of Wales. I had submitted my final draft in April and was summoned for an interview about the end of May. It was obvious that the interviewers, Professor Wood of Aberystwyth and an external examiner, were experts in the Latin of the Age of the Saints. However, after being subjected to quite a thorough grilling it was agreed that I should be awarded the higher degree, but that I should not publish the thesis without making a few emendations at the advice of Professor Wood. It must be admitted, however, that the thought of publication had never entered my head.
When the news of the award was announced in the Carmarthen Journal I received the congratulations of many of the citizens of Llandeilo. The comment of our neighbour, shopkeeper Mrs George, was ‘What a man! Gaining a wife and an M.A. at the same time!’.
It may seem incongruous to list a Rugby Match as one of the three highlights of the ‘Annus Mirabilis’. But there was something very special about this Rugby Match. It was during the Christmas holidays of 1935. My brother-in-law, Charlie McAnally, the captain of a BP oil tanker, was on leave at the time, and I thought it would be a good Christmas treat for us to attend the Rugby International at Cardiff between Wales and New Zealand. The actual day was Saturday, December 21st, a very cold and frosty day. Indeed, there had been some doubt as to whether the game should be played, even though the ground had a liberal covering of straw. At any rate, we decided to take the risk.
The following is an account of the game, as described in the book ‘Fields of Praise’:- ” It was a sunny cold afternoon on 21 December, 1935. Everywhere else matches were abandoned because of the severe overnight frost. It had even penetrated the seven layers of straw laid on the Arms Park beforehand as a precaution.
“The Captain was Claude Davey, and the half-backs were Haydn Tanner and Cliff Jones.
“The last four minutes defied even Greek Mythology; no Homer, no Aeschylus could have scripted them. The seven-man pack (Tarr had been carried off with a broken neck), vilified through the twenties for their inadequacies, heeled from the scrum, Tanner scooped and swung that immaculate pass, Jones, going right, spurted on to it and towards the crevice between the two five eights. He moved away outside his opposite number just sufficiently to draw the inside centre into his gravitational field. At precisely the splittest of atomic seconds, Jones gave to Wooller. The centre moved into gear, then momentarily checked as he saw Davey coming toward him at a tangent. It was a favourite play from their days at Sale. Wooller sold, and as Davey thundered past, pulling Oliver with him he swung out into the open paddock and lengthened his stride. The crowd roared. Like Prometheus bursting his bond, Wooller surged out of the Welsh half ahead of the field and alone. On he galloped as Gilbert waited for him; again he kicked barely twenty feet over the full-back’s head, and once more there was the faithful Rees Jones to gather and score. The kick failed; 13-12 for Wales.”
Although the match proved to be an exciting one, with Wales winning by a point just before time, the viewing was far from being comfortable. We were positioned in the enclosure beneath the North Stand in the middle of a heaving and jostling crowd, insufficiently controlled by the few crash-barriers. We were half the time stretching on tip-toe to have a glimpse of the game over the heads of those in front. However, these were minor troubles compared with our experiences on the way home.
Because we were afraid of icy conditions on the roads, we decided to set off straightaway after the match. We had decided to do this too in order to avoid the usual long queues on the approaches to Cowbridge and Port Talbot, notorious bottle-necks before the M4 Motorway was built. A few miles along the road from Cardiff, the Austin Seven began to behave rather erratically, making the steering very difficult. I came to the conclusion that there was ice on the road causing the car to skid. But after driving a further few yards I had to stop.
To my horror, I had a flat wheel. We had to set about changing the wheel – not an easy task in the darkness. And I am not sure whether that was the first time I had the experience of changing a wheel. However the job was completed and so off we went. Just before approaching Port Talbot the car was skidding once more – it could not be possible that I had another puncture! So again I carried on further than I should have, with the same result as before – a flat wheel! Now, what was I to do? No spare wheel!
The time was around six o’clock, and as it was a Saturday there was little likelihood of a garage being open. However a bus soon appeared; I boarded it carrying the spare wheel with me and leaving Charlie in charge of the car. This time luck was on our side. There was a garage open on the outskirts of Port Talbot, and one of the mechanics was prepared to repair the puncture. But when the tube was taken out, it was all in one long piece, having been cut by being run too far. So I had to pay for a new tube – sixteen shillings! Fortunately, we had no further mishap. On the Monday morning I took the car to the garage in Llandeilo, and again the tube was found to be cut and had to be replaced – another sixteen shillings! A very expensive and unpleasant trip, but, of course, a memorable one.
The highlight of 1936 was the birth of our first offspring, a daughter. What was to be her name? After much deliberation, we decided upon a name which we thought would be easy to enunciate, and at the same time would be different from names so often repeated in our families. However we made a compromise by adopting Margaret as one of the two names. But the other name, Una, would be the one that would be used. Why Una? Many thought that we had given her that name as I was a Latin teacher, and that maybe the final goal would be Decima! No, I had read in Spenser’s Faerie Queene about the heroine Una, the One who combined all the virtues. A difficult ideal to be upheld in adult life!
Looking back from a modern point of view, I now realise that I gave very little help to Carrie in looking after and nursing a baby during the critical first year. I suppose the modern feminist would accuse me of being a male chauvinist. The husband in those days, and in most cases, never changed a baby’s nappy, and he was never seen pushing a pram along the streets, except in the company of his wife. In those days too, looking after a baby meant that you were for most of the time confined to your home area. Young babies were not carried in carrycots in the back of the car, and by now the habit of mothers taking young babies to religious services and concerts had been more or less stopped.
However we managed to have a holiday when Una was about twelve months – a holiday which, although under Spartan conditions, we thoroughly enjoyed, especially as Una loved to splash in the sea. We had a very unusual kind of caravan near the beach in Pendine. It was a kind of Heath Robinson affair – an old bus converted into a caravan, with hard seats having a thin covering to form a bed, and a rather primitive oil stove for the cooking. But it was a very enjoyable holiday for more than one reason. The weather was ideal, the caravan was sited almost on the beach enabling you to run down to the sea in your bathing costume, and, of course, the unusual conditions of living in such a contraption added to the feeling of fun and adventure.
I might have been accused too of dereliction of duty in that I managed to have my recreation and relaxation from teaching by spending many hours on the golf course while Carrie performed her wifely duties at home. Several members of the staff were keen golfers and so I was persuaded to join the Golf Club and to play almost regularly on Friday evenings, and even on Saturday afternoons.
My mentor and instructor was George Benson, our Art Master. He was a Scot brought up on the many municipal courses around Glasgow, and was one of the two lowest handicapped golfers in the Llandeilo club. No doubt he was a fine golfer, but he was hardly a fine instructor – he was more concerned with the improvement of his own game, especially the length of his drive. The result was that I developed some bad habits of which I was never cured. Both my grip and my swing became rather unorthodox. However I managed to bring down my handicap from 24 to 17, and even to win a Rabbit’s Cup, a competition confined to handicaps of 18 to 24. It was after this success that my handicap was reduced to 17.
1938 was the year when our second daughter was born. The name chosen this time was Nest, and only Nest. She was a mediaeval Welsh princess renowned for her beauty, but, unlike the heroine of the Faerie Queene, she was hardly a combination of all the virtues.
Poor Nest was not given the best start in life. As a result of reading what were supposed to be modern methods of feeding a baby, we failed to choose the food that should encourage growth and produce a bonny healthy baby. I must confess that the fault lay with me more than with Carrie. Every time Nest had hiccups after a feed I used to maintain that the cause was too much fat in the milk. So the fat content was reduced to such an extent that it became quite evident that she was not having sufficient nutrition. However after surviving such treatment during the first six months, she began to thrive after the introduction of more solids.
Along with these changes in family life went some changes, somewhat insignificant at the beginning, in the teaching of Latin at Llandeilo Grammar (now) School. These changes turned into a flood after the War. The changes became more evident with the conversion of Grammar Schools into Comprehensive Schools.
The writing began to show on the wall in Llandeilo when a new Science Laboratory was built and when a very enthusiastic and able chemistry teacher was appointed. From then on the more clever boys opted to take Science in the Sixth form, and even those who opted for the Arts chose to study readable subjects like Geography and History rather than undergo the more exacting discipline of a foreign language, and especially a dead language.
During my many journeys in trains when I was in the Army, and also when staying in hotels during holidays I was often asked what was my job. When I answered ‘Teaching’, the next question was, ‘What did you teach?’. The answer ‘Latin’ almost always raised eyebrows and encouraged another question, ‘What is the point of teaching a dead language?’ A difficult question to answer to persons who had very little academic background.
Nowadays, with the government’s emphasis on preparing pupils for the technological age, Latin as a subject in the school curriculum is fast disappearing. Almost every Comprehensive School Headmaster in Wales has by now thrown the subject overboard. I must admit that under Ray Samuel’s headship I was given very favourable conditions for the teaching of Latin, and so managed to present candidates for A level, although few, until I retired. But today, under a Head who is a Science specialist, Latin has ceased to be included in the curriculum.
But worse than these bad omens for the teaching of Latin were the omens of impending war. In spite of Chamberlain’s ‘Peace in our time’ message on his return from the meeting with Hitler in Munich, the clouds of war were looming darker every day. But this did not stop us arranging to have a fortnight’s holiday by the seaside towards the end of August 1939.
We had booked a cottage for a self-catering holiday near Poppit Sands, not far from Cardigan and on the Teifi estuary. We took with us Carrie’s sister, Maggie, and her two daughters, Jean and Betty. Maggie was married to Charlie McAnally, the captain of an oil tanker, who was somewhere on the High Seas at the time. We had an enjoyable holiday, except on the final day, Saturday September the Second. The news was bad; Poland had been invaded and the declaration of war was considered to be imminent.
So with due haste early in the morning we packed everything into the boot of the Austin Seven and then pushed all seven of us into the confined space of such a small car. The four children, of course, were small enough to be squeezed in somehow or other. When we arrived home, we were told that every window in the house should have black-out curtains, and that not even the tiniest chink of light should be seen from the outside, and indeed newly-appointed air-raid wardens, in the manner of new brooms, performed their duty so thoroughly that many a door-knocker was rapped loudly during the first nights of the war. Then on the next day, Sunday September the Third, the awesome announcement was made on the Radio at eleven o’clock by Neville Chamberlain that Britain was at war.
September 1939 was also the time when my parents, having decided to retire from farming, moved from Bryngwyn to Fronolau, a newly-built bungalow near Peniel and not far from the main road leading to Carmarthen. We had many pleasant visits to Fronolau. We all enjoyed the freshly-cooked food produced by my mother – her specialities were Welsh Cakes and fruit tarts. It was a pleasure too to roam around the country lanes on pleasantly warm days in Spring and Summer. But we were not allowed to forget the war. At the beginning teachers over the age of thirty were exempt from military service. However with no signs of the war coming to an end and with the many casualties suffered in Dunkirk, it became obvious that the exemption would not continue indefinitely.