Chapter VIII: Teaching; and thesis work
It was well on in the Summer holidays of 1930 that I received an encouraging reply to an application for a job, and surprise of surprises, it was from my old school, Carmarthen Grammar School. I had seen a notice in the Western Mail, asking for applications for a temporary Latin and English post. It was to be held for two years, while the incumbent teacher had a two years sabbatical leave to pursue a course for a B.Lit. degree in Oxford University. I was invited to an interview by the new Headmaster, Mr Tudor Williams. I found him to be a stern-looking and rather humourless person, and after asking me several searching questions, he told me that he would let me know later whether I would be offered the appointment.
In the meantime I had submitted an application for a similar post, but for one year only, in Aberaeron County School. Within a few days of submitting this application I received a telegram asking me to come for an interview. I was in a dilemma now – should I accept the invitation or take the telegram to show to Tudor Williams and present it to him as a kind of ultimatum? I decided on the latter course, and was immediately offered the job.
As I had done when a pupil in the School, I had to find lodgings in the town. Still no suitable public transport from Panteg! I was fortunate in having a gradual introduction to teaching, as Mr E. V. Williams, whom I was replacing, did not have to leave his post until the beginning of October, the date for the commencement of the Autumn Term in Oxford. I shared several of the lessons on my time-table with him, and was able to observe his methods and also to receive his advice on the syllabus. I was also able to observe the class behaviour of the pupils under his expert teaching. He had a very lively approach to his teaching, keeping his pupils on the alert, and thus having no trouble with discipline.
After he left, I soon realised that his methods could not be mine. I was raw and inexperienced, and found it difficult to control some of the disruptive boys in the B forms. However I had the full support of the Headmaster, who was himself a stern disciplinarian, and, unlike Mr Allen, roamed a great deal around the school, keeping an eagle eye on any signs of misbehaviour, and indeed on any signs of slack discipline among the staff.
I cannot say that I enjoyed my first term of teaching. Little worries, somehow or other, became big ones, mainly because I spent almost all my evenings hidden away, as it were, in my digs, marking piles of books, and moping over trivial problems. Fortunately, I enjoyed the friendship of two of the youngest members of the staff, Glan Williams, the Geography master, the former Aber student who interrupted proceedings in the Lit. and Deb. with his yodelling, and E.V. Clement, the cool and imperturbable Music master.
By the end of the term I was fast approaching a state of nervous tension. As a result I made a decision which brought me salvation and a new outlook on my work. The decision was to buy a car so that I could go home every evening, and so forget the school and its problems. But more than that I was now able to have the company of the one who, after a long courtship, was to become my wife. Carrie and I used to go for long walks together and then any little worries that I had could be shared with her.
With the money I had saved at the end of the Autumn term, and probably with substantial help from my parents, I bought the cheapest car available, the popular Austin Seven. Its actual price was £120. I had no idea how to drive it, so Evans Motors arranged for one of the mechanics to accompany me for one mile out of the town in the TH1353. After a little instruction in the art of gear changing (without synchromesh in those days), I was left to drive the five miles home all on my own. I must have crashed the gears often, and when in the act of changing gear I found it difficult to keep to the straight and narrow. In those days, of course, there was very little traffic, especially in the region of Panteg. So by the end of the holidays, after driving on the lanes around Bryngwyn, I became competent enough to drive to Carmarthen for the first day of the Spring Term.
At the beginning of the term Glan Williams, E.V. Clement and I arranged to have our lunch served in the Staff room by Sixth Form girls from the School next door – a hot lunch at one shilling a time! This arrangement continued for the rest of the two years I spent in the School. For E.V.Clement and me the dinner hour was a time of complete relaxation, but not so for Glan Williams. A lot of the work set in Geography was map-work, which could be marked more or less at a glance. So Glan arranged for a particular form to leave at the end of the morning their exercise books on their desks open at the latest work set. He would then walk around the Form room jotting down his marks – a very economical way of marking, which enabled him to return home to Llanelli in the evenings without having any marking to be done.
Becoming more experienced and more relaxed, I felt I was overcoming my little problems, and even at the end of the year hoping that I could be offered a permanency. My opinion of the staff underwent a radical change too. Two of the teachers, newly appointed when I was a pupil, continued to be unpopular with the boys, and indeed with most of the staff, but I had to make a radical change in my opinion of one of the staff, whom I adversely criticised in a previous chapter. Mr Ellis took me under his wing, often took me to tea in his house, and was always ready to give me helpful advice. I even kept a kind of distant friendship with him, after the two years expired. We invariably met when the Brecon College v. Llandovery College rugger match was played in Llandovery.
The year 1931 was the year when the between-wars depression was at its worst. It was the year when in parts of South Wales unemployment was a high as 47 per cent. It was the year when the financial crisis hit the whole of America and Western Europe. It was the year when the Geddes axe made the cruellest cut of all – a cut of ten per cent in the salaries of teachers. Today the teachers are striking not because of a cut, but because the rise offered to them is considered insufficient. It must be admitted, however, that the teachers’ financial position then compared quite favourably with that of the other professions, while today it has dropped down significantly in the pay league.
It was in the Spring of 1931 that I submitted my thesis, and although Professor Mountford had assured me that the work was good enough to satisfy the examiners, it was turned down. Professor Mountford had in the meantime been appointed Professor of Latin in Liverpool University, where he eventually became Vice-Chancellor. So the internal examiner was the newly appointed Professor Wood, a specialist, according to Professor Mountford, in Ecclesiastical Latin and in the period of the Celtic saints.
I was told in the interview that the main reason for turning the thesis down was that I had not checked the references that I had quoted from such dictionaries as Lewis and Short. I had always thought the Lewis and Short dictionary was the Latin Vocabulary Bible, as it were, but Professor Wood advised me to check my references and to rewrite certain parts and that then it would be sure to be accepted.
It was after this that I made frequent visits to the National Library of Wales and occasional visits to the British Museum. Many a Saturday Carrie and I would set off in the Austin Seven to roam around the country, and many a time we drove to Aber so that I could check a few references – a good excuse for a pleasant trip together! In spite of the disappointment at having my thesis rejected, I used to enjoy these trips to Aber, but I am sure that the books staff in the Library came to hate the sight of me.
Checking references meant that I had to order some huge volumes, several at the same time, just to have a quick glance whether the reference was a correct one, and then possibly in five or ten minutes, return the books and order another set, but it became obvious to me that quite a number of references given in standard editions were incorrect, and then I would have to read on in that particular edition to see if I could find the word or phrase quoted. The volumes I consulted most of the time were a huge collection, some hundreds of them, of what was called Migne’s Patrologia. These were the works of Medieval authors such as Cyprian, Frontinus, Cassiodorus etc. The staff became so fed up with carting these huge and heavy volumes from the underground store-rooms to the Reading room that they decided to let me have a chair near the shelves, and thus pick out the relevant volumes myself.
Some references were to be found in old out-of-print books, which were obtainable only in the British Museum. So I decided to spend a part of my summer holidays staying in London in order to make daily visits to the Museum. I could not afford to stay in an expensive hotel, but through some good fortune, I found ideal bed and breakfast lodgings in Highbury with a Mrs Heddle, the widow of a medical doctor who had practised in the Rhondda. Mrs Heddle was a very refined lady, who had had to resort to taking in research students and University students in order to eke out a living. But it must have been a very modest living, as she charged only three shillings and sixpence for bed and breakfast, and the breakfast was such as I had never enjoyed when in college – unlimited cereal, bacon and egg, toast and marmalade and then a bowl of fruit on the table from which you could help yourself.
Working in the British Museum was a novel experience for me, although I had experienced conditions in a large library, like the National Library of Wales. First of all, an application for a Reader’s ticket, signed by a responsible person such as a Justice of the Peace, had to be made. Fortunately, Mrs Heddle was a J.P. and readily signed my application.
The Reading room was restricted only to those doing genuine research. It was a huge circular room with long benches radiating like the spokes of a wheel from a kind of central rotunda, where you tendered slips for each of the books you wanted to consult. A ‘bench’ is hardly the suitable description for a long row of what might be described as attached desks, with a similar arrangement on the other side of the row. A fairly high partition prevented you from seeing the readers on the other side. The floor had a rubbery covering which completely deadened the sound made by the toing and froing of readers.
The maximum number of books you could order at one time was five. So after finding a suitable desk I submitted the five slips to a librarian in the centre, returned to my desk and waited for the books to be delivered. The wait was usually about an hour. The hour of waiting was generally spent in watching the interesting characters reading nearby or watching them taking their slips to the librarian. Although this wait became boring at times, it was very interesting to watch the peculiar types of readers – some in long robes like those of the Arabs, some with long beards and hair hanging down their backs, not a common sight in those days.
But what surprised me was that very often you could see some of the very old readers with lolled heads, sleeping over their books. I have seen since such scenes in the Reading rooms of Public Libraries, especially the one in Rhyl – old, and even young, bedraggled down and outs, slumped over daily papers, a convenient shelter in inclement weather but the sleeping readers in the British Museum had had to have tickets showing that they were engaged in research.
When eventually the books were brought, sometimes it would not take me more than five minutes to check my references. I would then return them to the central desk, and submit another five slips, settling down once again for about an hour to await the arrival of the books ordered. Occasionally, I would find that the reference was inaccurate and had to read through almost the whole of the book to find the quotation. On one occasion I was told that a particular book I had ordered could not be brought to me in the ordinary way, but that I would have to go to the ’sanctum sanctorum’, the Room for rare books and manuscripts. So the amount of research done during the day varied a great deal, but I believe I had covered most of the work intended.
The stay in London, however, was not all work and no play. In the evening I would go to the theatre, to the gods of course, and sometimes with my co-diggers to the Lyons’ Corner House, where you could have a light supper with musical accompaniment. I remember being very thrilled by a play with the title ‘Trial’ in, I believe, the Playhouse. The scene from beginning to end was a Court of Law, with the plot being very cleverly worked out in the dialogue of the prosecuting and defending barristers.
Towards the time when I had decided to submit the thesis for the second time, I found that I had to check a few more references in books obtainable only in the British Museum. So I decided to drive up on a Saturday, and that I would take two of my cousins with me so that they could enjoy the sights of London while I worked in the Museum.
The two were my cousins John Howell and Cyril. I had to make in my Austin Seven a very early start on the Saturday morning, about four o’clock, and right at the beginning of the journey I had to make a detour to pick up Cyril in Gwaun Cae Gurwen. We must have made good time although the Austin Seven was not capable of setting up any speed records, for I was in the British Museum before mid-day.
As the Reading Room was open until five o’clock I managed to cover the work that I had mapped out. During that time John Howell and Cyril had been to Highbury to see Arsenal playing. After we met at our rendezvous and had had a meal, we decided to see a play before returning home. Although I had already seen ‘The Trial’, I was prepared to see it again with my cousins. It was nearly midnight when we started off for home. Again making a detour to Gwaun Cae Gurwen, I arrived home about dawn, completely exhausted. We must have covered about four hundred and forty miles that day, or perhaps I should say in a day and a half. And nowadays my daughters tell me that I am not capable of driving one hundred and fifty miles to Oxford.
Towards the end of the second year in Carmarthen Grammar School there were rumours among the staff that one of the two temporary teachers on the staff would be offered a permanency. I did not consider myself the front runner, so when a Latin post in Llandeilo County School was advertised in the Western Mail, I immediately put in an application. The Latin post had become vacant through the retirement of the Headmaster, Gwyn Jones, who had taught Latin in the School during the whole of his long tenure of the Headship. The newly-appointed head of Llandeilo was Mr Evan Morris, an Oxford University graduate in History, and History Master in Gwendraeth Grammar School.
It was my good fortune to gain the appointment, but it must be admitted that although I did not resort to personal canvassing of the School Governors, the actual canvassing was done by a close friend of my family. Alderman W.D. Davies, Parcygroes, was one of the Llandeilo County school Governors, and a big friend of the Chairman of the Governors, Mrs Jones, Manorafon. He must have put some pressure on Evan Morris, for I was appointed out of a record number of applicants – hundred and ten – and several of these were PhDs.
At the same time as I had to start in the new School, Carrie left Panteg School to start teaching in the school where she had begun her schooling as a child – Capel Isaac Council School. It is strange how the fates had decreed that I should start my teaching career in my Alma Mater and that Carrie should return to her nursery, as it were.
These changes brought a change in the pattern of our lives. Carrie set out from Waunlluest, Llanfynydd, on her bicycle along lonely leafy country lanes, sailing downhill to Capel Isaac, but having to trudge wearily up the same hill on the way home. I must have started my morning journey from Bryngwyn, Panteg, more or less at the same time, having, of course, a more comfortable ride to Llandeilo in my little Austin Seven.
Carrie, now living at home in Waunlluest, and I living at home in Bryngwyn were not able to meet as often as we used to, but we were still fortunate in being able to meet, most times, twice a week. Both being teachers, we had become habituated to leading our lives according to timetable. So we met regularly on Wednesday evening after I had had a coaching session with the School Rugger team and had had tea in Myrddin Café. The trysting time was six o’clock and the trysting place was the top of the lane leading to Waunlluest, a quiet spot where we thought no prying eyes could be peeping through the hedges We would drive along country lanes, stopping at convenient beauty spots. We were indeed avoiding those areas where we thought we might be seen by our pupils.
In those days teachers were luckier than most workers in having the whole of Saturday free. My impression is that the five-day week had not yet been introduced. I would pick up Carrie at the same rendezvous, probably mid-morning, and then we would set off to more distant places, such as Swansea, Carmarthen, Aberystwyth, and so on. I well remember going to Carmarthen several times, having a cream tea for one shilling and threepence at the Anchor Café, and then ‘pictures’ in the Lyric Cinema.
I have already mentioned that courting was a cloak and dagger affair- that is, everything was done to keep the courtship secret. But, of course, we were really fooling ourselves. I even thought that my parents were oblivious of the fact that I was going steadily with Carrie. That was convincingly disproved on one occasion.
On a Wednesday I had taken the usual rugger practice after school and then met Carrie as usual even though I had a bad cold. On the following morning my cold had worsened and I must have developed a high temperature, and so there was no possibility of my leaving my bed and setting off for school. My big worry in bed was how to let Carrie know that I would not be able to meet her on Saturday at the usual time, at the usual place. But the problem was solved and that by my Mother. Soon after breakfast she came up to the bedroom, and in her forthright manner told me that I was in no way going to be fit enough to meet my girl-friend on Saturday, but, to my surprise, she offered to bring up pen and paper so that I could write a letter, which she would hand over to the postman when he came on his rounds.
My school time-table was now very different from the one that I followed in Carmarthen Grammar School. I was now in sole charge of the teaching of Latin throughout the School. I was really looking forward to the challenge, especially the teaching of Latin in the Sixth form. I was indeed fortunate in having to teach a Sixth form of seven pupils who had been well drilled in the elements of the language by the long-serving Head of the School, Mr Gwyn Jones, whom I never had the pleasure of meeting.
The syllabus of the Higher School Certificate, the equivalent of A level today, demanded an appreciation of classical scholarship which could not be expected from pupils who did not take the study of Latin beyond the Senior Certificate (the equivalent to O level). Up to O level the emphasis was on learning the elements of the language and on a rather superficial introduction to Latin literature, whereas the teaching in the Sixth Form had to be directed towards the understanding of the idiom of the language, so much different from that of English, and to the deeper appreciation of the works of Latin authors, both in prose and in verse.
However, what I failed to understand in the first year was that most pupils, even at the advanced stage of the Sixth Form, need a great deal of drilling and persistent driving, and indeed continual revision and testing. The Head in Carmarthen Grammar School used to say that the three R’s of learning are Revision, Revision, Revision. Failing to understand this meant that the results in Latin at Higher and Senior level were far from satisfactory, indeed very poor. Of the nineteen pupils at Senior level only five obtained passes. Most of the Sixth Formers passed, but not one of them had any outstanding success, though one of them had done well enough to pursue an Honours Course in the University and gain a good Second Class.
So in the second year I realised that in order to produce good results a great deal of drilling and testing was necessary. Although such an approach produced very good examination results at the end of the year, and indeed continued to do so up to the period of my army service in the Second World War, yet, with hindsight, I am inclined to think that the concentration on attaining good results prevented my promoting and encouraging a real interest in and love of the language – the study of the language became simply a vehicle for obtaining one more subject on a pupil’s certificate, and especially since in those days Latin was one of the subjects required for University matriculation and yet, many pupils must have enjoyed studying Latin for the simple reason that they were having continual success and were gaining good marks.
Having had my secondary education in a boys’ school, and having started my teaching career in the same school, I was not wholly happy coping with the discipline of a mixed school. On the one hand, making a fresh start, as it were, in a new school, I was able to profit from the mistakes I had made in my first school; on the other hand it was a new experience teaching Forms of thirty five or more boys and girls. But on the whole, the girls, as well as the boys, were well-behaved and amenable to discipline. I soon learned that a quiet rhythm was gained in a lesson through minimising the ‘chalk and talk’ and keeping the Form fully occupied.
However the quiet rhythm was sometimes disturbed by talking, and in this the chief culprits were the girls. I well remember in my first year having to admonish one little girl in Form II for continually talking with her neighbour. She was a chubby-cheeked pretty girl, with a broad and constant smile. What was I to do with her? I could not give her a slap, as I must confess I did occasionally to a boy. So the only alternative was to give her ‘lines’ or an ‘imposition’. At the beginning of the next lesson unasked she would produce the ‘lines’ with the usual irrepressible smile on her face, and you could rest assured that she would be guilty of the same misbehaviour before the end of the lesson.
I was fortunate to have to teach in the Upper Forms only those who had opted to take Latin to the Senior Certificate level. They were both intelligent and keen to learn the language. Indeed that was the main difference between the teaching in Carmarthen Grammar School and Llandeilo County school; in Carmarthen I taught both Latin and English only in the Lower Forms, whereas in Llandeilo it was always a great relief to have a lesson in an Upper Form immediately after one in a Lower Form.
Good discipline, of course, is absolutely essential for efficient and successful teaching. But how is good discipline maintained? I do not think that there is one all-embracing answer to that question. A great deal depends on the personality of the teacher. However I feel sure that biting sarcasm, so often used by some teachers and so often successful in keeping a class cowed, is a weapon that in the final analysis succeeds only in engendering a kind of animosity between teacher and child. Nevertheless it is difficult to define the kind of personality that can achieve good discipline and a happy class atmosphere.
I well remember a lecture given by E.B Castle, the Headmaster of the Quaker Independent School, Leighton Park, Reading, during World War II. At that time I was an Army Education Instructor, a member of a three-man team stationed in Reading. The lecture was given in the Kendrick Road Army Education Centre to a group of soldiers who had applied to pursue a course for Emergency Trained Teachers.
He welcomed the introduction of mature soldiers, trained in Army discipline, to the teaching profession; there was a threat of a breakdown of discipline in many schools, mainly because many of the younger inexperienced teachers were failing miserably in maintaining control of their classes. He quoted an example from his own school. A young teacher had only recently turned up in his study, tearfully complaining that he found it impossible to control the boys in the Lower Forms. But what was surprising about this case was that the young man had a fine physique, a personable appearance, and was a fine games player – attributes, one would think, that should help him to set up a good relationship with and an effective control of his classes. So one must come to the conclusion that the attributes essential for good discipline are not at all easy to be defined.
The staff of Llandeilo County School, like the pupils, were mixed – the women teachers in their own staff room, and the men in theirs. When I began teaching in Llandeilo, I was by far the youngest man, and was the only one who was unmarried, apart from one old bachelor. Unlike in the staff room in Carmarthen there were no separate cliques causing any disaffection. Indeed I found them all very helpful and ready to give advice, but only when asked. They were pleased to welcome a young man on the staff, who could take ‘games’ with the boys. I enjoyed taking the games sessions, although it meant my having to take some of the sessions after school hours, and indeed having to take charge of the first Team on Saturday mornings, both at home and away.
In spite of a great deal of my time being taken up by duties out of school hours and by the twice-weekly meetings with Carrie, I managed to devote quite a lot of my time to the continuation of my research. On the whole, however, it was during the school holidays that most of the work was done. One summer holiday I decided to put in some intensive work at the National Library, Aberystwyth, for about three or four weeks. To avoid the expense of staying in digs or in an hotel, I decided to take advantage of an offer to buy an Army bell tent at a bargain price. What the bargain price was I cannot remember.
The next step was to persuade my cousin Cyril, who was a student in Swansea University College at the time, to join me on a site on Morfa Mawr farm, between Aberaeron and Llanon. It is beyond my powers of imagination to recollect how we loaded the tent and all the necessary camping equipment, such as a small oil-stove, can of paraffin, frying pan etc, into the confined spaces of an Austin Seven.
When we arrived at Morfa Mawr we were given the whole range of the farm from which to choose a suitable site. Eventually we decided on a small patch of ground within a few yards of the pebbly sea-shore and alongside which a small stream flowed into the sea – a seemingly ideal site We unpacked the gear, laid out on the ground all the various items, and anxiously contemplated how two novices were going to set about assembling such an array of diverse parts, at the same time anticipating such vain attempts as are often depicted on television comedies these days.
The centre pole, in two or three sections for travelling, had to be assembled first and then inserted into the tent to be opened like an umbrella. After much heaving and puffing the pole was held upright by one of us, while the guy-ropes were pulled out and pegged to the ground. Actually, the tent was finally set up just before the onset of darkness. But it was then that the real problems began. What about food? What about blankets? What about the best position for sleeping? Such were some of the many problems.
I cannot remember how the food problem was solved. It must have been corned beef sandwiches and cold water. The blankets were obviously inadequate for keeping us warm. But the biggest disaster was the spot chosen for lying down to sleep. The ground covered by our ground-sheets proved to be not so even as we had thought – the small bumps felt through the thin ground-sheet began to feel long before midnight like the bumps in a badly-shaken feather bed. Coupled with this was the discomfort caused by the draught from all sides, again exaggerated as the night progressed without our succeeding to go off to sleep. What a relief to get up at the crack of dawn, to get the stove working, and eventually to sit down, or rather to half lie down, to eat a hot breakfast of bacon and egg.
This holiday could not have been wholly enjoyable for Cyril, having to devise different ways and means of passing the time while I devoted most of the daylight hours of the three weeks to delving among the hefty tomes in the cavernous cellars of the National Library. The evenings were mostly spent cooking and performing those chores necessary when camping, so happy when the weather is fine, so miserable when the rain pours down and finds the chinks in the well-worn canvas. At the end of the three weeks the verdict was that the experience was hardly one to be repeated. Indeed I cannot remember that the tent was ever used afterwards.
An incident connected with my research visit to Aberystwyth comes vividly to mind. It was on a cold frosty day in the middle of the Christmas holidays. In spite of the icy condition of the roads I decided to set out from Bryngwyn in order to check a few references in my thesis, at the same time realising that it would be wise to start for home early in the afternoon in case I should have an accident on slippery parts of the road. So I packed up at the National Library around three o’clock so that I could have at least an hour’s drive in comparative daylight.
After driving round a few bends on the Blaenplwyf to Llanrhystud road I came to the straight stretch leading to the village of Llanrhystud. In front of me at a distance of about fifty yards I could see a bus followed closely by a car. The bus stopped near a junction to a road on the left hand side, a woman alighted from the bus, crossed in front of the bus right into the path of the following car. The driver of the car braked so fiercely that the car turned right round with the woman half hanging from the bonnet.
I stopped at the scene of the accident and offered help to a nurse who happened to be travelling on the bus. The nurse thought that the woman had broken a leg and that she should be taken to the Hospital in Aberystwyth. The mind boggled as to how we managed to push a woman with a broken leg into the back of the Austin Seven. I help with the carrying of the woman into the hospital, and as no one seemed to take notice of me, the sole witness of the accident, and as I was anxious to resume my journey home, I set off without exchanging a word with anyone. I was very relieved to arrive home safe and sound, although I had had quite a fright when my car skidded across the road on a nasty bend near Morfa Mawr.
On the next few mornings I anxiously awaited the arrival of the postman, thinking that the police, somehow or other, would have traced the person who must have been the sole witness of the accident. These days a police message would be broadcast on Radio, asking the driver of an Austin Seven to phone the number of the police Headquarters in Aberystwyth. However, although I thought at the time that an important witness should have been consulted, I was very relieved that the outcome should have been what it was.
Although I had many successful trips in the Austin Seven TH1353 it sometimes failed me in difficult situations. One such situation was when I took my Mother and Auntie Margaretta to visit their sister, my Auntie Hannah, and her family in Flecknoe, near Daventry. It was a visit to which my Mother and Auntie looked forward with much interest and excitement, as, I believe, neither of them had crossed Offa’s Dyke before, and neither had seen her sister for some years.
On setting off I realised that there was a slight knocking sound in the back-axle. So I decided to call on the way at Halfway Garage, where an ex-neighbour of mine was the owner and was reputed to be a good mechanic. I asked Tom whether it was safe for us to continue our journey while the car emitted this worrying knocking sound. He thought that there was no real danger of the car breaking down, but he thought that as a precaution I could disengage the gear and let it free-wheel downhill.
A few miles from Brecon I disengaged the gear on a long down-gradient and just before reaching the bottom I engaged the gear, but with a disastrous result. The car slewed to the other side of the road with the rear wheels locked. Fortunately in those days AA patrols patrolled most main roads in their motor-cycle and sidecar, and one of these soon appeared on the scene, and offered to inform a garage in Brecon of our predicament.
A break-down van then took the car and us to Brecon, and the mechanic diagnosed damage to what was called the crown-wheel and pinion, and at the same time stated that a new crown-wheel and pinion should be fitted. But the shattering news was that the garage did not have one in stock and that such parts would have to be ordered from Cardiff. However the blow was softened when we were told that a message would be taken by the next Western Welsh bus to Cardiff, and that the parts would be brought to us early the following morning, and that the car would be ready for the continuation of the journey soon after mid-day.
This meant, of course, that we had to look for accommodation for the night – not an easy task as neither my mother nor my aunt wanted to stay at an hotel which they thought was too expensive. But eventually the problem was solved fairly satisfactorily. At any rate, that is my impression now, as there appeared to be no complaints, and as we were able to continue our journey after the repair had been made by the time promised. It may be of interest to give the price of the repair – £5. I wonder what would be the price of such a repair today.
I remember well another trip to Rugby, but this time by train, and my companion was Uncle William, who too was making his first visit over the border to England. We travelled by L.M.S. train from Llandeilo. I enquired at the station whether the train was a through-train to Rugby. A rather dim-looking porter answered me that we would have to change at Shrewsbury.
When we arrived in Shrewsbury, I enquired about the train to Rugby, and I was told that the coach in which we were travelling went no further than Shrewsbury, but that we should move back to the coach behind. When we arrived at Stafford, we were again moved out of our coach to the coach behind. The next stop was at Rugby itself, but when we were walking along the platform we noticed that the coach had a board showing its destination was Euston, and the irony of it was that this coach was part of the train all the way from Llandeilo.
We were met outside Rugby station by my Uncle Willie and then driven in a horse and trap the ten miles to the village of Flecknoe. Flecknoe was a very interesting village, and although I am not really conversant with the history of English villages, I believe I can venture to say that Flecknoe was a typical mediaeval English village. It was a circular village with several farms around its perimeter, each one only about a hundred yards from the next. Their land spread out like the spokes of a wheel from its hub. The fields nearest the farms had what are called ‘lands’, humps and hollows alternately, a fine example of the strip cultivation of the Middle Ages.
We were given a very warm welcome and indeed were given V.I.P. treatment. This was hardly to be wondered at, for my Uncle Willie had been able to move from a small farm in Carmarthenshire to a large fertile farm in Warwickshire at the time of the depression in the early thirties by a substantial loan from Uncle William.
My Uncle and Aunt must have had quite a struggle to make both ends meet, as they had five children, three boys and two girls, and had a large loan to repay. And indeed the struggle continued until the outbreak of war in 1939. But ‘it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good’. If the War brought misery and hardship to the majority of people, it helped the Flecknoe family to obtain complete self-sufficiency and a great deal in excess. The three boys were exempt from military service as long as they were occupied in food production. Their contribution, which paid them handsomely, was to hire out themselves and their tractors to plough the fields of the surrounding farms. The capital gained enabled the boys, when they married, to buy large and productive farms. They are now very prosperous farmers and very far removed from their humble beginnings.
At this time I continued to have a great deal of interest in sport. In addition to coaching the School Rugger XV, I often made trips to Swansea, and sometimes to Cardiff, to see international matches. In the summer the attraction was County Cricket in St Helen’s, Swansea, especially Glamorgan’s matches with touring sides. But this was generally during holidays, as most Saturdays were spent with Carrie, and I was not so insensitive to the fact that watching cricket for a whole day would be no pleasure to Carrie; indeed it would have been unrelieved torture.
Two matches, one Rugby, the other Cricket, stand out in my memory. A book has been published fairly recently giving the history of rugby in Wales – it is called ‘Fields of Praise’, and the authors are David Smith and Gareth Williams.
The particular match that I remember well was one against South Africa, and the following is a brief extract from the book’s account of the game: ‘on an unusually soggy St Helen’s in December 1931, tactical misjudgement accounted for a disappointing defeat by eight points to three. The Welsh try had come when Boon caught Zimmerman in possession, robbed him, and steered it on for Wil ‘Sgili’ Davies to dribble it over.’
The St Helen’s pitch, a sandy ground which dried very quickly, was on that day soggy because the rain came teeming down all day. My cousins Cyril and John Howell and I had field tickets for the Mumbles End, out in the open with no cover at all. We had gone early to the field in order to be able to choose what to us appeared to be the best position – this was leaning on the railings separating the pitch from the terraces, and immediately behind the goal posts.
Long before the start of the match, we were soaked to the skin, and our only consolation during the match was that we were within a few yards of the spot where Sgili touched down for his try. This was a thrill, especially for Cyril and me, as Sgili, a Swansea forward, came from Cwmgors, the village adjoining our native Gwaun Cae Gurwen. We set off home as soon as we could, as we had to take Cyril home first. But in Gwaun Cae Gurwen we were able to dry our clothes in front of a collier’s blazing fire. I cannot remember that the soaking had a bad effect on our health.
The cricket match was the Test Match England v. Australia in 1934 (I believe that is the correct year). L.M.S. laid on an Excursion train from Victoria Station, Swansea, for the third day of the Test, that is Saturday. Two of the School staff, Dan Jeffreys and John Jenkins, myself and J. Killa Williams, an Old Boy of the School, and at that time a French lecturer in Aberystwyth University College, decided to take advantage of the cheap fare in order to watch for the first time a Cricket Test Match.
There was one drawback; the train departed from Llandeilo Station very early on the Saturday morning. The exact time I cannot remember, but it must have been between four and five o’clock. I could not have had much sleep on that night, as I had to drive the fifteen miles from Panteg to join the other three, who lived in Llandeilo.
We had not looked forward to boarding a train that would be full of cricket enthusiasts by the time it arrived at Llandeilo. But we need not have worried; the train was almost empty. Some of the coaches were completely empty of passengers. So we boarded the train, two each to two separate coaches, so that we could lie down, fully stretched, on the seat. Although the train stopped on the way at several stations, such as Llandovery, Llanwrtyd and Llandrindod, it picked up very few passengers.
After a quiet and uneventful journey, we disembarked at Old Trafford Station, immediately adjoining the cricket ground, and settled down to enjoy watching the best cricketers in the world. However it turned out to be a not unadulterated pleasure – the seats were hard, the sun was scorching hot, the ground was so packed that it was well nigh impossible to have drinks to quench our thirst, and although England piled up a huge score, brilliantly compiled by just two batsmen, Leyland and Ames, the cricket, in my inexpert opinion, was rather monotonous as hardly any wickets fell all day, and so we failed to see other well-known batsmen perform.
Indeed, the best part of the day was the meal we enjoyed after the day’s play and before we boarded the train for home. We were so thirsty after being scorched by the hot sun that we drank several pints of iced shandy with our meal. Had we drunk a stronger beverage we would surely have been quite drunk. The train that took us home was exactly the same as the one we boarded at Llandeilo: the same number of coaches and the same number of passengers. So we were able to relax and go to sleep with the same arrangement as on the outward journey.
It was in the previous summer that Carrie and I decided to become engaged. Her sister, Rachel, with her husband David John, lived then in Romford, and invited us to stay with them, and so it was on one of our frequent trips into London that the engagement ring was bought.
The highlights of the holiday were the many shows we saw in the theatres – plays, thrillers, musical comedies etc. The shows in those days were not as expensive as they are nowadays; they were not too expensive for young teachers on the lower salary scales. Eating out in the Express Dairy Cafes and the Lyons’ Restaurants was also quite inexpensive. But what is surprising to us in these days of violence and muggings is that returning very late in half-empty trains to Romford after the shows we were quite oblivious of any possible dangers. Although we had become engaged in 1933, it was not until 1935 that Carrie agreed to get married. She felt that she had to continue to support her family until then.