Chapter IV: Panteg - School and Chapel
I have described myself as an introvert fond of my own company, and fond of roaming on my own over field and moor, but I must confess that I enjoyed the company I found in school, and in those days in chapel. Bronowski, in his ‘Ascent of Man’, described man as ’solitary-social’.
The school was in a narrow valley, difficult of access. At any rate, difficult of access from Bryngwyn. The only road leading to what was looked upon as the village of Panteg was on the opposite side of the valley, and so if you followed this road you had to make a detour of about two and a half miles. The short way to School, a little short of a mile, was along a path through three fields, and then down a very narrow, slippery and steep lane. I have used the words ‘what was looked upon as the village’ because Panteg hardly merited the description ‘village’, as it boasted only a small cluster of four or five cottages, a chapel, and a school.
The school was a very strange one to a boy who had come from a comparatively big school in a populous mining village. It had one long room above a stable and the chapel vestry. The stable was used on a Sunday by those who came to chapel either on horse-back or in a horse-and-trap. During school days the stable door was left open so that, if it was raining, the children could go inside during playtimes and the dinner break. It was hardly a hygienic place in which to play, as very often what had been deposited by the horses had not been cleaned out.
I was obviously an object of curiosity to the children - they were eager to know what my capabilities were. So what had to be established first of all was in what kind of ‘pecking order’ I stood among the boys. Two of the older boys, both nearly fourteen years of age, were, of course, the ‘cocks of the walk’. One of these, Wil Llainwen, had a brother Jack of the same age as myself. So Wil, almost on the first day of my attendance, suggested that I should have a fight with Jack. In a very short time it was proved that I did not lack a certain prowess in fighting, and so Wil decided to give a little help to his brother but the other fourteen year old in the group, Twm Pantyrystrad Fach, who happened to be a second cousin of mine, joined in the fight on my side. We soon proved our superiority and so the fighting came to a summary end. The result of this was that we all became close friends, and that my position in the hierarchy was established.
There were about thirty in the School under one teacher, the daughter of a nearby farm, with both parents, of course, Welsh-speaking. But I do not remember her uttering a single word of Welsh, except in the Welsh lesson, and even Welsh was taught through the medium of English. This seems to have been the experience of most Welsh people belonging to my generation. I remember meeting Miss Matilda Jones on the road one late afternoon, when it was really twilight. She stopped me and began showing me the stars, which were beginning to appear in the sky. It was very interesting listening to her, but not a word of Welsh did she utter.
The equipment of the school was very primitive There were about six long benches with backless seats, each one accommodating about five children, who ranged in age from five to fourteen. The heating was supplied by a large coal-burning stove, set by the wall half way along the length of the room. Those furthest away from the stove would hardly enjoy the sixty degrees of heat which is now considered the minimum heat required in a class-room. (Sixty degrees Fahrenheit, of course, and not Celsius, the newly-introduced term!)
There was a small cupboard at one end of the room, serving as the School library and as the store for exercise books and writing materials. I don’t remember having any books to take home for reading. My out-of-school reading depended on what could be bought on our visits to Carmarthen. I had developed an interest in the Waun in what were usually called ‘penny dreadfuls’, cheap detective stories like Nelson Lee and Sexton Blake, and school stories in Magnet. I have always maintained that children should be encouraged always to read. What was read was unimportant! Anyway, there was not much choice in those days. Parents today can help their children to discriminate from a vast supply of every kind of reading material.
Miss Jones used to give us home-work in preparation for the Scholarship Examination, which entitled you to have a free place or a fee-paying place in Carmarthen Grammar School. We were provided with exercise books for home-work, but because of shortage of exercise books and writing paper we often had to use slates for writing in school. Of course, when we were able to use paper, we used pen and ink. The nibs for the pen were detachable, and were usually handed out separately from the pen. It was pure luck whether you had a comparatively new one or a well-used scratchy one. The ink was kept in inkwells set in holes along the desk. The chosen monitor for the week had to take the ink-pot, which had a beak like a teapot, around to fill the inkwells in the morning. Many a time the ink-wells were overfilled, causing a mess on the desk or even on your writing paper. The art of writing may have deteriorated with the introduction of the fountain pen and the biro, but these have done away with ink-spilling that produced ugly blots on paper, and even on clothes.
You can imagine the difficulty of teaching thirty children from the age of five to fourteen in one room by one teacher However, my impression is that in the nine months or so I spent in Panteg School, I made much more progress than I made in an equivalent time in the Waun. Miss Jones had complete control of her pupils, from the point of view of discipline, and she must have had limitless energy to move from one age group to another, keeping all at their tasks for the whole of the day. The only relaxation she had was during the playtimes and the dinner break, and indeed when the postman delivered letters. For some unknown reason we were all sent outside at that time, and, of course we had our suspicions, unfounded or not, as to why.
There was no transport for school children. Indeed, some children had to walk quite a long distance, at least two miles. The distance I had to walk from Bryngwyn was just over a mile, downhill almost all the way, through exposed fields and down a steep narrow lane, unfit for horse and cart. The walk was pleasant enough in fine weather in the summer, but far from pleasant in the wind and rain of winter, and worse still when there was snow and ice. The narrow lane was so slippery when there was frost on the ground that you had to jump over the hedge and make your way down the field to the school. The walk home in the afternoon took far longer than the downhill run in the morning. I usually had the company of other children then, and so it was a temptation to dawdle and to play on the way. Many a time I had a row for being late for tea.
I don’t think I carried a satchel to School, but I always carried food for the mid-day meal in a little string bag. The food, more often than not, was bread and butter and jam, and a piece of yeast cake or a few Welsh cakes. Having had a breakfast of bacon and egg, I did not, really, need meat sandwiches. We were not allowed to eat our food in the school. We ate our food while playing in the yard, but if it was raining we would eat in the stable. The drink was always water from a ‘pistyll’ nearly. The ‘pistyll’ had clean cold water, running along a trough from a spring. We did not have a hot drink, even in the coldest of weathers.
I have mentioned that Miss Jones was a good disciplinarian, but she was not always able to keep us on the straight and narrow path. During dinner-time we were not confined to the school yard but we usually roamed around the fields, going further than we ought to sometimes, with the result that we would return late to afternoon school. I remember once not returning at all in the afternoon. We had heard that there was a fox-hunt some distance from school, so all the boys decided that they were going to join the hunt. After roaming around for most of the afternoon, we failed to catch any sight of the horses and hounds, and had to return to school to collect our bags before making our way home. By then the school was locked and Miss Jones had gone home, but, fortunately, the door of the porch, where we kept our bags, was not locked.
Retribution was to come on the following day. Indeed, Mother had found out on the same day that we had played truant. My friends enjoyed hearing the telling-off I had and to hear my mother calling me ‘y corgi bach’, an expression used in the Waun, but not in Panteg. The retribution served out by Miss Jones was detention during the whole of dinner-time for a whole week. I do not remember her ever using the cane.
There was another occasion too when we arrived late for school during a period of frost there was a field not far from the School which had a wide track of ice on its slope. Some of the farms which had a sloping field near their yards, would plough a furrow along the top, and along the furrow would be made to run a quantity of liquid or effluent from the heap of manure stacked at the corner of the yard. This effluent, which made a rich fertiliser, would be let to flow down the slope of the field at regular intervals. It was on this frozen effluent that we had the ice for tobogganing. We paid no heed to the dangers of pollution, but then the hard frost nullified that risk.
I have used the word ‘tobogganing’, which is really a misnomer, as what was used for riding down the icy slope was a large branch of a tree, easily found in the winter time after the farmer had been cutting trees on the hedges for firewood. We would sit on the branch with the thick stem held in front in the manner of riding a hobby-horse. It was rather a hair-raising run down the slope, especially for an unskilled newcomer like me. You attained such speed that the only way to stop was to crash into the hedge at the bottom of the field. However, I do not remember any boy sustaining a serious injury.
Chapel
I have described Panteg as a cluster of cottages, a School and a Chapel in a narrow valley, difficult of access. Why build a chapel in such a valley? The second half of the eighteenth century was a difficult period for the Puritans and the so-called Dissenters. In the period of the Restoration, especially in the reign of Charles II, there was much persecution of the various dissenting sects, especially those of the Independents and the Baptists. Many laws were passed restricting the congregating of worshipping groups of these dissenters, and it was in that period that a congregation of Independents was started in Panteg, probably, at first, in a neighbouring farm, such as Penybwlch, Llainbattis and Llwyngwyn. Panteg chapel was built in this period of persecution, and it is more than likely that that was the reason for its inaccessible location.
In my time the chapel was the centre of both religious and social activity. People used to attend the Services on Sunday from far and wide, some on horseback, some in horse-and-trap, and many walking very long distances. Once people were made members they remained very loyal to their chapel. It was ‘their’ chapel, even if after they retired from their farms and went to live nearer the town of Carmarthen. Many a time did I have a ride on a Sunday afternoon with such a family on my way back to my lodgings in Carmarthen, when I was a pupil of Carmarthen Grammar School.
Sunday was hardly a day of rest for the farmers. They had to get up early to do the milking, and then get ready to set out on a long walk to arrive in Chapel by ten o’clock. Many of the preparations for Sunday were carried out on Saturday evening, especially the preparations for the midday meal. Some of the farms’ wives cooked the meal on the Saturday, but Mother managed to attend morning service and cook the Sunday dinner, the main meal of the week, the meal that surpassed all the other meals.
Almost immediately after the dinner and the washing-up we had to start on our way to Sunday School, which started at two o’clock. But I can’t remember my parents attending Sunday School, although many adults attended in those days. Those who had a long way to walk to the Services were invited to dinner or tea in the farms which were not so distant from the Chapel. Although it was no great hardship for me to attend the morning and evening services and Sunday School, I was quite often invited to tea at one or two of the neighbouring farms. Sunday was the day for socialising as well as worshipping. I have often wondered in later years which was the more important, the socialising or the worshipping. I am inclined to think that it was the socialising. One of the reasons, I believe, for the dramatic decline in chapel attendance, especially in rural areas, is that people have far more opportunities now for socialising, as the patterns of living have changed with the advent of the internal combustion engine.
My home for the period of my adolescence and early adulthood was Bryngwyn, Panteg, and I believe that, in spite of the fact that I spent a large part of the period having my education in School in Carmarthen, and in College in Aberystwyth, my life in Panteg had a profound and lasting influence on the shaping of my interests and attitudes towards life.
Although I have said that the farmer compared unfavourably with the collier in percipience and knowledge of current affairs, yet I must have learned a great deal from my association with many of the farmers who attended Panteg Chapel. I can remember having quite heated, but rational, discussions in Sunday School on religious matters, especially in my College days. I must have been rather a College prig then, thinking that I could win in any argument. However, I was compelled to realise that there were members in the class who had more valid experiences and ideas than mine. There were two in our class who were very well-informed and highly literate, namely Johnnie Williams, Penybwlch and W.D. Davies, Llwyngwyn. W.D. Davies indeed reached the heights in Local Government, becoming eventually the Chairman of Carmarthenshire County Council and the leader of the Independent party in the Council. There was another very stout defender of Orthodoxy: a highly intelligent person, although having had very little school education, Evans Cwmtywyll.
I do not wish to expound on my religious beliefs, as I have stated at the very beginning that I intend to give an objective rather than a subjective account of my life. But I must admit that my views are similar to those of the modern controversial Bishop of Durham. Perhaps I can be looked upon as a Christian agnostic, a term used by quite a well-known divine. That is, I believe in the Christian Ethic of Love, but I have many doubts about the literal truth of Christian dogma.
The young people, my contemporaries, not only attended Sunday services and Sunday School, but they also attended prayer meetings held on a week day once a week and also the Young People’s Society, held under the auspices of the Chapel. A prayer meeting could be held in those days with only three taking part, the three being eloquent enough to make the meeting last for an hour or even more, something that is very rare in these days. The prayers were models of eloquent artistry, with copious quotations of hymns, and biblical verses. But, with my usual cynicism, I could not refrain from having doubts as to their sincerity.
In order that we, young people, could take part in these prayer meetings, a special class was held on Sundays, usually for half an hour before the evening service, so that we should have practice in the art of prayer. I used to attend these classes, but I never attained the mastery of the art that some of my friends attained. I thought that my lack of belief prevented my uttering words which did not sound wholly sincere, and that many of the prayers uttered were for the consumption of the listeners and were not the expressions of sincere belief. Already I am breaking my vow to be objective and not subjective. Enough!
The one chapel activity from which I benefited most was the Young People’s Society. Most chapels even today have maintained the tradition of holding such meetings, but under a variety of different names, such as the Literary Society and the Cultural Society. But most chapels are not very successful in attracting many members, especially the young people, even though they hold these meetings only on about half a dozen occasions during the winter. Our Society was held once every week throughout the whole of winter. The programme was a varied one - discussions of both religious and secular matters, performing short one-act plays, concerts and eisteddfodau. I have been a member of such a society in several different chapels during my lifetime, but never one exactly like the one in Panteg. It was truly a Young People’s Society - about thirty young people from the age of fourteen to twenty five. No adults were usually present except the Minister and one deacon, both of whom had a sympathetic attitude towards young people and had, unlike many of the old fogies, a forward-looking view of life.
Were it not for this society, I would have had no experience of, and no training in, the art of public speaking. No discussion group or Debating Society was held in Carmarthen Grammar School, and I lacked the courage to take part in the College Debating Society. Every member of the Society in Panteg was expected to stand on his feet and make a speech, however short and however uninspired. There was always a proposer and a seconder of votes of thanks, and although the majority of the members were comparatively uneducated, that is had left school when fourteen years of age, every one in time could propose a vote of thanks in a few well-chosen words. The practice that I had in those meetings must have stood me in good stead when in my college days I was made Chairman of the Classical Society.
Chapel meetings of every kind were well attended by the young and the old, whereas today the average age of chapel congregations is over sixty. There is no doubt that the young people of Panteg attended meetings because the chapel was almost the only place where they could meet. After every evening service, be it on Sunday or on a weekday, almost all the teenagers made their way home along a narrow lane until what was called ‘Pant Pantglas’ was reached. The girls would form the leading group, and the boys would follow. There was a halt on Pant Pantglas, where the boys and the girls would intermingle. After holding some conversation and often quite a lot of leg-pulling, the girls would set off in different directions. Then the boys quickly followed, some pairing off with girls with whom they had an established understanding, and others aiming to pair off with their particular fancy. This was really the courting ground for the young people of Panteg. I must admit that I was one of those who tried to have a friendly relationship with one of the girls, until I finally had a lasting relationship with the one who eventually became my wife. More of this later on!
There were other meetings which drew very large crowds, not only those who usually attended Panteg Chapel, but also the members of other chapels, which were considered as belonging to the same circle. There were two Festivals (Cymanfa Ganu and Cymanfa Bwnc) held annually. All the chapels that belonged to the same catchment area, as it were, came together for these Festivals. It was to the largest chapel in the area, Peniel, that they congregated for the Singing Festival, usually held in October. This used to be the highlight of the year for almost all churches of every denomination in Wales. It was the occasion when the ladies sported their new hats and clothes. But sadly, these festivals are now in decline, apart from a few exceptions. Several rehearsals, in the individual churches themselves and finally jointly, were held, and these, unlike today, were well attended.
The ‘Cymanfa Bwnc’ was a Sunday School festival held in Panteg - five Sunday Schools, each one on its own, taking part, two in the morning, one in the afternoon, and two in the evening. Each School sang a short anthem or two, recited a chapter of the Bible, and answered and debated questions given by a member of another Sunday School. When reciting the chapter from the Bible, all the classes recited the opening and final verses together; the verses between were recited by each class reciting two or three verses one after the other. The verses had to be intoned in the manner of the readers in the Established Church. This festival was held in the latter part of May, before the hay-making began.
This was a most enjoyable affair, especially if the weather was fine, as it generally was at that time of the year. You were well fed after the morning session and after the afternoon session, you had a pleasant chat with members from other chapels, and usually had a very pleasant walk along lanes with their hedges covered with spring flowers in full bloom. But I believe that with time the ladies responsible for the meals found the work involved becoming too heavy and tiring. So the morning session was cut out. Whether this festival is held in Panteg nowadays I do not know.
Another very important occasion was the annual big Meetings (Cyrddau Mawr) when in very many chapels two preachers, well-known for their eloquence and even for their dramatic performance, were engaged. I remember attending services with two preachers taking part - a real marathon of a service! The second preacher sometimes had a very difficult task to hold his audience, especially if the first one had been rather long-winded. However I do not remember Panteg Chapel having two preachers in the Cyrddau Mawr, but in order to have full value from an important visiting preacher an extra service was held either on Saturday evening or on Monday evening. But this gave way in time to just a lecture, rather than a sermon, being given by the preacher on the Saturday evening.
An exception was made to this arrangement once. Instead of having the preacher giving the lecture on Saturday evening, the constituency M.P. was invited to lecture, namely the Liberal R.T. Evans. I was a college student at the time, and happened to be at home. I had the dubious honour of proposing the vote of thanks to this illustrious speaker. If I remember rightly, my performance was far from being a memorable one. This practice of having a lecture instead of a sermon was very popular at one time, but it has long ceased to make any appeal to audiences. Actually, the story of Panteg, religious and social, is one of steady decline, until by today the place is virtually dead.
Two or three years ago we visited Panteg in order to show my daughter, Bethan, and her family, my native heath. Although I had made an occasional visit to Panteg after being settled in Llandeilo, yet I was not prepared to see such a disheartening change - instead of five cottages and a smithy all occupied, there was just a scene of derelict cottages, with one having disappeared altogether. There was one occupied house, the one next door to the chapel. A man appeared at the gate, and when I addressed him it was quite a shock to find he had no word of Welsh - a frequent phenomenon nowadays in a district where in my time the only Englishman was a Dr Barnardo boy engaged as a servant in one of the farms.
The school was closed quite a long time ago, and I am told that, although services are still held in the Chapel on Sundays, the attendances are very small. When a small school in a remote rural area is closed, that is the beginning of the end of a viable community. Panteg is a valid example of this.
Another highlight of the year was the Sunday School trip, and it is still so today in almost every Sunday School throughout Wales. It is interesting to notice how with the continual improvements in motor transport the venue for the trip had extended further and further away. The seaside resorts favoured by Panteg Sunday School were Pendine, Tenby, New Quay and Swansea, all within thirty or forty miles. This was a big step forward, as it were, from the trips remembered by my Mother. Before the advent of motor transport, the trip took the form of a communal picnic and sports on a nearby mountain. Then a more adventurous trip was undertake - a trip to Llansteffan, a distance of at least twelve miles. The transport used was the farms’ gamboes, which meant that the distance was covered more or less at a walking pace. The time taken, therefore, to cover one way, would be about three hours. However, I can imagine that they had even more fun and enjoyment than we had in our more sophisticated means of travel.
Before I finish my account of chapel activities, I must refer to a very special meeting held on a fine sunny afternoon in the Summer at the beginning of the third decade of this century. Some rural chapels in the last century and the beginning of this one, inspired some of their members to become missionaries, especially in India, China, Africa and Madagascar. One such chapel was Jerusalem, Gwynfe near Llandeilo. And indeed Panteg chapel too was very proud of the one missionary it had produced, the son of a remote hill farm called Ffosygaseg.
J.T. Jones became a missionary in Madagascar, and the meeting to which I was to refer was a meeting of welcome for him when on leave from his missionary work. The meeting was a very memorable one for an impressionable youngster for two reasons. One was the fact that it was held in the open, in a small field shaped like an amphitheatre, with the congregation seated on the grass on the slopes, and looking down on a hastily constructed podium. The service of welcome had to be held in the open, because of the huge number of people congregated from far and wide, a number far in excess of that which could be accommodated in the chapel. It was a very special thrill to sit among a large crowd in a deep glen, surrounded by steep hills, with a little stream running near by, with nature at its summer best. It was a thrill to join in the inspiring and exciting singing.
The second reason made an even greater impression on me. J.T. Jones had brought home with him one of his converts from Madagascar, who, having learned English, was able to take part in the service. But that is not the impressive factor - he was black! And that was the first time for me to see a black man in the flesh. I well remember his name too - Ramambasua.