sister Angharad.
Huw!
Angharad!
Coal miners were my father
and all my brothers, and proud of their trade.
- Gwilym Morgan, three pounds seven.
- Thank you, sir.
Lanto Morgan, three pounds seven.
Ivor Morgan, three pounds seven.
Davy Morgan, two pounds five.
Owen Morgan, two pounds five.
Young Gwilym Morgan, one pound ten.
Someone would strike up a song,
and the valley would ring
with the sound of many voices.
For singing is in my people
as sight is in the eye.
Then came the scrubbing,
out in the back yard.
It was the duty of my sister Angharad
to bring the buckets of hot water and cold,
and I performed what little tasks I could
as my father and brothers
scrubbed the coal dust from their backs.
Most would come off them,
but some would stay for life.
It is the honourable badge of the coal miner,
and I envied it
on my father and grown-up brothers.
Scrub and scrub,
Mr Coal would lie there and laugh at you.
There was always a baron of beef or
a shoulder or leg of lamb before my father.
There was never any talk
while we were eating.
I never met anybody
whose talk was better than good food.
My mother was always on the run,o
always the last to start her dinner,
and the first to finish.
For if my father was the head of our house,
my mother was its heart.
After the dishes had been washed,
the box was brought to the table
for the spending money to be handed out.
No one in our valley had ever seen a bank.
We kept our savings on the mantelpiece.
My father used to say
that money was made to be spent,
just as men spend
their strength and brains in earning it,
and as willingly.
But always with a purpose.
Thank you, Dadda.
Out of the house and across the street,
as I had run a hundred times before.
Softly now, for respect for chapel
was the first thing my father taught us.
Then straight to Mrs Tossal the Shop,
for that toffee which you could
chew for hours, it seems to me now.
And even after it had gone down,
you could swallow
and still find the taste of it
hiding behind your tongue.
It is with me now, so many years later.
It makes me think of so much
that was good that is gone.
It was on this afternoon
that I first saw Bron - Bronwyn.
She had come over from the next valley
for her first call on my father and mother.
Is this Gwilym Morgan's house?
You must be Huw.
- Is that you, Bronwyn?
- Yes.t
There's lovely you are.
I think I fell in love with Bronwyn then.
Perhaps it is foolish to think a child could
fall in love, but I am the child that was,
and nobody knows how I felt, except only me.
- I'm so proud for lvor.
- I'm the one to be proud.
You think well of our lvor?
It seems only a few months
since he was scratching around here
like this one, with his mouth open.
This is Bronwyn, Huw,
who's to be your sister.
We have met already.
Be careful of the basket.
There's shortcake in it.
This is not for you. You will have
your time to come. Run along now.
Bronwyn and lvor were to be married
by the new preacher, Mr Gruffydd,
who had come from the university at Cardiff.
This was my first sight of him.
# Now here's a man won't get drunk,
can't get drunk, shan't get drunk
# Here's a man won't get drunk, Peter O'Pea
# From my heel to my toe,
from my toe to my kneee
# I'll walk the line, chalk the line, Peter O'Pea
- Good evening, Mr Morgan.
- Yes, indeed, sir.
- Excuse me.
- Thank you.
Come now, boys. Back to work.
Ivor, find Dai Griffiths and Idris John
and bring