Who are your people?
- Where are you from?
- Cwm Rhondda.
Cwm Rhondda?
A little genius from the coal pits.
And they expect me to make
a scholar of it. All right, come in.
Were you brought up in stables?
Well, shut the door.
Your boots are muddy.
They were clean when I left home.
You will address me as "sir",
or I'll put a stick about your back.
- Now sit down here.
- Yes, sir.
Come here, you dirty little sweep.
What have we here?
A pencil box.
Pretty, too.
You broke my pencil box.
Mervyn, stop it. You'll hurt him.
I fell on the mountain.
Did you win, Huw?
No.
Ianto.
- Fetch Dai Bando.
- Dai Bando, is it?
- Are you willing to go to school tomorrow?
- Yes, sir.
Good. You shall get a penny for every mark
on your face, sixpence for a bloody nose,
a shilling for a black eye,
two shillings for a broken nose.
Gwilym. Stop it. Fight again,
and when you come home, not a look
will you get from me, not a word.
Break your own nose, then. Break my heart
every time you go out of the house.
- A boy must fight, Beth.
- Fight?
Fight? Another beating like that,
he will walk home dead.
Beating? He's had no beating.
A hiding, yes, but no beating.
Give the boy time, it will be he
that's giving the beating, is it?
Dai Bando. Come into the house.
- Good evening, Mrs Morgan.
- Leave off your hat.
Dai Bando is going to teach you to box, Huw.
To fight first. Too many call themselves
boxers who are not even fighters.
- Boxing is an art, is it?
- It is, it is.
Go along with you, girl.
A cup of tea for the men.
- Tea?
- Tea?
No tea, Mrs Morgan.
In training, he is.
A glass of beer, if you please.
Baths full of holes.
And now prizefighters.
So our little coal miner has been
indulging in his favourite sport again?
- Mr Phillips, make a back. Make a back.
- I refuse, sir.
Mr Wells, make a back.
Here. Put this in between your teeth.
Bite it hard.
Well, the scholar.
- Huw, lad.
- Well, I will go to my death.
- Did you get that in school?
- He has cut you to the bone. Who was it?
- Mr Jonas, is it?
- We'll have a word with Mr Jonas.
- No.
- And why not?
- I broke the rule when I fought.
- There is no rule for that.
- But he warned me.
- Rubbish, boy. I'll...
Hush, Davy.
This is Huw's affair. He shall decide.
Say the word, lad, and we will
have the bones hot from his flesh.
No. Leave him alone.
I think our baby brother
is becoming quite a man.
These denominations are used
in measuring distances and...
- Yes?
- Right.
- Good morning, Mr...
- Jonas.
Mr Jonas. We have come
to the right place indeed.
What can I do for you?
A man is never too old to learn,
is it, Mr Jonas?
- No.
- I was in school myself once.
- But no great one for knowledge.
- Look here, what do you want?
Knowledge.
How would you go about taking
the measurement of a stick, Mr Jonas?
- By its length, of course.
- And how would you measure a man
who would use a stick on a boy
one third his size?
- Tell us.
- Now, you are good in the use of a stick.
But boxing is my subject, to the rules laid
down by the good Marquess of Queensberry.
God rest his soul.
And happy I am to pass on
my knowledge to you.
Mr Mottshill. Mr Mottshill.
All right, get him into position, now.
Look, to make a good boxer,
you must have a good right hand.
You see?
Now, that is how you will punish your man,
with a right and a left.
And put your soul into it, with...
The gentleman is talking to you.
- Raise him up.
- Come, come, come. Up, up, up.
Position again.
Could I have your attention, boys and girls?
I am not accustomed to speaking in public...
- Only public houses.
- But this...
Never use. It's against the rules.
Break a man's nose. Now the...
- I'm afraid he will never make a boxer.
- No aptitude for knowledge.
Mr Gruffydd.
Ivor... fell under a tram, lower level.
Ivor!
- We have our first grandson, Gwil.
- Well, give one and take the other.
Tell that to that girl up there.
She will answer