How Green Was My Valley (46 page)

Then Iestyn sold out to the owners of my father’s colliery, and they said they would
work it only when their levels went through underground and joined it, and so closed
it, putting four hundred men from work.

Strikes we had had, and funerals, to keep men from work, but that was the first time
we had ever had men standing in the street without work waiting for them.

“This is the beginning, Dada,” Owen said. “You will see, now. Plenty of labour, fall
in wages. Scarcity of labour, rise in wages. Watch, now.”

“There is an agreement,” my father said. “There is a minimum.”

“The minimum,” Owen said, “will be the minimum when these men are working. Four hundred
men extra in this Valley, and others to join them in the other valleys. When all those
men are back at work, there will be a new minimum.”

“We shall see,” said my father.

And a new minimum there was, too, for when a man complained, or spoke too loudly near
the manager, he was put from work, and another taken in his place from the idle crowd
at the pit head.

For less wages, always.

Some of the men went to work in other valleys, some went to Sheffield, to Birmingham,
or Middlebrough, some went even to the United States of America. And some stayed in
the village.

And so we knew, for the first time, men without work, who kept from the workhouse
only because it was too far away, or because their sons were earning, their relatives
were kind, or their friends were charitable.

But even so, other men and their families were coming into the Valley and starting
in the collieries for less money, or helping builders, or setting up little businesses
in grocery, and tobacco, and newspapers, and cook shops, until the village had houses
on both sides of the road round the mountain, on one side, and climbing up the mountain
on the other. Two new streets of small houses were built behind the Square, and two
more chapels, one for the Methodists, and one for the Calvinists, and the Roman Catholics
put a church for the Irish over on the other side of the river.

Even with the trouble coming flying to meet us, we grew, and we were happy.

Ivor ran in one night with his face lit like a summer dawn, and so happy it was pleasure
to see.

“Well,” my mother said, and put down her needle and stretched her back.

“Read it, Dada,” Ivor said, and gave a letter to my father.

“Well, Gracious Goodness, boy,” my father said, and looked from the letter to my mother,
staring wide, and with open mouth, and then back at the letter and up and again at
the letter, until my mother was shifting as though sitting up in bed with crumbs under
her.

“Will you drive me silly, then?” she said, with ice.

Even the kettle looked as though it were listening.

“It is a command,” my father said, as though reading the Word. “A Royal Command. Good
God!”

“A Royal Command?” said my mother, and her eyes going big, and her shoulders falling
loose. “What, now?”

“Mr. Ivor Morgan,” my father said, and sitting up, clearing his throat, “is commanded
to appear before Her Majesty at Windsor Castle with chosen members of his choir.”

“O,” said my mother, long drawn and high, and almost ready to faint.

“Her Britannic Majesty,” said my father, with tears ready, and standing. “To sing
before the Queen. My son. I never thought to see the beautiful day. Let us give thanks.”

“Yes, indeed,” said my mother, and down we all went on the knees.

“O Heavenly Father,” my father said, with his hand in my mother’s, and both clasped
together, and looking up, “I give thanks from the heart to live this day.”

“Yes,” said my mother.

“I give thanks for my good son,” said my father.

“Yes,” my mother said, and rested her face against his shoulder.

“And for his good mother,” my father said, “my blessing for thirty years. I give thanks
for all I have, and I do give thanks for this new blessing. For you are Our Father,
but we look to our Queen as our mother. Comfort her in her troubles, O God, and let
her mighty worries trouble not more than she shall bear in her age. And let, I beseech
you, power to soothe, and sweetness to lull, and spirit to encourage, be given to
the voices that sing at her command that night. And may Ivor have strength to acquit
himself with us with honour. Amen.”

“Amen,” said we all.

“Beth,” my father said, eyes shining and red in the face, “bring out the beer. Huw,
go for Mr. Gruffydd, and ‘no’ will not do for an answer. Open house, to-night.”

Down I went for Mr. Gruffydd, and found him cooking supper, with a fork in one hand
and a book in the other.

“The choir is going to sing for the Queen, Mr. Gruffydd,” I said. “And Dada says please
to come up. Open house.”

“At last, then, Huw, my little one,” he said, and smiled, and took off the dish. “I
wondered how long it would be.”

So up the Hill we went, and people leaving their houses, and men running up the mountain
with paper and wood to light beacons to call the choir from their houses, and women
gathered in groups to decide who should cut the food and who should prepare the drink,
with windows opening and people shouting the news in the street, and children in night
dress running about with nobody to tell them to go back to bed, and cheers for Mr.
Gruffydd, and a couple for Ivor, and even a few for me.

No orders to anybody, no notices in print, no trumpets, no cannon to throw fire and
give headaches to old ladies, yet everybody was going about with a job to do, and
willingness to do it well, and if you had asked any of them why, they would have looked
at you once, with their eyebrows up, and clicked their tongues and pushed you from
the light.

The night shift were in their working clothes ready to go down and the afternoon shift
were coming up the Hill, when the men of the choir began coming in from the other
valleys, over the mountain, and round by the river. By wain and brake and cart and
gig and dog-trap, and even in goat cars, they were coming, in anything that would
move faster than they could run they came, and groups of them were walking over the
mountain all round us, with lanterns and torches to light them, little flowers of
light making a rolling dance all the way down, with song from all of them, and the
wind going mad to choose which to carry, which to drop.

Now the Hill was packed full of people, with no spaces among the hats and faces all
the way down, from top to bottom, and here and there a torch, a lamp, with candles
along the window sills, and even some of the men sitting on the roofs and hanging
down their legs. Loudly and happily rose their voices, with laughter as the people
above swayed back on the people below, and women gave little screams when they thought
they would be crushed, and men pushed out their elbows to take the weight from about
them, with jokes and more laughing, and there, a quartet singing, and women joining
in the harmony, and here, a man singing a verse, and about him people’s faces set
intent to pick up the first note of the chorus, and come in, then, like lions.

Then they saw Mr. Gruffydd in our front bedroom window, and instantly a roar, that
hit across the ears, and kept on, even though he waved to them to be silent, for minute
on minute, the roar, going quiet and coming bigger again, roar, roar, roar, with open
mouths and wild happiness in the eyes, and then a big hush from hundreds, as though
the wind had met his master, and then stillness.

Stillness.

Mr. Gruffydd turned to my father, and he blew the note on the reed pipe.

Ivor raised his finger, and from top of the Hill down to bottom men and women hummed
softly to have the proper key, with sopranos going up to find the octave, and altos
climbing, and tenors making silver and contraltos and baritones resting in comfort
and basso down on the octave below, and the sound they all made was a life-time of
loveliness, so solid, so warm, so deep, and yet so delicate. It will be no surprise
to me if the flowers of the gardens of heaven are made from such sound. And O, to
smell a smell as good to the nose as that sound sounds to the ear.

But even heaven could not be so beautiful, or we would all be drunk with beauty day
and night, and no work done anywhere, and nobody to blame.

Drunk with beauty. There is lovely.

“God save the Queen,” said Mr. Gruffydd, and made way in the window for Ivor.

Ivor held out his arms wide to us, with his first fingers up, and his mouth making
an O, and his eyes nearly shut, to tell us to sing soft, and the crowd made little
moves all the way from top to bottom, not in restlessness, but to find room for arms
to have ease, for feet to be firm, for chests to give good breath, for chins to point,
and for room to sing.

Down came Ivor’s right arm, once, twice, and at its lowest point, “God Save Our Noble
Queen,” sang tenor, with stern quiet, “Long Live Our Noble Queen,” sang tenor and
soprano, “God Save Our Queen,” sang tenor, soprano, and alto.

Now Ivor gathered himself, and took all our voices into his fingers and drew them
tight, and the clarion note was struck in the slow, strong, marching tempo, and grandeur
came to frighten as the voices mounted in mighty majesty.

“Send Her Victorious,” said we all. “Happy And Glorious.”

Now gather yourselves, O Men of the Valleys, now open the throat, higher with the
chin, loud, loud as the trumpets of the Host, sound out, that even at Windsor it may
be heard to rock the very stones.

“Long To Reign Over Us,” we sang, and leaned on the last note, while tenor and soprano
loosed their wings to fly up to the octave, and hold.

Now.

Up goes Ivor’s right arm, fist clenched, and his left hand held out to us to implore.
More power, greater volume, more mightiness, spread the chest, bring in the air with
a savage pull and send the voice to hit the sky with force to smash the clouds.

“God Save Our Queen,” we sang, and ended with a cheering they could hear over in the
other valleys, and those down in the village who were out of sight of Ivor, went on
singing, like an echo that fell asleep on the job and runs now with sleep in his eyes
to catch up.

I went inside our house to take plates outside and found my father giving Clydach
Howell the letter, but flat in the pages of a bound book of
Christian Heralds
.

“A frame of the best wood you will find, Clydach, my little one,” my father said.
“And I will have a crown set above it, see, and it shall hang on this wall all the
days of my life.”

“Leave it to me, Gwilym,” said Clydach, serious, and carrying the book as though it
was his pass through the Gates, “I will make a job of this to bring tears to the eyes,
indeed to God. And no cost to you, either.”

“Cost to me,” said my father, “or no frame.”

“We shall see,” said Clydach. “I do know where there is a bit of mahogany that the
old devil himself would be glad to have his old claws on, if he knew where to find
it. For years I have wanted to see it put to good use, but there was not enough for
a chair, and too much to spoil for a stool. But now, a frame. You shall see a bit
of wood, now, Gwilym, my little one, aye, by God, you shall.”

“Drink up,” said my father, and round went the pots.

There is a night that was, with everybody going home in groups round the roads and
over the mountain, with one group over here singing a line of a chorus, and listening
for a group over there to sing the next, back and fore, till the sound fell in the
depths of the miles between and the wind was too tired to do any more carrying.

And the mountain lying awake on his side, smiling in the quiet darkness, happy to
have us about him.

“Huw,” Ceinwen said, in the playtime, “where is this nightingale, with you?”

“Plenty on the mountain,” I said, “these weeks, now.”

“When am I going to hear them?” she asked me, and looking from the sides of her eyes,
as though anything I said would be lies, so save breath to blow tea.

“When you come over in our Valley,” I said.

“Right,” she said. “The men are going to London for Saturday, so on Saturday afternoon
I will come, is it? Then we can stay up the mountain late, and I can come back any
time I like with the trap.”

No use to make an excuse, and I had given a promise, so there it was.

“You will have trouble with your father,” I said.

“He will know nothing,” she said, and winked, and I blushed like a fool.

We had talked little since the night of the weddings, and only a nod before school,
for she was often late, and never in much of a temper in the mornings, and Mervyn
was always near, so a note across the desk or a touch of the fingers as she passed,
was all we had been able to have.

Whatever is said to the contrary, I am ready to swear that green and red lights are
set in the brain, and you will have a flash of red when you are going into danger.
The red inside me was set stone still at danger whenever I thought of Ceinwen. Why,
I cannot say, but it was. I was sure something was going to happen.

And I have never been so right.

Only a few of us were kept on at our age to take examinations. Mr. Motshill had told
us that he was determined to push us through University. Nine of us, there were, and
Ceinwen one of us, for she was gifted, and no doubt about it. Years in her father’s
business, and making out bills, and doing sums, had made her first class in arithmetic,
and she could quote Shakespeare till Christmas came again, so there was nothing wrong
with her English.

We had an easier time than the other boys and girls who were leaving at fourteen,
and some before that. Not easier in work, mind, for Mr. Motshill was strict, but in
coming in and going out. Monitors, we were, but only to see that the boys and girls
behaved themselves. But we let them do as they liked, and never once brought them
up even for speaking Welsh in school.

Friday night, when the village turned out to see Ivor and the men from our Valley
go over the mountain to sing for the Queen, was soft with rain, a little cold, and
a lovely blue.