By 1925 the South Wales coal industry was on the cusp of decline. South Wales coal had always been high in quality but also high in price, owing mainly to geological factors. Many of its favoured export markets had been lost during the First World War, or were now threatened by competitors able to undercut prices. Long-standing structural difficulties were exacerbated by Britain's return to the Gold Standard in 1925, which raised the prices of exports, by the facility given to Germany to pay some of its reparations under the Paris Peace Settlement in the form of coal, and by a succession of industrial disputes, including a three-month stoppage in 1921. A major dispute was narrowly postponed in 1925, but a showdown between the coal industry's notoriously intransigent employers and its equally robust trade unions appeared inevitable.
The crisis in the coal industry would have profound consequences for the Jenkins family, for not only did Richard Sr work underground but so did sons Tom, Ivor, Will, David and Verdun. The year after Richard's birth, 1926, was a profoundly traumatic one in the coal industry. A seven-month-long industrial dispute wrought havoc in areas such as South Wales, and plunged many families into serious poverty and debt. Richard Jenkins Sr's colliery closed, along with most in the immediate area, and he was forced to seek employment in a series of casual jobs.
But whatever the troubles in coalfield society at large, a more profound tragedy would befall the Jenkins family in 1927. Richard's mother Edith gave birth to her thirteenth child, Graham, on 25 October. Six days later she was dead, aged forty-four, having succumbed to septicaemia.
The response of the Jenkins family to this catastrophe revealed both its strengths and its weaknesses. Richard Sr – always a heavy drinker, a gambler and someone who was incapable of exercising control over his spending patterns – appears not to have had the sense of responsibility that, fortunately, his older children did possess. New baby Graham was sent to live a few miles away in Cwmafan with brother Tom and his wife Cassie. Two-year-old Richard moved further again: to Taibach, a district of Port Talbot, on the coast, and into the home of sister Cecilia (‘Cis’ or ‘Cissie’) and her husband Elfed James.
Cis was twenty years older than her brother. She was old enough to be his mother, and in many respects embraced that role. She and Elfed had been married for only four months when Edith died, and they were living in a terraced house in Caradog Street, Taibach. Elfed James was, like so many others, a miner, working mainly at Goitre colliery, just to the north of Taibach. He and Cis had met at Gibeon Welsh Independent (Congregationalist) Chapel, where Elfed's father was a deacon. Elfed, it seems, though competent in Welsh, was happiest speaking English, and this was the language of the James household, as it was of much of Taibach and Port Talbot generally. A year after taking Richard in, Cis and Elfed's first child, Marian, was born, in November 1928. A second daughter, Rhianon, followed in December 1931.
Although Richard would become most closely associated in the public mind with his birthplace of Pontrhydyfen, it is more accurate to see him as a product of Port Talbot, as this was where he lived from the age of two until he left South Wales altogether at the age of twenty-one.
Port Talbot took its name both from docks that were opened in 1839 and from the Talbot family that had lived at the nineteenth-century Tudor-style home of Margam Castle, further to the south. It embraced the older village centre of Aberafan, and was home to tinplate works and (from 1907) steelworks. The docks served both industries, as well as the copper works of the Cwmafan area and the coal mines of the Afan valley. The Great Western Railway passed through the town on the South Wales Railway, providing easy connections to both Cardiff (30 miles to the east) and Swansea (12 miles to the west), while the Rhondda and Swansea Bay railway line brought coal from the upper Rhondda Fawr through the Rhondda Tunnel (the longest in Wales) down the Afan valley to the docks. New docks were opened in 1898. The main occupations for men were in the metal industries, mining and transport. Women comprised less than a sixth of the officially recorded labour force, and most were to be found in the personal service, commercial and financial sectors, although there were some jobs for women in the tinplate industry. The majority of women were fully occupied in the home.
The 1921 census recorded Port Talbot's population as 40,005. That it grew to only 40,678 by 1931 indicates a certain amount of economic stagnation, although given that the population of the county of Glamorgan in which it stood declined in the same decade from 1,252,481 to 1,225,717, one might say that it fared better than settlements uniquely identified with the coal industry. Like many of the industrial towns of South Wales, it was characterized by left-wing politics. The Member of Parliament for Aberavon at the time of Richard's birth was Labour's J. Ramsay MacDonald, the former, and future, Prime Minister, while another scion of the town was George Thomas, who would become a long-serving Labour MP for the constituency of Cardiff West and, eventually, a famous Speaker of the House of Commons. Labour voting rested on strong traditions of trade unionism. William Abraham (‘Mabon’ to give him his bardic name), the leader of the South Wales miners in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, had been born at Cwmafan, while Clive Jenkins, born in Port Talbot a few months later than his namesake Richard, would become a leading light of the Trades Union Congress in the 1970s.
Neither the strength of such working-class credentials, nor the fact that Port Talbot society was increasingly dominated by the English language, inhibited the flourishing of Welsh national sentiment in the town. The National Eisteddfod, the major cultural festival of Wales, visited during Richard Jenkins's time in primary school – 1932 – and the suggestion was even advanced in 1943 that Port Talbot be made the capital of Wales, given that half the population of the country could be found within a 30-mile radius.3 Notwithstanding the economic difficulties of the inter-war years, this was still a proud, self-confident society.
At the age of five Richard began attending the Eastern Primary School. At eight he passed on to the Eastern Boys’ School. He was an able, if not exceptional, pupil, with strong interests in sport (particularly rugby union) and in books. He made great use of the local public library on Station Road. Richard's interests were encouraged by one of his teachers at the Boys’ School, Meredith Jones, and in June 1937 he passed the scholarship examination that would take him to Port Talbot Secondary School, one of two grammar schools in the town (the other being the ‘County’). This was a significant achievement: most boys, especially working-class boys as Richard undoubtedly was, did not take this step, even if they had the ability.
Richard appears to have continued to develop and flourish in his new environment. Academically he had potential, but it was probably his sporting talents that were most apparent in his early years in the ‘Sec’. His qualities as a wing forward in rugby union were recognized, but he was also an able cricketer. The first of his diaries provides ample evidence of his sustained focus both on his studies and on his attainments on the playing field.
School, of course, was just one element in a boy's life. Richard was being brought up in a household where religious observance was taken seriously, and where attendance at chapel on a Sunday was expected, often more than once. In 1933 a split had occurred in Gibeon Chapel: Cis and Elfed had followed their disgruntled pastor, the Reverend Dr John Caerau Rees, to a new cause named Noddfa (‘Refuge’), initially in his own home but subsequently located in the library in Taibach. In 1939 Noddfa had finally opened its own premises, on Station Road, and the 1940 diary reveals that this would be regularly visited by Richard on most Sabbaths. Chapel-going involved much more than theology, of course. In many respects it was more important as a vehicle for social and cultural activities. Richard learned to play the organ and developed a talent for singing and recitation, which could be exhibited in the many Eisteddfodau that were staged in the Afan and nearby valleys.
Money was, it seems, an issue in the James household when Richard was a boy. The family moved a couple of hundred yards up Caradog Street, to a more attractive, semi-det
ached house, entirely their own, at the start of the 1930s. Their previous home had been rented accommodation: this was now on a mortgage. But regular and well-paid employment was not easy to find or to keep and finance was often difficult. In order to provide himself with pocket money Richard pursued a number of avenues. He delivered newspapers, and collected old papers to wrap fish and chips, and he collected animal dung from the hillsides above Taibach for sale as garden fertilizer. He spent his income on almost weekly visits to the cinema (there are forty-two recorded in his first diary), on books, and on clothes.
If 1940 catches Richard at a time when he is looking forward to a brighter future, despite the war that is raging in Europe and in the skies above Port Talbot, 1941 was to be much more disruptive. For in April of that year Richard suddenly left the Port Talbot Secondary School and, temporarily at least, abandoned his academic ambitions. His intention of taking the School Certificate examinations in June was put aside, and instead he began work in the men's outfitting department of the Taibach Co-operative Wholesale Society, just across the road from both the library and Noddfa chapel in Station Road. What prompted this appears to have been a financial crisis in the James household occasioned by Richard's brother-in-law Elfed falling ill and being out of work, although it is possible that it was partly explained by the disruption in the coal trade brought about by the fall of France in 1940. The James family had influence in the Co-op – Elfed would later serve on its management committee – which was a powerful institution with over 6,500 members in the locality and nine different premises.
Fortunately for Richard, this hiatus in his scholarly progress was temporary. His old teacher Meredith Jones continued to watch out for him, and urged him to return to school. Other supporters included County Councillor Llewellyn Heycock, a governor of the Port Talbot Sec and also chairman of the Glamorgan Education Committee, and Leo Lloyd, drama director of the Taibach Youth Club. Headmaster C. T. Reynolds was not enthusiastic about welcoming Richard back, but he did so in September 1941.
It was in this last phase of Richard's schooling that the influence of the English teacher Philip Burton became most profound. Richard had encountered Burton before – he is mentioned in the 1940 diary, most notably in connection with Richard's participation in the school production of George Bernard Shaw's The Apple Cart – but it was only after his return to school in the autumn of 1941 that the two began to work closely together.
Philip Burton had been born on 30 November 1904 in Mountain Ash, in the Cynon valley, Glamorgan. His parents were of English stock and the family were Anglican in religion. Burton's father had been killed underground when Philip was fourteen, but he had nonetheless studied at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire in Cardiff, obtaining a double honours degree in mathematics and history. On graduation in 1925 he had become a teacher at Port Talbot Secondary School, and had developed strong interests in drama and youth development. He was a published playwright, had had work dramatized on BBC radio, and produced and directed a series of accomplished productions both at the Sec and through the Port Talbot YMCA, of which he had become chairman. During the early stages of the Second World War he had taken a lead in establishing the Port Talbot Squadron of the Air Training Corps (ATC), becoming a Flight Lieutenant and its commanding officer.
Between the autumn of 1941 and the spring of 1943, a strong and mutually beneficial relationship developed between Richard Jenkins and Philip Burton. Burton was a man of pronounced learning who was generous with his time. Richard possessed a very considerable drive to achieve, succeed, get on in life. At one time sport had appeared to offer the best way forward, but, with the encouragement and guidance of Philip Burton, a more academic avenue now opened up. Perhaps as well, in some respects Philip Burton appeared to Richard as a surrogate father – at a time when his relationship with his brother-in-law Elfed might have been strained.
Burton gained great pleasure from nurturing and championing young talent. An earlier protégé, Owen Jones, had won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and appeared in Shakespearean productions alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in London.
Richard and Philip began to spend much time together outside as well as inside school. Richard was cast in a number of dramatic productions at school, the YMCA and the ATC, and Burton advised him on vocal projection, and on how to adapt his accent. Then, in March 1943, a room became vacant at Philip Burton's lodgings, in Connaught Street, Port Talbot, and Richard moved in.
The relationship between Richard and Philip was formalized in December 1943 when Richard became Philip's ward and Philip his legal guardian until Richard reached the age of twenty-one. Adoption had been considered but Philip was twenty days short of the minimum age difference of twenty-one years required in law. Henceforth Richard used the surname Burton, and it was as Richard Burton that he became known to the wider world.
From this point on, Richard's world changed and his horizons were immensely broadened. He passed the School Certificate examinations (in English, history, geography, Welsh, mathematics and chemistry) in the summer of 1943, reaching the standard necessary for matriculation to university. Under the auspices of the Royal Air Force, he was accepted on to a short-course programme at Oxford University, to run for six months from the spring of 1944. In the meantime, he made his professional debut as an actor.
Philip Burton had arranged an audition for Richard with the playwright and actor Emlyn Williams, who was seeking Welsh-speaking actors for a production of The Druid's Rest. Richard got the part, and appeared at the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool from 22 November 1943, and in London from 26 January 1944. When at Oxford he then starred in the Friends of Oxford University Dramatic Society production of Measure for Measure, staged in the cloisters at Christ Church, where he was directed by Nevill Coghill.
Richard's dramatic career was interrupted by the exigencies of wartime service. When his brief stint at Exeter College, Oxford came to an end he began training as a navigator at RAF Babbacombe near Torquay. There were other postings, including to Heaton Park near Manchester, and occasionally Richard obtained leave of absence to appear in some of Philip Burton's productions for BBC Radio. But by May 1945 he was on a ship bound for further training in Canada, when the war in Europe came to an end. Burton remained in Canada, training for potential bombing campaigns against Japan, but by the time the war ended in August 1945 he had not seen active service.
It would take twenty-eight months after the war's end for Richard Burton to part company with the Royal Air Force. Most of that time was spent on RAF bases in the United Kingdom – in Norfolk, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire – and he did manage to keep his acting ticking over with occasional work for radio and television.
Demobilization eventually came on 16 December 1947. Pursuing an offer made to him in Oxford in 1943, Burton approached Hugh ‘Binkie’ Beaumont, of the H. M. Tennent casting agency, and his full-time stage career, with a contract of £10 a week, was launched. From 24 February 1948 Burton was directed by Daphne Rye as Mr Hicks in a production of Castle Anna at the Lyric, Hammersmith. Other parts followed – in Dark Summer, and Captain Brassbound's Conversion. And Burton's activities were not confined to the stage, for Emlyn Williams cast him in the part of Gareth in his film The Last Days of Dolwyn, which would appear in 1949.
While filming Dolwyn Burton met his first wife, Sybil Williams. She was five years younger than Burton, but also from the South Wales coalfield. Her father had been a colliery under-manager at Tylorstown, in the Rhondda Fach, and she had attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. She was appearing in Dolwyn as an extra. Richard and Sybil married on 5 February 1949 at the Kensington Registry Office, and started married life in a rented room in Daphne Rye's house in Fulham. Later they would move to Lyndhurst Road, Hampstead. Not long after marrying, Sybil gave up her acting career.
From the very beginning Richard Burton had pursued a dual acting career, on stage and in film, as well as appearing on radio, and
all of this continued as his career prospered. He was highly successful in Christopher Fry's plays The Boy with a Cart and The Lady's not for Burning, the last of which enjoyed a successful run in New York as well as in London. He received lucrative sums for appearances in British film productions such as Now Barabbas, Waterfront, The Woman with No Name and Green Grow the Rushes. But what truly propelled Burton into the ranks of great actors were the Shakespearean parts that he took – first at Stratford-upon-Avon, later at the Old Vic in London – from 1951 onwards. Burton made his mark as Prince Hal and Henry V in the history cycle under Anthony Quayle at Stratford in 1951, and this brought him to the attention of Twentieth Century-Fox, who subsequently secured his services from Alexander Korda.
Burton went to Hollywood in 1952, playing opposite Olivia de Havilland in My Cousin Rachel, which earned him his first Academy Award nomination. This was followed by The Desert Rats and then another Academy Award nomination (this one for Best Actor rather than Best Supporting Actor) for The Robe. It was at this time that Burton first met Elizabeth Taylor, then married to fellow actor Michael Wilding.
For the next three years Burton juggled his film career with a continuing commitment to the stage. He was immensely successful in the Old Vic productions of Hamlet and Coriolanus in 1953 and 1954, of Henry V in 1955, and of Othello in 1956. His record on film was more mixed: the series of films he made with Twentieth Century-Fox between 1954 and 1956 – Prince of Players, Alexander the Great, The Rains of Ranchipur, Sea Wife and Bitter Victory – were not as successful as had been anticipated and he failed to establish himself as a Hollywood ‘leading man’. Perhaps his greatest tangible achievement from this period (tangible in that we still have a record of it, unlike his stage performances), was his performance in his friend Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood, first broadcast in January 1954.
The Richard Burton Diaries Page 3