Winners and Losers

by Catrin Collier

  In retaliation against the charges of police brutality, the police charged strikers with every offence on the book: card-playing in the street, obstruction, intimidation, theft, swearing, drunkenness, and sheep stealing.

  In the same month the authorities finally capitulated and tried PC James Thomas of Penygraig for clubbing a striker in his own home. The prosecution failed. In August 1911 Mabon (William Abraham MP) again appealed for an inquiry into charges against the police but the Home Secretary declined to ‘put police on trial’.

  All the major events portrayed in Winners & Losers actually occurred. The train crash at Hopkinstown on the morning of Monday, 28 January 1911 killed eleven passengers, including three miners’ leaders: Councillor Tom George from Ferndale, Councillor W. H. Morgan from Treherbert and Councillor Tom Harries from Pontygwaith. All three were miners’ checkweighers. (The checkweighers’ calculations formed the basis for the colliers’ wages and they were chosen by both management and workers for their honesty.) Miss Margaret Davies (age ten of the Commercial Hotel, Ferndale), Thomas John Hodges (a butcher, Ferndale,) Thomas Ivor Hodges (age nine, his son), Reverend W. Landeck Powell (Caerphilly), Hannah Jenkins (age sixteen, Morgan Street, Trehafod), Idris Evans (age eighteen, Tonypandy), Edward Lewis, (a horse dealer, Llwynypia), and Lodwig Hughes (a colliery engine driver, Mardy) were also killed. Seven people were seriously injured and taken to Cardiff Infirmary.

  The Australian premier, Andrew Fisher, visited Tonypandy in July 1911, but after reading his speech to the miners I cannot help feeling that his visit was prompted less by a desire to help the situation than in the hope of recruiting citizens for his country. The cost of the strike to the establishment was certainly greater than it would have been to meet the miners’ demands. The total expenditure on extra policing alone was put at the then enormous cost of £95,030 in September 1911.

  Eventually, and perhaps inevitably, the miners were broken by their families’ suffering. They went back for no gain. The settlement partly negotiated by Mabon eventually brought about his downfall. Rightly or wrongly the miners believed their leader had sided with Leonard Llewellyn and the collieries companies.

  Billy Evans, his three sons –Lloyd, Victor, Joey –Megan Williams, Sali Jones, Joyce Palmer, Lena, and all the police officers are creations of my imagination. The Reverend Williams, founding member of the Mid-Rhondda Central Distress Committee, Captain McCormack of the Salvation Army and Leonard Llewellyn are actual historical figures.

  Billy, Lloyd and Victor’s arrest and trials are based on those of the miners’ leaders, William John (thirty-two) and John Hopla (thirty-one), checkweighers of the Glamorgan Colliery, Tonypandy and members of the Cambrian Combined Joint Committee. They were tried at Glamorgan Assizes, Cardiff in November 1911 (after the strike had been settled) for riotous assembly. Found guilty they were each sentenced to one year’s hard labour. John Hopla’s brother, Henry, was tried and found guilty of assaulting a police officer and sentenced to nine months’ hard labour.

  The sentences led to miners’ demonstrations all over the Rhondda. The Federation of Mineworkers pledged support for their families, and when Mabon asked the Home Secretary in Parliament if he was aware of the sentences, Mr McKenna (who succeeded Winston Churchill in the post) decided that the men were entitled to appeal without cost to themselves. As a consequence, six months later, their sentences were halved. William John became a Rhondda MP and served his constituents for many years. John Hopla’s health broke during his imprisonment and he died shortly after his release.

  Revolutions are rarely reported accurately, especially when they fail, and the events surrounding the Tonypandy Riots are no exception. Some people believe the past has no relevance today. I would disagree. I think the story of the far from ‘ordinary’ self-taught, working-class miners, who prized education and knowledge and built libraries from donated pennies in the hope of advancing their families is inspirational. And, on a more personal note, I want my own children to know about their great-grandfather, Harry Glyndwr Jones, who went down the pit at the age of eleven and worked his way up from collier boy to colliery repairman, and their great-uncle, collier Owain Glyndwr Jones, both of whom took an active part in the 1910-11 and 1926 strikes.

  I am proud of my Welsh roots and all the Welsh men and women who dared to fight the establishment the only way they could and with the only weapon at their disposal –the withdrawal of their labour.

  Catrin Collier, October 2003

  An excerpt from

  SINNERS AND SHADOWS

  Book Three in the Brothers & Lovers series

  by

  CATRIN COLLIER

  Chapter One

  Rhian stacked the last piece of breakfast china from the table on to her tray, left the dining room and sedately crossed the oak-panelled hall of Llan House. The moment the door to the narrow servants’ staircase closed behind her, she charged as fast as she could down the stone staircase and into the basement kitchen.

  ‘Gwilym James opened their doors at half past seven this morning, it’s almost half past eight and it will take you twenty minutes to walk to Dunraven Street.’ The housekeeper, Mrs Williams, glanced up from the tradesmen’s account books that she had spread out on the table.

  ‘It’s not my fault I’m behind this morning, Mrs Williams.’ Rhian dumped the tray next to the Belfast sink where the ten-year-old kitchen maid, Mair, was washing dishes.

  ‘I know,’ Mrs Williams murmured sympathetically.

  ‘Some people will have camped out all night to get the best bargains. There’ll be nothing left worth having by the time you get there,’ Meriel the cook predicted gloomily from the stove where she was making stock from a chicken carcass.

  ‘Miss Julia reminded the mistress three times over breakfast that she had run out of perfume and wanted me to pick up a bottle of Zenobia Violets from Thomas the chemist’s this morning. But the mistress still insisted on having a third cup of tea and a fourth slice of toast.’ Rhian pulled the hairpins that secured her maid’s cap from her blonde curls.

  ‘The way madam eats, I think her family must have starved her before she married the master. Have you noticed how much weight she’s put on these last six months?’ Meriel, who wasn’t exactly a lightweight herself, dropped a bundle of bay leaves into the stock, moved the pan on to a smaller hob and set the lid on it.

  ‘We have,’ Mrs Williams endorsed dryly. ‘Here’s the grocery order for Rodney’s, Rhian, and mind you tell Mrs Rodney that we don’t want any of her substitutes this week. When I say I want Lifebuoy soap, I mean Lifebuoy not Sunlight, and the same goes for biscuits. If she hasn’t any Huntley and Palmer’s Bath Olivers, we’ll go to a shop that has. Understand?’ She handed Rhian the list.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Williams.’ Rhian untied her apron and lifted it over her head, before taking her cloak down from the pegs on the back of the door.

  ‘This really is only fit for the rag bag, Rhian.’ Meriel inspected the hem of the serge cloak Rhian had bought when she had started work in Llan House four years before. She had bleached out the dye along with mud stains and it was more rusty than black in places.

  ‘Which is why Rhian is on her way to the sale.’ Mrs Williams looked out of the window. ‘I wouldn’t wear your hat, Rhian, It will get ruined. It’s hailing and sleeting out there. Take my umbrella.’

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Williams.’ Rhian threw her cloak around her shoulders.

  ‘The family will all be out until tea-time and I’ll give Bronwen a hand with the bedrooms when I’ve finished totalling these figures, so you can take as long as you like but mind you buy quality. It’s easy to get carried away by low prices, but remember, even in the sales, you only get what you pay for. And don’t forget to pick up Miss Julia’s things in the chemist’s,’ Mrs Williams warned.

  ‘You have the list safe?’ Meriel checked when Rhian went to the back door.

  ‘Yes.’ Rhian lifted it from her uniform pocket to show her before buttoning it back in.

&nbs
p; ‘And your money?’ Mrs Williams asked.

  ‘In my purse in my mitten.’

  ‘Then off with you, girl.’

  Rhian dived out of the door. A gust of wind caught it, slamming it behind her. Frozen raindrops stung her face and snarled her blonde curls, which were prone to tangling at the best of times. Realizing that Mrs Williams’s umbrella would blow inside out the second she tried to put it up, she gripped it and the front of her hood with one hand, held the edges of her cloak together with the other, put her head down and ran as fast as she could, while trying not to imagine hordes of shoppers bearing down on the sale rack of winter coats in Gwilym James.

  The department store was the largest and most expensive in Tonypandy and it sold only high-quality goods. A ladies’ slim-cut, black cashmere coat had been the centre highlight of the window display of winter fashions since last September. Coveted by every fashion-conscious woman and girl in the town, at seven guineas it was priced out of the reach of all but the wealthiest people.

  Rhian earned her keep, plus washing, uniform and twelve pounds a year in Llan House. But when it came to buying clothes, her wages didn’t go far. The week before Christmas the price tickets on the goods in the window display had been slashed to encourage interest ahead of the traditional first of January sale. The coat had been reduced from seven to two guineas and it had seemed almost within her grasp –until she had run late that morning.

  Miss Julia and Mrs Williams had done what they could to help her get away early because they both knew that if she asked permission from the new mistress, who had married Mr Larch only two months before, it would be withheld. But even they couldn’t arrange for her to get out of serving the family breakfast.

  She crossed her fingers, and –not exactly prayed because she felt that it would be sinful to pray for something material –wished that just one black cashmere coat would be left in her size.

  Her heart sank when she reached the main street. The pavement outside Gwilym James was so crammed with shoppers it was impossible to work out who was trying to get in and who was trying to get out of the store. Bracing herself, she joined the scrum, parrying inadvertent blows from elbows and knees as she fought her way inside. Buffeted first one way, then another by the crowd, she paused to take her bearings. The lingerie counter was surrounded by a five-deep circle of women pawing through the discounted underwear, the ones in the outer ring grabbing at anything and everything that they could reach.

  She spotted the discounted racks of coats but a horde of women at the knitwear counter blocked her path and the store manager, Joey Evans, was attempting to calm a situation that was threatening to turn ugly.

  ‘Please, ladies, there are plenty of bargains for everyone.’ He pitched his voice above the hubbub while smiling at two elderly women who had locked their fingers into the same grey cardigan. ‘Mrs Jones, looking beautiful as ever on this cold and miserable morning.’ He clasped the fist she had raised to her rival, Mrs Hopkins, and kissed the back of her hand.

  ‘Save the charm for girls young and stupid enough to believe it, Joey Evans, I saw this first.’ Mrs Jones snatched the cardigan from Mrs Hopkins but Joey intervened and held it fast.

  ‘Wouldn’t you prefer it in your favourite navy, Mrs Jones?’ He signalled over her head to the supervisor. ‘Miss Robertson, send one of the boys to the stockroom to get this cardigan in navy in a -’ he ran a practised eye over Mrs Jones’s ample figure –‘forty-four-inch chest.’

  ‘We weren’t going to put the navy out until tomorrow, Mr Evans,’ she replied frostily.

  ‘We can make an exception for a special customer like Mrs Jones, Miss Robertson.’ His smile broadened but it failed to reach his eyes.

  ‘Mr Evans ... Mr Evans ...’

  Rhian ducked behind a display of mannequins in the hope of escaping Joey’s attention. She knew him and his family well, because her closest friend, Sali, was married to his eldest brother, Lloyd. But then every girl in Tonypandy knew Joey Evans, and not just because he was the manager of Gwilym James.

  Twenty-two years old, six-foot tall, with black curly hair and dark eyes that he had inherited from his Spanish mother, he looked more gypsy than Welsh. But he wasn’t just handsome. He oozed charm, and it was his charisma, coupled with his ability to make friends in every strata of Rhondda society, that had won him promotion to the position of store manager at such a young age. However, his penchant for flirting with women –young, old, single or married –made her uneasy. She’d never known quite how to respond to compliments too lavish to be sincere.

  Turning her back on Joey and his adoring audience of assistants and shoppers, she continued to fight her way towards the coat racks. There were plenty of grey, brown, blue and red woollen coats, but she had set her heart on the black cashmere. She could scarcely believe her eyes when she saw it on the rail. She lifted it close and ran her fingers over the cloth.

  Just as she’d hoped from the sheen, it was the same quality as the mistress’ and Miss Julia’s Sunday coats. She retreated to a comparatively empty space close to the back wall of the store.

  ‘It’s no use to you.’

  She looked up. Joey Evans was behind her. ‘Why not?’ Assuming he was teasing her, she tried not to allow her irritation to show.

  ‘It’s a forty-four inch bust, it will drown you.’

  ‘I can take it in.’ She pulled off her cloak, bundled it over her arm and slipped on the coat.

  ‘There’s no way you can take this in.’ He gripped the empty shoulders. ‘You could put a gorilla in there with you and still have room to spare.’

  She glanced down at her feet. At five feet six inches she wasn’t short, but the coat was dragging on the floor. ‘Do you have it in any other sizes?’

  ‘We did, but they were the first to go. Twenty people started queuing before we closed yesterday, and given the weather they had to put up with overnight, you can hardly blame them for grabbing the best bargains this morning.’ He looked her up and down then took a plain black woollen coat from the rack. ‘This looks more your size. Thirty-four-inch chest, fifty-five-inch length?’

  She shook her head. ‘No thank you.’

  ‘No thank you, I don’t like the coat? Or no thank you, it’s not my size? Or no thank you, I’ve set my heart on the cashmere?’

  ‘I know I shouldn’t have set my heart on the cashmere, but I have.’ Reluctant to let it go, she continued to hold on to it.

  ‘Tonia!’ Joey shouted to an assistant who was carrying an armful of scarves out of the stockroom.

  ‘Coming, Mr Evans, sir.’ Tonia smiled at Rhian. ‘Come down from Llan House to pick up a bargain?’

  ‘I had hoped to find one.’ Rhian returned Tonia’s smile. She was the same age as her, and they knew one another well. Tonia’s mother, Connie, owned Rodney’s, the grocers that supplied Llan House.

  ‘Tonia, do me a favour. After you’ve dumped those scarves, go into the office and ask Sam to telephone the Pontypridd and Cardiff stores and check if they’ve any of the ladies’ cashmere coats in a thirty-four chest left on sale. If they have, tell them to set one aside for me.’

  ‘I will, Mr Evans, sir.’

  ‘And less of your cheek, Miss George,’ Joey reprimanded, not entirely humorously. Tonia was his cousin. Unhappy working for her mother in Rodney’s, she had begged him to give her a job in the store. When he had finally capitulated, he had assumed –wrongly as it turned out –that she’d assume a professional distance and not presume on family connections.

  ‘Yes, Mr Evans.’ Subdued, Tonia dumped the scarves on the knitwear counter and headed for the manager’s office.

  ‘I always take a break about now, and given what I’ve had to put up with this morning,’ Joey looked at the crowds and raised his eyebrows, ‘I think I’ve earned my tea and cakes ten times over. How about we go next door?’

  ‘I have to put an order into Rodney’s and pick up some things from Thomas the chemist’s.’

  ‘You can spare ten mi
nutes.’ He closed his hand around her elbow and steered her towards the door. Hemmed in by customers frantically searching for bargains, she had little choice but to comply.

  The peace of the teashop was blissful after the noisy, teeming chaos of the store. Too late for tradesmen’s breakfasts and too early for shoppers’ ‘elevenses’, they had the place to themselves apart from the waitress and a retired school teacher, who was reading the Glamorgan Gazette over a pot of tea.

  ‘Table for two, please, Ruby, there’s a love.’ Joey winked at the waitress and she blushed to the roots of her grey hair.

  ‘How about your favourite, Mr Evans?’ She showed them to a corner table that couldn’t be seen from the window. It was cleanly laid with a fresh linen cloth and napkins.

  ‘A pot of tea and a plate of cream cakes for two. That is all right, isn’t it?’ Joey flashed Rhian a smile.

  ‘Tea would be fine, thank you. But I’m not hungry.’

  ‘You don’t have to be to enjoy the cakes here. They’re little slices of heaven, baked by Ruby’s sister, who has the touch of an angel.’ He kissed the tips of his fingers and waved them in the air.

  ‘You have the gift of the gab, Mr Evans, and no mistake.’ Ruby scribbled down their order and left for the counter.

  Joey shook out Rhian’s napkin and laid it with a flourish over her lap. ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you for some time.’ He sat opposite her and placed his hand close to hers on the table.

  Rhian withdrew her hands on to her lap. ‘What about?’

  ‘I think it’s time we got to know one another better.’

  ‘Why?’ she enquired warily.