#maerdy

The Welsh were a fiercy religious people at that time.  There were chapels everywhere.  I attended chapel every Sunday and loved to hear the singing.  The Welsh are renowned for their beautiful voices and choirs, especially the all-male voice choirs.  I believe the tradition began in the coal mines, much as it did for the field slaves of America.  Often the men would sing as they made their way home from the pits.  The richness of a Welsh choir has never failed to bring tears to my eyes or a lump to my throat, especially when they sing the old traditional hymns. Later, Negro spirituals became a part of their repertoires; perhaps the men related to the plight of America's black slaves... With coal mining no longer deemed viable, the last of Maerdy's pits closed in 1990.  With no industry, the Rhondda Valley became home to thousands of unemployed, disillusioned men.  With the closing of the mines, the once-happy and thriving valleys became nothing but barren slag heaps.  Religion died with hope, and now only one chapel remains open in Maerdy.  There is no sign of the railway station, once the pride of the valley, when I arrived all those years before.  The railway went, along with everything else.

On a more recent visit [to Maerdy], I was pleaed to see that vegetation had begun to hide some of the filthy, dangerous slag heaps.  Others no longer existed, bulldozed away for safety's sake.  I say 'dangerous' slag heaps because of the frequent slides, the most tragic of which took place on 21st October 1966.  It resulted in one of the worst disasters in Britain's history. In the nearby village of Aberfan, following heavy rainfalls, a virtual mountain of slag collapsed and slid down into the valley.  The avalanche of mine detritus buried two of the village's schools, killing 144 people; 116 of the dead were children under the age of ten.  Sadly, it took that terrible incident to spur the government into action, to begin ridding the valleys of those monstrous eyesores and the danger they threatened. The mountains are now in the process of reforestation, and one of the larger mines has become a mining museum, but that is a pittance when set against what the valleys need.  Crime and vandalism are rife, there is graffiti everywhere, and unemployment statistics remain among the highest in Britain. The elderly are saddened to see forestry taking away their old berry-picking places and fewer sheep grazing on the hillsides; walking on the many ancient footpaths is no longer permitted.  Yet in spite of the changes to their village and the surrounding mountains and valleys, those elderly people maintain the beautiful heart and spirit that I choose to remember.

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