The first Big Adventure I went on with Mum was the annual family trip with Grandpa Graham and Granny Betty to visit friends and relations in South Wales. It wasn’t long after I’d gone to live with her in Yorkshire and I was really excited as I’d heard so much about it already.
We went in Mum’s car and this time she did most of the driving as Grandpa Graham didn’t feel up to driving long distances any more. And she took us to all their favourite places and I found I liked them as well. They included Porthcawl…
Merthyr Mawr…
Ogmore-by-Sea…
and Southerndown…
She also took us to visit some of Grandpa Graham’s cousins, as well as his stepbrother, and we had lots of cups of tea and biscuits. And, because we were staying at a bed-and-breakfast nearby, we had our evening meals at either The Old House or The Corner House in the village of Llangynwyd, near Maesteg.
We visited one of Grandpa Graham’s old army pals and the two of them spent the afternoon catching up and reminiscing, mentioning places with exotic-sounding names such as Benghazi and Marsa Matruh, Sidi Barrani and Tunis in North Africa, Sint Gillis-bij-Dendermonde in Belgium and Nijmegen in the Netherlands, while Granny Betty and his wife talked about things in general and me and Mum sat quietly and listened.
Then we visited Len, who was one of Grandpa Graham’s best friends from childhood. They’d grown up as close neighbours, gone to the same school…
and, later, the same pub…
only to be separated when World War II took them in different directions. Afterwards Len went back to their home village, while Grandpa Graham settled in Yorkshire, but their friendship remained strong. They often spoke on the phone – and, no matter how long or short the holiday in Wales was, Grandpa Graham always made time to go and see Len.
But Len and his wife never came to Yorkshire to see Grandpa Graham and Granny Betty, even though they knew they’d be more than welcome. I thought that was a bit strange. And when I found the reason why, I thought it was even stranger, as Len (along with most of Grandpa Graham’s other friends and family) was convinced that it was much further for them to travel north to our house than it was for us to travel south to theirs.
Then Len and Grandpa Graham started reminiscing about their childhood and some of the things they’d got up to – until finally they got to The Tale of the Trolley.
Now back in the late 1920s many families didn’t have a lot of money – and certainly not enough to buy expensive children’s toys. So, when Grandpa Graham and Len decided they’d like a trolley to ride round on, they realised they’d have to make it themselves. Getting a piece of a wooden plank was no problem, but a set of wheel was much harder to find. They lived in a very rural area, however, and soon they spotted a metal hay-rack in a nearby field – and its four metal wheels were just the right size!
When no one was looking, the wheels and their axles were removed from the hay-rack and fixed to the plank of wood. They thought their trolley was complete and off they went, down the hill from the village. It was only as they started going faster and faster that they remembered that they hadn’t thought of any way of steering the trolley or of stopping it – until it tipped on its side and threw them both off into the road.
I was just about to sympathise, when suddenly they both burst out laughing and – to my surprise – both Grandpa Graham and Len rolled their trouser legs up to just above their knees to compare the size of their scars which were still very obvious after almost 70 years…
Then a couple of days afterwards, Grandpa Graham told us a story that even Mum hadn’t heard before. We were in St Cynwyd’s church yard in Llangynwyd, tidying up the family grave and putting fresh flowers on it, when suddenly Grandpa Graham said he wanted to show us something.
He took us a bit further up the hill and then stopped at the side of a large memorial stone, commemorating a man called Vernon Hartshorn who was the Labour Member of Parliament for the Ogmore constituency (which included Maesteg) from 1918 until he died in 1931 at the early age of 58.
Grandpa Graham said that this was where his middle name had come from and went on to explain why. He told us that Vernon Hartshorn had started his working life in the Monmouthshire coal-mines where his leadership skills – along with his genuine concern for his fellow-workers – were eventually recognised.
In 1905 he was elected Miners’ Agent in Maesteg, an area which included Coegnant Colliery where Grandpa Graham’s dad worked from 1917 to 1921.
Vernon Hartshorn retained this post until 1924 and was also President of the South Wales Miners’ Federation from 1922 to 1924. He played a prominent part in the 1912 strike for a minimum wage and again in the 1920 strike against plans by the owners of the soon-to-be-re-privatised coal-mines to cut the rates of pay and lengthen the working day.
A further strike in 1921 collapsed on April 15th when the railway and transport unions withdrew their support and by the end of that month Grandpa Graham’s dad was on his way to Canada, never to return.
But the fire in his belly that made him name his son after a Labour MP and trade unionist was never quite extinguished. Sometime in the 1930s, while he was working as a truck driver in Ontario, he felt his boss wasn’t showing him enough respect and so, with no more ado, he hit him hard enough to knock him down. Most people would have lost their job as a result, but Grandpa Graham’s dad kept his – and was treated with great respect from then on…
That’s all for today, so take care, stay safe – and look out for some more tales from me soon!
Follow my next blog: 215. MY MUM THE STORY-TELLER – PART NINETY-EIGHT
18/08/2022
Wilf the bear-faced blogger 