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Cwmardy
In Cwmardy, Big Jim, collier and ex-Boer War soldier, and his partner Sian endure the impact of strikes, riots, and war, while their son Len emerges as a sharp thinker and dynamic political organizer.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1937
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31 people want to read
About the author
Lewis Jones
57 books1 followerBorn in Clydach Vale in 1897, Lewis Jones began work underground at the age of twelve. He worked for the National Unemployed Workers' Movement, was elected a County Councillor in 1936, and died in 1939 after a day of speaking at numerous public meetings in support of the Spanish Civil War.
Stephen Knight described Jones' work as novelist thus: "Lewis Jones produced two novels that remain classics of international industrial fiction and testify to the oppressed but resistant and creative character of industrial South Wales."
Stephen Knight described Jones' work as novelist thus: "Lewis Jones produced two novels that remain classics of international industrial fiction and testify to the oppressed but resistant and creative character of industrial South Wales."
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 11, 2021
Brilliant book. Despite being written pre- WW2, easy going from a reading perspective. The subject matter may at first appear dry but it isn't.
This covers the early 20th century pre WW1 and a little afterwards.
Life is hard in this town in the Rhondda where the mines are the principal occupation. There is no welfare state, no NHS.
Len is desperate to leave school and go to work with his father down the mines.
After his first day or two he loathes the mine but doesn't say so, eventually he just gets on with it and he develops an ability to organize the miners and earn their respect.
Other than the mines, there is a tragic side story regarding Len's sister and a gentle love affair with the daughter of Len's hero.
The book includes incidents reflecting real life such as huge mining disasters with tens to over 100 deaths, strikes when the pit owners attempted to reduce pay by 25% even though the men were struggling to make ends meet, and the military being sent to break the strikes and the dawning of trade unionism. WW1 breaks out and most of the men go off to war. Len fails the medical and at first is the target of some abuse for not joining them despite having tried to sign up in the first week. Eventually the government said no more miners were to join up as their efforts to keep the mines running were needed to service the war effort.
The author, Lewis Jones, was a communist and also started work as a miner back around the turn of the 19th/20th centuries. I suspect some autobiographical elements have slipped in to the book!
The book ends after WW1 ends and the men return from war.
The follow on book "We Live" wasn't published until after Lewis Jones' death in 1939 - am looking forward to reading it!
This covers the early 20th century pre WW1 and a little afterwards.
Life is hard in this town in the Rhondda where the mines are the principal occupation. There is no welfare state, no NHS.
Len is desperate to leave school and go to work with his father down the mines.
After his first day or two he loathes the mine but doesn't say so, eventually he just gets on with it and he develops an ability to organize the miners and earn their respect.
Other than the mines, there is a tragic side story regarding Len's sister and a gentle love affair with the daughter of Len's hero.
The book includes incidents reflecting real life such as huge mining disasters with tens to over 100 deaths, strikes when the pit owners attempted to reduce pay by 25% even though the men were struggling to make ends meet, and the military being sent to break the strikes and the dawning of trade unionism. WW1 breaks out and most of the men go off to war. Len fails the medical and at first is the target of some abuse for not joining them despite having tried to sign up in the first week. Eventually the government said no more miners were to join up as their efforts to keep the mines running were needed to service the war effort.
The author, Lewis Jones, was a communist and also started work as a miner back around the turn of the 19th/20th centuries. I suspect some autobiographical elements have slipped in to the book!
The book ends after WW1 ends and the men return from war.
The follow on book "We Live" wasn't published until after Lewis Jones' death in 1939 - am looking forward to reading it!
April 28, 2020
There are a number of reasons why Cwmardy did not achieve the popularity of its near contemporary novel “How Green Was My Valley” by Richard Llewellyn. The first is the title, which for most English readers would be unpronounceable. It is always important to choose a title that your target audience can actually pronounce. The choice of Cwmardy suggests that the target audience was based in the South Welsh mining valleys, and probably not in the English and Scottish mining communities. Names like Senghenydd and Tonypandy would have been known throughout the mining communities of Great Britain, but I doubt that they could spell the names. I will return to the significance of these names later.
The second reason is that John Ford did not make a movie from the book, as he did with How Green Was My Valley. Many people of my age, who have not read the book, will remember the film. They will remember Roddy McDowall as Huw Morgan, Maureen O’Hara as his sister Angharad and Donald Crisp and Rachel Thomas as his parents, Gwilym and Beth Morgan. They will remember the villagers singing Myfanwy outside the Morgan house. Younger readers will remember the TV series with Dominic Guard as Huw, Sue Jones-Davies as Angharad and Stanley Baker and Sian Phillips as Beth. No-one has made a film or TV series of Cwmardy, and there is good reason for that. Cwmardy is not undramatic, but it is fiercely political. This is not surprising considering the political affiliation of the author.
Lewis Jones served on Glamorgan County Council as a Communist. His premature death in 1939 at the age of 42 was caused by his heart giving out when he addressed over 30 meetings in defence of the Spanish Republic in the course of one day. Cwmardy was published in 1937 two years prior to his death.
There are three central events in Cwmardy: the pit explosion (Senghenydd), the strike (Tonypandy) and the Great War. Here I have to confess that this is my family’s history, and I have heard stories of this kind since I was a child. I am therefore not an objective witness.
The story is told through the eyes of Len, a young miner, the son of Big Jim and Shane. It is the story of how he comes to understand the class struggle through his own life’s experiences. He learns when his sister Jane becomes pregnant, and is rejected by her lover, the son of a pit official who refuses to marry her, that there is a power hierarchy, and that his family are at the bottom of it. Jane and her baby die in childbirth, which is a bitter lesson for Len. This is followed by the pit explosion. This is clearly based on Senghenydd, the worst pit explosion of the C20th in Wales, and probably in the whole of the UK. My grandmother’s house was one of those nearest to the pit in Senghenydd. They laid the bodies out in the street in front of her house, and some of the bodies were brought into her house to be washed clean. Lewis Jones does not spare his readers any of the horror of what happened. He shows us the rescue team going down using equipment that the mine owners had not properly maintained. He shows us the women waiting to see if the bodies are their husbands, their sons, their fathers or their brothers. He shows us the whole tragedy, and how profit was more important than human lives. It is a lesson that we are re-learning today.
After the pit explosion, Len begins his working life in the pit. It is not long before the mine owners decide effectively to reduce the wages of the miners by no longer paying for the small pieces of coal that they extract. Of course, the mine owners took the coal and sold it, but they intended to cease paying for it. The miners refuse to accept this and go on strike. In the book, the strike coincides with the coronation of George V in 1911. This was quite clearly the Tonypandy strike. The mine owners called in the police to break the strike using the tactics that were used at Orgreave. At Tonypandy it did not work. The miners in the book, as at Tonypandy, drove the police out of their village. This was so serious that the Home Secretary, Winston Churchill, called them “hooligans” and sent in the army. There is some dispute now about whether or not the army actually arrived at Tonypandy. It does not matter because the miners at Tonypandy, as in the book, were shot at and many were killed. My grandfather, who was one of the strikers, never left me in any doubt about what he thought about Winston Churchill, and he died when I was six. In the book, the wrath of the Valleys descends on the coal owners and they are forced to capitulate.
During the strike, Len meets Mary, the daughter of the miners’ leader, Ezra Jones, and very soon a love interest develops. This is, without doubt, the worst part of the book. Lewis Jones is not very good at describing this kind of intimate affection. What is important is that Mary is as much a firebrand as Len, who had honed his leadership skills during the strike.
When war comes, Len and Mary become involved in the anti-war movement. This however is skipped through as if Lewis Jones has lost interest in the tale. The book, in my view, should have ended with the strike victory. That would have been a passionate, rousing climax to a tale of class solidarity.
The second reason is that John Ford did not make a movie from the book, as he did with How Green Was My Valley. Many people of my age, who have not read the book, will remember the film. They will remember Roddy McDowall as Huw Morgan, Maureen O’Hara as his sister Angharad and Donald Crisp and Rachel Thomas as his parents, Gwilym and Beth Morgan. They will remember the villagers singing Myfanwy outside the Morgan house. Younger readers will remember the TV series with Dominic Guard as Huw, Sue Jones-Davies as Angharad and Stanley Baker and Sian Phillips as Beth. No-one has made a film or TV series of Cwmardy, and there is good reason for that. Cwmardy is not undramatic, but it is fiercely political. This is not surprising considering the political affiliation of the author.
Lewis Jones served on Glamorgan County Council as a Communist. His premature death in 1939 at the age of 42 was caused by his heart giving out when he addressed over 30 meetings in defence of the Spanish Republic in the course of one day. Cwmardy was published in 1937 two years prior to his death.
There are three central events in Cwmardy: the pit explosion (Senghenydd), the strike (Tonypandy) and the Great War. Here I have to confess that this is my family’s history, and I have heard stories of this kind since I was a child. I am therefore not an objective witness.
The story is told through the eyes of Len, a young miner, the son of Big Jim and Shane. It is the story of how he comes to understand the class struggle through his own life’s experiences. He learns when his sister Jane becomes pregnant, and is rejected by her lover, the son of a pit official who refuses to marry her, that there is a power hierarchy, and that his family are at the bottom of it. Jane and her baby die in childbirth, which is a bitter lesson for Len. This is followed by the pit explosion. This is clearly based on Senghenydd, the worst pit explosion of the C20th in Wales, and probably in the whole of the UK. My grandmother’s house was one of those nearest to the pit in Senghenydd. They laid the bodies out in the street in front of her house, and some of the bodies were brought into her house to be washed clean. Lewis Jones does not spare his readers any of the horror of what happened. He shows us the rescue team going down using equipment that the mine owners had not properly maintained. He shows us the women waiting to see if the bodies are their husbands, their sons, their fathers or their brothers. He shows us the whole tragedy, and how profit was more important than human lives. It is a lesson that we are re-learning today.
After the pit explosion, Len begins his working life in the pit. It is not long before the mine owners decide effectively to reduce the wages of the miners by no longer paying for the small pieces of coal that they extract. Of course, the mine owners took the coal and sold it, but they intended to cease paying for it. The miners refuse to accept this and go on strike. In the book, the strike coincides with the coronation of George V in 1911. This was quite clearly the Tonypandy strike. The mine owners called in the police to break the strike using the tactics that were used at Orgreave. At Tonypandy it did not work. The miners in the book, as at Tonypandy, drove the police out of their village. This was so serious that the Home Secretary, Winston Churchill, called them “hooligans” and sent in the army. There is some dispute now about whether or not the army actually arrived at Tonypandy. It does not matter because the miners at Tonypandy, as in the book, were shot at and many were killed. My grandfather, who was one of the strikers, never left me in any doubt about what he thought about Winston Churchill, and he died when I was six. In the book, the wrath of the Valleys descends on the coal owners and they are forced to capitulate.
During the strike, Len meets Mary, the daughter of the miners’ leader, Ezra Jones, and very soon a love interest develops. This is, without doubt, the worst part of the book. Lewis Jones is not very good at describing this kind of intimate affection. What is important is that Mary is as much a firebrand as Len, who had honed his leadership skills during the strike.
When war comes, Len and Mary become involved in the anti-war movement. This however is skipped through as if Lewis Jones has lost interest in the tale. The book, in my view, should have ended with the strike victory. That would have been a passionate, rousing climax to a tale of class solidarity.
November 23, 2024
A brilliant story that really sheds light onto the struggles of the Welsh miners in the early 20th century, and what really marked the beginning of the modern labour movement. Although it details a world so vastly different to that of most of us today, it does not feel outdated our old-fashioned, and has certainly given me lots to think about.
September 6, 2024
WOW! What a powerful book by a local author.
Set over 100 years ago and the question I ask after reading this is "Have things really changed for the better?"
Cwmardy paints a graphic portrait of casual exploitation, tragedy and violence, as well as the politicial hope and humanity of the South Wales Industrial Workers.
Yet their struggles still seem to be our struggles - striking to achieve fair pay and wages to cope with the cost of living; facing a Government and Capitalist society that plays people against each other, when they fear for their profits.
If you haven't read Cwmardy, please do. It is well worth it!
Set over 100 years ago and the question I ask after reading this is "Have things really changed for the better?"
Cwmardy paints a graphic portrait of casual exploitation, tragedy and violence, as well as the politicial hope and humanity of the South Wales Industrial Workers.
Yet their struggles still seem to be our struggles - striking to achieve fair pay and wages to cope with the cost of living; facing a Government and Capitalist society that plays people against each other, when they fear for their profits.
If you haven't read Cwmardy, please do. It is well worth it!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews