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“My Life in the Land Army”

When war broke out I was a shop assistant in Phillips Bros in Neath.  I had never done any heavy work except for a bit of housework.  Just before my 18th birthday I was called up to work in a factory in Neath called the “Metal Clad”. This changed my whole existence. The first shock to the system was starting work at 6a.m.  Then the noise of the factory machinery!  I was put to work on carrying out inspections – we were making detonators for shells.  The second shift was 2.00 to 10.00 p.m. and was long and monotonous.  The work itself was quite soul destroying and I hated it.

So…I volunteered for the Land Army.

I was nearly 19 years of age when I started in the Forestry Commission. Our big chief was Lady Whitten Brown and her deputy was Mrs. Major Bevan, Glyn Clydach.  I had my medical and passed fit.  I was told to report to the forestry at Resolven catching the 7a.m. service bus from the station in Neath.  On arriving at the station I met Rita, Hazel, Nita and Betty.  We looked as if we were going on a safari to the Far East!  We had taken all our clothes with us – overcoat, hat, stiff oilskins, boots, putties, breeches, skirt, pullover and dungarees. When we got out of the bus at Resolven we had to walk to the forestry house.  I’m sure that Mr.Smith (the head forester) was dying to laugh.  He took us up to the work centre – which was a large shed – and there we met the other girls.  There were two from Cardiff and the rest from Swansea.  There were also a few young boys (not old enough for the army), a ganger called Ted and another chap called Mr. Farily, who was a very tall Australian.

The next day we were put into gangs and were taken to a shed where all the tools were kept.  I remember Mr Farily trying to teach me to cut hedges.  Two of the Swansea girls lodged with Ted the ganger and the two girls from Cardiff lodged on the same estate.  One thing I will always remember is that they would open their sandwiches and it was either Spam or cheese.  We were all given an extra cheese ration!

During the first few weeks we spent our time near the huts weeding small trees.  Then one day we were sent to different places.  I was sent with Sheila, Olive and some young boys to Pentre Clwyda where we did more weeding using billhooks.  Whilst there, I sliced off half my nail and we had a strike – but we soon settled down.

On running for the bus one night I stepped out of my wellingtons and got my feet soaking wet.  Very often we had lifts home with Craven Llewellyn, Mr Parry Davies or Mr Danny Thomas.

One summer I did “whinberry patrol”. This meant watching out for people coming onto Forestry land to pick whinberries.  They were supposed to have a pass which in those days cost l shilling.  I did not sell my passes as the pickers were old stagers who knew how to dodge me. They had quite a little business going on.  They would come early in the morning equipped with some big baskets and stay all day.  They then sold the whinberries to stall holders in Neath market – rather them than me as whinberries are very difficult to pick.

Once I remember spending all day weeding which was quite back breaking.  When it came time to finish I was tired and stiff.  I happened to be first in line walking down the mountain path when I was suddenly yanked back and the chap behind me bent down and hit out with his stick.  I yelled out “what’s the matter?”  He replied “It’s OK; it’s only a snake and you were about to step on it”!  You can imagine how I felt.  Another day I had to walk up to the top of the mountain where there was a plateau where new trees had been planted which were about a foot high.  Our job was to walk between the trees looking for a certain kind of beetle and the name of the project was “beetle drive”.  In the middle of the day the forester, Mr. Smith, appeared.  I didn’t hear him until he was right behind me and he got hold of my shirt collar and said he had put a beetle down my back.  I went frantic trying to get it out until he burst out laughing and said it was a joke!  The fact was that he was checking up on us as we all had jam pots to put the beetles in and he could then see how much work we had done.

There was a forester, Deputy Mr Lloyd, Foreman Mr Farily and Ted.  One of these would appear out of the trees sometime during the day to check up on us.

I remember Mary Wheaton from Cardiff very well.  She had a beautiful voice and would burst into song at various times during the day.  One day we were singing a duet of the “Indian Love Call” while sawing branches off the trees on the Resolven side of the mountain and really enjoying ourselves.  When we came to the end Mr Smith appeared from the trees and said “You come here to work not sing” and with him was the area forester who didn’t say a word.

You may wonder how we managed the toilet. It doesn’t take much imagination to know how to deal with passing water as many of you will have been caught short yourselves and gone behind a tree or bush.  When it comes to a big job we had to dig a hole in the ground and then fill it in afterwards.  There was no water to wash your hands so hygiene wasn’t the best.

There was a forestry hut where we kept our tools.  It was a stone hut with big gaps between the stones where the wind whistled through.  We complained about this and were left a bag of cement and sand and told to fill the gaps ourselves! We were only allowed to stay here if it was raining first thing in the morning and if it cleared up we were expected to go out to work.  Sometimes we would be up to two miles up the mountain and it would come to rain.  We carried a tarpaulin with us and if it rained we would tie each corner to a tree and shelter under it.  If it was still raining at 3p.m. we were allowed to go home.  Many a time we would be standing watching the rain come up the Neath valley, collect our tools ready to clear off when the rain would turn back on reaching Clyne and we had to carry on until 4.40p.m. ready to clear up and catch the 4.55 train to Neath.

I remember one morning we were told that some German prisoners had escaped from Stormy Down and had not been recaptured so we were quite scared.  By this time we knew most of the men on the 6.30 bus and they would pull our legs about lots of little things especially when we used to fall asleep after the bus had left Neath and the conductor would wake us up when the bus got to Clyne.  In winter it was dark so going up amongst the trees at half light with Germans about made it a bit scary. We worked very close together that morning and were very relieved when someone came to tell us that the Germans had been recaptured.  Incidentally I was courting my husband Frank at this time and he was one of the soldiers who recaptured the Germans who were hiding in a railway truck in Llandow.

Whenever you travel near a forestry take a good look and you will see every so often a wide space between the trees which is called a “Ride”.  It is put there in case of fire and it is to stop the fire spreading.  Another thing you may notice is that the branches of the trees are cut off at a certain height from the ground.  This is called “Brashing”.  The funniest thing was when they brought us our axes to fell the trees it took a few days to master the technique of swinging the axe over the left shoulder as well as the right.  The difficult part was getting the axe into the exact same spot on the base of the trunk so that the tree would fall the right way when it was felled through.  When the tree fell we would shout “TIMBER” so that no one would be in the way.  We then set to work sawing off all the branches with a girl on each side of a big cross cut saw to cut the branches into pit props.  I should also mention that after taking the branches off we had to carry the trunk to the “level”.  These trunks were very heavy and we either had to carry them on our shoulders or drag them with a rope down the mountain. 

We had to take sandwiches and a thermos of drink with us every day.  A thermos was a tricky thing to handle as we had to have a permit to buy one and they were not easy to come by.  We were also given an extra cheese ration which was no good for me as I didn’t eat cheese but my father benefited from it.

At this time I was an opera fanatic and when the Carl Rosa opera company came to Swansea I used to try and get to see them during the week.  So, my sister Lena and a few friends would go down to Swansea Empire after work and queue for tickets in the upper circle (the “Gods”).  I would go to work in the morning in my best uniform and then wear a pair of dungarees on top to cover up.  At the end of the day after a quick wash in the stream I would dash to Neath, change buses and get to Swansea at about 6p.m. to join the girls in the queue and eat whatever they had brought for me.  It was then up to the front of the gods for the performance.  It didn’t matter how hard the seats were as I was lost in the world of “Madame Butterfly” or “La Traviata” and kept singing all the way home.  Another thing I recall was working on the Glynneath side of the mountain near Aberpergwm colliery.  We used to sneak into their canteen and I used to buy the most delicious slice of bread pudding for a penny.  On the other side of the mountain was Glyn Castle Colliery.  The coal came from the top of the mountain and was sent down in drams.  There was an overhead control cable for the drams and if you wanted to stop the drams you put the two cables together for them to stop.  If we were working at the top of the mountain we used to stop the drams, jump in and have a ride to the top.

One day I was working on the Clyne side of the mountain, lashing around with the billhook when I hit a bee’s nest.  You can imagine what happened.  The bees came at me from all directions – they were down my wellingtons, up my jumper, in my hair and I was petrified.  The girls rallied around to shoo them away and I was left there with stings all over. There was no first aid kit, so one of the girls went off to the nearest house and borrowed a blue bag.  After plastering this all over myself I looked a bit peculiar but it did the trick.

In hindsight we were very lucky never to have had a fire in the forestry as the little stack of fire brushes at the entrance would not have been much good in dealing with a big fire. My experience in the Land Army was very eventful but I was still very glad when the war came to an end and I was “demobbed”.

Betty Charles

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This article was published in “Hanes”, a quarterly magazine of the Skewen & District Historical Society

We are very grateful to Brian Charles for allowing us to reproduce the reminiscence by his mother Betty Charles and providing the accompanying photograph.

Also many thanks to Anne Morgan, Chair and the Committee of the Skewen & District Historical Society.

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The present owners of the “forestry house” mentioned in the article, (still known locally in Resolven as ‘Mr Smith’s House’) are Carol Wilshire and her husband. Carol is a member of The Skewen & District Historical Society and we thank her for showing us this article.

In Betty Charles’s article she mentions “……..Another day I had to walk up to the top of the mountain where there was a plateau where new trees had been planted which were about a foot high.……. “

The following photographs are of recent tree harvesting by Natural Resources Wales and are probably some of the trees mentioned by Betty Charles.

According to Natural Resources Wales ‘the Neath Valley forest amounts to 2,806 Hectares’ (1 Hectare = 2.47 Acres) and the ‘Rheola Forest section is located on the North West densely forested valley side which descends from Sarn Helen Roman Road to the old A465 in the valley bottom.’

Four Photographs by Hugh Lewis

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At Ty Bank, Resolven Canal

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CLYNE AND MELINCOURT COMMUNITY COUNCIL

B4434 Closure New Road Tonna

 17th August for 5 Days

Please note this road will be closed to all traffic

Commuters in Clyne and Melincourt, will have to travel to Resolven to connect with the A465

 The actual site is located on the bends approaching Tonna and the workmen could not work safely without complete road closure during the 5 days except for emergency vehicles. The closure will be during the hours of 8 – 17 daily. The road will be open outside those hours.

  For more information on bus passenger transport: Contact

 NPT Cllr Dean Lewis 07854 424162

 Keith Thomas 07577 644435/711000

Information on road works from NPT Council

We are scheduled to be carrying out Surface Dressing Carriageway works on the B4242 Neath Road, Abergarwed with the programme expected to commence on the 01.08.2020 for four days pending weather and plant breakdowns.

The first two days 01.08.2020 – 02.08.2020 will consist of applying the first coat of bitumen and chippings, after an initial sweep the contractor will return to apply the ‘seal’ part of the treatment on the 05.08 & 06.08 which is an emulsion spray that goes onto the first coat to lock in the chippings, this is usually a very fast process and is usually drivable on after around 30 minutes (weather temperature dependent).

The works will be under stop/go traffic management and delays should be expected/anticipate.

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The corona virus lockdown hasn’t been a pleasure as I am sure we all agree but just because adversity comes our way it hasn’t stopped Resolven making the best of a bad thing. So many negatives have dominated our way of living and loving life it’s sometimes been difficult to see a silver lining but there have been many. Community spirit came to the fore when so many local residents offered their help to those who were shielding and staying home as recommended — doing shopping, delivering essential supplies and generally supporting anyone who needed it. This has been prevalent throughout and that includes the local businesses that kept supplies stocked and did doorstep deliveries to so many households. Flour was in short supply mainly because the bakers among us made treats for NHS and keyworkers as well as for friends and neighbours. Where the taste buds benefitted from such delights, the waistlines have all probably suffered but for good reason..

 A Facebook page connected over 300 likeminded people who were always there to provide any help required and was a great success. The support shown towards the NHS and careworkers was inspiring and the clapping on the doorsteps each Thursday was quite astounding. We lit up windows with blue lights, decorated our windows with rainbows and a feeling of unity was all around.

There were moments of negativity and frustration and a lot of ‘fed up’ days but as a whole Resolven has stepped up and stayed in and stayed safe. The virus was kept at bay locally with very few reported cases and we felt both relieved and fortunate.

Working from home was a new experience for those able to comply and the word ‘keyworkers ‘ showed who it was keep the country moving and working .

Home schooling gave us all a new perspective on how teachers should be applauded and appreciated.

The silver linings had to be looked for but they were there. The internet played a huge part in keeping us all connected not only to our nearest and dearest but there were quizzes, music concerts from homes, online dance classes, video exercises, church and chapel services, video group chats and lots of photos through social media outlets that kept everyone up to date and most of the time amused with what was going on indoors and in gardens all over the village and new friendships were formed.

Walking became the main pastime and it reminded us of how blessed we are to live in an area that offers so many walking and cycling opportunities, with beautiful scenery. the lack of traffic and the sudden slowing down of life gave us chance to appreciate our surroundings in a way we hadn’t had the chance to for years .

Street parties with social distancing were organised for the 75^th anniversary of VE Day where it was possible to party outdoors keeping social distancing and where that wasn’t possible family garden parties in the glorious sunshine. Flags and bunting decorated the whole village

Ynysfawr avenue continued the VE day success with street bingo and even organised live music to keep up moral, and Ynysfach Avenue followed suit.

Birthdays were celebrated in gardens and via zoom conference calls as were wedding anniversaries so nobody missed a celebration.

As the weeks ticked by it stepped up a notch. The ukulele band known as the Indonesian Architects who practice at the Welfare Hall decided it was time to go on tour and played on the streets of Resolven to much acclaim and continue to do so when the weather permits.

• 

Resolven AFC ordered new training tops with NHS logo that raised money for NHS charities doing their bit to show their support of the Health Service.

The carnival was cancelled but the ladies from the Welfare repeated last years successful painted rocks and created a rock hunt that children could search for on walks with their parents to make a stone snake on school road for all to view . So far there are over a 100 stones in the snake and its still forming. Mr. Morgan the headmaster of ynysfach primary has generously agreed to display the rocks on school property when they reopen in September.

Local crafter Amanda Williams has created a magical fairy trail sited on the canal path that has enthralled not only so many little ones but their parents too and will hopefully be a lasting attraction that can be enjoyed by both locals and visitors to the wonderful tourist area that is the Neath Tennant canal. This in turn will encourage people to take the opportunity to hire canoes and visit Ty banc for ice cream or a coffee whilst enjoying the wonderful scenery on offer.

As lockdown is coming to a gradual close, the rugby club have opened their fields and club so we can begin to socialise slowly and safely once again and even though social distancing is still important its giving us the opportunity to come out of lockdown and begin to meet up again be together a bit more giving us a taste of the ‘new normal’ we all speak about.

From the very start Resolven community council and our NPTC councillor Dean Lewis have been on hand to provide regular information and support to all going above and beyond their normal remit answering the call whenever it was needed  for which we can all be grateful .

I am sure there was much more that could be mentioned so please send us your lockdown stories so we can share the smiles.

REPORT by DIANE SIMS

Our RDN photographer, Mike Davies, took these “before and after ” pictures of Clun Primary School-the latest image this week during demolition

The school opened it’s gates in1896 and the last home-time bell was rung there in July 2015. It was known as Clyne school until the name was changed to Clun Primary school in 1983.

Clos yr Ysgol, a housing development for 2, 3 bedroom houses and bungalows is being built on the site of the old school

All the pupils on their last day at a much loved school

C MESSAGE 14 – GENESIS 8:1-5 28/06/20

I am sure all of us know the story of Noah’s ark and the flood. God told Noah to build an ark and to take his family and all types of animals into the ark because He was going to flood the earth. After many days of torrential rain the opening words in chapter 8 are ‘but God remembered Noah’. Noah and his family were in the ark for many weeks and they did not know what sort of world they would find once the deluge was over. For sure he must have thought to himself it will be a different world. They did not know where he ark was going to land, they did not know what they would find once they stepped out of the ark. What about visiting friends and families?  What about their houses? What about?? This ‘what about’ must have reoccurred to him again and again.  As much as Noah tried to figure things out one thing he knew for sure ‘God had already figured all of them out. Talking to people, everybody is trying to imagine how life will be after all of this Covid19 is over. Of course like everybody else, my imagination runs wild, however even though I do not know what is ahead, I know who does – God.

When the bible tells us God remembered Noah, it does not mean that God had a lapse of mind and suddenly it occurred to Him that Noah was in the ark. It means the time was right for Him to allow Noah and his family and all the animals to come out from the ark. God started working things out for Noah, and all of those with him in the ark to come out and face a new reality. Can you see? God understands everything about ‘lockdown’. Noah was locked down in an ark, Joseph in a prison in Egypt, David and his men in a cave when running from Saul, Daniel in the lions’ den, Lazarus in a tomb, Paul in a prison in Rome etc. Many great servants of God have been in lockdown. God was with all of them all the time. It is no time to lose heart or to despair – because God is with us in this lockdown.

I can reassure you that God has not forgotten about you or about your situation. God remembered Noah and He remembers you. I am not a very nostalgic person and for sure we cannot live in the past or in the future. Nonetheless it is  healthy for us to recall in our minds again and again the times God has rescued us in the past and how He changed everything around. For sure God will make a way where there seems to be no way. We know the story of the crossing of the Red Sea – the Israelites could not go anywhere and God made a way where there seemed to be no way.

We are the people of God, we belong to Him, we are in His mind, God has not forgotten us. At the present moment I am reading a book which Richard Preedy gave me. It is about the history of Christianity. There were times when things were truly desperate and then ‘God remembered His people’. It is a wonderful thing to have faith at a time such is this, we know what we know, od remembers us. In the same way that he rescued Noah and his family, God will rescue us. We are not going through life just expecting that after death we will see Him. Of course we have great expectations once our lives upon this earth are over, however till then, we the people of God are going to see Him rescuing us many times over ,because He remembers us.

Noah and his family were in the ark for many weeks and they did not have a satnav, or the news on the TV, or could listen to the radio, or go for a walk, they did not know where they were going to end up but they knew that God was with them. It is so wonderful to know that God is with us, and He will sustain us and He will see us through. We need to be careful not to allow the news we hear on the TV and other means of communication to deafen God’s voice. Please be well informed, but in the midst of such great uncertainty it is the voice of God which will guide us, and reassure us, ‘it is ok’. He says – I know where and how you are – I remember you’.

Noah built the ark, but the captain of it was God. The ark was floating aloof for many days and nights, it was drifting away, Noah had never been in a boat before. The ark was just floating, it did not have the mechanism necessary to be piloted. It did not have a steering wheel or a rudder, it was just floating and floating, but God knew where He was taking it. At the moment it could well be you find yourself a bit at lost, and everything you knew and gave you a sense of security and belonging is not there anymore. You feel like you are just floating on the ocean of life, well, Noah has been there and God had His eye on Noah and his family all the time. God remembered Noah and God remembers you. He will help you, landing safely. Some times you get upset because people had forgotten about you and let you down – well the good news is ‘God remembers you’. God bless

PS. Many thanks to all of those who got involved with “24 Hours of Prayers for the Nations”, it went very well and we were able of covering the 195 nations of the world. We had people from South Korea, Kenya, Nigeria, UK, Brazil, New Zealand, America praying with us. We just did not pray for the nations we pray with the nations. Keep praying at least once a week for the nations you prayed for last weekend.

Pastor Fortunato Santos