Good Times, Good Money, Good Friends.

A Memory of Brynamman.

I was sent frtom Leeds to Lower Bynamman in 1970 to work building up a huge 2400 Marion excavator for Sir Lindsey Parkinson at the GCG (Tyor Gwaith?) opencast coal site. I lodged at the Bryannam Hotel with Dez and Dylis. I soon made lots of friends in Bryamman, Gwn Gosto, (foreman fitter), Panto and Darrell Chips (from Abercrave), Clive Trotman, (welder), Mel (welder) and all his friends at the 'opera'. They were doing 'Oklahoma' that year and after rehearsals Mel and the whole cast used to come into the pub and sing all the show's songs as they played dominoes etc. I had heard about the Welsh singing but I was totally amazed. What they forgot to inform the 'Seis' was that they were in fact an amateur operatic society coming in for a drink after rehearsals, I thought they were just pub customers, I was gob-smacked... Later I was told and eventually I went to see the show. I still remember it to this day, it was fantastic, especially Mel - he had a lovely deep tenor voice.
When the Navi was built up I should have got back to Leeds but I liked it so much in the Valleys that I stayed and got a permanent job as a Uke (Huge dumptruck) Fitter. Pam, the daughter at the pub saved my life once when I got into bed drunk in my oily boots and working clothes. She washed and changed the sheets before Dylis saw them, she would have scalped me. We worked 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week, but we earned big money and spent it, we worked hard and played hard on the opencast in the early 1970s. No Health and Safety then...just coal and big money.
I stayed in Wales for several years, first lodging in the flat above the fish and chip shop in Upper Bynamman, then later I bought a row of old cottages Ynis Y Bont, (derelict) down by the river in Ystradowen, Cwmllynfell and did them up. My family moved down to Wales too. When Pam (at the Brynannam Hotel) went back to London she gave me her dog, a Golden Lab called Bruno who lived to a ripe old age with my wife and son Max in Ystradowen. My two brothers came down from Leeds too, John and Terry, they worked on Opencast and at Abanant colliery on the face. I later worked in the Ystragynlias coal site (Tir gof?). My wife spent all her life in South Wales but after the opencast and local pits had all died a death I moved on up north looking for coal work with my brothers, eventually Maggie and I divorced. She had been brought up in tiny back-to-back slums in Leeds. She never ever wanted to leave Wales and she didn't. She died down there in 2004. (When I went to her funeral it was as if I had never been away.) I have really fond memories of Wales and the good people I met down there. Because I learned a little Welsh I was forgiven for being English and given honorary 'Deen Cymraig'? status by Di Glyn (who once played for Wales.) at the Club Bach. I played 2nd Row for a few games down there, for Bynamman (y Guttr vwr) and Cwmllynfell while I was there, great rugby. Had the coal work not petered out in the Valleys I would have spent my whole life there, as my ex-wife and son did. Cwmru am Byth. From a converted 'seis' who found work, coal, hills and good beer in Bryamman, just like being back home in Yorkshire, but the rugby and singing was better. Fond memories indeed.