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I was born on 30th November 1914, the first child of the Rev Arthur Jones B.A. and Florence May (nee Parker), in the village of Ynysybwl, where my father was minister of Tabernacle Welsh Congregational Church. Ynysybwl lies in a small valley North of Pontypridd, between the Cynon valley and the Rhondda Fach valley. It had one large mine, the Lady Windsor, and a colliery, but the top end of the valley where we lived was unspoiled rural, with trout in the rivers and foxes and game in the woods around us. There were several small hill farms also.
I remember very little of my first five years; memory commences when I went to school at the age of five. The small elementary school lay at the top end of the village : it was small with an earthen playground with primitive toilets at the top of this play area. Some of the children were from very poor homes and were far from clean. In summer many came to school in bare feet. The school had a large garden and the older boys worked there on certain afternoons. One or two of the un-teachables spent most of their time there and the headmaster reaped a rich reward from the garden. Clogs were supplied on the gardening afternoons and you could hear the boys scampering down the road to the garden. It was my misfortune to be considered a likely candidate for the grammar school at Pontypridd, so with two others I was kept in class for additional lessons. Consequently I never got the opportunity to wear clogs, something I regretted for years. All the education was in English - no word of Welsh was allowed. Two of the lady teachers spoke Welsh but were not allowed to do so in school although they always spoke Welsh to me in church. The Headmaster, Mr Edwards (Neddy) was rabidly pro English, he was also a very ready wielder of the cane. On Friday afternoon he took the school in singing and here again no Welsh songs were allowed. We sang "Hearts of Oak", "The Roast Beef of Old England" etc., mostly Edward German songs which were popular then. During bad times the school provided food for the unfortunate and in 1926 almost all the pupils were fed at school - soup mid-day and a hefty jam sandwich to eat going home. Again I felt left out as I had to go home to a proper cooked dinner when I wished to be with the others enjoying the thin stew that was dished out. When I was eleven I sat the scholarship exam in Pontypridd and got a good result .From my school only one other boy and one girl got scholarships.
As a family we attended Sunday morning and evening services at our chapel and in the afternoon Sunday School. All this was in Welsh. We mostly spoke Welsh at home always with Dad but Mam had not heard any Welsh until she was married, so her Welsh was pretty basic, though she made valiant attempts to learn it. I even heard her venture her Welsh in public speeches. Dad was a Welsh language scholar with an honours degree; not a bard but a champion translater. Mam was musical, played the piano and sang any musical work that was being performed. She was artistic, could paint and carve, but bringing up a family of four boys put a damper on her artistic endeavours. She was the daughter of a farmer from the Pontypool area of Monmouthshire. Dad was the youngest son of the local carpenter of Trelech, Carmarthenshire, known as Twmi Saer (Thomas Jones, Carpenter). After village school Dad went to a sort of preparatory school for budding preachers held in a chapel vestry at Ammanford and run by a famous bard and ministe called Watkin Wyn. His older brother was a successful builder in Ammanford and Dad lived with him - he was my uncle David. Uncle Jim also lived in Ammanford and was a mason. In two years Dad matriculated, got to Cardiff University through the Congregational College where he obtained an honours degree in Welsh. After three more years at the Theological College in Brecon he was called to and ordained a minister of the Tabernacle Church in Ynysybwl in 1910.
My boyhood was a very happy one. For us in those days there was complete freedom to roam. There were the mountains on all sides which were open to all, the woods to roam in, make shelters as 'camps' where we could be Indians with bows and arrows and there were the rivers to swim in and to catch fish. There was a local hunt and many of my school friends were farmers sons where I could visit on Saturdays. Most miners kept a pig in a 'twlc' at the bottom of the garden and killing the pig was a public event and very bloody and exciting. As the miners came home from work they were unwashed and I remember the white eyes and the red lips and tongues as they tramped up the road. It was a marvel to see the same men all spruced up and shining in their best suits in chapel on Sunday. We had a lovely detached house looking out over the valley - with a large garden at the back. Dad grew all the vegetables bar potatoes in this garden, with soft fruit bushes and a plum tree. In the top corner next to the coal shed he keptchickens. A short distance down the road there were allotments and we had the first one. Here he grew potatoes and a large clump of rhubarb. One of my tasks was to help in the garden but my main contribution to the family food production was to take a wooden truck (home made) and collect the manure kindly deposited on the roads by the many horses passing by. Horses pulled the bakers dray, the milkman's float, the grocer's cart and all other vehicles that delivered coal, building materials etc. We were practically self-sufficient in vegetables, salads, soft fruit from the garden , and of course the countryside provided blackberries, wimberries, nuts and
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