The following recollections of the pit came both from e-mails and letters received following a letter I sent to the local Caerphilly Campaign newspaper. Thanks again to everyone who wrote. I have reluctantly had to do some editing for reasons of space. I do hope in doing this I haven't offended anyone.

Alan Lowe, who still lives in Bedwas, wrote the following amusing story:

"I worked at the face of the BL15, also at pit bottom and was spare loco driver as well as (spare) hitcher in the south pit. An all-rounder as were many colliers.

There was one time when Tim the surveyor (lives on Church Street, Bedwas) was surveying south pit bottom before they done maintenance work there. I told some of the boys there was sea water coming into the sump (bottom of the shaft) so the next day I brought in two squid which my wife went up to Asda (used to be Carrfour) she told the fishmonger there what they were for and he thought it so funny he gave them to her free.

At the start of the shift, when no one was about I put these two squid into the sump. They were amazed that these squid came into the pit, even the under manager seen them and I thought, I was in for a real telling off ! He just laughed and went on his way, with a sigh of relief from me. The under manger, a Mr Williams is dead now, he died a few years back. Sadly quite a few have passed on but the memories are still there."

Les Wintle, Bedwas exile from Kent still has family connections in Wales, wrote in about his career at the colliery:

"I worked at Bedwas between 1958 and 1965 in the Electricians Dept. It was a good place to get experience in the trade as the Colliery was at that time undergoing an intensive electrification scheme. Most of the machinery at that time was either steam-driven, such as the winding engines and the Parson's turbine compressor - for compressed air for the machines used underground. The elecrification changed all that and in the seven years that I was there we installed electric winders, conveyors, compressors, pumps etc. until there were very few compressed air-operated machines in use. The final part in which I was involved was the installation of a second 100hp disc shearer coal-cutter. I started as a 'green' tradesman as I had just finished my apprenticeship elsewhere and had no mining experience. After one year working alongside experienced tradesmen I was qualified to work alone. I was given several 'districts' to maintain and also work to install developing areas as part of the electrification scheme. I became electrician in charge of the shift for a few years and in 1963 was appointed the first assistant unit electrical engineer underground that the department had.

I left the mines in June 1965 to work at Ford, Jersey Marine, Swansea and after that moved overseas until 1982."

Les' e-mail address is wintle@eurobell.co.uk

A particularly poignant letter came in from Margaret Maslen of the Aber Valley, whose father Thomas Jenkins of Abertridwr was lost underground in the early 1950's.

Margaret wrote how the family wealth had been squandered by her grandfather on alcohol and they'd been forced to give up their farm. Her father, who played Rugby for Aberavon, Senghenydd and Glamorgan was sent underground.

"He was a good-looking man but worried about losing his hair. My Mum heard that rubbing onion juice on to the head daily would cure baldness. I remember him coming home from Bedwas pit one day saying 'That's it - no more onion juice, the men are saying 'Who's got onion sandwiches again today ?'

I remember Mum always waiting for the one bus to come into Abertridwr about 11pm carrying the afternoon shift home. I'd be in bed and remember the smell of cheese toasting in the oven for his supper. One night Dad wasn't on the bus and two men said they'd not seen him get on. Mum was desperate. A cousin's boyfriend had a car and after what seemed like a hundred miles we walked into the lamp room. I can see it now, the man in charge walked along the row to the space where Dad's lamp should have been - it was empty. We were told to go home and wait. We heard nothing Saturday, nothing Sunday - imagine that happening today? About 6pm the local policeman, PC Fry, knocked. He said my Dad had arrived at pit bottom, phoned up and frightened the the man up top. As the Friday evening shift had left my Dad.s lamp had gone out and because of his stammer his call wasn't heard and he was left alone. It took him until the Sunday to reach safety - he'd followed tram rails, making mistakes, retracing his steps. Weak from hunger and so thirsty, by the time he was brought up he had no trouser legs left andcouldn't see for 5 days.

After 5 days he was preparing to go back. No apology was given and he was deducted the days he didn't work from that week's pay packet."

Margaret ended her letter by recalling what a gentle man her father was, how, sadly, he suffered from his experience underground and loved the open air and countryside that he rarely had a chance to see. Thomas Jenkins died in 1981

Malcolm Harris, now of Gwaelod-y-Garth, recounted to me the following story

'As a boy living at White Hart Machen, I remember scabs being brought by train into Machen Station via the loop line and then being walked with a police outguard up the main line towards Bedwas. A group of locals gathered in a field next to the line to hurl abuse at the strike-breakers. Clods of earth were thrown and some hit the police. After a while one of the policeman's helmets was knocked off and, having had enough of this, the policeman ran into the field, scattering the protesters. There was a large muddy area in the middle of the field and one local, 'Dai Loller' he was called, though this was a nickname, got stuck in the mud as the policeman gained on him. Well, he was shouting 'It wasn't me!' but in his panic, didn't realise that the Policeman was also stuck completely up over his ankles. He eventually got away I believe.

One of the prime movers in getting the South Wales Miners Federation reinstated at the pit was Ness Edwards. He organised late meetings with miners at Bedlinog and identified that if an underground strike could be organised, it could not be overcome by the use of scabs as strike-breakers. The resulting underground strikes at Nine Mile Point and Bedwas Collieries forced the collieries to recognise the SWMF.

Once you were on the blacklist, you'd never get a job in the South Wales coal industry. The list was known to every colliery. For example at Nine Mile Point one of the officials was taken to the edge of the shaft and threatened with being thrown down unless he gave in. No-one at Nine Mile Point could get a job after that, even my father who wasn't even on the shift at the time. The answer was always the same, 'There's no job for you here'. That was the phrase they used.'

Don Pole told me the following

'Every pit is different. You wouldn't think so but no two are the same. On my first day at Bedwas, I wasn't even told how to get to the place where I was to work - you had to ask around. There were a few there who you'd best keep on the right side of. We were paid by the yardage and you didn't want to lose out. Also, the winder might give you a bit of a sudden start, if he didn't like you. Each of the shafts was different too, a different ride. South Pit had rails to guide the lift down, in North Pit it was done with ropes.

Each part of the mine was different. Black Vein had huge spiders underground. Rock Vein had midges, loads of them and you'd put a bit of grease on your lamp to catch them. Lower Black Vein had black pats. The whole of the underground had mice, especially at L22 and L23 Lower Black Vein. Where you worked could mean a huge difference with temperature. Near the bottom of the downcast shaft it would be very cool. However deep underground near the end of the ventillation circuit they'd be working stripped off to the waist. In 1961 I earned £26 6s 1d for a week, that was good money then.

Myrddin Lewis, still of Bedwas has written the following about his memories of Bedwas Colliery. I have set out extracts and avoided editing Mr Lewis's distinctive style. E-mail me if you would like copies of his original which is many times larger than this:

But be fair, the pit was not all bad and indeed, there was an aura of excitement about getting a pair of hob-nailed boots and joining the rest of the lads as they made their way up the hill to King Coals’ kingdom. Indeed, for those laying abed they would hear the sound of heavy boots going up the road in one’s and two’s at first, but suddenly, like a regiment of soldiers out of step. Greeting would be heard; laughter from some, oaths from others as they went up the hill, some more asleep than awake. When I was old enough to join the morning exodus from my warn bed to the pit, I would often attach myself to some anonymous group just for the company I imagine, always listening to but never contributing to the conversation, (as young teenagers were definitely not heard then) the philosophies of the Beatles and the Monkeys telling the world that the new generations had something to say, had thankfully not arrived. What were fourteen and fifteen year olds doing in the mine? Well there were plenty of them there in those days, and I was no exception.

The procession up the hill to the pit was punctuated by loud blasts on the pit steam hooter. It sounded several times each day, to signal waking up time, "last bond" time, "snap-time", and many others besides. On December 31st it would join hooters from the collieries at Llanbradach, Abertridwr and Nantgarw, "Seeing the New Year in". During the war, the pit hooter was used to supplement the Civil Defence sirens, and their long mournful tones seemed a fitting prelude to the unwelcome nightly visits of the German Luftwaffe on the regular bombing raids of the 1940s.

It seemed at that time that all roads led to the Pit. Church Street was the main artery for men travelling from Caerphilly and district, while men walking from Pandy Road and Pontygwindy, Caerphilly would come via Pandy Road fields and along Brewery Terrace then through the churchyard. Others coming from what was then known as the New Buildings, in reality the council house area would walk through Hillside Terrace and up the gwli or footpath through two "kissing gates" to Rectory Road, where at that time there was an avenue of magnificent trees which was home to a colony of rooks who noisily lived there and at the appropriate time provided an inharmonious accompaniment to the funerals held in the churchyard just over the wall. All these daily pilgrims would converge at the Old Rectory, more widely known as "Seabourne’s"; Len Seabourne being the proprietor of a very unique business which was dependent on the pit for its trade. Len had a number if lock up sheds in his front yard where many miners who would cycle to work from the surrounding villages were able to store their machines until
they finished their shift.

Len Seabourne also had a small shop which reeked of paraffin oil and sold such items as boiled sweets, chewing gum, and twist tobacco which many miners chewed in the belief that it would prevent that dreaded coal dust being swallowed into their lungs. The rest of the stock would include leather laces, Tommy boxes. Water jacks and such items as miners needed.

As one passed Len Seabourne’s shop and went over the railway bridge by Bedwas North signal box (commonly known as Fred Watkins' box), the climb got a little harder, especially for the older miners, many of whom had partial pneumoniciosis and found the morning air less than therapeutic. The would pause to rest at the foot of the hill by what was known as the Fed box (a small corrugated sheeting hut which was only opened on Fridays in order for the men to pay their small subscriptions to their trade union, the South Wales Miner’s Federation, a partial fore-runner of the National Union of Mineworkers). There they would summon their last reserves of energy and proceed up past the colliery offices to the level stretch of road which was flanked by some of the most beautiful trees one could find in the locality; there were oaks, ash and a beech; a delight to the eye whatever season and seemed to be nature’s way of saying good day just before the sons of toil descended into the depths of the earth.

Pithead baths were such an improvement in many ways, the canteen being another, and it was great to get a cup of hot, sweet tea after coming off shift; tea never seemed to taste so good. In the early days of the war, one could get what were then scarce items; biscuits, chocolates, sweets, etc., which happened to supplement what was a very meagre and monotonous diet and also a welcome addition to many a food box. But the great delight of the baths for me was to hear and join in the singing of the miners as they sang while they bathed and got rid of their pit grime. It didn’t take long for someone to start up, and the resonance that the shower area gave lent itself to the splendid natural voices. Generally, those bathing early would invariably sing the popular songs of the day, like "Red sails in the sunset", "South of the border", "Deep Purple" and the war time songs like "Roll out the barrel" and "We’re going to hang out our washing on the Siegfried line" and "Run rabbit, run". All good stuff, much better than the rubbish that they write today, but the later bathers were the officials of the pit and always worked half an hour or even more than the workers. They were usually older men and many with a chapel background and their choice would usually be hymn tunes or choral pieces like "Myfanwy" or "Crossing the plain".

The top of the pit where I eventually went to work was a place where many trades were carried out in order to service the needs of the machinery and equipment of the mine, and as such many a lad learned a trade there. There was a blacksmith’s shop, an engineering and fitting shop, an electrical shop, carpenter’s shop, lamp room, stores, power house, winding engine house, coal screening and washery, and a whole network of narrow gauge track which would transport coal and materials up and down the pit, and dirt to the mountain tip. It absolutely hummed with activity, men and machinery moving all the time, carrying out the various tasks to keep everything going. Discipline was very strict, and I recall a traffic foreman who was a former army sergeant major who would blow a whistle to make known his commands. His nick-name was Jack the Drummer Boy, and needless to say, Jack was less than popular. Most of the management were very tough characters and were to be avoided whenever possible.

But there were also kindly, generous, helpful men with whom it was a pleasure to work, and as well as teaching one many things, they had a great moral influence. Course, repetitive bad language has always been associated with heavy industry, and coal mining was no exception, but there were many men who were not coarse by nature and I was fortunate to work with one. His name was Onessimus Lewis, much like the character in St Paul’s letter to Philemon, a splendid name for a splendid friend who was my boss, father figure, and friend all in one.

My friendship with Mr Lewis grew, and it was of some concern to me that he had to leave home before 5.30 am to get to work when we worked mornings, what time he rose I dare not think, and though he came by pushbike he seemed always to be pushing it, and punctures came frequently then and new tyres were hard to come by. So when I got to the stage that I could confidently carry out the duties of the weighing machine, I suggested to Mr Lewis that perhaps he would, when on morning shift, come to work an hour after starting time, I would look after the shop and do whatever was necessary. This seemed a good idea and was agreed, and it worked out very well; Mr Lewis always knew how to time his entrance just before the dreaded Albert Hale appeared, who would have seen red had he known about it.

Being a fair man, Mr Lewis wondered how he could even things up and decided that when we were working afternoons, I could go and bath at 9.15 pm or so, have a good soak, come back to the shop at 10.00, have a quick look round and leave shortly afterwards, taking care not to be seen by the fearful pit bobby Sgt Edwards. Sgt Edwards had the eyes of Argus and knew everything that went on; to conceal a piece of firewood from him was almost impossible, though he never examined my lunchbox. If he had he would have had a big surprise. But in order to avoid him, I would go home not by the pithead and along the colliery road, but over the timber yard and treading as softly as possible. However, on many occasions I would see the glint of silver buttons between the stacks of pit props where Sgt Edwards would be waiting for a timber thief. As I said, he never challenged me, he probably thought that it was not worth the trouble.

Going home after afternoon shift was great, I always looked forward to my supper, which usually was spam and chips (not much else about those days). How I managed to sleep after a supper at that time of night I cannot imagine, I couldn’t do it these days! While eating I would listen on the radio to the traitor William Joyce, better known as Lord Haw-Haw and his news programme Germany Calling! Joyce was almost as much hated as Hitler, and his exaggerated claims really did give us a nasty feeling in the pit of our stomach as he seemed to know just where and when the bombs had dropped the night before. He certainly raised the nation’s blood pressure just before bedtime, but he got his desserts in the end – he was hanged.

There was some lovely men working at the pit. I remember the eccentric Tom Thomas, the house coal weigher, perhaps better known as Tom Tom. I would have to run the off errand for Mr Thomas, and he would only speak to me in Welsh. "Your father speaks Welsh, so must you!", he would say. I was often tempted to tell him that father shaved with a cut throat razor and smoked a pipe, but I knew my place, which was at the very bottom if the heap, and smart answers had no place in our pit society.

Another delightful character was the boilerhouse engineer, Monsieur Jean Baptiste Laurance, but better known as Jack Lawrence by the locals. Monsieur Laurance was a full blown Frenchman from Lyons, and I had to take him his mail daily, so in time we got to know one another. He would question me about my schooling and found that I knew a little French, so from that time we spoke "en Francais tout occasion". If I pleased him he would reward me with a jargonelle pear which he always seemed to have, rationing or no rationing, and I looked forward to my French lesson with this gentle bear of a man, and on leaving he would always say "a bientot, mon petit garcon, gardez-vous!" That made me feel really good, and I often spent more time with him than I should have, quite the reverse of my time with Uncle Joe Morse whom I could never leave quickly enough. Going out of sequence with my tale, the day before I was called up for military service, I went to say "au revoir" to Monsieur Laurance, I’ll swear there was a tear in his eye as he said "Take care mon petit garcon, those Boch are terrible people!". All of a sudden I didn’t feel so good.

The days passed and in 1941 I was moved from the weighing machine to the general office, it may have been regarded as a promotion; no longer did I get dirty but there was no raise in my wages, and at that time I was probably earning about £1.00 a week, less than the boys who worked on the screens, that was the privilege for having a white collar job, and overtime, of which there was plenty was naturally not paid. Trust Griffin Morgan. I was not sure whether I wanted to leave the kindly Mr Lewis or my opposite number on the other shift, Raymond Causon with whom I had a splendid understanding and friendship, but I had no choice in the matter, what Griff said in those days was law, and there was no appeal.

In all fairness, I enjoyed the job as a junior pay clerk far more than the weighing machine job, there was more to it and was far more interesting and taught me basic accounting disciplines which were invaluable later in my career. Here I came to grips with the underground aspect of coal mining wages structures and I learned much. New names like the districts underground, North Pit, South Pit, Alf Morgan’s Deeps, Huckers, Grocutts, McCarthy’s, Barnard’s, the Grass Heading, Black Vein, Lower Black Vein, Meadow Vein, places where mend worked and had to be paid. One learned to put names to men’s faces and men to districts and the whole thing became personal and one identified men with their work places. These were the days of had got coal long before the time power loaded faces, days when men earned exactly what coal they removed from the coalface. And what an iniquitous method of payment this was, as when a man worked in a faulted area (that is where there was stone and not coal), he lost his piecework earnings and was paid a minimum wage which was far below his wages for working in coal, and most times he would have worked harder than when he was "on the coal", as it was called. At that time I understood little about the injustice of this, but well understood what father meant when he said that he was on the "mini", meaning the minimum wage. One figure that sticks in my head is what surface workers were paid for six full days, exactly £2.10.8. Less than children’s pocket money in modern terms.

Working in the office I learned to calculate quickly and accurately all by means of long multiplication and division on a piece of scrap paper, no calculators or computers to do it for one. It taught me to figure in a way that has surprised many a product of the contemporary education system. Great attention was also paid to hand writing, and all done with ink pens like Bob Cratchitt used. Ball points had never been heard of and when they did eventually come out, they cost the equivalent of a whole week’s wages. If your work didn’t pass the inspection of one of your supervisors, he would say "do it again", and he meant it.

Highlight of the week was Friday, when the men would receive their wages, and it was then that any errors or omissions on your part would be found. And if you had made a mistake retribution would be swift and a dressing down in unequivocal terms in front of the "gwt" of workmen did little for your ego, it surely was a hard, hard world. My greatest lesson was due to a mistake I once made, but strangely enough, not one with the calculation of wages.

Down at the pithead where the wages were paid, my job was to throw the wage packet to the senior clerk after another clerk had received the pay docket and identified the bearer. The wage packets were to be thrown on a small ledge and sometimes, in order to enliven the proceedings, I would throw a packet hard in the attempt to make one skid right through the window. This day, I was successful and a pay packet went sailing through the window. As a mild naughty word dried on the lips of the senior clerk, I heard a voice saying "stop the gwt Mr Hughes, if you please!" I froze, went hot, cold, scarlet, puce and mauve all the same time and felt that I needed a double brandy quickly, for I knew the voice was father’s, and I was in big trouble. "Send that boy out here to me Mr Hughes, I want a word with him." "Certainly Mr Lewis" (note the courtesy). "Outside you" to me "Your father wants a word with you!". I bet he does, I thought! I went outside, passed the miners in the gwt, wishing I was going to the dentist to have six or seven teeth extracted without anaesthetic, which would have been pleasant compared with the mortification that I was about to suffer.

"Pick up this gentleman’s pay, good boy, and apologise to him for treating his wages in this disrespectful manner". I apologised as best I could to the offended miner. What was going to happen next? Father addressed me, "Remember Myrddin, we miners all have to work hard in very bad conditions to earn our money, something you know very little about, and yet you choose to treat it in this manner. Never do it again". I blinked back tears of shame and embarrassment and went back past the gwt which was highly amused at my obvious discomfort. It was a hard lesson for me, but one that has never erased. Respect on another at all times, and that is not a bad philosophy to carry through life.

When I returned from the war early in 1947 I worked only a few months at Bedwas Colliery and then moved elsewhere in search of a better job. I did find one, perhaps more than one but I never worked in a happier place than what we used to call Bedwas Coll. Never elsewhere did I enjoy the fun and companionship of working almost wholly with local people and in a Welsh atmosphere. The Welsh language was often used as a working medium and what a delight it was, not that I then understood it. it is worthwhile recording some of the names that contributed much to it. Griffith Morgan and his son Selwyn, George Jenkins and his son Kenneth, Parry Williams, David Myrddin Jones, Orthin Thomas, Trevor Morse, Emlyn Evans, Evan Hughes, Clifford Sims, Cyril King, Jack Edwards, William Cypher, Daniel Evans (what a gentleman he was), Tom Jones, Reginald Dean, Raymond Connick, Gwynne Griffiths, Leslie Morgan, Bernard Stokes, the manager Idris Richards who emigrated to Australia, and the agent from Lancashire, Thomas Ashurst. These were the ones I was most associated with.

It seems such a pity that when one looks at it now, there is absolutely nothing to show that here was a place where thousands of men had worked hard and given of their best for the better part of their lives, indeed many had the supreme sacrifice and many more had their lives shortened by silicosis, pneumoconiosis or some such related disease. To me it seems an insult to the memories of those who worked there that they have no public memorial to perpetrate the memory of those who worked in such appalling conditions to help the nation’s fuel needs and supply for what was then a very necessary means of heat and power.