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I have been known to mention on occasion how much I like living where I do. The other day MrsB found (through Facebook, I believe) this short film that gives some idea of why that is, and I can’t resist sharing it with you.
Some ‘footnotes,’ if you will:
The old man, George Brinley Evans, ‘Uncle George,’ is no longer with us, but we used to see him about the village quite often. He really was a remarkable character, a self-educated ex-miner, who wrote several books of local history. He would have been about ninety when this was filmed. In the opening shot you can see his house among the trees right in the bottom right corner (our house is the first one on the left side of the road).
As for St Patrick, in his ‘Confession’ Patrick calls his family’s villa Bannavem Taburniae, which is pretty suggestive since the place George mentions as ‘my grandfather’s farm’ is called Tafarn y Banwen. I’m sure George would have mentioned this connection, but it seems to have been edited out. There is still a house there, standing by itself about a quarter of a mile outside the main village, a little beyond the St Patrick memorial, though it has no nameplate to say so.
By no means everybody is convinced. Once, on holiday in Ireland, going round the Museum of Irish Life, I mentioned to the guide that the village I lived in claimed to be the birthplace of St Patrick. ‘Oh yes?’ he said dismissively. ‘One of many.’ But a sign you pass entering the village from the main road unequivocally states, ‘Man geni Padraig Sant / Birthplace of St Patrick.’ I imagine it must have given George some satisfaction when it went up.
The spectacular Henrhyd Falls are further from the village than the film suggests. Nearly two miles (and that’s as the crow flies), and much nearer the village of Coelbren than they are to Banwen. To get there from Banwen on foot in twenty minutes, as one person in the film claims you can, you’d have to walk bloody fast. Dangerously so, on the very steep path that leads from the car park to the falls.
What a fabulous place. The film suggests a strong sense of community. Do you feel part of it as an “incomer”?
Yes, and not least among its attractions is that those houses in the terraces can still be had for less than £100,000.
The Valleys have always been famous for community spirit, though anyone who was alive when the mines were open will tell you that it’s not what it was. The mine at Banwen closed as long ago as 1964 (that pretty pond was once an open-cast coal digging), but yes again, there is still quite a strong sense of community in the village. I can’t say we’re really in the thick of it, but that’s more because we’re both rather shy and retiring people. We’ve never been made to feel less than welcome. This is the sort of place where people you don’t even know will smile and say hello (actually, round here it’s more likely to be ‘Hiya’) when you pass in the street.
A few years ago MrsB had an accident on her bike right outside the rugby club and was taken to hospital in Cardiff in the air ambulance. When I and my son finally got back from Cardiff in the evening, pretty shattered both mentally and physically, I phoned for a takeaway and, having a few minutes to spare and feeling in fairly dire need of a drink, I called in at the rugby club bar (yes, the bar in the film) on the way to collect it. Within five minutes at least half-a-dozen people, some of whom I’d never spoken to before, had asked me how she was.
What a lovely place and beautiful countryside, Richard. I’m not surprised you like it. I can’t comment on St Patrick, being very ignorant when it comes to saints, but I enjoyed watching the re-enactment and the story of the Romans.
So many mining areas have been returned to nature that it’s now impossible to fully imagine what they used to look like. It’s interesting too how surnames in small, or not very small, communities sometimes reflect the arrival of miners and other workers from different parts of Britain and Europe. History threading through current lives.
That straight road through the village is called Roman Road. It’s part of the old Roman road from Neath to Brecon.
I do actually have an idea of what Banwen used to look like when the mine was open, because in the corridor in the Dove Workshop (an adult education and community centre, just visible in the opening shot among the trees, top left) there is an aerial photo of it. It looks more like a war zone than anything else, with spoil everywhere and hardly any greenery in sight.
(The Dove Workshop was founded by a group of miners’ wives during The Strike. The building used to be the mine office.)
I’m told the commonest surname round here is Evans. It was, of course, Uncle George’s name. And the family that used to own the mines hereabouts pre-nationalisation was called Bevan-Evans. They also owned the local brewery. A couple of miles down the valley at Seven Sisters they used to own a pub across the road from the mine, so the miners would be giving their wages back to Mr Bevan-Evans every time they went in there for a beer.
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