Dai Llewellyn - Not quite the World’s best gurner but he did come 3rd in the World Gurning Championships 1968. The Welsh colliers were adept at pulling funny faces.
Dai Passmore and his dog - Dai could often be found wandering the slag tips above Heolgerrig. He had a complex of sheds at the bottom of the tips where he kept ferrets and pigs. He used to be seen driving a horse and cart around town. He liked Stout. This photograph was taken on Jan 4th 1972. It started to snow just as I took the photograph. It was a very light snow. I came across Tudor as he paused for breath while walking on the steep tip. It remember it so well because it was at this precise moment that my Nan passed away.
Billy Bricks “Delilah” - After a few pints he would shuffle up and down the bar singing Tom Jones’ Delilah. His leg movements were not unlike Michael Jacksons’ moonwalking - he was years before his time. Billy was a very skilled bricklayer. When a new court building was being constructed in the town there was only one man who could do the brickwork. However, the contractors had to employ a man just to ensure Billy didn’t sneak off to the pub before the end of shift. He can be seen here working on one of the windows
Old man Jenkins in Ye Old Express In the side light of the window this image of him reminded me of a Rembrandt
Woman knitting on the doorstep in Georgetown - Women often sat on the doorsteps like this. Georgetown was a close-knit community. It was built to house workers from the Cyfarthfa Ironworks. Not long after this photograph was taken this entire area was bulldozed for redevelopment.
Trevor Protheroe, John the Lamb and Jim Ryan - Johnny Lewis, the landlord of the Lamb with his two barmen Trevor and Jim. John’s family were from Heolgerrig. Before the Second World War he trained to be a jockey in Worcestershire and he always wished he had been a vet. His brother became an Anglo-Catholic priest in Spain. The Lamb was the most amazing pub in the world where you would meet people from all walks of life from barristers to the unemployed. Harry Webb the poet used to drink there, as did Jack the Roller, Sid Hill and the Brigadier along with Swazi the Indian chef who once pissed on his potatoes. The pub was demolished by the council in 1973 to redevelop the town centre.
Children playing in a derelict house in Georgetown, Merthyr - They found a painting inside the building and asked me to photograph them with it. The redevelopment of Georgetown had started and houses were being cleared.
Bill Baldy - He was nearly seventy. He drank rough cider in Ye Old Express and rolled his own from the nips of used cigarettes which he recycled from the ashtrays and stored in a little tin box - Mintoes he called them. He would quote the Iranian poet Omar Khayyam “Let us be happy, Time is passing by. There is no return, when you go you are gone.” And he would drink every day until he was legless. He would drink anything and claimed he once drank Brasso. “I’ve never fucking worked and I never fucking will,” was his motto.
Eunice Lewis - Bill Baldy’s girlfriend. “She has lovely titties, “Bill always said of her.
Old Mister Jones and Old Misses Jones with their family – Old Mister Jones is sitting on the far left and Old Misses Jones is holding the baby. The family were originally Romany Gypsies who sold their caravan and settled in a house off Bethesda Street. I don’t know how they acquired the Jones name.
Members of Jackie and Queenie’s Gypsy family outside their first home in Georgetown
God in denim on the British Tip in Merthyr. “I’m God,” he shouted at me as I was passing. Sheppy, he was called. Was tied to a chair and set alight following a drunked argument.
Under age drinking – Dai Edwards lived at the top of Heolgerrig with Maggie Soap, so named for her habit of rubbing soap into her hair to give it body. Dai once hid all his money beneath the floorboards of the caravan. Months later he discovered that it all disappeared. It had been eaten by mice. Dai is giving the young child a taste of beer in the Heolgerrig Social Club.
Dick The Rock - He was steadfast and showed strength of character. He never swore. He was a stonemason and wrote Welsh poetry. He would often recite and sing his works in The Lamb. He was found dead at his home covered in sacks.
Tommy Gravedigger removing a dead mouse from a grave – Mice often fall into open graves at night and are invariable found dead in the morning. Tommy had buried over 7,000 at Cefn Cemetery. He was the caretaker of the dead from Heolgerrig. He knew where every family was buried. His wife had died twenty years earlier after choking on an apple. He gave her a lovely spot, he said, sheltered by the trees. Occasionally when he walked around the cemetery his attention would inexplicably be drawn to a gravestone. It was a sign that there was going to be a death in that family, he claimed.
A pauper’s burial at Cefn cemetery - The deceased had no friends or relatives and the funeral was paid for by the council. Only the undertaker and a vicar were present. Griffiths the undertaker stands over his grave.
Woman in the street Georgetown - She appeared fragile and threatened by the stark stone of the street.
Lewis Lewis and his wife Martha - Lewis was a collier and a music teacher. Outside his front door was a brass plaque that read “Lewis Lewis Piano Teacher”. Martha was preparing lunch.
Uncle Les asleep in the sun - Les was my Auntie Rhoda’s husband. On Sundays in the summer they would often take me out in the car for a picnic. Les liked to drive to the nearby Brecon Beacons. There we would have sweet tea, ham sandwiches and cream cakes laid out on a cloth. Afterwards Les would invariably fall asleep in the sun. Rhoda would worry about him being burnt and would attempt to cover him with the cloth. It was a miracle she never suffocated him. I always remember an occasion at their home when she once woke him up because he hadn’t taken his sleeping tablet.
Tex Jones - Tex was the father of my school friend Wayne. He lived on the Gurnos Estate and was crazy about the Wild West. He was a very skilled leather worker and made belts, wallets and all sorts of things. He made a stool out of a Western Saddle and perched on it he would eat baked beans from a tin while watching Westerns on the television. I photographed him at Morlais Castle quarry not far from his home.
William Billingsley. He lived with his son, Ken. He died in the early 80s and was almost 102. William loved to knit and often knitted socks and blankets. He was a real character. He loved to cook curries.
Maggie Perrin and her son Mansell - Maggie had her own stone on the edge of a coal tip. On sunny days she would always be found sitting on this stone greeting passers-by. Her son Mansell had been born with a health problems.
Shenkin Haines - My grandfather’s half brother. They looked like identical twins. He had just got out of bed when this photograph was taken.
Old Phil - He was ninety-three and lived in an old lodging house known as the Castle Hotel. Here he is sitting next to the fireplace in the kitchen. It was amazing how well he looked after himself. Look at the shine on his shoes.
Pensioner outside the Old Comrade’s Club in Dowlais
Raymond Owen - A typical Welsh collier. Sitting near the window in the Red Lion in the afternoon. Most old colliers loved the countryside. They were very at one with nature. Spending so much time in hostile conditions underground the appreciated sunshine and clean air. His father was a farmer. Raymond worked nights for most of his life. He would have a few pints in the Red Lion, go home for a meal then fall asleep for a few hours. By ten he would be underground at the coalface.
Billy Diana - Billy loved to woo the women with his sexy rendition of Paul Anka’s Diana - his signature tune. After a few pints you couldn’t stop him. He would gyrate his hips wildly in an Elvis Presley style.
Auntie Rhoda with my brother Martin – She would dote on my brother.
