South Wales The Hairy Bikers' Pubs That Built Britain

'Pubs have been at the heart of Britain for hundreds of years...'

Cheers, mucker!

'..in city taverns...

'..and village inns.

'Landlords have pulled pints for locals, travellers...'

And, well, the odd king or two.

'Myself included.'

Try and have a drink now.

LAUGHTER

'But with 30 pubs closing every week,

'our historic taverns need defending.'

Step, step.

We're heading out to discover amazing stories linked to the

nation's watering holes.

-Not far to go.

-How far?

-Oh, a couple of miles.

-What?!

'From the Wars Of The Roses...'

To shipbuilding on the Clyde.

We've ditched our bikes so that we can sample an ale or two.

Get in!

This is very good.

LAUGHTER

'So join us for...'

'With its green valleys and rousing male voice choirs,

'I could only be in South Wales.

'But this area's most famous for one more thing -

'coal.

'For more than two centuries, up to 250,000

'hard-grafting miners worked the pits.

'And where did those brave lads go after a long day at the coalface?

'Why, the good old British pub, of course!

'My old buddy Si couldn't be here today,

'so I'm exploring Welsh mining pubs on my tod.

'I'm missing you already, Kingy.'

12 hours a day, six days a week, what a way to earn a crust,

and nowt but bread and dripping and a bottle of water to keep you going.

So it's little wonder why, at the end of a shift,

those thirsty miners headed straight for the pub,

which is precisely where I'm heading.

'Before coal mining took off in the 1850s, the green valleys

'of South Wales was home to only the odd farmer and his sheep, of course.

'That is, until the discovery of black gold.

'Within half a century, the landscape had transformed,

'the population had mushroomed,

'and the place of employment was down the pits

'for a life of hard graft.

'I'm heading to the village of Wainfelin, to a pub that was,

'and still is, at the heart of this South Wales mining community...'

The Little Crown Inn.

It's an usual name for a pub, although I do believe

there are over 500 Crown Inns throughout Britain.

Well, what's with the "Little"?

Well, this pub dates back to the 1800s

when there was a little woman on the throne, Queen Victoria.

'Of course, the pub's been brought up to date since Victoria's day,

'but local boy and landlord Ian Gregory

'is still passionate about its history.

-Hello, Ian, I'm Dave.

-Hello, Dave.

What a lovely pub.

Here, tell you, you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to work out that

this place has a strong connection with the mining industry, do you?

No, very strong.

I got some photographs here of the Elled Level.

'The Elled Level Mine, on this very site,

'opened up in the late 1800s.'

That's one of the old pit ponies, and looking down the valley,

-you can see the pub in the distance.

-Gosh.

-The drift mine with the rail tacks going in.

-Right.

-So it's a proper miners' pub, this one?

-Oh, without a doubt.

So, was the pub more than just a pub in those days?

I think so, it was a meeting point.

People used to finish work and they would go to the pub

before they went home.

'Back then, the pub housed the offices of the mine,

'and was the centre of the local community.'

This used to be a payment office

and also a shop underneath here for provisions.

It's a bit dangerous though being paid in the pub, isn't it?

Well, the employers owned the shops and the pubs,

and they was paid in tokens, so they couldn't go to any other shop.

-Win-win for the employers, wasn't it?

-Isn't it?

-It's very crafty that, isn't it?

-It is.

Must have been some camaraderie in this place, though.

Oh, without a doubt.

I used to work in a steelworks,

and the main thing I remember about that was the camaraderie.

Pub was at the centre of it. You were saying with the shop here,

you bought your daily bread here, you spent your beer tokens here.

-Yeah.

-It's so much part of life.

And the relief must have been amazing when you get up

-from underground...

-Yeah.

-..and you know the beer's waiting for you.

-Still a relief now, isn't it?

-THEY LAUGH

'Ian's so potty about his pub's heritage,

'he's given it a rather unusual makeover.'

We've had a mural painted on the wall by one of the locals

of a pit scene and surrounding areas.

I've made the corridor to the toilets look like a mineshaft.

Come and have a look at this.

'The corridor leading down to Ian's lavvy is just the pits.'

He-he! Do you know, that's the first time I've been down

a mineshaft to go to the loo!

So where did you get all the bits and pieces?

-A lot of it off locals...

-Right.

..who worked in the pits, or their parents,

their father worked in the pit.

What I love about this pub, it's still a pub for the locals,

the locals who remember the mining industry,

but it's still very much a living part of the community,

do you know what I mean?

Definitely.

The bar is the hub, and I think that's the way it should be.

'Mining communities thrived until well into the 20th century.

'But sweeping closures in the '80s

'ensured the pits are all but gone today, and sadly,

'over half the pubs around here have disappeared with them.

'Former mine worker and rescuer, Roy Haymer,

'remembers what they meant to the working community.'

-Hello, Roy.

-Hello, how are you?

-I'm pleased to meet you.

Now, Roy, I know you've got first-hand experience of what it

was like being underground.

How old were you when you first joined the pit?

I joined the pits when I was 17.

I got into the mine in the mid '50s.

What was it actually like to be a miner?

-Very hard to start with.

-Uh-huh.

-I was in the rescue station.

-Yes.

During my time, one way or another, I was involved with over

100 emergencies, but it was the two Ms -

and that's mining and music.

-Oh, wonderful.

-But in that order.

-Aye, aye.

There must have been some fantastic entertainment with all those voices.

Oh, yeah, I mean, there's no doubt about that.

It was real class people and the entertainment in the locals was...

People would be singing, and when I say singing,

I say to you, singing of a high standard.

Welsh have always been well-known for it.

-I would obviously say that coming from Wales.

-Absolutely.

Shirley Bassey, I believe, she toured the valley on many occasions

as a teenager, singing on a Saturday night, and that's how it was.

See, the other thing in the clubs and pubs - in the old days,

I would say in virtually every single club,

there was a debating room.

And people would sit there and debate the topics of the day.

Right, so the pubs could be where you got paid, where you drank,

where you met people and where you put the world to rights.

That's right. And they certainly put the world to right!

What I like about the story of the miners

is the good that the miners did.

-Oh, gosh, yes.

-Sometime in the late 1800s, I would say,

the miners decided to give a penny out of their pay packet

to provide hospitals and educational centres.

The miner, he wanted to make life for his children far better

-than what he had.

-Mm-hm.

# I remember the face of my father. #

'Roy's friend wrote a poem that sums up the mining spirit.'

I've got a little poem which is called Remember The Miner

by a gentleman in the valley by the name of Terry Jones, and he's

magic with mining words.

"In the years to come, the Rhondda will say,

"For your grandkids' lives you gave your today.

"And sometimes at night, out in the street,

"You'll still hear the sound of hobnailed feet,

"Reminding us all how hard it was then.

"And telling our children -

"No...

"Never again."

Does make you think about how hard things were for the miners then,

but what a lot they gave for the future generations, you know,

for the children, the communities.

-Yep.

-Toast to the miners.

-Cheers to the miners.

-Cheers, Roy.

-Cheers.

# Take me home. #

'Aye, to the miners,

'and to the pubs that refreshed them after all their hard graft.'

Time for a cheeky pub fact.

Did you know that in the town of Rhayader in mid Wales,

it is said that there are more pubs per head of population

than anywhere else in the UK?

Well, there are 12 for just 2,075 people,

which works out at...

lots!

'And in South Wales, there's lots more to learn from the pub signs.

'Here are three of my faves.

'The Llantarnam pub boasts one of the most fascinating pub signs

'in Britain.

'Written in Welsh in 1719, it translates to

"The Greenhouse, good beer and cider for you, come in,

"you shall taste it."

'Mmm, don't mind if I do!

'In this land of legends and myths, The Skirrid Mountain Inn

'is named after the famous nearby mountain.

'It's said to have been struck by lightning

'the moment that Christ was crucified.

'Spooky!

'And The Merlin!

'It was a Welsh clergyman who, in the 1100s,

'first wrote of this mythical wizard, and this Pontypridd pub

'boasts a statue of the very man, complete with leek and a harp.

'Magic!

'But getting back to reality - some harsh realities.

'I'm at Big Pit National Coal Museum in Blaenavon

'to explore life at the coalface.'

# Working in a coal mine, going down, down, down

# Working in a coal mine, about to step down. #

This colliery, the Big Pit, was a working coal mine

until it shut in 1980.

But just three years later, it reopened in 1983

as the National Coal Mining Museum of Wales.

Now, instead of exporting coal, it imports people -

loads of them - which is great news for me, cos I'm going

300 foot underground to find out what life was like down the pit.

'But first, a wardrobe makeover.'

All right, thank you, that's a good fit.

Did you know I haven't been dressed since I was four?

Smashing, that's me set up.

'I'm meeting the deputy manager of Big Pit, Paul Green,

'an ex-miner who started when he was just 15.'

-How do, Paul?

-Good morning, Dave.

-Welcome to Big Pit.

-Nice to meet you.

We'll go through a few regulations before

we can take you underground. Although it's a museum,

-we're still classed as a working mine.

-Right.

So, it's known as contraband,

so I want your wristwatches, your cameras, your mobile phones.

Are you sure you haven't got a stall on the market?

-I think that's me.

-That's it.

You know, Paul, it's such a shame Si's not here,

he would have loved it, cos his uncle and his grandfather,

they both worked down the pit.

I mean, was it the same in this town where whole families

followed each other into the industry?

Yeah, well, I started as a young 15-year-old in Bargoed,

my grandfather worked in Bargoed Colliery,

my father worked in Bargoed Colliery, and his brother,

and you'll never guess where I met my wife.

-True story, she was working in the canteen.

-DAVE LAUGHS

Right, let's go, then.

It's like the gates of Mordor, isn't it?

# Well, I've been working in a coal mine. #

'Going down! Menswear, please.

'Ooh, crikey, hold on to your hats!'

Maximum speed we're going to travel today is two metres per second,

we've slowed it right down.

Now, when I started as a young 15-year-old in Bargoed,

that one was 700 metres deep.

And the speed you would travel through that one was 35 feet a second.

-Good grief, so you'd be dropping like a stone.

-You would drop like a stone.

You'd get on the cage, like we did there, and all of a sudden, you're gone.

-I bet your stomach would be in your mouth.

-Exactly, you'd pick it up at the end of the day!

-DAVE LAUGHS We're here.

-We're here, we've landed.

OK, watch your footing as you come out there.

So we're going to go a bit further into the mine,

-and we'll show you a seam of coal.

-Right.

-Watch your head.

-Thanks, Paul.

'Paul's showing me what it was like for miners in 1900.

'You need to eat your carrots to survive down here.'

What would the working day have been like?

Working day, that would be 12 hours a day.

-Right.

-Six days a week.

I bet at the end of that though you'd have been relieved

-to see the pub.

-Yeah. No beer down the mine though. It's illegal.

They'd bring down their water bottle and their snap tin.

Back in the day, what would you have had in your snap tin?

Them days, it was probably bread and dripping.

It doesn't seem very much for a whole day,

I mean that's not much water and it's not a very big tin.

Yeah, yeah.

'Not enough to keep a Hairy Biker going!'

How, Paul, do you actually get the coal out?

You'd have man and boy working together, father and son,

so they'd pick the coal off onto the floor,

then it would be the boy's job to fill the dram of coal.

-And a dram is the trolley?

-Dram's the trolley.

-Right.

Once the dram was full, you call the haulier out with the horse,

off it would go.

'Back in 1900, the drams, or trolleys,

'were hauled by pit ponies, and their stables are still here today.'

Gosh, the stables. So were the horses kept underground?

Yes, Dave, and in its heyday, 72 horses working here at Big Pit.

The names you see are actually horses

that actually worked in this pit.

'It's shocking to think of the horses kept underground,

'but by the standards of the time, they were quite well cared for.'

Did the miners become fond of the horses?

Well, of course they did.

Now, I told you that the miners would work 12 hours a day.

-Yes.

-In those days, horses, eight hours a day.

So better than the miners.

'Things eventually got a little better for the ponies and workers

'when the coal mines were nationalised in 1947.

'They all got a fortnight's holiday in the Valleys.'

So, on the night shift, they take the horses out of the mine,

let them run around in a field.

Then a couple of days before we were due to start back to work,

we'd have a team of men chasing them around to try and catch them,

-to get them back.

-They wouldn't want to come back to work.

You know what they say? Strong as a Welsh pit pony.

My dad used to say of my mum, cos she was quite short,

he said she had legs like a pit pony!

That wasn't very complimentary, then, was it?

Strong woman, though, worked in the shipyard.

'By 'eck, it was a tough life!

'Get me back to the 21st century.

'Now where did I put my phone?'

OK, here's your contraband back there, Dave.

-One watch.

-Right.

-One phone.

-Oh, somebody's called me.

And you didn't bring me any food,

so I thought I've give you something to go back with.

DAVE LAUGHS

It's one of Ainsley's Cup-a-Soups!

I'm having that.

'That'll do for a snack later.'

'Collieries like Big Pit fuelled the industrial boom that drove

'the nation from the mid 1800s to the 1970s.

HORN BLASTS

'But there was no point in getting coal

'out of the ground in rural Wales

'unless you could get it to the big industrial centres that needed it.

'And that's where my next new best mate comes in.'

-How do, Alex?

-Hi, Dave, nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you too, and thank you for this.

Steam trains are one of my favourite things.

She's beautiful. Let's get cracking, eh?

Now what's the process to get her going?

Right, well, first of all, we've got to put it into forward gear.

-Right.

-OK, so give it a squeeze, and push it all the way forward.

And this is the regulator, so this is the thing that makes us go.

-Like your throttle.

-This is like a throttle.

Give a toot to the guards. HORN TOOTS

"Toot toot," says Thomas!

-Got a green flag.

-Green flag.

-That's it.

-All right?

-Yeah.

-Oh, it's the stuff dreams are made of.

-Go on, that's it.

-And we're off.

-Wey-hey!

HE WHISTLES A TUNE

'The Pontypool and Blaenavon Steam Railway now carries tourists,

'but it once carried the coal that came from the area's pits.'

What would this line have been used for?

Well, this line was built predominantly to get the coal out

of Blaenavon up to the Midlands for the Industrial Revolution.

So, Wales was fuelling the Industrial Revolution?

It was, it was indeed.

It must have completely changed the mining industry.

Yes, without a doubt, you know, it meant they could get

more coal out down to the docks to be transported all over the world.

What was conditions like back in the day for the crews?

It would have been...

Give it a bit more, give it a bit more, we're going uphill now.

Conditions would have been... pretty grim, really.

Not a lot of light, a lot of smoke and such, you know.

-Be better than working underground.

-Oh, that's for sure.

ENGINE CHUGS

This'll be interesting, we'll see if we can notch it up now,

so you've got to put your foot on there, give it a squeeze,

-and then pull back. Go on.

-I've got you.

'I've always wanted to be a train driver.'

HORN BLASTS

Excellent.

Have I got the job?

You've got the job.

'Sorry, Si - I've found a new vocation.'

You know, on a rainy, blowy day like this, on the footplate

of a locomotive, there's nowhere I'd sooner be, really.

'But I'm not ready to give up cooking just yet.'

You know, things are grim down the mine, I mean,

all they had to eat was, like, bread and dripping and a bottle of water.

Did you do any better on the locos?

Oh, yes, the engine is great,

because we've got a furnace right here to cook anything we want on.

If you have a look in that little tool box behind you,

-there might be a few things in there.

-Ha-ha!

Sausages...

..bacon.

You lads come prepared, don't you?

'It's always been a perk of the driver's job

'to cook up some shovel food in the firebox.

'Oh, I can't resist!'

Warm your shovel first.

We're not worried about cholesterol, are we, really?

We're roughy-toughy engine drivers.

Put my bangers on.

You see, there's method to my madness.

I've kept them in a string of sausages, so they won't

-roll off my shovel.

-That's a good idea.

Aye, they're for walking, this is for cooking.

Oh, my shovel's on fire. Hold on.

Hoo-hoo! Got a sausage flambe. Here we go.

Bit of colour on, to say the least.

It's possibly one of the warmest kitchens I've ever cooked in.

My father used to say to my mother,

"Mother, don't sit in front of the fire,

"you'll end up with corned beef legs."

I think I'm getting a corned beef face here!

There you go, Alex. Oops!

-Oh, lovely.

-Thank you.

All we need now is a pint to wash this down, lads.

'And I know a little place in South Wales where you get

'a decent pint and some quite unexpected entertainment with it.

'It's time to meet some locals who love their local.

'Like my train buddies, The Old House Inn in Llangynwyd

'likes to keep tradition alive, and two enthusiastic locals,

'Gwyn Evans and Anthony Bye, are doing just that.

BELL RINGS

'Every New Year's Eve in the pub, they perform

a very colourful ancient Welsh custom known as the Mari Lwyd.'

# Wel dyma ni'n dwad

# Gyfeillion diniwed

# I ofyn am gennad

# I ofyn am gennad

# I ofyn... #

Well, it dates back to 1147.

I wasn't around at the time, but...

Well, at one time, they thought the Mari Lwyd

was going to die out in Wales, but my father

took it up many years ago, and when he passed away in '96,

I thought, "Well, I can't let it just drop."

# Ei lygaid mawr duon... #

'In case you're wondering, the Mari Lwyd is

'a decorated horse's head, donned by one of a party of revellers.

'On New Year's Eve, they sing loudly in Welsh at the pub door,

'hoping to gain entry for some ale.'

-# ..heno... # Ha! Diolch yn fawr, bois!

-BELL RINGS

'Bonkers!'

There is a sense of anticipation on New Year's Eve waiting for Gwyn

to arrive with the Mari Lwyd, and everybody becomes excited.

'They know each other pretty well round here,

'and the pub's the place to be.'

It's the focal point of the village, they serve food here, there's all

good ales, the hospitality is great here, there's always a warm welcome.

We have a saying here -

if somebody sneezes at the top end of the valley,

by the afternoon, everybody's got a cold down the bottom of the valley.

You could describe it as the land of the ruffled curtain.

Nothing happens without everybody knowing about it.

LAUGHING AND CHEERING, BELL RINGS

'And everyone knows about the Mari Lwyd.

'What a great excuse for a bit of horsing around.'

I think my dad would be very pleased to know that

I'm keeping the tradition going.

I think it's an outstanding custom, which I will never drop until...

Till the day I die!

HE LAUGHS

'And not a long face in sight!

'Wahey!

'Back on my Welsh whistle-stop pub tour, the steam train has

'stopped near Blaenavon, where there's a surprise in store.'

Thanks, Alex, that was the best.

HORN BLASTS

'The end of the line means The Whistle Inn,

'near to where the Kay Slope pit used to stand.'

Well, this place was a one-stop shop.

You've got a railway line, you've got a pub,

you've even got a pit at the bottom of the garden.

That pit, in the heyday, employed 400 men,

and I bet I know where they went when they finished

a long, hard shift, so I know where I'm going.

'Out of the wind for starters.

'The Whistle Inn dates back to 1754,

'so it's seen its fair share of change.

'At the peak of mining, there were over 50 pubs in Blaenavon.

'Now there's just a handful.

'Landlord Cliff Herbert's been pulling pints here

'for 29 years.'

-Hello, Cliff.

-Ah, good evening, David.

-How do, Cliff?

-And how are you?

-I'm all right. It's wild and woolly out there.

It is wild and woolly.

Well, I've been driving a steam train, I've been down a pit,

and I've worked up quite a thirst.

But not quite this thirsty.

'This is nothing.

'When Kay Slope's miners ended their shift,

'they'd find rows of pints waiting for them on the bar.

They'd walk in from the opening here, outside the pub.

They'd be very thirsty, and they'd be very dirty.

So, they'd come in then and have a few drinks,

and then they'd go home and have a bath then, in them days,

because, obviously, they'd have the tin baths, and they would come back

to the pub, and basically, have a nice evening then on the beer.

Did you do anything apart from just drink and food?

-They had a few funerals from here, I can tell you that.

-Really?

Yeah, brought the coffins in and took the coffins out and...

I can imagine some of the miners' wives say,

"Well, you lived in the pub, you might as well die in it."

That's right, that's right.

-Cheers, Cliff.

-Cheers, cheers, David.

'What a great place to end your days.

'But there was more to mining pubs that just the booze,

'something local historian Keith Jones knows only too well.'

-Hello, Keith.

-Hello, Dave, how are you?

-Pleased to meet you.

-And you.

So, Keith, tell me, how important to mining communities were the pubs?

Oh, vitally important. They were social meeting places,

they worked together, they drunk together.

You know, that sense of camaraderie was engendered further

in their social habits as well.

It was the only place that people had to go to get together and relax.

It was a little oasis from the humdrum of work,

and a little escape from the home as well, perhaps, to have a drink

with your friends and neighbours and your workmates.

-Yes, yeah.

-So it was very important in that respect.

So what other functions did the pubs service?

Well, lots of things went on in pubs.

You had various meetings, you had cycle clubs, domino clubs,

you name it, it was all happening in the pub.

Literary societies and debating societies.

Cos, you know, they didn't have anywhere else to meet.

I know the Welsh have got a great tradition for boxing clubs.

A lot of pubs, they were kept by boxers. When they retired from

the ring, they became licensees, so they, in turn, would attract

a lot of clientele, cos they might be quite famous,

and also some of them would have boxing booths upstairs,

where they would be sparring.

Choirs, even, would meet behind in the backroom.

So, the odd pint or two would certainly help the voice.

Well, to lubricate the larynx.

Lubricate the larynx, absolutely.

There's nothing better than a well-drilled choir

being put through its paces, cos it gets the hair

-on the back of your neck standing up.

-Aye.

And I think we're very fortunate tonight that we

do happen to have a local choir.

-What a treat, Keith.

-So we look forward to it.

'Turns out Gareth and the choir enjoy the

'odd pint here after practise.

'Here's hoping they'll do me a turn.'

Hello, lads. THEY CHEER

-Hello, Gareth.

-How are you doing, Dave?

Did the choir have strong associations with mining?

-They did. The miners would sing underground very often...

-Right!

..and then would often go back to the pub and sing there also.

Aye, and this choir's quite special, isn't it?

We've just won the Best British Choir in our class

at the Cornish International Festival of Male-Voice Choirs.

-So all the hard work's paying off.

-It certainly is!

I tell you what, do you know what would make

my trip to Wales complete? If I could hear you sing.

We'll do that.

PIANO PLAYS INTRO

# Men of Harlech,

# In the Hollow, do ye hear like rushing billow

# Wave on wave that surging follow

# Battle's distant sound? #

'What a wonderful end to my trip.

'The pits may have closed, and many of the pubs with them,

'but the music and community spirit is still going strong.'

# Honour's self now proudly leads us

# Freedom, God and Right. #

Wonderful! APPLAUSE

Ah, just listen to that. It doesn't get any better, does it?

Talking about fabulous Welsh voices,

here's a little pub quiz question for you.

In which famous cartoon series does local boy Tom Jones

appear as himself?

Give you a clue.

HE HUMS "THE SIMPSONS" THEME TUNE

It's The Simpsons.

Cheers!