Merthyr Tydfil Welsh Towns

The South Wales valleys,

a landscape of stark natural beauty.

It is a landscape forever beaten by the weather,

a landscape transformed by the work of man over the past 250 years.

All around here, and in particular down there,

in that Welsh town.

From small rural community to Wales' first real town,

to Wales' largest town,

to the world's greatest producer of iron.

It was here that the steam locomotive was invented,

where the red flag of revolution was first flown in Wales,

and where the seeds of the Labour Party were first sown.

And a town whose industrial might

powered Britain's drive to prosperity.

Events have taken place here that have shaped not only Wales,

but the history of the industrial world.

This is the story of Merthyr Tydfil.

Sitting at the top of the Taff Valley,

on the edge of the Brecon Beacons,

Merthyr today has a population of 55,000.

Bronze Age man had settled here, as had the Romans.

And the name? Well, that goes back to the fifth century.

Legend has it that St Tydfil was the daughter of a local king.

Whilst visiting her sister in Aberfan,

Tydfil and her family were ambushed and massacred by a band of pagans.

The story goes that before she died,

she prayed for the souls of her attackers,

refusing to give up her Christian faith.

Now, "merthyr" in Welsh means martyr.

Does the town's name have anything to do with Tydfil becoming a martyr?

It seems not.

Merthyr is more likely to come from "martyrium",

the Latin word originally meaning "the saint's resting place".

So Tydfil, in later life, did become a saint.

Merthyr Tydfil, Tydfil's burial place.

And where is she said to have been buried?

Right here, where St Tydfil's Church now stands.

In the Middle Ages, a settlement grew around the church.

Even in the 1700s, Merthyr the village was still a quiet affair,

a farming community made up of just 40 houses.

In 1759, all that was about to change when a group of entrepreneurs

found the perfect place to make their fortune.

For all around lay the key ingredients to make iron

iron ore, limestone, wood for charcoal and water.

Those early ironmasters had hit the jackpot,

and four great ironworks were soon built

Dowlais, Plymouth, Cyfarthfa and Penydarren.

And when coal replaced charcoal in the smelting process,

productivity increased even more.

By the 1770s, under the management of businessman Anthony Bacon,

Cyfarthfa really came into its own.

And this early success was down to one thing.

War.

In 1775, Britain was involved in conflicts all over its Empire.

Demand for cannons and other weapons produced in Merthyr was huge.

But there was a problem.

Bacon had become a Member of Parliament.

He couldn't carry on as an ironmaster

supplying weaponry to the Government AND serve as an MP.

He withdrew, and in came William Crawshay.

Under Crawshay, Cyfarthfa flourished

and became the largest ironworks in the world,

playing a significant role in the Napoleonic Wars.

In 1802, Admiral Lord Nelson paid a surprise visit to Merthyr

to oversee the production of cannons for his flagship, HMS Victory.

The story goes that Richard Crawshay is so overcome

at the sight of Lord Nelson that he rushes up to him,

grabs him by his one good arm, spins him round,

and says, "Here's Nelson, boys! Shout, you beggars!"

After the Battle of Trafalgar three years later,

the French claimed the superiority of the Welsh iron

was the reason for their defeat.

By the 1800s, Merthyr had become a hotbed of innovation.

Cyfarthfa engineer Watkin George

built the world's largest water wheel

to carry water to the furnaces.

It was so impressive it was dubbed the eighth wonder of the world.

But that's not all.

A few years later,

Watkin George designed something even more pioneering,

hidden today on the edge of this industrial estate.

48 feet long, spanning the River Taff,

this is the Pont-y-Cafnau, the bridge of troughs.

Built in 1793,

it is the oldest surviving iron railway bridge in the world.

There's something very unusual about this bridge.

Watkin George by trade was a carpenter.

This A-frame is a classic design for wooden structures.

His bridge here is made entirely of iron.

And invention didn't stop there.

Ten years later, at the nearby Penydarren ironworks,

engineer Richard Trevithick's genius

helped to shape the future of the modern world.

On 21st February 1804,

one of Trevithick's locomotives travelled along this route,

carrying 10 tons of iron and 70 men at a whopping 5mph.

It came from Penydarren in Merthyr behind me through this tunnel,

only the oldest railway tunnel in the world,

to Abercynon down here, nine miles away.

Forget Stephenson's Rocket.

On this route, more than 25 years earlier,

a full-scale steam locomotive engine

pulled a load on rails for the very first time.

# But the train keeps a-rollin'

# On down to San Antone... #

The rail industry took off.

The railway boom of the 1820s and '30s

saw the demand for iron tracks go into overdrive.

Dowlais ironworks overtook Cyfarthfa

to become the world's biggest employer,

with 5,000 people on its books.

The town's population exploded,

and Merthyr was well on its way to becoming Wales' largest town.

Workers came from rural Wales, England, Scotland and Ireland.

On the face of it, Merthyr was booming.

But success came at a price.

With such a rapid influx of workers, slum conditions were inevitable.

Sanitation was almost nonexistent.

Outbreaks of cholera were widespread,

and the average life expectancy was just 17½ years old.

And while the workers lived in all this squalor and poverty,

where did the ironmasters live?

In a castle, of course.

William Crawshay II

commissioned this imposing mock castle as a family home.

It reigned over the Cyfarthfa works

and served as a constant reminder to the downtrodden ironworkers

of exactly where they stood in the pecking order.

And yet the workers still came in hope of a better life.

People came mainly for money, but not only for money.

As one historian once put it,

they came for the wages of sin and savagery.

They came to get away from the loneliness of the hillside farms,

the boredom of country life.

They come from places where the work is hard,

they're working in the fields, in the cold, the wet and the rain.

Conditions are bad in Merthyr,

but they're almost as bad in the countryside and sometimes worse,

whereas you come to Merthyr, you've got bright lights,

you've got the pubs, you've got comradeship.

If there is this influx from the rural west,

what are they bringing with them?

They bring their religion, language,

and they also bring their country ways.

The Welsh countryside was quite a wild place.

They bring all that to Merthyr.

One area of Merthyr called "China"

was so wild that it became the most notorious district in Wales.

But people weren't just fighting each other.

They were fighting the system, too,

and when the iron industry slumped in 1829,

it hit the lower classes hard.

The Court of Requests, the bailiffs of their day,

were called in to settle their debts.

Events gathered pace on May 31st 1831.

Worker Lewis Lewis led a march

to take back goods seized from the poor.

He marched into town, going from door to door.

A crowd of followers formed behind them.

They carried a sheet dipped in sheep's blood.

It was the first time in the history of Wales

that the red flag of revolution had been flown.

The Merthyr Rising had begun.

Soldiers from Cardiff and Brecon were drafted in to restore order.

June 3rd the soldiers and the crowd,

now several thousand strong, confront each other here.

This is where the Castle Inn used to stand.

Inside, magistrates and ironmasters are holding a meeting.

Outside, the crowd, angrily demanding better pay,

better working conditions, social reform.

The soldiers opened fire on them.

26 were killed, and hundreds were wounded.

The inn was held under siege,

and, for four days, the town would remain under the workers' control.

Lewis Lewis was finally arrested.

So too was a 23-year-old miner known as Dic Penderyn,

charged with stabbing a soldier.

To public outcry, the young miner was convicted

and hanged in Cardiff Gaol.

He became a working-class hero

and has lived on in Merthyr hearts and minds ever since.

This used to be a furniture shop.

When a nationwide chain wanted to convert it into a pub,

they were going to call it by a famous Merthyr name,

so they called it the John Josiah Guest.

A local historical society said, "Hmm, maybe you should think again."

They did, and now it's the Dic Penderyn.

Many see the events of 1831 as a turning point.

The first trade unions were formed soon afterwards,

and there were calls for parliamentary reform.

In 1832, the Reform Act was finally passed,

but still only a mere 8% of the male population

had the right to vote.

There was a long way to go, despite the sacrifices of the uprising.

In the mid-1800s, people were still living in cramped conditions.

Overcrowding was a serious problem, both above ground and below ground.

Charity shop manager Jayne Nicholls

recently made a fascinating discovery.

Well, well, Jayne... what have you got here?

This is where the cellar dwellers used to live.

The cellar dwellers.

-And...oh, a working fireplace.

-Fireplace, yeah.

-With... What's that?

-That's an oven.

-Which means that people...

-People were living here.

-Yeah.

-And actually cooking here.

It is a cellar, we're underground, is there any daylight at all?

-What's this up here?

-That's all they would have seen, a little grid.

And the only thing they would see through the grid

is going to be people's feet going past.

Now, one cellar here under your shop.

Do you think there were more in Merthyr?

I should have think there would be.

There's got to be loads of them, long forgotten about.

The people of Merthyr needed solace and refuge from the hardships.

Many found it in the chapels.

Nonconformity was sweeping South Wales

and in the first half of the 19th century,

2,500 chapels were built

with both English and Welsh-speaking congregations.

Hymn singing became as commonplace in chapels as prayer meetings,

and before long chapel choirs and orchestras

would compete at eisteddfodau and musical festivals.

And nowhere was this seen more

than in the close-knit community of Dowlais.

Choirs from there were respected, feared even, by their rivals.

Between 1880 and 1900,

the community produced at least ten musical groups or societies.

The Dowlais Glee Party, the Dowlais Choral Society,

the Dowlais Philharmonic, the Dowlais Operatic Society,

the Dowlais Harmonic Society, the Dowlais Music Lovers.

Not forgetting, of course, the Dowlais Male Voice Choir.

Take it away, boys!

THEY SING IN WELSH

There we go. Now, the music sort of speaks for itself but tell us, Carl,

about how, why, how does it have this hold on us?

Firstly, its tradition. Secondly, its heritage.

And of course, escapism from the drudgery of the iron ore mines

and the coal mines.

And wasn't there a spirit of rivalry, competition here?

Yes, very much so. In certain Eisteddfods, there are people up to 20,000 or even more.

Not only are the competitors very enthusiastic, but you get supporters as well.

And these supporters, sometimes it turns into altercations and sometimes a bit of a violent nature.

CHOIR SINGS IN WELSH

Ah, the old favourite and made in Wales, Carl?

Myfanwy, yes, by one of the greatest sons of Merthyr, Dr Joseph Parry.

Born here in this cottage in Merthyr Tydfil, the greatest Welsh composer

of the 19th century, with his 400 hymn tunes, his nine operas.

You could say he was the pop star of the day.

Merthyr moved into the 20th century to the backdrop of music and the steady hum of industry.

The works at Dowlais were now manufacturing steel and had been using

the revolutionary Bessemer process to produce it cheaply on an unprecedented scale.

But coal was still in high demand for steamships and railways.

A number of collieries were opened to meet that demand,

and by 1911, over half of all men were working with coal.

On the political stage, the town's tradition of radicalism

continued, when it elected Britain's first socialist MP in 1900.

Scotsman Keir Hardie went on to become the first leader of the Labour Party.

The First World War started in 1914.

The war triggered an amazing generosity.

The people of Merthyr put their hands in their pockets

and dug deep to help fund the war effort.

In 1918, a tank rolled into Merthyr and up the high street.

It was part of the Tank Bank campaign,

to sell government war bonds.

In the space of just four days, the people of Merthyr raised £1.1 million.

That was more than Cardiff and Newport combined.

And by way of a thank you, the War Cabinet gave the tank to Merthyr.

And it stayed here until it was melted down in the next war effort, the Second World War.

1.1 million. In today's money, that's £60 million!

The years that followed the Great War hit Merthyr hard.

The 1930s signalled the Great Depression.

World trade juddered to a halt and Welsh coal and steel were no longer in demand.

Strikes were commonplace.

Merthyr men, for the first time in their lives, faced long-term unemployment.

By 1932, more than 80% of all men in Dowlais were out of work.

Merthyr was on its knees.

This was the beginning of very hard times.

Merthyr had no plan B, if you like, to fall back on.

It was coal, it was steel.

If those two fell, there was nothing to replace.

Now they were discussing what to do with Merthyr,

weren't some plans a bit wackier than others?

One in particular, political and economic planning,

recommended Merthyr Tydfil be totally abandoned as a town and be moved,

lock, stock and barrel to an unspecified coastal location,

or somewhere in the Usk Valley above Newport, and the town itself be abandoned.

And some plans were to flood the whole area for useful water.

Parliament were at a loss as how to cope with these distressed areas.

There's an agenda in Parliament where on the timetable,

first was the Palestinian issue, and second was the Merthyr Tydfil issue.

All debated in one afternoon session.

Answers were not found to either.

During the 1930s, the Dowlais iron and steel works were demolished.

Part of the business had already moved to East Moors in Cardiff.

But the works that were left in Dowlais were completely flattened.

In 1936, King Edward VIII visited the dismantled remains.

Margaret Lloyd was six years old at the time,

and remembers the day the King came to town.

To think that a real Royal was coming to Merthyr.

We had to go and see that, didn't we? Like film stars coming now, you know.

What was the town like, was there this sense of excitement?

We were all very excited, good gracious me.

I remember going with my father, and the excitement of going to see this different person.

Because as far as I was concerned, royalty was another world.

They weren't like us ordinary people. Something special.

So my father decided if I was going to get a good look at this thing, I was to go up on his shoulder.

So there we were, and I remember being lifted up on his shoulder, waiting for this

wonderful person to come out on the balcony outside the town hall.

And then he came out and what a disappointment.

His face was all red as if he'd been out in the weather.

I thought my father was much better looking, much more refined.

King Edward, on seeing the destitution,

delivered a speech proclaiming "that something must be done".

But just two weeks later, he had abdicated to marry American divorcee, Wallis Simpson.

He'd let us down, hadn't he? After all his promises, all his waving.

It didn't mean anything. He was in disgrace.

During the Second World War, Merthyr's economy revived temporarily,

as Welsh iron and steel were once more in demand for weapons and aircraft.

But after the war, light manufacturing took centre stage,

with several large companies moving to the area.

In October 1948, the American-owned Hoover company opened the doors

to its washing machine factory to celebration, fanfare and promise.

For those with a steady job, life in Merthyr in the 1950s was the best it had ever been.

But living conditions hadn't improved for everyone,

some people were still living in slum houses built 150 years earlier.

Declared unfit for human habitation, there'd been calls

for properties in Dowlais to be demolished for years.

The calls were finally answered in the '60s.

The houses were flattened, and residents were forced to move

to what was to become one of the largest housing estates in Europe...

the Gurnos.

Carole Thomas made the move with her husband and two children in 1965.

Her two-up, two-down in Dowlais, with its outside toilet and tin bath, had become unsafe.

The houses in Gurnos promised it all.

Indoor bathrooms, open-plan living, large back gardens and wide streets.

Even so, Carole didn't want to leave her childhood home.

There was this community who were more than just neighbours,

friends and neighbours.

We were like a larger family.

Dowlais was a town in its own right.

And the Gurnos was just a housing estate,

and it should have been built as a small town.

I think there would have been a much more sense of community there.

Carole went on to have another five children.

All seven have done well, and Carol doesn't believe

the Gurnos Estate deserves the criticism it often attracts.

There's always a negative side of the Gurnos.

And I said, if I can do it, anybody can do it, especially with seven.

We were very fortunate because we had the home life.

We had the school and we had the church.

And the three worked together, and that's why I think my children succeeded.

The houses of Dowlais might have gone, but heavy industry continued into the '60s.

There were a number of mines in the area, and one of them,

Merthyr Vale, was to be the cause of one of the most harrowing tragedies in Welsh modern history.

On 21st October 1966, part of the village of Aberfan, including the school,

was buried under the waste of the mine's collapsed Number 7 coal tip.

144 people died.

111 of them, children.

Many were critical of the way the community was treated following the tragedy.

Including the town's MP, Stephen Owen Davies,

also known as S.O. Davies.

Three years later, after 36 years as Labour MP,

the local party told the 84-year-old he was too old to stand.

S.O. refused to retire, and stood as an independent socialist.

It was the first challenge to the Labour Party ever seen in Merthyr,

and S.O.'s subsequent victory caused a sea change in the political landscape.

On the sporting front, '60s World Featherweight Champion Howard Winston

was Merthyr's favourite son.

The town had produced a string of boxing heroes.

Winston's trainer Eddie Thomas.

And in the 1920s, Jimmy Wilde, born in Quakers Yard,

was the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world.

Years later, Johnny Owen, the Matchstick Man,

would tragically lose his life in a fight for the world title.

Merthyr's also a football town and has had a club since 1909.

In 1987, they put the town on the European football map,

with a defeat in the European Cup Winners' Cup

of Italian club, Atalanta, at Merthyr's home, Penydarren Park.

By the end of the '60s, Hoover was one of Merthyr's largest employers.

Nearly 5,000 people clocked in and out every day.

ARCHIVE: Hoover, Hoover have gone and found the washing machine

that means the end, the end of washday!

Washday? Just forget it.

Hoover Keymatic is the name.

It's automated and that's the same as saying,

never, ever will you think again about washday.

Washday? Just forget it.

When it was launched, Hoover Keymatic was the ultimate status symbol.

Generations of families worked on the Hoover production line.

My stepfather worked there, Sheila's father worked there.

-I had a cousin working there.

-All my cousins...

If someone was in there that you knew or you were belonging,

they'd do their best to try and get you a job.

I worked there 32 years, I did.

How many years did you work there?

I worked there 35, and I finished when I was 55.

Was it a laugh there?

-We had fun, but we worked hard.

-We used to sing as we worked.

We'd all be singing, sometimes. Not a very good voice.

We had a good social life. This is one of the Christmas do's.

-Who's that?

-Me. I can't do that now.

-Marvellous, wasn't it?

-Yeah.

But the dream didn't last for ever.

Manufacturing here went into slow decline, then moved abroad.

And on 13th March 2009, the factory closed its gates for the last time.

The demise of light industry has been tough for Merthyr.

Today, unemployment stands at around 10%.

But in Dowlais, one local business is going from strength to strength.

Printing firm Stephens & George has played an important part

in not one, but two of the most celebrated events in recent British history.

And both required the utmost discretion from its Merthyr workforce.

The recent projects you've had - the Royal Wedding, there it is.

The Royal Wedding project for us was absolutely fantastic.

There was a new crest, which was the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's crest,

on the back of the programme, which hadn't been seen by anybody.

So, we had to ensure we produced the work virtually in secrecy.

-To be revealed on the day only?

-That's right.

This is as good as royalty, the Olympic Opening Ceremony programme.

There was Danny Boyle's opening, which all the tabloids wanted to know, what was in it?

They did, and we were printing that probably two weeks before the Opening Ceremony.

It's an accolade to the staff that nobody actually tried to take

copies or sell them or do anything with them.

But what of the town's future?

A recent cash injection of £35 million will see regeneration take place

at some of Merthyr's key sites, including its historic town hall.

The age of iron, when this Welsh town was a giant, ended a century ago.

100 years is a long time to languish.

Enough time to disappear, and goodness knows there's been depression, disease and danger here.

But Merthyr Tydfil did not die.

And here it sits at the crossroads between East and West,

between the valleys and the Brecon Beacons, with a heritage that is unique.

There is no place on earth like here.

There are no people like the people from here.

They are as warm and generous as they are hard as nails.

Nails, of course, forged in Merthyr Tydfil.

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