Alison Steadman Coming Home

Actress Alison Steadman has always wanted to trace her Welsh ancestry.

She's best-known for playing Pamela in comedy Gavin & Stacey,

where Welsh girl Stacey plans to marry Gavin from England in...

..Barry Island?!

Oh, where are you going to have the wedding reception,

on the log flume?

She may have played the Essex matriarch,

but in real life, Alison has always known about her Welsh ancestry.

So how does she feel at the start of this special journey?

I feel excited this morning and a little bit nervous.

Erm, intrigued, I think, is the word.

And I'm...so excited.

I'm really looking forward to it.

But, having grown up in Liverpool,

how does Alison know she has Welsh ancestry?

I only know that my grandfather was called Maurice Evans.

My mother and my aunt Mary always called him Dada.

As opposed to father, or daddy, or whatever.

So Dada was Welsh.

My mother would always say Dada was Welsh, but that's it.

In fact, tracing her Welsh ancestors will prove much harder than

Alison can possibly imagine.

As Alison Steadman is coming home.

Later in the programme, Alison is lost for words...

-Siarad Cymraeg what?

-Siarad Cymraeg yn iawn? No? Dipyn bach?

She doesn't speak it!

THEY LAUGH

Comes face to face with the past.

Oh, I'm so proud.

That's fantastic!

And learns of a moving story very close to her heart.

That's very sad.

That is sad.

Alison's journey begins, not in Wales, but here in the heart of

the city of Liverpool, where she was born in 1946.

Her late mother was Marjorie Evans, and Alison really wants to prove

her mother was right when she said the Evans family came from Wales.

Her grandfather Maurice Evans died when Alison was very young.

But why does she know so little of this side of her family?

My mother never talked about her grandparents or any aunts or uncles

on that side of the family.

She only ever talked about him.

But she never said what part of Wales the family came from or anything.

Alison is determined to prove her mother was correct

and that she does have Welsh ancestry.

The story begins in the heart of Liverpool.

And a meeting with genealogist Mike Churchill-Jones.

-Hi, Alison.

-Hello.

-We've been researching your family tree.

-Yes.

This is just amazing, seeing this.

-We'll make it as simple as possible.

-Sure.

-If we come to your mother Marjorie.

-Yes.

Lots of great names, but only one Marjorie.

-Any idea why she is called Marjorie?

-No idea at all.

I guess it was a popular name at the time.

Alison will later come to learn the significance

of her mother's name of Marjorie.

But was her mother right?

Did the Evanses come from Wales?

I've been unravelling this Evans line and the good news for you is

that I can take it right back to your six times great-grandparents.

Who were from a small village called Trefarclawdd.

-Tref...

-ar...

-clawdd.

Now, it's a small village.

Welsh-speaking village.

Not far from Llangollen.

Fantastic!

Alison is clearly delighted.

But, in fact, this is by no means the end of her quest.

Tracing her Welsh ancestry will prove much more complicated

than first appears.

But how did her family come from Trefarclawdd to Liverpool?

Your great-great-grandfather Maurice Evans.

-Now, he brought your Evans line to Liverpool.

-Right.

He came here in 1838.

Do you have any idea why he came here?

No idea at all. No.

I would imagine because of work.

Because, perhaps, there wasn't much work in Wales. I don't know.

He had a really Welsh occupation, really.

He was a coal miner like all the generations

before him in Trefarclawdd.

They worked as miners.

-Right, right.

-Coal especially.

Hopefully we'll unravel the mystery of why he

came to Liverpool later on for you.

Later, Alison will try to uncover what caused her family

to abandon their home to travel to Liverpool.

Before that, the story starts with William Barrow,

her three times great-grandfather on the Liverpool side of her tree.

He was a master clockmaker,

and researching his story has been BBC antiques expert David Harper.

I'm very excited because, apparently,

you've got something interesting to tell me about William Barrow,

who was my great-great-great, three greats, grandfather.

-Absolutely.

-OK.

If you look at this directory, this is a fantastic copy

of the Gore's Liverpool directory, dated 1825.

With over 10,000 clockmakers in the city, entry into this directory

was reserved for only the very finest craftsmen.

At this time, David knows that Alison's three times

great-grandfather William Barrow was living in

the city of Liverpool in Norbury Place.

If we just turn the page, and we see there are several Barrow.

If you just go down the list, Alison,

-and see if you can find me William, living at Norbury Place.

-Right.

Oh, my goodness!

William, watchmaker.

Your William Barrow was a watchmaker here in Liverpool.

Surviving clocks from William Barrow's time are extremely rare

so David is thrilled that he's managed to track down

and photograph a very special clock from this period.

So this is a very lovely example of a Liverpool clock.

Look at the quality here. Look at the figuration.

It's made out of mahogany. I'll show you the workings as well.

We're going back to items being made by hand.

-Every tooth is cut and ground by hand.

-Mm.

Every item. Every little spindle.

The man who made this clock made it with great pride and skill.

He placed a number 15 on the works,

denoting it was the 15th he had made in his career.

There's no two clocks like this in the world.

There's only one clock like this.

David is very excited.

He's about to reveal the maker of this special clock.

None other than Alison's own three times great-grandfather,

William Barrow of Liverpool.

If we look at the face, it might tell us everything we need to know.

Oh, my goodness!

Oh, my goodness!

William Barrow, Liverpool. Gosh!

Oh, I'm so proud.

That's fantastic!

I feel incredibly proud.

That is beautiful.

It really is beautiful.

You don't know how beautiful it is.

For someone like me, that handles items like this,

to see it in close-up pictures,

it is a beautiful piece.

Alison is now back on the trail of Maurice Evans

and his wife Martha, her great-great-grandparents who came

from the village of Trefarclawdd to Liverpool in the 1830s.

She knows there is a mystery as to why they came.

But first, Alison is about to learn of the importance of

the Welsh community in Liverpool.

Arriving from North Wales, just across the Mersey,

the influence of the Welsh is clear to see.

Such as this magnificent Welsh chapel on Chatham Street,

in the heart of the city.

But it's at nearby Sion chapel,

where Alison meets with Welsh minister Ben Rees.

A Liverpudlian of 40 years,

he's been researching the history of the Welsh in Liverpool.

So Liverpool has always been a very important place for the Welsh?

Yes. Ever since it grew.

I mean, Liverpool was a village,

up till the middle of the 18th century.

But once it grew into a town,

then it really became a Welsh centre.

And young people flocked here for different reasons.

Economic reasons and so on.

And, by 1810, about 10% of the population

of Liverpool was Welsh-speaking.

By 1880, there were at least 50 to 80,000 Welsh-speakers,

so it was the largest Welsh community anywhere in the world.

As a chapel minister,

Ben still conducts regular services in Welsh today.

So, after 40 years, come on, are you a Liverpudlian?

Are you Welsh?

Well, it's a difficult question but, for me,

I'm Welsh first and Liverpudlian second.

I get the best of both worlds. I wouldn't change it.

Right. I guess I feel the same, too.

But what brought Maurice and Martha, Alison's great-great-grandparents,

from their village of Trefarclawdd to Liverpool?

Alison is about to learn they were here to marry in St David's,

the Welsh church in the city.

She wants to visit St David's, but, sadly, it was demolished

by the expansion of the railway over 100 years ago.

Standing on the site today is the Adelphi Hotel.

So here we are at the Adelphi. Right.

The Adelphi was built when Liverpool

was the great second city of the British Empire.

Alison's great-great-grandparents Maurice and Martha Evans

were married in a Welsh-language service in the church

that once occupied this site.

Social historian Gillian Rice has been researching their story

and has unearthed their marriage certificate.

-Want to have a look at their names on the certificate?

-I do.

Oh, wow! Maurice Evans.

-And...

-What's her name?

-That's Martha Price.

-Maurice Evans and Martha Price.

-Martha Price.

Yep. And they married on the 8th of October 1838.

Right.

However, Gillian has noticed something

unusual in the marriage certificate.

In the eyes of the law, as it was then, they were minors.

They were underage and would've needed their parents' consent

for the marriage to be legal.

If you go down to the witnesses,

there's actually no mention of parents as witnesses.

Oh, no.

And they're minors.

Which means that they're in Liverpool for a reason.

They've actually run away from home.

-Aw!

-They've eloped, at 17 and 18,

and they've married without parental consent.

Oh, gosh.

Even after marrying, Maurice and Martha would not, or could not,

return home to Trefarclawdd.

Instead, they lived in slum dwellings in Liverpool,

sharing a cellar room with three other families.

Known as so-called cellar dwellers,

Martha and Maurice must have endured terrible hardships.

Most especially Martha, who had just given birth to their first child.

It must have been a nightmare. Total nightmare.

Why had Maurice and Martha run away from home

to live in such terrible poverty?

For answers, Alison is now anxious to leave Liverpool for Wales.

But just before that, there's one final story she must learn,

concerning her mother, Marjorie Evans.

At the start of her journey,

genealogist Mike Churchill-Jones asked Alison if she had any idea

why her mother was given the Christian name of Marjorie.

No idea at all. I guess it was a popular name at the time.

In fact, Mike has had to dig deep into the archive to find

what appears to be the answer to this question.

The story concerns Alison's maternal grandmother Mary,

seen here as a young woman.

Mary was the mother of Alison's mum, Marjorie Evans,

and worked in domestic service in a private house in Liverpool.

In 1901, she's actually a domestic servant, a housemaid,

for a family called Miskelly.

The couple have two children.

Records show Mary worked for over ten years

as a live-in housemaid for the Miskelly family,

bringing up their two young children,

a girl and a little boy called John.

That's what happened to him.

John Alexander Miskelly.

Male, 14 months.

Oh, gosh.

Died at 14 months.

Acute cerebral meningitis convulsions. Aw.

I think my grandmother, she was quite an emotional woman, as well.

-She would have really...

-It would have affected her, you think?

It really would have affected her, I'm sure.

I'm sure, yeah.

As the only housemaid for the Miskelly family,

Alison's grandmother Mary must have been close to

the two children in her care.

But what of their second child, a little girl?

And this second child, you can read about this child here.

Ah.

Daughter of Alexander Mackie Miskelly.

Oh, that's awful. Scarlet fever.

Oh, my goodness.

The Miskellys' second child, their daughter,

died within a few months of her brother.

But how deeply did this affect Alison's grandmother, Mary?

She would go on to have her own daughter, Marjorie,

who grew up to be Alison's mum.

But what was the name of the little girl who died?

Marjorie... Dell.

Do you know, that's funny, because she obviously called my mother

Marjorie after this little girl.

50 years later, Alison simply knew Mary as her grandmother.

But, for the first time, she is learning something of her past.

Didn't even know that my grandmother was in service.

The fact that she called my mother Marjorie is very significant.

And very touching, really.

That's very sad.

Very sad.

The following day,

and Alison is excited to finally be heading to Wales.

She's off to visit Trefarclawdd,

the home village of her great-great-grandparents,

Martha and Maurice Evans.

She hopes to unlock the mystery of why they eloped to Liverpool.

The journey begins in Chirk, near Wrexham,

just a few miles from Trefarclawdd.

It's here that she will be staying during her visit.

Alison is determined to prove that her mother Marjorie Evans was right

about the family having Welsh ancestry.

Alison's search for her Welsh ancestors takes her to

the nearby livestock market.

She's here to get a flavour of the area,

where her Evans family came from.

But what do the local people know of her ancestors

and their village of...

Now I've got to get the name right. Not far from here.

Tref, Tref, Tref, Tref...

Treffynon? No, not Treffynon?

-Trefonen.

-Trefonen?

-Trefonen?

Trefarffclawdd.

-Ti'n siarad Cymraeg yn iawn? No? Dipyn bach?

-Siarad Cymraeg, what?

Siarad Cymraeg yn iawn? No? Dipyn bach?

She doesn't speak it!

ALL LAUGH

It's a difficult language!

Alison is in need of some quick Welsh lessons

and seeks out auctioneer Glandon Lewis.

The Welsh language, I have to say, when you look at it written,

I mean, it's so difficult.

Just all those kind of sounds,

those "ch" and "ll"s and all that!

Yes. So I'm going to give you a quick Welsh lesson now.

-Croeso.

-Croeso.

-Welcome.

-Yeah, welcome. I know that.

-I know that one!

-You know that one?

-A diolch yn fawr.

-A diolch yn fawr.

-Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Diolch yn fawr.

Hwyl, dyna ni.

Now Alison is finally arriving in Trefarclawdd.

The small and ancient hamlet where generations of her

Evans family lived and worked as coal miners.

It's hard to believe but this field is where the colliery once stood.

And would have been dominated by mine workings

and black with coal dust.

There's little here her ancestors would recognise.

Except, perhaps, for this area.

Bordering the site of the old mine works

is this ancient copse of trees.

And this unusual high, sloping bank,

which is known to be thousands of years old.

It provides a clue to the story Alison is about to discover.

She doesn't know it yet, but the nearby house she is

about to visit would have been very familiar to her

great-great-grandparents, and many earlier generations of her family.

Now a farmhouse, it was originally built

for the manager of the coal mine.

Waiting to greet Alison are the Robert-Jones family,

who are Deborah and her husband Elliot, and Elliott's mum, Elmira.

The reason I'm here in this area is because today

I have learned that the Welsh side of my family, my grandfather

Maurice Evans and his ancestors, going back to 1667, I think...

-Gosh!

-..were from this area originally.

-Right.

Now, I'm not very good at pronouncing the name of it

but it's Tre...

-Trefarclawdd.

-Trefarclawdd.

This farm, yes.

So it's not really a village, is it?

It's a little region, really.

It's a little area.

It mainly consists of the farm and then there's the cemetery.

Yeah, there's two or three houses, as well.

My family has been traced back to a Richard Evans,

who actually lived here.

I am pretty sure that my family would have been Welsh-speaking.

Could you speak a little bit of Welsh for me? Would you mind?

Mae'n dda gen gyfarfod a chi heddiw.

I'm glad to have met you today.

-Ah, that's good.

-Well, I wish I could reply in Welsh but I can't!

THEY LAUGH

Alison is clearly right at home

and is thrilled to have proven her mother was right all along.

That the Evanses were, indeed, from Wales.

It's great to think that, having looked at the family tree,

here I am, actually in Wales, and I've actually come to the place

where my family were from all those hundreds of years ago.

I'd just like to drop a little bit of a bombshell to you

because, unfortunately, although you feel, or think,

you are in Wales, we're actually still in England.

-No!

-Yes!

-Why not?

SHE LAUGHS

Yeah, we are still in England.

So where's the border?

Well, Offa's Dyke was historically the border which is...

It's on the end of our field.

But how can Alison possibly be in England?

Trefarclawdd is a Welsh name.

And Welsh is spoken here.

But, in fact, it's been on the English side of the border

for hundreds of years, in the county of Shropshire.

The name of Trefarclawdd was a clue.

In Welsh, it means town on the dyke.

That dyke is Offa's Dyke.

Traditionally seen as the border between England and Wales.

Alison wants to see for herself this ancient boundary

and meets with Katherine Roberts from Cadw who will explain

the importance of Offa's Dyke.

What it is, is an ancient frontier, or border,

between two kingdoms that existed before the time, really, when

England and Wales, as we understand them today, had come into being.

So what significance would Offa's Dyke have had for my ancestors?

Well, it would be interesting to know what

they knew about Offa's Dyke.

They would have known its name.

But it's fair to say that, until the 20th century,

there'd never been a really detailed study of the dyke.

So that would've been England.

-Well, this is the Mercian side, not England as we know it now.

-No.

But that's the Mercian side and this is the Welsh side.

I think I've got to accept that they were on the borders

and probably more to the English than the Welsh.

Alison's late mother Marjorie had always believed

the Evans family were from Wales.

And Alison is clearly very disappointed

with what she has discovered.

She is now visiting for herself the place along

Offa's Dyke in Trefarclawdd,

where generations of her Evans ancestors worked as coal miners.

This is the land where they dug coal. Often by hand.

Children as well as adults.

And it's here that Alison's quest for her Welsh ancestry,

through her Evans family, must sadly come to an end.

She now knows that her much cherished family story

is simply not true.

Erm, I was very disappointed.

Now, that seems silly.

What's a few miles, you know. And whether it's England or Wales.

But, having lived for years and years thinking,

"Oh, I've got a Welsh background," to discover that that's

probably not true, I was disappointed, I have to say.

Back at her hotel in the nearby village of Chirk,

that evening Alison knows she can take the family story of

her Welsh ancestry no further.

Well, not quite.

The following day brings much better news for Alison.

She's at a special church in Ruabon, very definitely in Wales,

and a place where many of her ancestors would have worshipped.

Whilst Maurice Evans, Alison's great-great-grandfather, lived on

the English side of the border in Trefarclawdd, his wife Martha,

whose maiden name was Price, came from the Welsh side,

from the village of Ruabon.

Martha was Alison's great-great-grandmother

and Michael Churchill-Jones has managed to trace

her Welsh ancestors back a very long way.

We can go back one, two, three,

four, five generations in Ruabon.

I am Welsh, after all!

-You are Welsh.

-I am Welsh!

That's fantastic! I thought I must be, you know.

I kept thinking, you know, my mother couldn't have been wrong.

I feel incredibly proud.

Born in Ruabon.

Born in Ruabon. There we are.

So she is definitely Welsh.

But Alison still wants to know, why did her great-great-grandparents

Maurice and Martha run away to Liverpool to get married?

There was an inauspicious start to this marriage.

They were 17 and 18.

They were underaged. They never had consent.

They went off to Liverpool.

-Yes.

-Then they got married.

-Yeah.

And we wondered why they didn't have consent.

The answer lies in Ruabon's parish records,

which clearly shows that Martha's mother married Maurice's father,

after both had previously been widowed.

Thus making Maurice and Martha step-brother and sister.

And I suspect they would have viewed Maurice and Martha

as brother and sister from that moment on.

And, obviously, it's the law.

There was no reason that they couldn't be in love and get married.

But, presumably, there was a bit of a hoo-ha?

-They would have objected in some way.

-So they run off to Liverpool.

They run off to Liverpool.

-And that's how the family ended up in Liverpool?

-Indeed.

Right. I see.

Despite the very difficult start Maurice and Martha had in life,

they clearly reconciled with their parents,

who later came to live with them in Liverpool.

-So they were reconciled.

-Yeah.

And there they are, in 1851, all living in the same house.

All living in the same house, yes.

So they got out of that horrible cellar that they started off in?

Gosh, that must have been so awful.

Maurice and Martha would be married for 64 years.

And their grandson was also Alison's grandfather.

Oh, that's fantastic.

That's lovely.

Alison is finally able to say that she's Welsh.

And is now coming to the end of her extraordinary journey.

A journey in which she's received a warm welcome on both the Welsh

and English sides of the border.

But, at the end of her quest,

how does she feel about

her ancestral story finally crossing the border into Wales?

Well, I've been Welsh, not Welsh and then I'm back to Welsh!

I feel incredibly proud.

I think it's important that we can

go back and appreciate our families.

Where they've come from.

Their hardships, their triumphs in life

And, perhaps, to try to work out where I fit in.

I feel much more akin with the Welsh part of my family now.

Absolutely.

It just has opened a huge door for me in my life.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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