Myfanwy

Mydanwy

Copyright oggbashan April 2022

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.

This story is inspired by the words and music of the Welsh love song Myfanwy.

All conversations would be in Welsh, retold in English.

Note: Distances are shown as metres. You cam substitute yards without affecting the story.

+++

"Huw? I'm no longer sure about us. My father and brothers are miners. Every man in the village is a miner. Yet you are scared stiff every time you go down into the mine and shaking like a leaf for hours afterwards. Are you a real man? Do I want you?"

It was the early 1960s. Myfanwy is my girlfriend. Or perhaps I should say Myfanwy WAS my girlfriend. We have been growing apart over the last few months and now I'm no longer sure that she is my girlfriend.

We live in the Rhondda valley. I, my father, Myfanwy's father and brothers are all coal miners in a deep pit.

But six months ago, I was in an accident. A drift collapsed on me, trapping me under the rubble.

I survived because a pit prop fell diagonally across my head, leaving me room to breathe. But from my neck down I was buried by rock. My right arm was broken and several ribs. I couldn't move and I was afraid I might drown in the water seeping down from above.

I was there for twelve hours before the rescue party could get to me and extract me from the debris. The thought of Myfanwy kept me alive and wishing to get out.

I was on sick pay for three months and even after that I wasn't fit to go down the mine as an ordinary worker. For a month I was helping out in the office as an incompetent clerk before the management assigned me to the rescue team. If we were called out, I would have to go into the mine in dangerous circumstances but most of the time I would sitting around hoping that the emergency siren didn't sound.

I wasn't sure that I could go down into the mine if there was an emergency. I had nightmares of being trapped again. Even just the thought of being deep in the mine gave me the shivers and shakes. Myfanwy knew I was scared but she couldn't understand how terrified I was. To her, all the men around her were miners. A man who couldn't, or wouldn't go down into the mine, to her, wasn't a man.

Her father and her brothers understood. In the past all of them had been trapped at some time. They hadn't been buried like me, but a rockfall behind them had left them isolated until the rescue team could dig though. Their experience was boring instead of life threatening but they knew the risks and how lucky I had been to escape with injuries but alive.

Myfanwy have never been down in the mine. She didn't understand how dangerous any shift could me. To her, I was a coward. She wasn't sure she wanted a coward as a boyfriend. None of the other miners thought of me as a coward, just someone who had been very lucky once but shouldn't push that luck again.

I had sung the song 'Myfanwy' to her many times. Now the words of the song were poignant. I might have to bid Myfanwy farewell. I love her and want her to have the best life possible. If that life doesn't include me, I would be sad, but I would be there for Myfanwy if she ever needed me. Love might mean walking away and not looking back.

Myfanwy knew that I loved her, and that if she chose someone else, I would let her go, regretfully. Because she knew I wouldn't stand in her way that made the relationship continue even if much more distant than it had been. She saw me as a good bloke, but a possible coward. The cowardice worried her. The prospect of going down the mine again didn't just worry me. It terrified me.

We were still together but the spark had gone.

+++

As part of the rescue team, I had to go down into the mine for practice. We usually went to a disused part of the mine that hadn't been used for a decade. Any rockfalls would have happened when that part was operational, not now. But even so I was in a cold sweat all the time I was in the mine, and still shaking hours later when I saw Myfanwy in the evening.

Her father and brothers tried to explain to Myfanwy that I wasn't a coward, just someone who had nearly lost his life and was still scarred by that experience, but they couldn't persuade Myfanwy to see it like that. She still considered me less of a man even when I had been down in the pit all day. I should be a miner, not just someone sitting on the surface waiting for something that might never happen.

Even being part of the rescue team didn't impress Myfanwy.

"What do they do, Huw? They sit around drinking cups of tea, telling each other dirty jokes and do nothing."

"We sing, Myfanwy, we sing. The rescue team are the major part of the male voice choir."

"But they don't DO anything, Huw. They just sit and wait for nothing."

I and her family knew that it wasn't a case of 'might never happen' but that it would, sometime, and the rescue team would be vital.

Before the accident I had been doing weightlifting at the mine's gym twice a week. After the accident I had to scale that back, but I had been working my right arms to regain its full strength. Four months after the accident I was convinced I had my full strength back. I am taller than almost every other miner, not by a lot, maybe three inches above everyone else. In England I wouldn't be considered tall. But in the Rhondda, I was the tallest, and probably the strongest.

+++

Eventually what we dreaded and had been training for occurred. There was a sudden blast of dust out of the mineshaft and the emergency siren sounded. We all donned our emergency gear and headed for the mineshaft only to find that the lift cages had been damaged and couldn't be used. We had to go to the older mineshaft and hope the old equipment was still operational. It was but very creaky.

At the bottom we were in old, long disused, tunnels. We split up to try to find the extent of the damage. We had telephone communication with the surface. They told us that fifty miners on the working shift were trapped by a considerable rock fall that had happened after a gas explosion. No one had been hurt since the rock fall was about four hundred metres behind them, but other miners had reported that the far end of the fall meant two hundred metres of tunnel was blocked. It could take weeks to dig through that safely and we didn't have weeks. The miners' food and air would run out long before then. We had to reach them by another way.

The team leader had a faint photocopy of the old mine workings, abandoned in 1938. The map had been drawn in 1945, Whether it was still accurate, or how many rock falls had occurred since? We didn't know but we hoped none since the old workings were supposed to be inspected four times a year. How efficient those surveys were could be vital to our success.

It took an hour and numerous phone calls before we arrived at what was recommended as the easiest route to the trapped miners. Only one telephone didn't work, remarkable for a system unused since 1938. But there was no lighting and never had been. In 1938 miners still used Davy lamps. Our headlights on our helmets, our battery powered torches and our big floodlights were far more effective.

We were in a tunnel that had connected the old workings to the new, but we knew there had been a rockfall in 1946 that had blocked some of that tunnel. To get to the blockage we had to scramble over several small piles of rocks fallen from the roof, but it was passable until we came to the big fall. We were wearing full breathing apparatus because there had been traces of gas as we approached the rock fall, and a major accumulation by it.

We have to bring air down near us and try to flush the gas away. It was half an hour before it was safe to work without the personal air supply.

Our leader had been told that those on the surface thought the blockage was fairly short, about ten to fifteen metres, but as we removed the blockage the rocks above might come down too. We would have to be very careful and prop the tunnel as we worked. The trapped miners had asked whether they could dig themselves out. They were told no because they didn't have the specialised equipment that the rescue team had.

The railway lines were still there. We loaded a couple of wagons with pit props etc and pushed the wagons near to the blockage. As we started, I was surprised that my shakes and terrors had gone. We had an important job to do to rescue the others. That was more important that my fears.

As the tallest and strongest, as the rubble was removed, I held a beam up to the ceiling. Initially that was held with hydraulic jacks, then Acrow props before pit props could be used and the others moved forward. I was taking the weight before the jacks were put in place, then I moved forward to hold up the next. Our first metre took twenty minutes, but we speeded up as we got into rhythm.

Three times as I raised the beam into place. I felt the rocks move above. I had to use all my strength to hold the bean before the hydraulic jacks could be fitted.

Further in we found the rock fall was only partial and we could move as fast as the jacks and props could be put into place. The rubble was loaded into the wagons and taken to a wider area where it was dumped. As I worked, I was thinking of Myfanwy and wheat she would think if she could see me now, as an essential part of the rescue team. My back, shoulders and arms were aching, but I knew we were close to the end.

After two hours we were through to meet the trapped miners. As soon as we were through, I collapsed in an exhausted heap. I had worn myself out. It was only the thought of rescuing Myfanwy's relations that had kept me going. Myfanwy's father made a point of thanking me, as did her brothers. It took another two hours to bring everyone to the surface, with the rescue team last to emerge.

As I emerged, sweaty and covered in coal dust, and excited Myfanwy grabbed me for a hug and kiss, nearly knocking me over.

"Huw? You saved my father and brothers," she said. "In my eyes that makes you a real man, and one I want."

From then on, Myfanwy was mine and I was hers. That was far better than the award I got for bravery from the mine company.

Lyrics of Myfanwy (out of copyright) Joseph Parry died in 1903.

Welsh:

[Verse 1]

Paham mae dicter, O Myfanwy

Yn llenwi'th lygaid duon di?

A'th ruddiau tirion, O Myfanwy

Heb wrido wrth fy ngweled i?

Pa le mae'r wên oedd ar dy wefus

Fu'n cynnau 'nghariad ffyddlon ffôl?

Pa le mae sain dy eiriau melys

Fu'n denu'n nghalon ar dy ôl?

[Verse 2]

Pa beth a wneuthum, O Myfanwy

I haeddu gwg dy ddwyrudd hardd?

Ai chwarae oeddit, O Myfanwy

 thanau euraidd serch dy fardd?

Wyt eiddo im drwy gywir amod

Ai gormod cadw'th air i mi?

Ni cheisiaf fyth mo'th law, Myfanwy

Heb gael dy galon gyda hi

[Verse 3]

Myfanwy boed yr holl o'th fywyd

Dan heulwen ddisglair canol dydd

A boed i rosyn gwridog iechyd

I ddawnsio ganmlwydd ar dy rudd

Anghofia'r oll o'th addewidion

A wnest i rywun, 'ngeneth ddel

A dyro'th law, Myfanwy dirion

I ddim ond dweud y gair "Ffarwél"

English:

Why is it anger, O Myfanwy, That fills your eyes so dark and clear? Your gentle cheeks, O sweet Myfanwy, Why blush they not when I draw near? Where is the smile that once most tender Kindled my love so fond, so true? Where is the sound of your sweet words, That drew my heart to follow you?

2. What have I done, O my Myfanwy, To earn your frown? What is my blame? Was it just play, my sweet Myfanwy, To set your poet's love aflame? You truly once to me were promised, Is it too much to keep your part? I wish no more your hand, Myfanwy, If I no longer have your heart.

3. Myfanwy, may you spend your lifetime Beneath the midday sunshine's glow, And on your cheeks O may the roses Dance for a hundred years or so. Forget now all the words of promise You made to one who loved you well, Give me your hand, my sweet Myfanwy, But one last time, to say "farewell".