Welsh Idyll

Copyright Oggbashan December 2020

Edited January 2021

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.

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As I got out of the ancient carriage at the terminus I had to wait while the excess steam from the even older engine, Gwaldys the Hiss, cleared.

Gwaldys had been old when the line opened and was now worn out. She leaked steam everywhere.

"Shit!" I said to myself. I could hear the sounds of Myfanwy being sung by the regulars outside The Miners' Rest. They sung that every Monday to Saturday evening immediately after closing time to salute the young buxom landlady called Myfanwy the Biceps. Originally someone had suggested calling her Myfanwy the Bosom but she had thrown him bodily out the door, so Myfanwy the Biceps was chosen as a more diplomatic name.

Their singing was passionate but not professional although some were members of the Miners' male voice choir. But the sounds of Myfanwy meant that the pub's doors were shut and I had been looking forward to a pint of Myfanwy's beer. As usual, Gwaldys the Hiss was late arriving. But the railway line was the only access to the village apart from a long and very bumpy cart track. The dependence on the village on the railway was the only thing that had saved the line from closure in this 1960s but if Gwaldys finally died? The line might be closed.

The line had been built to extract coal from a South Wales valley. In the 19th century a mine owner had been told there was coal in quantity in what was called, in Welsh, Blacktown. It wasn't a town, barely a village beside a fast flowing river that emerged from a cave half way up a cliff behind the town. The waterfall had been named St Cybi's spring and had supposedly been formed when St Cybi struck his staff on the cliff when a fellow saint complained the valley was dry. It was nonsense, of course. A geologist had established that the waterfall and stream had been running for about half a million years before St Cybi, but who cares?

What mattered was that the stream was black -- coloured with coal dust. The whole place was black, so black that in English it was called '******' town -- a word that cannot be used now. The water in which the inhabitants washed was black and therefore so were they.

The mine owner had financed the railway line and an open cast mine to extract the coal, using hydraulic jets powered by the stream. The town grew and became even blacker. But the mine was barely profitable and the mine owner had to compromise by having only one secondhand steam engine -- Gwaldys the Hiss, built in the 1870s.

Myfanwy was standing outside the public house door to acknowledge the singing. She does, every night the public house was open. Not only does she appreciate the singing but it also means that the customers leave together on time. She saw me approaching as the men began to disperse.

"Hello, Bill," she called. "Come in."

Some of the men turned round.

"I ought to be jealous of Bill the Banker," one said, "But I know he and Myfanwy are trying to save our town,"

"Bill? He's not." another exclaimed, "He's William the..."

He might have continued with a word rhyming with Banker but starting with a W, but others hushed him. I had to shake hands with a few, and acknowledge doffed hats. I'm not the squire. Welsh villages don't have squires but I live in the largest house, the former mineowner's, and have significant land around the town. But the respect is not for my status but because they know I'm trying to find a future for Blacktown. My money, large though it is compared with most of the inhabitants, is not enough on its own so I had been looking for financial backers in the City of London.

I have been working with Myfanwy, the owner of the largest business in Blacktown. Her father had been the mine manager when it closed down, having married Myfanwy's mother, the daughter of the pub's owners. Myfanwy had been their only child and she inherited the public house with its ten letting bedrooms and a social hall, when they died in their late fifties.

Myfanwy was now in her late 20s and a black-haired larger well-developed woman. She and I were acknowledged as girlfriend and boyfriend although there was nothing formal about it yet. Many of the town's younger men were jealous of me, not just for Myfanwy's looks and personality, but for her money. After me, a long way after me, she was the richest person in Blacktown.

I entered the pub and followed Myfanwy through to her private quarters behind the bar. She went back into the bar to pull me a pint of beer, her own brew. I put my briefcase on the table. Myfanwy sat down opposite me.

"Well, Bill? How did you get on?" She asked.

I took a long pull on the beer before I answered.

"I'm sorry, Myfanwy. It doesn't look good. I went to British Rail to ask about replacing Gwaldys the Hiss. Yes, they have an ex-GWR diesel railcar that could do the passenger services and a formerly experimental diesel loco they might allocate to the line BUT..."

I stopped to take some more of Myfanwy's beer. The taste of it reminded me that I was home, and that Myfanwy's beer was made with love -- for the whole community, not just for me.

"But?" She prompted.

"They are losing money, a lot of money, on the railway line. They would have closed it years ago but for pressure from the government and local Members of Parliament. Even if they sold the railcar and diesel loco to me, they would still be losing money. So they won't sell me any engines. What they want to do is to sell me the whole railway line."

"The whole railway line? If they are losing money, perhaps they would sell it cheaply?"

"No. That's the problem. If they closed the line they would sell the assets. Gwaldys the Hiss and the rolling stock were written off as scrap value years ago but it is the land. They could sell the station buildings for conversion to private houses -- four of them. That wouldn't be too much. But the line was originally double-tracked even if it hasn't been since the 1930s. The track bed is wide and in Blacktown they have 50 acres of mine sidings and twenty acres of sidings at the terminus in the big town. They want two million pounds for the assets."

"Two million pounds!" Myfanwy squeaked, "That's a fantastic amount."

"It is, and if we wanted to run the railway, even with more modern locos -- possibly another hundred thousand pounds, even with a lot of volunteer help, we'd be losing a hundred thousand pounds a year. Currently they lose a quarter of a million pounds a year on the line. And there is another problem. We wanted to develop the town and surrounding areas as a tourist destination. We were considering dry ski slopes on the slag heaps, water-skiing and yachting on the lake etc..."

"Yes, I know. You were going to ask your City friends about finance for that."

"And I did. But things went badly wrong. I was going to meet four of them in the big town today, Friday. They came down by car on Thursday night. But when they got up this morning? Two of their cars had been stolen and the other two had been broken into, the music systems stolen and attempts made to start them. One car? That might have been unfortunate. All four? That was too much. They reported the stolen cars and damaged ones to the Police station and found out that car theft was endemic.

What that means is, even if we had a railway line owned and operated by us as a heritage tourist line, they wouldn't recommend that any visitor leave his car in the big town. It would be unsafe."

"Assholes!" Myfanwy said.

"I shouldn't have been surprised and perhaps I should have warned my friends. The town is one of the most deprived areas in Wales...."

"Not as deprived as Blacktown," Myfanwy interrupted.

"Maybe. But we have no cars worth stealing. There's my battered LandRover and two old Austin Sevens that came here on trucks behind Gwaldys the Hiss. We have no roads to drive on. The cars stolen were two top-of-the range Mercedes. The ones broken into were a Bentley and a Ferrari. I doubt such cars had been seen in the town before."

"So what do we do now, Bill?"

"There is only one answer. We need road access. The cart track is too narrow and very steep in places. The only way we could build a road is to use the railway track bed. As it was double tracked, the road would be wide enough and almost level. The gradients are steep for a railway but not noticeable as a road."

"But the cost?"

"That's the real problem, Myfanwy. Two million to buy the railway. We'd need another million to build the road, and then the investment for the facilities -- another two million perhaps. That's five million in all. I haven't got that sort of money, nor has Blacktown, We might get some grants but I doubt the best we could hope for would be a million."

"What about your offer to buy the mine?"

"That? I've bought it, all the land, buildings, equipment -- the lot for fifty thousand pounds. But if we can't develop it, and we can't get people here? I've wasted that money. Oh -- and I've set up the company that owns the mine. The Blacktown Development Company. Apart from the mine it has a paid-up capital of ten thousand pounds. There are two owners, you and me. I'm the Managing Director; you're the Company Secretary. We own half each."

"I'm what? The Company Secretary? What does that mean?"

"Not much at present except that you own half a mine and five thousand pounds, Myfanwy. Which reminds me. You have to sign the incorporation papers."

I opened my briefcase, extracted the papers and passed them, with a pen, for Myfanwy to sign.

"You're giving me half a mine and five thousand pounds, Bill? What do I have to give you for that?"

"Nothing, except perhaps to be my official girlfriend, Myfanwy. That would be ample repayment."

"You're buying me?"

I laughed.

"No, Myfanwy. The mine could be worthless. The ten thousand pounds? We could spend that and get nowhere. What we are trying to do is provide a future for Blacktown. If we succeed? The company might be worth money. If not? The money is lost. But I want you as my girlfriend whatever happens. Please?"

Myfanwy came around the table, pushed me away from it and sat on my lap. She wound her arms around my head and kissed me.

"Was that a Yes, Myfanwy?" I asked when she stopped kissing me.

"Yes, you fool, Bill. Of course it is."

She kissed me again.

I reached past her to finish my pint. She took the empty glass from me.

"Are you sure it's not just for the free beer? " She asked.

"Of course not, Myfanwy. I can afford all the beer I want. What's the bill for this week?"

"Twenty five shillings. A lot less than it used to be when Old Hugh was alive."

"I miss him. He was a friend and a great raconteur. He was a fixture in the armchair beside the fire, puffing away on his clay pipe. How old was he when he died?"

"Ninety-six. He used to say that the two pints you paid for every night were all that kept him alive. Now it is a few of the pensioners who can't afford a pint towards the end of the week when their pensions aren't paid until Monday."

"Which reminds me, again. With the mine I'm now responsible for the miners' pension fund. It is fully funded for at least the next ten years. I'll only need to top it up if many of the old miners survive like Hugh. I can't see that. He was the exception. Most don't live long into their sixties."

"They don't. Mining was hard. Too many don't even reach sixty. OK, Bill. I'll sign your papers and get you another pint to celebrate being my boyfriend."

Myfanwy climbed off my lap, signed where I indicated and went to the bar to get me another pint. When she returned she put the pint down on the table and sat back on my lap.

"Boyfriend? I'd like to offer you more, but I've got work to do. The Miners' Rest has to open for business tomorrow lunch time. But tomorrow night?

All pubs in this part of Wales are closed on Sunday. I want you to stay here after closing time and have Sunday breakfast and lunch with me. You'll accept?"

"With pleasure, Myfanwy. But what will the locals think?"

"The locals think we do already, Bill. Actually sharing my bed won't change how they see us. They know we are trying to help the town. Whether we do it together or apart doesn't matter to them. What matters is if we succeed."

"And at the moment it doesn't look hopeful except for far more money that we could possibly raise. The only straw I can grasp at now depends on two mining consultants coming on Monday. I, no we, from the company, are paying them a hundred pounds each to assess what if anything could be done with the mine. If they find something? It depends what it is and if whether it is has any value."

"And if they do? Gwaldys the Hiss is the only way of getting it out and she's a wreck."

"I know. The mine would have to be valued high enough to justify buying the line and building a road. That is unlikely. All it had was coal. It still has coal but was uneconomic when it closed and would be even less of a business proposition now -- unless there is something else more valuable than coal. The two mining consultants are a last throw of the dice."

"When are they coming, Bill?"

"In theory on Monday morning -- depending on how on time Gwaldys the Hiss is. Could you put them up for Monday and Tuesday nights, provide packed lunches for the three of us on Monday and meals for the two while they are here? The company can pay."

"It won't need to, Bill. I can afford that. I'll ask Blodwen tomorrow. She cooks the Saturday lunches and would probably be pleased to be paid to provide meals on Monday and Tuesday."

"OK, Myfanwy. I'll collect the packed lunches and meet Mr Simpson and Mr Jonas at the station when the train arrives. We'll go straight out to the mine and be back here about six-thirty. I expect they'll need most of Tuesday as well."

"When will you know the results?"

"Their formal report? Probably within a week. But they will tell me verbally before they go back to London."

"And if they find nothing worthwhile?"

"We think again. The worst result would be if they found something worth extracting but not really a viable amount. If they say there is nothing? We have to think of another way to save Blacktown. I'm not giving up."

"Thank you, Bill. And now you should go home to bed. It's been a long week for you. I'll see you tomorrow evening -- bring your overnight things. You're spending Saturday night in your girlfriend's bed."

"OK, Myfanwy. You're right. I need some sleep. I've got to catch the first train tomorrow morning to spend the day in my office in the town. If only we had a better telephone service, I wouldn't need it."

Blacktown only has eight phone numbers -- The subpostmistress' official line and the two telephone boxes outside; the mine office (currently unused), The Miners' Arms, my house and the vicar and doctor have a party line. Except for the phone boxes, the telephones can only be used when Cerys the Post is on duty from 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday and until 12.30 pm on Saturdays when Cerys operates the manual switchboard. There are only two lines out of Blacktown. When Cerys is not on duty she leaves the lines plugged in for the telephone boxes. You lift the receiver and an operator answers from the big town.

My office near the train line's town terminus has a phone I can use to dial anywhere in the UK, a Telex and fax machine. I have a full time secretary, Sioned, who is my only employee in Wales.

"Will Sioned be there?" Myfanwy asked.

"Yes, I have spent so much of the week on proposals for Blacktown that I have asked her to work overtime on Saturday, Myfanwy. Why?"

"Should I be jealous of Sioned, Bill? She spends so much time with you."

I laughed.

"You've never met Sioned. She is a feisty grandmother who is only working because her grandsons can't find work. She treats me as yet another son who needs organising. But usually I'm only with her for an hour or so on Monday mornings and at the end of a day on Fridays. The rest of the time I'm in the City of London sleeping in the bedroom in part of my office suite."

"What about your London staff?"

"I don't have any. It is a serviced office. I have access to a pool of secretaries who answer phones and do the typing. Almost all of them are temps who move on quickly. I rarely see the same one twice, not long enough to build up any sort of relationship. If I wasn't spending so much time trying to find a future for Blacktown I might consider having my own office in London with a secretary, Maybe that will be possible in about five years from now. Meanwhile Sioned is the only one who really understands my work and can support it."

"OK, Bill. Off you go. See you tomorrow evening."

Myfanwy took me to the front door. Just before she opened it, she kissed and hugged me before opening the door and pushing me out. I climbed up the hill to my house with the memory of that kiss and of Myfanwy's large breasts pressed against my chest.

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On Saturday Sioned and I were able to bring my real money-making work up to date. She would meet the mine consultants on Monday morning and make sure they caught the train to Blacktown where I would be waiting for them.

Gwaldys the Hiss was late as usual that evening but I had time for a couple of pints before Myfanwy stood outside to be serenaded. As she came back in, she hugged me.

"Have you eaten this evening, Bill?" Myfanwy asked when we had kissed.

"No. I've been too busy. I had a sandwich at lunchtime, at my desk."

"OK, I've got a ham salad for you in the kitchen."

It was more than just a ham salad. There were cold potatoes in mayonnaise, some Melton Mowbray pie, coleslaw, cheddar and Wensleydale cheese -- it was a feast. Myfanwy was sitting on my lap as I ate.

"How was your day?" She asked.

"Busy, but productive," I said. "Monday will be with the mine consultants but I hope Sioned will be able to do some of the work for me."

"But you look worried, Bill."

"I am. Not about my business. That's OK. It is about what the mine consultants will find if anything. Monday is make or break."

"OK. But tonight? Forget it. I'll try to make sure you do."

She did. I spent the whole night in Myfanwy's bed and she showed me just how much she loved and wanted me. In the morning I felt well-loved and well-fucked as I sat down to a full cooked breakfast.

We spent the whole of Sunday together just enjoying each other's company until we went to bed again for more loving.

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On Monday morning I had another cooked breakfast before I went to see Cerys the Post. I asked her to make sure any phone calls for me today went to the mine office. The telephone there has loud external bells that can be heard throughout the whole site but it might take me a few minutes to answer, depending where I was. Cerys understood even though neither of us expected any phone calls.

Just before half past ten I had parked my LandRover by the station. Inside I had three packed meals prepared by Blodwen and a metal case with the labelled keys for all the mine buildings.

As I expected, Gwaldys the Hiss was late, arriving at ten to eleven. The two mining consultants were obvious. I was pleased to see that they were two younger men, dressed as if for mountain walking, carrying a few buckets each and a large rucksack. They put their things in the LandRover and I drove to the mine.

I had to stop and undo the padlock on the security gate. The whole mine area was surrounded by a high fence topped with barbed wire, mainly to keep inquisitive children out. A mine is a dangerous place to play.