South Wales Coalfield Collection

"Rank and File" 1979-82 Study

Ref No. Description Dates
AUD/34 Interview of Lewis, Dan.
Recorded memoirs of Dan Lewis, Maesmarchog school teacher, concerning his memories of Onllwyn backrow and frontrow, both as a child and as an adult. Included are general housing and social conditions and attitudes; the influence of the Evans and Bevan Company and colliery officials on the community; the role of the chapel as a meeting place; and activities of the time, including penny readings, lectures, lantern slide shows, children's games and the dramatic society.
Covers period : 1880-1979 (c).
Running time : 5hrs.
10.1979
AUD/35 Interview of Fassem, Margery Grace (nee Edwards).
Recorded memoirs of Margery Fassem, political and social activist, concerning her childhood experiences in South Wales and Wiltshire, and her career. Included is her later involvement with the Communist Party and the Labour Party, and a London based theatre group which toured South Wales performing Macbeth, and its effect on the miners. Also the position of women in society.
Covers period : 1880-1982 (c).
Running time : 1hr 36mins 5secs.
4.2.1982
AUD/45 Interview of Cockcroft, Anne (Dr).
Discussion by Anne Cockroft, Chest Disease Physician, concerning research work on chest diseases, and their effects on compensation claims by miners.
Covers period : 1970-1982 (c).
Running time : 30mins 35secs.
1979-1982
AUD/55 Interview of Williams, Glyn.
Recorded memoirs of Glyn Williams, miner and steel factory worker, Vale of Neath and Aberdare. Included are relations within the coal mines, especially after nationalisation and mechanisation; and comparisons between various aspects of the two industries, in safety, industrial diseaese, politics, and union influences.
Covers period : 1945-1982 (c).
Running time : 1hr 40mins 29secs.
8.1.1980
AUD/76 Interview of Jeffreys, Hywel (alias Jeff Camnant).
Recorded memoirs of Hywel Jeffreys, (also known as Jeff Camnant), Coelbren miner. Included are his childhood memories of Coelbren and Banwen; his education, including the position of the Welsh language; social and pit conditions and relations; opinions on nationalisation; open cast mining and its influences on the landscape; his interest in local Roman history and archaeology; the effect of mechanisation; comparisons between generations.
Covers period : 1910-1982 (c).
Running time : 1hr 3mins 49secs.
15.11.1982
AUD/104 Interview of Stratton, Harry.
Recorded memoirs of Harry Stratton, Swansea taxi-driver. Includes experiences in the army; his involvement with a war newspaper; relationships between officers and soldiers; Swansea after World War II; squatters and the homeless; his reaction to the election of the Attlee Government; sales of the Daily Worker; public meetings of the Communist Party and its membership in Swansea; reaction to the first Soviet ship to come to Britain after the war; relationship with the Labour Party; and his role in the Castlemartin Campaign (no German troops in Wales).
Covers period : 1930-1965 (c).
Running time : 1hr 20mins 18secs.
17.11.1981
AUD/111 Interview of Simons, Ernest Fervert.
Recorded memoirs of Ernie Simons, miner and factory worker. Includes his father's work as a saddler; childhood activities; first day as a miner; Neath Fair Day; experiences as a collier boy; 'The Soviet Level', and the soup kitchens in the 1926 lock-out; community and social life; his injury in the pit; and working at the Bridgend Ammunition Factory.
Covers period : 1915-1981 (c).
Running time : 59mins 33secs.
2.2.1981
AUD/120 Interview of Williams, Tom.
Memoirs of Tom Williams, First World War resister, being a recording from a series of lectures entitled 'The Struggle For Peace : Past and Present'. Includes his arrest and imprisonment for his role in a hunger strike; the leadership of the Labour Movement; his reaction to the outbreak of war; effect of TW's imprisonment on his family; moved to London to find work. A discussion follows the talk.
Covers period : 1912-1970 (c).
Running time : 1hr 34mins 18secs.
4.2.1982

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