Bristol
gave the world Archibald Leich – much better known as Cary Grant. He was known to all as one of the most handsome and
charming Hollywood actors ever to appear in film but who was also a very private and
tormented man: lover to actor Ralph Richardson and reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes,
and married five times. He grew up in working
class Bristol an illegitimate child. At the
age of eight, in 1912, he was told that his mother (the woman he had always known as his
mother) died of a heart attack and had been buried immediately. Her unfaithful husband had actually unjustly
committed her to the notorious Fishpond Lunatic Asylum until she was released in 1938. Grant learned this and hastened to Bristol as soon
as he could to begin his many visits to her. It
is thought that at this time he also located his birth mother – a Jewish woman named
Lillian.
All I had time for in Bristol was to get my green card insurance
papers. Melawend and I continued on in the
clear cool air of the afternoon toward the River Severn.
We rolled over Brunel's Suspension Bridge across the Avon Gorge at Clifton
Downs. Below was the waterway that John Cabot
(actually Giovanni Caboto, an Italian navigator in the service of England) had sailed on
out of Bristol in 1497 and into history – discovering mainland America, exploring the
coasts of present-day New England and the Maritimes.
Once on that impressive bridge, high over the muddy waters, I got
the feeling I often got on bridges: that you were suspended in time but still moving
between here and there, between the past and the future, and that in crossing you would
enter a new part of your life. If you returned
across the same bridge, your world would be a little different. Just being on a bridge meant that you were
committed to change. We were confronted by
bridges and also created them. And you had to
be careful as to which bridges you burned.
As
we rolled down into Wales, there was a feeling of entering a different country. The hills rose up and there were great areas of
forests and hillside pastures. My maternal
roots were here – in fact, my mother had a Welsh name, Gwendolyn. My grandmother's family had originally been from
Monmouth. Anna Darby, my Grandma, had been
Anna Dodge.
(She was a
descendant of Colonel Richard I. Dodge
for whom an American city was named – Dodge
City, Kansas – of Wyatt Earp, Boot
Hill Cemetery and TV's Gunsmoke fame. But that is for another part of this story.)
The
first real destination in Wales was Brecon Beacons National Park. There was relief in getting off the main southern
road and heading north toward the Park. But it
was late afternoon and I again felt the anxiety of finding a free campsite. The feeling intensified as Melawend and I rolled
into Mountain Ash, the former coal-mining center of the Cynon Valley, where the hills were
steep and forested. There was a lot of traffic
in town. On a narrow main street, the town
seemed dark under the low sun. It was crowded
with people and small shops, intimate and cozy to those who lived here and had some place
to spend the night. It was likely my
anxiety but I sensed the suspicious stare of many eyes.
I
parked Melawend in front of a small grocery store, went in and bought jam, bread and a can
of baked beans. When I came out, there were
two boys standing by their bicycles, admiring Melawend.
One boy was chunky. He had a mat
of dark hair and small, excited eyes. He
appeared to be twelve years old. The other,
perhaps ten, was skinny with short hair and sleepy blue eyes.
"I've
never seen a scooter like this one," said the older boy, looking at Melawend's faring
and its big Canadian flag sticker. "Did
you buy it in Canada?"
"Yes."
"And
you brought it all the way here?" He was
looking at Melawend the way a young boy eyes something he would love to own.
"That's
right."
"Wow! Are you staying in Mountain Ash?"
"Actually
I'm looking for a campsite. Do you know where
I might find one?"
He
paused, then said, "Yes! Yes! Follow us!
He looked at his younger friend. "Come
Jamie!"
I
followed but felt even more stared at than before. The
boys peddled furiously through the town, leading me around several turns. Shops gave way to small homes and then vacant land. We rode up a small rise and down a bumpy lane to
what appeared to be the local dump – broken bottles and rotting tires and craggy
black mounds that seemed to have had something to do with coal mining. I felt I had ridden into part of a Stephen King
novel.
"You
can camp here," the older boys aid. He
seemed too eager and he was already poised to ride away.
I suspected he would be off like a shot because Melawend presented something
interesting to tell his buddies or to older guys he might want to impress. I worried that I would be besieged, maybe even
harmed by an invasion of bored local youths.
"No,
there's too much glass. Thanks anyway."
The
older boy frowned. Then his face lit up. "Come, follow us!"
He
peddled away in the same determined way, followed dutifully by the younger boy. They led me to an open, grassy are along a stretch
of new road.
"What
about here?" said the older boy.
The
place was too exposed. Seeing such desperate
hope in the boy's eyes, I felt almost sorry for him. I
declined. He looked dejected but the younger
boy hunched over his handlebars and sighed in relief.
I waved and sped back to the main road.
The
sun was disturbingly low when I reached the area of Aberdare and found myself going in
circles in a roundabout. I shivered in the
cooling air. I was in an open area but I could
not distinguish a farm. To the north, I saw a
hillside with sheep. On a desperate gamble, I
chose an exit that took me to a place called Llwydcoed.
I
stopped where a narrow lane named Tir Mawr met the main road. I went up to the modern home on the corner. There was no need to ring the doorbell. From inside, a creature that sounded like the Hound
of the Baskervilles had announced my coming. A woman about my age came to the door,
restraining a German Shepherd that glared at me: Make
my day.
"Uh,
hello. Is this your farm?" It likely seemed that I was asking both of them
because my eyes darted between the woman and her canine Harry Callahan. My eyes said to the dog: Nice boy. To
the woman: Don't let go of that monster!
"No. The owners live over there," she said,
removing one hand from the leash to point. "Just
go to the end of the lane. The name is
Francis."
"Thank
you, Mam," I said, backing away.
I
rode along the bumpy lane. It went in a long
way beside a large field that was green with hay. A
man was riding a tractor in the field. I
followed the lane as it went right and then uphill, ending at a grove of trees surrounding
a low farmhouse. I heaved Melawend onto her
center stand, took out the blue plastic-covered portfolio and went to the front door. It was a rough-looking house, owner-built, I
thought. I knocked.
The
woman who answered the door looked vaguely like my mother but younger and she wore
glasses. She was short with a fine figure, a
fair complexion and graying dark hair.
"Yes,
can I help you?"
"Hello
Mam. My name is Tom Smith," I said,
handing her the portfolio. "I'm on a
journey around the world and I was wondering if I could camp tonight somewhere on your
farm?"
(That was the
standard approach I was to use the rest of the journey.)
"Around
the world? Goodness!" She had a shy and gentle way that was immediately
endearing, particularly with her Welsh accent. "I
must ask my husband. Do come in Tom. Would you like some tea?"
"That
would be great, thank you." I was still
shivering and the thought of tea was heavenly. I
stepped into a sparsely furnished front room.
"Paul?"
the woman called out. A boy answered from
another room and came in one of the interior doorways.
He was about seventeen, a trim lad with bushy black hair, straight dark
eyebrows. He reminded me of a friend I'd had
in my late teens.
"My
name is Carole Francis, and this is my son, Paul." she said. She handed my portfolio to him. "Tom is on his on his way around the world. Would you get him some tea?"
Paul
led me into the living room. There was a keen
wonder in his eyes.
"Have
a chair, Tom, while I make the tea.” Paul
said. “I’ll just be a moment."
I
sank contentedly into an armchair. As soon as
I did, a little boy who had been playing with toys on the carpeted floor came over to me,
plunked his elbows on my knees, smiled and squinted his eyes tightly at me. He went and brought me one of his plastic toys,
then another and another. Paul came in with
mug of steaming tea.
"Ah,
Ian, now be a good boy and leave Tom alone."
Ian
just squinted at me.
"May
I have a look at this, Tom?" Paul said,
holding the portfolio.
"Sure."
"Around
the world...."
I
lost Paul to the journey. Ian went back to
maneuvering his toys to suit some plan that only he understood. I sipped my tea, savoring the new warmth in and
around me.
PHOTO: left to
right - Paul Francis, Tom holding Ian Francis, Peter and Carole Francis - on Tir Mawr
Farm, Llwydcoed, Aberdare, Wales. Photo copyright 1986 by Adrienne Leijerstam.
The
woman came in with the man I'd seen on the tractor. He
was short, dark and heavy-set and seemed to me a mellow cross between actors Danny DeVito
and Bob Hoskins (the actor who played the detective in Who Framed Roger Rabbit).
"Tom,
this is my husband, Peter."
"How
do you do, sir?" I said, shaking hands with him.
"Fine,
Tom. Carole has told me about your trip. You are certainly welcome to camp here."
"Great! Thank you."
"We'll
be having our dinner soon. Would you like to
join us?"
For
the next few days, I ate farm style: breakfasts of Wheatbix, bacon and eggs, buttered
bread and jam; lunches and dinners of roast pork, potatoes, carrots, and tea cakes; and
always, lots of tea. I had hoped to stay one
night. I stayed four. That first night, I sat outside my tent in a hay
field, happy under moonlight that illuminated the long and verdant Cynon Valley.
The
next morning, the sky was overcast. At
breakfast, Carole was worried about rain. "It
spoiled the whole crop that year."
When
I had risen, Paul was already out on the tractor, raking the hay that Peter had just
recently cut. Now, after breakfast, Paul and
four of his friends, David, Simon, Steven and Tony, had gathered in the living room and
were awed by my portfolio of photographs.
I
talked with Peter about Chernobyl.
"It's
been very bad for the sheep farmers in North Wales," Peter said. "They can't sell their herds or their goats
milk."
Then
Peter and Carole told me about the British system that required TV owners to have
licenses.
"They've
got a list in the post office if you've got a license or not," Carole said. "If they see you haven't got a license,
they're outside (your house) in a detector van."
"They
can tell which room it's in," Peter said, "which corner it's in and what channel
you've got it on and whether it's black and white or color."
"It
sounds like Big Brother 1984." I said.
"It
is. It is," Peter said.
"It
makes you wonder what else they can tell," I said.
"It
does. It frightens you," Carole said.
That
afternoon, under drizzly, sometimes partly sunny skies, we really got into it, "hit
the hay", as it were. Peter drove a
tractor that pulled a hay baler. Peter's
father drove another tractor that pulled the hay wagon.
The boys and I followed along, heaving up the big green bales, then riding
the top of the loads, getting our backs raked by branches of trees around an arched
opening in a hedgerow as we took loads to a barn and stacked them inside. We stacked over 300 bales from four or five acres. After picking the last bit of hay from my hair, and
having a bath, I shared dinner with the boys and the family and realized why farm meals
were so hearty.
It
rained that night. During a sunny break the
next morning, I took photos of little Ian hamming it up with the wooden wheelbarrow his
grandfather had built for him. After
breakfast, Peter and I watched TV and saw flabby American WBA heavyweight boxing champion
Tim Witherspoon take on well-defined Frank Bruno, the British favourite, at London's
Wembley Stadium. Bruno's jabs took the early
rounds. We didn't share the cheers of the
crowd. "Watch out for that right!"
Peter shouted. It was a pointless reaction
because we already knew the results – the fight had actually been held the previous
day. In the seventh round, Witherspoon had
exploded with his massive right hand. Bruno
took it and held on. Witherspoon had the
stamina and hammered Bruno's head with more devastating rights. In the last seconds of the 11th round, Bruno's
trainer had thrown in the towel. Later, in
typical riotous form, British fans hurled chairs at police, trying to get at the departing
victor.
We
also watched 'adverts' for the upcoming royal wedding.
I
was happy to spend the rest of the day in my tent catching up with my journals and writing
the next story for the Times-Review. Melawend rested outside under her black vinyl
cover.
I
would have left the following day but Carole had invited a local reporter over in the late
afternoon to meet me and hear about my journey.
"This
is simply marvelous!" Adrienne Leijerstam said.
Adrienne
was an attractive dark-haired girl. She came
by the next morning in her tiny Austin Mini and took me on a tour of the countryside. Beginning a counterclockwise loop, Adrienne took me
east up over and down hills dotted with sheep, into the Rhondda Valley which had been the
site of violent strikes in the wake of coal mine closures.
(Actually there were two Rhondda Valleys – Fawn and Fach.) By 1910, the population of the valleys had soared
to 160,000, as this area became the heart of a massive coal industry. (There had been 66 pits in the valleys but the last
was to close in 1990). Welsh miners hated the
apparent indifference of wealthy absentee English mine owners. We stopped by villages with narrow steep streets of
colorfully painted terraced houses where old women chatted in doorways and dogs reposed on
the sidewalks. Otherwise, the Rhondda looked
deserted.
Continuing
the loop, Adrienne took me to a hilltop in Lianwonno, to the tiny church of St. Gwyno. Amid humps in the tall grass, we looked for the
grave of Guto Nythbran (he's buried by the south wall of the church). In 1737, this famous runner, who use to sleep on
warm manure to loosen his muscles, had taken on a challenge by an Englishman. Despite glass thrown on the road by the
challenger's supporters, Guto won the 12-mile race. With
his heart pounding, triumphant Guto received a hearty slap on the back by Jane, his
bet-collecting girlfriend. He gasped and died
on the spot. At 11:00 p.m. on New Year's Eve,
runners gathered here at the gravesite for Nos Golan, an annual race in memory of Guto.
Above:
St. Gwyno church with Adrienne Leijerstam at its entrance. Photo by Tom Smith
Adrienne
was also the Project and Tourism Officer for the Cynon Valley Borough Council, and this
was her first day on the job. In Aberdare,
which had once produced the world's best steam-coal, she introduced me to David James, an
administrative assistant for the Council and a fountain of local history, who welcomed my
journey on the Council’s behalf.
Adrienne
and I went to St. John's, the small parish church of Aberdare. Tall, gray-haired Geoffrey Evans who had written a
definitive history of the Chaplery and its famous church met us there. The barn-like stone exterior of the Norman building
belied an interior dark with a vaulted wood ceiling and oak pews but made intimate by
light from stained glass windows splayed through thirty-nine-inch thick ivory-hued walls. I stood under the Sutton stone archway in the South
wall, the original entrance that had been used for 600 years. Evans said that the archway was "the most
beautiful feature of the church", was likely protected by a porch – an important
place where people met, bargains were made, civil business conducted; baptism, marriage
and burial services were held; and oaths were sworn. Inside
the archway, you looked upon the whitewashed Norman font.
We were the only people here today. While
Adrienne and Evans sat reverently in the pews, I took photographs.
Our final stop
was at Dare Valley Country Park that was being constructed on land reclaimed from the
detritus of the recently deceased coal industry. We
scrambled around stonework of the unfinished Interpretation Centre. Inside, stained-glass artist Deanne Mangold snipped
and shaped strips of lead around pieces of green and blue glass in a rendition of a Welsh
landscape. Late that afternoon, after helping
Adrienne and her Swedish husband stack hay in their shed, Adrienne gave me a jar of peanut
butter.
It
was time to move on. The next morning, I
wheeled fully-laden Melawend up to the house. I
hit a pothole in the driveway and Melawend fell hard upon a rock, breaking her left signal
cover. The first of several applications of
duct tape held her together. Adrienne took
photos of me with the Francis family.
I
followed the Francis' as they drove in their car to an agricultural fair. I went my slower way and lost them in the
sheep-speckled hills of Brecon Beacons National Park.
For
a time, I had felt a sense of family with the Francis.
I had eaten and worked and shared ups and downs with them. We had become close. As the Francis family
disappeared around a bend, I waved, feeling a loss but also some joy because I was moving
on in my journey around the world.
Left: Ian
Francis. Photo by Tom Smith
Chapter 10
Roots and Revolution
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main reason I'm doing this.)
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the story, please send an e-mail to me with any
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Back to
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Now for the
somewhat boring but fundamental part...
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