Crown in the Quarry, The

By Myrddin ap Dafydd

This adventure is set in Blaenau Ffestiniog during the Second World War. In Liverpool the falling bombs are destroying homes and families, and children are having to flee to places of safety.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gwasg Carreg Gwalch
• Release date: Oct 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781845244033

Book preview

The Crown in

the Quarry

"The best thing for us all to do

would be to go and live in an old quarry hole!"

Myrddin ap Dafydd

translated from the Welsh by Susan Walton

images_Logo_Gwasg_Carreg_Gwalch_2_copy.jpg

Gwasg Carreg Gwalch

First published in Welsh, Y Goron yn y Chwarel, 2019

Published in English: 2020

© Myrddin ap Dafydd/Carreg Gwalch, 2019

© English translation: Susan Walton, 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the authors of the works herein.

ebook ISBN: 9781845244033

Soft back ISBN: 978-1-84527-725-3

Published with the financial support of the Books Council of Wales

Cover design: Eleri Owen

Cover image: Chris Iliff

Published by Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, 12 Iard yr Orsaf, Llanrwst, Wales LL26 0EH.

tel: [phone]

email: [e-mail]

website: www.carreg-gwalch.cymru

Printed and published in Wales

This novel was inspired by the concealment of collections of artworks and treasures from London in the Bwlch Slatars Quarry, Manod, Blaenau Ffestiniog, during the Second World War

Prologue

Liverpool, 30 August 1940

The night sky was illuminated. Just as they had last night, the screeching sirens had torn through the silence of the sleeping city. Then the heavy murmur of the aeroplane engines could be heard. Before long, the dockland guns were firing and indicator flares were falling like rain around the Luftwaffe’s targets.

Another night of aerial attack on Liverpool. It was the docks that drew them. Ships bringing food, equipment and goods for soldiers in the war against Hitler were docked on the river Mersey. Along the wharfs were large warehouses. Behind those warehouses stood narrow streets of terraced houses where the workers and their families lived. The houses were small, but the families were large. Sometimes there’d be another family living in the cellar.

Sardar heard the heavy bombs exploding in the docklands. He saw flames rising as fire bombs set the warehouses alight. There was no time to lose. Their streets would be next.

Sardar! Sardar! Don’t just stand there dreaming! His mother nudged his arm, sending him out of the square courtyard, where the shared tap and toilet stood, through the gate and into the street of terraced houses.

Mam! Have you locked the door?

It’s through the roof, not the door, that the danger will come tonight, Sardar, she answered. She put her arm around his shoulders. Come on. We have nothing more valuable than our lives.

They both ran down the street. They could hear the screeching of the fire engines and the air-raid wardens’ whistles. Then the sky was shattered by an enormous explosion and the earth beneath their feet trembled. They saw orange and blue flames leaping beyond the rooftops on their street.

That was Jordan Street. Hurry, Sardar!

Just as they had the night before, half-dressed families were stumbling from their terraces towards the air-raid shelter. Sardar and his mother turned right at the end of the street and saw that the dark crowd was more numerous there. Some mothers were carrying their children. Some children were barefoot. There weren’t many fathers to be seen. Sardar thought about his own father, who by now would be sleeping in the cotton mill in Oldham alongside about twenty other men so as to be close to their work in the morning.

Now they had reached the crossroads and the effects of the bombs were plain to see. The house on the corner had disappeared. Joists lay here and there, burning amid the rubble. On what had been a dividing wall in the closest house, he saw wallpaper, and a bedroom door with someone’s dressing gown hanging on the back of it. There were pieces of brick and rubble in the street. Sardar slipped on an unexpected slate underfoot and fell over.

Get up, Sardar! Are you all right?

He nodded to his mother. He got up without any fuss. She reached out her hand to him, but he was too old to take it. He was fine. He started to run again.

It’s not far to the shelter now, said his mother. Down the end here and into Jamaica Street.

There was an air-raid warden in the distance, wearing dark overalls and a helmet, waving his arms. He was blowing his whistle and calling on everyone to hurry.

Ahead of him, Sardar saw two children running wildly and bumping into an old woman who was trying to hurry to the shelter. She stayed stooped after the collision, which had turned her round, facing the way she’d just come. Sardar reached her and took her arm.

It’s this way, missus, he said, turning her to face the shelter.

Hey! the old woman said angrily. What are you doing to me, you little brown eejit? Let go of me, you towelhead!

The shelter is that way, Sardar tried to explain.

Sure, I don’t want your dirty hands anywhere near me! the old woman screamed.

Come on, Sardar. Let her be, said his mother. Leave her to it.

Help! Sardar called to a man and woman approaching them on the street. This old lady needs help to reach the shelter!

Leave her with us, la’, said the man. Come with us, Mary Kelly.

These blackies are everywhere, Mary grumbled. No wonder Hitler is bombing us.

His mother took Sardar’s arm and soon they were at the door to the shelter.

Down the stairs, said the officer. Make room, make room. Go on to the furthest rooms. Leave the closest ones for the elderly.

Once they’d gone down the stairs, the concrete above their heads muffled the noise of the exploding bombs. They both walked onwards along the gloomy corridor, his mother still holding Sardar’s arm tightly.

A right turn, and into a room with a low ceiling. A mixture of adults and children sat on the benches. Some of the children leaned against their mothers, trying to snatch a moment’s sleep in the middle of this nightmare. Some of the grown-ups held full mugs, but they had empty eyes.

Right, a cuppa! said an old man beside the table where a gas stove stood alongside a big teapot and a row of large, white mugs.

As weak as dishwater, I’m afraid, he said, with a twinkle in his eye. Tea is in short supply. And it’ll be scarcer still now that the tea warehouse on the docks has been bombed! But at least it’s warm and wet …

He handed Sardar and his mother a mug each.

… as warm as the welcome that’s being offered to you. No sugar, either. We’re too poor, I’m afraid. The stuff from the Tate an’ Lyle factory all goes to London! But there we are, the poor must help the poor at a time like this.

Sardar sat on a bench. He stooped over and swallowed a mouthful of the bitter, grey tea.

Part 1

EVACUEES

~̶ 1940 ~

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Chapter 1

Blaenau Ffestiniog, September 1940

Some mountains look as if they have been formed from clay. Skilled hands have moulded the finely wrought and sleek slopes and summits. In Ffestiniog, the mountains were pushed together by a potter with paws for hands. He’d used his claws to scrape the crags, bare rocks, ridges and slate tips.

That morning – as she did every morning – Nel Manod opened the yard gate of her home at 9 Tan y Clogwyn Terrace and looked first at the jagged rocks that stood above her. Were the clouds low? Were the ridges visible?

Then, a glance down the Vale of Maentwrog towards the sea to see what weather would be on its way up that day. Wind and rain, or maybe blue skies, usually came from that direction.

Hmm, not too bad today, Siw, she said to the little Jack Russell that had sped past her, aiming for the rough land where the path and stream came down the slope from the foot of the slate tip.

A red gate opened at the back of the nearest house in the terrace below. Gwilym Lewis appeared, his shirt collarless.

That dog had better not be doing his business in my potatoes, said her neighbour. A patch of common land reached the gable end of 9 Tan y Clogwyn and even though the bedrock was close to the surface, Gwilym had planted potatoes there ‘for the war effort’. To date, no one had seen him share the potatoes with anyone else.

Nel recalled that his name at the quarry was ‘Gwil Lemon Face’.

Siw is female, Nel said, in the kindest voice she could muster. She’s very clean, Gwilym Lewis, considering how young she is.

They both looked at the terrier sniffing the rushes and slate fencing beside the path.

Huh! was Gwilym’s reply, turning on his heel and disappearing through his gate.

Nel stepped back into the yard and walked to the toilet that her family shared with their next-door neighbours. There was a tap beside the door. She filled the black kettle she was carrying and returned to the kitchen, calling the little dog to follow her.

"Come on, Siw! Come on, Siw fach!"

Have you decided that’s what you’re going to call her, then? Her mother was stirring porridge over the fire in the kitchen.

Nel set the kettle down on its hotplate on the kitchen range.

I think the name’s fine, Mam. The lovely little thing looks up at me when I speak to her, at least.

It probably sounds like the name ‘Susan’ that poor RAF man used.

"And it suits you, doesn’t it, Siw fach? said Nel, scratching the dog behind her ears. We never get the slightest peep, the slightest siw, out of you."

She must’ve had a fright in that place, I’m sure of it.

Nel’s mind wandered to the airfield in the south of England where Ieuan, her cousin, was a mechanic. Ieuan was a quarry engineer, but the Cwt y Bugail quarry had closed during the Depression some years ago. As a lad, Ieuan had had a good apprenticeship at the quarry: one of the most adept and intelligent quarrymen had taken him under his wing and Ieuan developed skills in many fields. When war broke out, he was called up to repair aeroplane engines and soon found himself down in the south of England, in the middle of the Battle of Britain. Siw had belonged to one of the young pilots on the airfield. But one afternoon his plane hadn’t returned.

That camp, with the roar of the aeroplanes, was no place for a young terrier. When Ieuan was on a few days’ leave that summer, he had brought Siw home to Blaenau. In no time at all, Nel’s care of the young dog had made certain that Siw thought the world of her too. The minute her little mistress stroked her fur, the Jack Russell’s stumpy tail wagged.

Mam, is it alright if I go to the pictures with the girls this morning?

Have you got the money?

Taid gave me sixpence last night, Mam.

I hope you thanked him properly.

Yeees, Mam.

Her grandparents, Taid and Nain Manod, lived in a terraced house next to the Great Western line at Penygwndwn, in the Manod neighbourhood of Blaenau Ffestiniog. After the death of Gai Jones, Nel’s father, Nel and her mother had lived with her grandparents until the girl was six years old. As she continued to grow, the house proved too small for all four of them. Despite the fact that Tan y Clogwyn was between Manod Road and the High Street, and therefore much closer to the centre of town, her name was Nel Manod Jones and part of her heart still belonged in Manod.

Who’ll go with you to the pictures?

Gwenda, Nita and Beti said they’d meet me at the bottom of the hill if I was going with them.

They were Manod girls. Despite Ysgol Manod being further from her new home, she continued to walk to her old school. She had another year to go there.

Which cinema will you go to?

By then there were three cinemas to choose from in Blaenau Ffestiniog. The cinema on the corner of the Sgwâr was the girls’ favourite.

To the Forum, of course, Mam.

What will you see?

Bing Crosby. It’s a musical.

Will you understand it, Nel?

Well, of course I will, Mam. My English is good now, you know.

Take care on those roads.

The journey to the Forum meant crossing the High Street, walking along the back lane and then under the Great Western bridge. Onwards then along Bowydd and Wynne roads, past the higgledy-piggledy terraces and then over to the broad open green of the park on the Sgwâr. It wasn’t a journey to make after dark – when the blackout turned the town inky – but on a Saturday morning it was fine, of course.

Before heading down the hill, Nel took a saucer of milk out to the little dog in the back yard. She returned to the house to fetch a few scraps of bacon for her, but when she went out again, she saw that the old black tomcat from across the road had seen his chance. He’d often sit on a large slate in the lee of a hedge up against the mountain wall. He’d keep a sly eye out for an open window or door; Nel and her Mam daren’t leave any food on the table and turn their back on the tomcat’s narrow green eyes. They could lose half a bowlful of rice pudding just by leaving the back door ajar while hanging out the washing.

This time, the hairy, black beast had come down from his throne, had hissed and bared his sharp teeth at Siw fach, and then started to lap up the milk from the saucer.

Scram! Go home, you beast! Nel aimed a kick at the tomcat, but he was too cunning to be cornered by her. He bounded from the yard, back to the safety of his spot under the hedge.

He keeps this place clear of mice – you leave him be, said Gwilym, who had returned to lean on the red gate.

And he eats more than any mouse I’ve ever seen, Nel muttered under her breath.

*  *  *

Before the main film at the Forum, a short film showing the day’s news played on the screen for a quarter of an hour. ‘The London Blitz’ was the text in bold letters, with loud music and the broadcaster’s dramatic voice relaying the news: Five hundred German bombers filled the skies over London last night …

Nel and her friends stared at the pictures of floodlights like white pencils moving through the dark sky. Then large, bright explosions, in the air and in the streets. Images of people in shelters, and air-raid wardens in tin hats looking after them.

But the scenes shot in daylight the next morning were the most terrifying. Streets reduced to piles of rubble.

These are like the tips at Chwarel y Lord, Nita whispered. Except they’re bricks, not quarry waste.

Some of the buildings still smoking and some still alight, and firefighters using their hosepipes to try to quell the flames.

Then, a large hole in the road – like the entrance to a quarry level. The camera zooming in and showing an unexploded bomb in the middle of the hole. The tin hats trying to keep people away and men in uniform preparing to detonate the bomb and make it safe.

A pram being pushed by a little girl, all alone. Her clothes a mess and her face dirty and no sign of anyone that could help her.

After that, a shot of a squat man in a black coat and homburg hat, smoking a cigar and walking round the rubble with a group of soldiers.

That’s Churchill, whispered Gwenda, recognising the prime minister before the