Hill farming in Mid-Wales

These are memories of me, Liz Edwards and my cousin Angela Peirson Jones about our grandma Lucy Gwen.

In Nantmel, Radnorshire, Lucy Gwen Peirson Jones had ten children. After her husband died of the Spanish Flu in 1918, she raised them alone. In 1928 two of the older boys Humphrey and Martin emigrated. In 1930, Lucy Gwen went to farm Maesygarn, Llanigon near Hay-on-Wye with the eldest sons Laurence and Gib (Gilbert), and younger sons Samuel (Sam), Hilary, Herbert (Heb) and Christopher, and daughters Mary and Gwynedd (my Mum). The children had attended Nantmel School and then some would have gone to Llandrindod Wells County School and on leaving found work at Maesygarn, or elsewhere in Wales and the Cotswolds and southern England. My Mum, Gwyn, went to London to study a Pitman’s secretarial course, then returned to Mid-Wales to care for elderly relatives in Llandrindod. Mary qualified as a nurse and worked in hospitals in England. The youngest child, Christopher did a short course in agriculture at Aberystwyth University.

Armed forces:

Three of the men joined the armed forces during the Second World War, Humphrey, Martin, and Christopher.

Humphrey Peirson Jones joined the 2nd Australian Infantry Force in 1941. VX 39551-2/142 Transport Corps. My Dad notes he was wounded twice but we don’t know where he served.

Martin Peirson Jones enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). He trained as navigator in Canada in 1941 and there he was attached to the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). Then he was sent to Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1942 then to 321 Squadron RAF Ferry Command (RAFFC) at Dorval near Montreal in Quebec. Ferry Command flew new aircraft from the factories in Canada across the Atlantic from Dorval to Accra in Ghana (5,000 miles). (Next stop for the planes was Cairo; from there it was to Bathurst (Gambia) then on to Gibraltar en route for the UK. The journey took 19 days.) His logbooks show Martin spent 2,300 hours in the air during the War. 21 times Martin would help ferry planes from Dorval to Accra. He also flew to India, Gander in Newfoundland, Gibraltar, the Azores, Italy, Rabat in Morocco and seven times to the UK. He spent a month in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham in 1944. Martin was demobbed in Australia in 1946 as Flight Lieutenant.

Christopher Peirson Jones flew Typhoon aircraft for the RAF in 1945. Chris volunteered in 1941. In May 1942 he was trained in Alabama, USA, then the UK. In 1944 Chris was in Egypt, flying Hurricanes and Spitfire. In April 1945 Chris was posted to 137 Squadron based at Helmonde in Belgium, flying Hawker Typhoon fighter bomber 17 operational sorties over Belgium, Holland, Germany and Hanover. He attacked aircraft, airfields, trains, towns and even conducted a strike on shipping near Lauenburg and in the bay of Lübeck, and on aircraft in the Schwelin area of Germany. Later Chris gave demonstration flights in Denmark. Chris flew in an airshow called 'The Big Show' on 1 July 1945 at Copenhagen flying in a formation of 16 Typhoons in a staged a mock rocket attack on two seaplanes in Copenhagen Harbour. Back in the UK, Chris flew back and forth to Holland from RAF Warmwell in Dorset.

Clothes:

Angela remembers growing up on Sam’s farm, and what it would have been like for her Mum Betty Peirson Jones nee Griffiths, and grandma Lucy Gwen during the Second World War. No electricity on the farm. There would have been an old-fashioned dress code. The older brothers would have worn their suits to go into town on their motor bike for the cinema or whatever. Gwyn didn't escape in in the same way that her sister Mary had made it away to nurse. Aunty Mary returned to the farm. The men and Mary got ready to go into Hay for the cinema. When Mary came down she had changed into brown cord, trousers on. Laurence the eldest son was horrified. Mary refused to change and Laurence said he was not taking her. Anyway she didn't go to Hay. All their lives the boys always did what Uncle Laurence said. He was their substitute father after all.

Farm work away from home:

Hilary had a very sad time as a young man. The farm couldn’t support so many men, so they all went away to work and to learn more about farming. Hilary went to the South of England and was mistreated very badly, abused, made to sleep in the straw with the animals in the coldest weather. Treated worse than a prisoner. Or a prisoner of war. Indeed Angela remembers that her Daddy Sam Peirson Jones had treated everyone who worked for them the same as the family. Angela doesn’t remember Land Girls. But prisoners of war could have been his brother - any of those who were in the Army or the RAF, what if it was them who was the prisoner?

POWs:

Prisoners of war would have been Italian, then later Germans as well. They were dropped off every day in the morning and picked up at night. Angela’s Daddy remembered Herman, a prisoner who was very decent. Left behind was Herman’s wife and daughter, somewhere in the east of Germany. When the country was split they were stuck. Also they had no news of Herman. His wife was told that he was dead, she remarried

Black market:

Angela remembers that all the family were skilled at preparing the animals for the pot. And some of the men would have slaughtered their own livestock. Also, that in the War there was a huge black market in things that you wouldn't even dream of. Angela “When I went to work at Russell, Baldwin and Bright in 1975 there was a dear old boy called Billy Bowen. He was a butcher from Briton Ferry. His daughter would drive him up to the auctions in Hay on Wye week in week out. He was about 80 then. We’d drink in the Pub with the buyers like Billy. I asked Billy why he was coming so far every week. He said ‘At the beginning of the War I was looking for places where can I go to buy you things or to get food to put in the shop?’ He tried some places. Then at Hay on Wye and he got to know some of the farmers, beef, dairy, eggs, sheep, and around Talgarth. And their wives. And he said ‘You’ve no idea what it was like then to have half a dozen rabbits.’ Down there in the Valleys (of South Wales) they were really short of food. My mum always went to a chap called Mr Smith (Norman?) who would stand at the bottom of Broad Street, Hay, and from far and wide they would go and take a basket of eggs and sell them. And they would have a farmer who would let them go poaching. Pheasant.

Dunkirk:

Angela explains that her mother and a large group of farm wives went to meet the troop trains at Three Cocks junction railway station immediately after Dunkirk. The lady who organised them was Zantippe Audrey Hermione France (“How about that for a name! Always known as Mrs Z.A.H. who was a teacher at Velindre Village School, married to the local carpenter David Walter Price.” They met the soldiers, covered in “blood and mud just as they had been picked up off the field.” The women would have provided tea and food. The women would have come from all around to help, but they would need to have had the resources (flour and eggs).

Gwyn:

My Mum was Gwynedd Constance Peirson Jones. She lived in Ashlawn, Tremont Road, Llandrindod, looking after two maiden aunts. These were sisters of her grandfather, George Adamson, who was a vicar of Nantmel, Radnorshire: Jane Eliza and Sarah Elizabeth. They dressed very old fashioned, true Edwardians. I have their letters. They wrote to all the children of Mum’s family, and their wives. Mum’s brothers were farming in Wales and England, her sister Mary White, nursing. Martin and Humphrey and Chris.

After Grammar School Mum had completed a Pitman’s secretarial course in London. Her sister Mary Peirson Jones was a nurse. Mum would’ve loved the academic life and was so bright and clever. But of course, there was no money. She stayed behind, never escaped, accepted the life of carer for her maiden aunts. Mum worked in council offices in Llandrindod as clerk in the Urban District Council, which is where she would have met my Dad Walter Powell, a rates collector. And where she met their great friend Louis Milward who worked in the same department. Walter and Louis were founder members of the Toc H in Llandrindod, and a photo is included with names.

Walter at least 12 years older than Gwynedd, balding, suffering from his War wounds. Her Mum Lucy Gwen Peirson Jones said to her sons “Why is she going out with this old man!” Walter and Gwynedd married 3rd October 1940 at Llanigon, Breconshire where her Mum farmed. They returned to Llandrindod to look after the surviving aunt at Ashlawn. Later in the War they moved to Walter’s father’s house, The Croft. There they raised me (born 1944). Before that they had entertained soldiers to tea, and their ladies. They also looked after evacuees, including a refugee Russian family, maybe more than one couple. And they cared for an evacuee from Bootle, Liverpool, called Johnny. One of these rich Russian ladies presented Mum with a luxurious fur cape and maybe some jewellery. Top of the range in those days, thankful for staying here. It was sort of Terracotta-ry brown probably Bear and there was a grey scarf that was sort of curly, you wrapped it close around your neck. The jewellery was like a string and then diamond shapes maybe to attach to a bag. I wouldn't have known the Russian families, but I dressed up playing with these furs and bags and jewellery.

The wedding photographs of Mum and Dad include a group of the two families. Walter would have been 42, Gwynedd about 30. There is also the newspaper article which describes the bride’s suit and going away dress. Shockingly, the reporter uses the N word to describe the colour. There are also photographs of Mum’s sister Mary Peirson Jones who married Leonard White a Major in the Oxford and Bucks regiment, Bren Gun carriers.