Sunday 21 March 2021

Newsletter - March 2021

Hello to you all. 


This Newsletter is a new venture for the Merthyr Tydfil Historical Society. The Committee thought that, as it has been impossible to hold our usual lectures, it would be a good idea to link with Members by some other means, either digitally or by way of the old fashioned post.


The Committee has been meeting regularly via Zoom and has discussed the possibility of holding lectures on this medium, nothing firm has so far been decided.


Future newsletters will depend entirely on the availability of suitable content and you can all assist with this. If you would like to submit an item, be it a memory, anniversary etc., for inclusion, no matter how short, but not more that 300 words, please email it to keithlewisjones@aol.com


If you did not receive this newsletter digitally and would like to receive future newsletters directly to your inbox, please send an email to the above address.



Carl Llewellyn - Chairman


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Membership


For all Members who renewed their subscription for 2020, many thanks, your subscription has been carried forward to 2021.


If you would like to renew your subscription for 2021 or wish to join the Society as a new member, please download and print the Membership Application Form at 

http://www.mths.co.uk/pdfs/MTHS%20Membership%20renewal%20form.pdf


Please complete the form and send it, together with a cheque for payment, to the Membership Secretary at the address shown on the form.


Ann Lewis - Membership Secretary


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Merthyr Historian

Volume  31

                              


Yes it’s coming, delayed because of Covid but soon to be a reality! More than 360 pages (probably) of new writing about your neck of the woods, its characters and what happened there. 

 

It’s got (almost) everything – 19th and 20th century music and musicians in Merthyr Vale, Troedyrhiw and elsewhere; a scientist and polar explorer; a poet laureate in Merthyr; an ironmaster and an ironmaster’s remarkable wife; a forgotten colliery and a Lido now gone; possible antisemitism in Treharris; a longstanding minister and his times; science education in late 19th century Caedraw; a 19th century drunk; the flannel trade; railways, trams and buses; social work in the worst of times for the County Borough, and more. It’s a worthy addition to the previous volumes and it’s the last one before Merthyr Tydfil Historical Society celebrates its 50thanniversary with a volume in 2022.  Look out for that one too. The plan is to have Volume 31 ready just after Easter – so watch this space and we’ll keep you posted on progress and how to buy a copy.  Please support our local  Historical Society as we all emerge from trying times!

 

Christine Trevett and Huw Williams are the editors. If you want to talk about writing something for Merthyr Historian then why not email  editormerthyrhistorian@gmail.com ?


Christine Trevett & Huw Williams - Editors


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Coming of Age


It’s funny, the things that stick in the memory from years ago.

 

Brought up in a Welsh Methodist environment, first memories are of Sunday School. 

 

All the kids together in the vestry with stories, hymns and verses, particularly verses – learn a new one each week. There are a lot of very short verses in the bible, and no one better at finding them than a boy of 10. There was always someone who could recite a particularly long verse, in Welsh.

 

Came the day when we were promoted from the vestry to the chapel proper.

 

Tucked in a corner upstairs, the older men and deacons in the far corner, downstairs. Opposite them, the mature ladies. Across from us, upstairs were the young grownups.

  

Simultaneously, we qualified for the adults Sunday school outing.

 

No longer the train ride to Barry Island, lunch of fish and chips, bread and butter and a cup tea at the Merrie Friars, a ride on the fair and a game on the sand.

 

Now, it was a bus trip to Penarth, take your own lunch or find a café. No funfair, not a real beach. 

 

So, this was what it is like be grown up.


Philip Morgan - Treasurer


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 The Merthyr Tydfil Historical Society on Facebook

At a committee meeting of the Merthyr Tydfil Historical Society in June 2019, it was decided that the Society should be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century and open a Facebook page. It was hoped that being on Facebook would give the Society greater exposure and possibly boost the membership.

Running with the idea, a Facebook Group was started on 19 June 2019, and from the outset started attracting many people. 

As well as the Society posting news about forthcoming events, people have posted their memories of Merthyr, historical facts and have asked many questions, which, with the participation of the people viewing the page, more often than not have been answered.

Chris Parry from Cyfarthfa Museum has also added a great deal to the page by posting his regular features and podcasts about the museum collection, and during the dark uncertain days of the last year, these have been greatly appreciated.

The group goes from strength to strength, and at the last count we have over 3,000 members of the Facebook group. Hopefully, when things return to some sort of normality, the Merthyr Historical Society will continue to flourish - both online and in reality.

If you haven’t seen the Facebook page and would like to join, the address is:-

www.facebook.com/groups/470497553493956

Steven Brewer

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If you use Twitter, the Society also posts there, the 'Handle' is @MerthyrHeritage.

On the Merthyr Tydfil Historical Society website, www.mths.co.uk, there is a contents list for all volumes of Merthyr Historian. Also a number of out of print books relating to Merthyr's history can be downloaded from the site.


Keith Lewis-Jones - Webmaster

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 St Fagans National Museum of History

New Appeal: 

COVID-19 Collection


In the 1940s, with the country experiencing a period of unprecedented social change and development, the Museum embarked on an information gathering project to create a vivid picture of the lives of the people of Wales. From this period up to the 1980s, questionnaires were distributed to individuals in communities across the country in the hope of using their local knowledge to inform the Museum's future collection. The St Fagans National History Museum now houses these questionnaires, and the memories between their covers provide an invaluable window into the past.


Topics covered in the early days included agriculture, crafts and craft vocabulary, housework, traditional foods, folk remedies, sports, folk stories, folk singing, seasonal customs, dying and burial and love and marriage, industries, Welsh dialects and leisure interests.

With yet another major change affecting our daily lives, Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales launched a new public appeal to gather the knowledge and memories of Welsh residents of their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. With paper questionnaires, now past, during May – September 2020, they launched a mass digital questionnaire that gave individuals, communities and organizations the opportunity across Wales to record their experiences of living under the current constraints. The aim is to create a vital record of this transitional period for future generations.

Have a look at the National Museum’s website for more information and to read some of the stories collected last year. https://museum.wales/collections/collecting-covid/

Keep watching the website as another, wider, digital survey is to be launched soon, and everyone will be encouraged to take part, so that our experiences today will be a living history for the future. 

Adapted and translated from the article on the National Museum St Fagans website 

“Casglu Cof y Genedl”  - Meinwen Ruddock-Jones

 

Eirlys Emery

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Cyfarthfa Castle Museum & Art Gallery Update


Some big changes have been happening at the Museum over the past 12 months. Our online content has gone from strength to strength with podcasts, videos and images from the Museum’s collection out on our Facebook and Twitter pages for the world to see. One of our videos has reached nearly 14000 views! 

We have begun a new digital engagement programme with Schools to allow our award winning education programme to continue despite pupils not being able to visit in person. We have already delivered workshops on Victorian Merthyr, the Merthyr Rising, famous Women of Merthyr Tydfil and have been able to show pupils some of the amazing artefacts from inside Cyfarthfa. We are also in talks with a school in the UAE about delivering a session of Merthyr Tydfil’s scientists and engineers. Cyfarthfa has gone global!

We have been busy inside the Museum too, with the Basement Galleries undergoing a much needed update. Merthyr Tydfil Artist Gus Payne has painted murals, the history of the Cyfarthfa Works is now there in full, the history of Pentrebach’s lost community of The Triangle is being told and the Politics Corridor is undergoing an exciting new redevelopment.

We cannot wait to welcome you all back as soon as possible.

Ben Price - Cyfarthfa Castle Museum & Art Gallery

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