Kenfig Hill: A Village Condemned to Death

South of the Cardiff to Swansea road, just beyond Bridgend, lies the Cnfygail valley. There, sprawling along the valley's bleak, scarred sides, is the grey stone village of Kenfig Hill.

Out from Kenfig, along the narrow switchback road, are two collieries, Aberbaiden and Pentre. Neither is a big or very important pit. Their total output is hardly more than 3,000 tons, and between them they employ only about 760 men.

Suddenly last November, these two pits acquired national fame, along with thirty-four others, when they were included in the list of closures announced by the National Coal Board.

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THEIR BITTER MEMORIES. Looming over Kenfig Hill again is the threat of poverty, recalling to its people's minds all the misery and sufferings of the years between the wars.

And they are bitter memories. Years out of work. Whole families idle. Fathers and brothers forced to leave home to look for work elsewhere.

'I remember families here having a diet of flour and water fried,' said the landlord at the Butcher's Arms.

At the Butcher's you meet the men savouring their pint and their last piece of daylight before they go on the back shift for a third of their day.

Here, too, you find the compensation cases. Men hurt in the pit, now killing a few hours of the long months of enforced idleness, until they are fit and ready for work once more.

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FALL OF ROCK. Only now, there may not be any work again for them to return to.

'What can I look forward to?' asked Tommy Jones. 'I got a present last Christmas. A fall of rock on me in the headings. Since then I have had four spells in hospital and had two discs removed.

'Now I would start work if I had a light job to go to. But there aren't any. Once the pits close that's the end. How can I move? Fit for only light work and then I have a wife and three kids.'

The dark-haired, squat man in the corner nodded.

'He is right. I am 53. The only job that I know is mining. The only place I have ever lived is here.

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LIGHT JOBS ONLY. 'You know there are nearly 80 per cent. of the men at these two pits who are either fit for light jobs only, or are over 50. To them and me this could mean the end.'

Austin Dunstar left the pits five years ago. Since then he has worked in the quarries. Three weeks ago he was laid off.

'The quarries supply the Carbide factory. For months at Carbide now they have been working only two of their three furnaces. So it's sackings at the quarries and lay-offs at Carbide.'

He told how he had tried to get a job at the Abbey steelworks: 'Nothing doing, they told me.'

At the Labour Exchange the manager apologized for not giving me the local unemployment figures: 'You must have permission.'

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A CONSTANT STREAM. But in the ten minutes or so I was there a constant stream of men called for their benefit.

One of them was Jim Morgan. Injured in the Duffyn Rhondda pit last February, he has recently been declared fit for light work.

'Only trouble is, there is no light work.

'No pit will start me. So I have tried elsewhere. The quarries are closing down. Lovatts have shut down the opencast. Abbey don't need men. I believe they are sacking some.

'No, there is no work here now. What chance have the 760 men got when they finish in March?'

Like so many Welsh mining villages Kenfig Hill has its local Labour Club. Here, sipping a pint at the bar was a grey-haired man. The blue scars above his right eye showed he had been a miner. Jack Taylor, 75, retired five years ago.

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HAVE TO FIGHT. 'What do I think of the closures? The men have to fight them, of course. First job is to stop paying compensation.

'These pits here used to belong to the Baldwins. Really they still own them. After all, they are getting a nice steady income out of them.

'Damm sight more compensation than the men will be paid when they are sacked.

At the Aberbaiden colliery I spoke with Trevor Wilkin, lodge chairman.

'We must have a fight. If need be there should be a national strike. Our only demand must be to keep the pits working,' he declared emphatically.

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WILL NOT STOP. 'You know, if the Tories succeed in closing this first batch down they will not stop until they have driven us right back to pre-war conditions.'

He was echoed by Edward Raikes, an electrician who has worked at Aberbaiden for thirty years.

'We need a firm national policy against all sackings. If the Tories can't give us jobs then let's get them out and put in a Labour government that is pledged to keep the pits open.'

The day-shift men in their canteen all had the same to say: 'We have to fight, otherwise it's all over for us here.'

When you leave Kenfig Hill you go out from the small square, near the post-office and the bus stop for Porthcawl.

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CONDEMNED TO DEATH. There in the centre of the square is a stone cenotaph. Inscribed on it in black lettering are the words: 'Live ye for Britain, as we for Britain died.'

How difficult it will be for these people to live like 'patriotic Britons' in a village that a 'patriotic government' has just condemned to death.