Like many of his friends John Thomas hoped that the end of the First World War would bring a 'Land Fit For Heroes', as had been promised by Lloyd George. He was to be bitterly disappointed. Many men who returned from fighting in the war were unable to get work. Those who did work found that their wages were cut.

There were a number of pay cuts in the early 1920s and another one was to be made in 1926. The coal owners wanted the average miner to take home much less money.

Most miners, like John, felt that their wages were already too low and they voted to go on strike. All the other trade unions in the country, who were led by the T.U.C. (Trades Union Congress), supported them. On May 4, 1926, every factory and pit throughout Britain stopped work and all public transport came to a standstill.

On 23^rd. August some ‘blacklegs’ tried to return to work at Ton Pentre. Huge crowds tried to prevent them and the police made a large number of arrests.

At the start of the lockout menus at the soup kitchens were fit to set before a king. Here is an example:-

By the end of August funds began to dry-up and the canteens were unable to provide hot meals. Bread and 'bully' beef kept most people going.

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John's hopes turned to anger after nine days of the General Strike. The T.U.C. had made an agreement with the government and called off the strike, yet the miners were still to have a wage cut. The miners disagreed with this and stayed out on strike.

In South Wales, the miners did not return to work until the end of November, 1926. During the seven months from May until November 1926, they and their families suffered great hardship. In the end they were starved into surrender. They survived so long mainly because of the work of the 'soup kitchens'.

After the Lockout many small pits did not open again and some of the most active men amongst the strikers were refused work. They were victimised. Two sons of John, Edward and D4vid, found it very difficult to get jobs because they helped organise a soup kitchen, and in August they had been in trouble with the police during a scuffle which had taken place at Ton Pentre, but were not arrested.

The soup kitchens needed funds to keep them going, so many activities were organised to raise them. Up and down the valley the cinemas, chapels and workmen's hall staged whist drives, eisteddfodau and concerts. Outside in the parks, carnivals, fetes, sports competitions and 'joy' days were arranged. It was in 1926 that the gazoo playing jazz bands became very popular, dressing up in many disguises. In the Rhondda there were the Maerdy Harem Band, the Gelli Toreadors, the Cwmparc Gondoliers and the champions of South Wales, The Treorchy Zulus.

Towards the end of the strike many miners turned themselves into amateur cobblers and began to repair their families' shoes. Parents would not sent their children to school bare-footed through the streets in October and November, although there are reports of hundreds of boys and girls suffering from blood-poisoned feet at this time.

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In the years after 1926 many firms went bankrupt and their employees lost their jobs. In Britain In the years after 1926 many unemployment was highest amongst the miners.  By August 1932, four out of every ten in Britain were out of work. In the Rhondda it was six out of every ten.  Many men left their mining towns and villages in search of work. some like John's son, Thomas Edward, went as far as America.

For those who stayed at home, survival was hard. Money from the Unemployment Assistance Board was not enough-to live on.

John spent much of his time on the local coal tips trying to collect small pieces of coal in the hope of selling it. Some of his friends in the local choir travelled all over the country giving concerts to try and collect money for the people back home.

In 1934 hundreds of Welsh miners joined a 'Hunger March' which walked to London to complain to the government about miners' conditions. John marched from Porth down to Cardiff with them. Families suffered terribly during these years, and in some cases they were thrown out of their homes because they could not keep up with paying their rent.

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The situation became so bad that miner was divided against miner. If ever there was a strike there was always a large number of unemployed miners ready to take the striker's job. These men were known as 'blacklegs' or 'scabs'. 'Blacklegs' had often to be escorted to work by policemen because of angry demonstrators.

In September 1935 miners at Nine Mile Point colliery in the village of Cwmfelinfach tried a new way to stop the blacklegs from working. They went into work and refused to come up at the end of the shift - this was called a stay-down strike.

At this time David John was working at the top end of the Rhondda at the Pare and Dare colliery in Cwmparc. The owners of the Pare and Dare colliery were the same people as those at Nine Mile Point. The men at Pare and Dare decided to support those at Nine Mile Point. They stayed-down too, and so did men at nearby Fernhill Colliery. The stay-down lasted for 200 hours (8.5 days).

Many of the miners who stayed down in these strikes suffered permanent damage to their eyes, but they showed the courage of a community which was determined to survive whatever the circumstances.

My maternal grandfather, Fred Haddrell, took part in a stay-down stike in the Tydraw Colliery in Blan-y-cwm during this period much to the consternation of my bgrandmother.

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John Thomas was fortunate to get his job back at the colliery after the strike had ended. The men's slogan had once been 'not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day', but in silence they now had to accept lower pay and to work longer hours. Some men did not get their jobs back, for those considered 'trouble makers' were put on a 'black list' by the coalmine owners.

During this time some of the pits closed because less coal was being ordered from abroad. Some countries mined their own coal, and new ships used oil not coal.

By 1930 it seemed to John Thomas and his family as if pits were closing down every week somewhere in South Wales, and in particular in the Rhondda Valleys. John was worried that one day his own pit at Cymmer would close - for if that happened he knew there would be no other work in the area. In September 1931 John returned home earlier than usual - Sarah knew something was wrong - John handed a small slip of paper to Sarah, his head was bowed. The note stated:

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Picture for a moment an unemployed man in, say, the Rhondda Valley or in Durham. He has been without work for months, perhaps a year or more. His small son is packing off to school with only a thin Jersey between his back and the bleak winter air. Shirt and vest he has none. His little sister's shoes and stockings don't bear thinking about, and her dress is a cloak of her mother's, who doesn't herself go out of doors until her daughter comes home, for the simple reason that this dress is joint property. And day after day the Father tramps the one narrow winding street of the valley town - the same little post-office, the same half empty shops, the same chapel, and the ever-grim., overhanging hills. Now this sort of thing, in different forms, is going on in raining villages throughout the country. A cruel torture to suffer, a terrible torture for keen, intelligent men who have been used to better things.

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The first week after the pit had closed seemed very strange for John. The village was much quieter - the familiar noises, the hooter in the early morning, the clattering of miners' hob nail boots on the way to and from work, the clanking of the railway wagons on their way to Barry Docks, could be heard less often.

John began to think of the Prince of Wales' Christmas Day message on the radio in 1928 - and wondered how long he would be without work.

During the early days of unemployment John Thomas dressed in his clean clothes, and went down to the Labour Exchange to try to find work. He saw his work-mates and enjoyed a chat and a joke, but after a few weeks he was becoming bored with so little to do, and with very little money coming into the house. John claimed Dole money which the Government gave to the unemployed - going to get this money hurt his pride as he felt it was like begging.

During the years 1930-1935 there were few jobs in the Valleys and some men were on the 'dole' for many years.  In order to have something to do and a place to meet, the men went to the miners' institute. In these buildings the men could play billiards, play cards or read the newspapers.

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The problem for Sarah Jane was how to feed and clothe her men, pay the rent and keep the fire burning on such little money. Clothes were mended and patched and in some cases sacks were made into trousers for the men to wear during the day.

The meals were simple and such foods as meat and fruit were rarely on the table. Bread was the main food, sometimes with jam, butter or margarine on it. Tea or water were the main drinks. As time went on some families started allotments on the side of the mountain and grew their own vegetables. Few people starved but many suffered from malnutrition; children looked thin and underfed.

The men often climbed the tips to search for some small coal which could be used on the fire. Coal Levels were also opened on the mountain side - these holes can still be seen today.

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John had been unemployed for over a year when he heard that the Government was to look into who was to get money (dole). There was to be a Means Test. Before money was given to a family a means test man called to the house to see what money the family had and what possessions were in the house.

If the family had savings they would be told to use them, and to sell some household goods before 'dole' money would be given.

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Hope of getting jobs in the valley faded as years went by and some families decided to leave the Rhondda and South Wales Valleys to find work in some of the more prosperous areas in England where new jobs were being offered producing cars and electrical goods.

During the years between 1919-1939 (between the Wars) over 50,000 people left Rhondda for good - many of the people leaving were the younger ones, such as Gwyneth John, John John's eldest daughter whose husband Arthur got a job in a Factory at Slough near London.

My maternal great uncle became one of the many who were to leave the Rhondda Valleys for ever when he uprooted himself to Birmingham to work in the growing car industry that was based there.

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Early on the morning of October 3^rd, 1936, Sarah Ann was woken by the sounds of raised voices in the kitchen below. Curious and hungry, she dressed quickly and went downstairs quietly, so as not to wake the other girls asleep in the bedroom. In the kitchen she found her father, brother, and two men who were friends of her brother; they were all sat around the wireless set, listening to the news, and talking excitedly about some Italian called Mussolini. Her brother called him a fascist, and made it seem like an insult. Sarah did not know what the word meant, although she had heard the word used a lot lately. All that she could understand from the talk was that Mussolini had sent his army into a country called Abyssinia to fight some poor natives who had no weapons. Sarah sighed, as she helped herself to a bowl of oatmeal, she was fed up with politics that was all her brother and his friends talked about. They argued in the reading room of the Miners' Institute, when they read the daily papers, and they were always sending for books from a club called the Left Book Club, about politics. She could see the row of red books in their yellow dust jackets torn from use on the window sill.

The only Italians that Sarah knew, were the family that kept the cafe and sweet shop near the square, they were called Bracchi. It must have been a large family Sarah thought because all the cafes she knew were owned by people called Bracchi. Sarah loved to sit in the cafe before her weekly visit to the cinema. Sarah and her friends all went to the cinema at least once a week, and if her boy friend was working and had money she would go twice.

You could forget politics in the warmth of the cinema, you could even forget how hungry you were when King Kong came crashing through the jungle. Sarah had seen that film the week before, and everybody was still thinking about it. She knew all about the stars of the films because she and her two special friends used to buy a magazine called 'Photoplay' which told you all about the latest films, and the film stars. It described what was happening in the film studios in Hollywood. She knew that they made films there because of the hot dry weather, which allowed the film makers to work out of doors all year round. All her friends preferred the American films made in Hollywood to the British films. They copied the hair styles of stars like Jean Harlow and Claudette Colbert and everybody went around saying things like 'sez you' and 'O.K. baby'.

Sarah Ann used to go to the cinema in the Miners' institute; she used to sit in the 'chickens run', the seats right in the front of the cinema, because these were the cheapest seats.

There was always something going on at the 'stute' as they used to call it. Sarah's brothers used to play billiards there and borrow books from the library. The Institute had been built by the Miners Union, they had collected money every week, and asked rich men in the area to help. The owners of the pits had agreed to collect the money every week from the miners' wages. This made it much easier for the Union.

The Institute was run by a committee of men who were elected by the miners. It was used for all sorts of things apart from entertainments. Meetings were held there, strike pay was paid out there, and if the men wanted to see the miners' agent about any union problem they could visit his office in the building. The Institute was often the biggest building in the village.

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There was great excitement in the John household when Sarah rushed home with the news that next week, in the Institute, Charlie Chaplin's new film was being shown. Everybody in the house loved Charlie Chaplin films. Charlie made people laugh, and forget the problems of their own lives, and he poked fun at important people. In one of his films he played the 'Great Dictator' and everybody knew that he was really supposed to be Hitler.

Charlie had been born, in great poverty in London, in 1889. His father had run off and left the family. Both his mother and father were in the theatre. Charlie had been brought up in the workhouse, but he joined a group of clog dancers when he was eight and started his long career as an entertainer. As a young man he went to America with a group led by a famous comedian called Fred Karno, and he arrived in America just at the time that silent movies were first being made in Hollywood, California. Hollywood was to become the film capital of the world.

Charlie worked with all the great Directors, like D.W. Griffiths and Mack Sennett. Sennett had started a film company called the Keystone Film Company, and he made famous 'the Keystone Cops'. It was with this company that Charlie first started to wear his famous costume of the tramp.  

In all, Charlie made 80 films between 1914 and 1957, and today people are still laughing at the tramp and his funny walk.  In one of his most famous films 'The Gold Rush', Charlie cooks and eats his boots because he is starving, each nail he picks and chews just as if it were a bone, and the laces as if they were spaghetti. It is one of the most famous of all film scenes.

When he retired Charlie was very rich and the friend of many important people but he will always be remembered as 'the tramp', the hero of ordinary people, who did all the things that his audiences would have loved to do themselves.

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The first silent movie was made in America in 1902, and the most famous silent movie star was Charlie Chaplin. But in 1926 the cinema audiences in America were thrilled to watch the first film with sound - the 'Talkies' had begun.

In Britain millions of people went every week to the pictures as they were called here. New cinemas were quickly built to cope with the huge demand. In 1934 there were 4305 cinemas in Britain, but by 1938 another 667 had been built. Every town had several cinemas, and even small villages had one cinema. Porth, the home- of the John family, had five cinemas, 'The Castle' ' 'The Central', 'The Empire', 'The Grand' and 'The Porth Cinema' 'Many people went twice a week to the pictures, and some even three times. The cinemas made huge profits, in 1938 for example 990,000,000 cinema tickets were sold at a cost of 40,000,000. People in the Rhondda who wanted a special night out would travel down to Pontypridd and visit the 'White Palace' or the 'Palladium'.

In the 'thirties both the radio and the football pools were enormously popular. The radio or "wireless", as it was known then, was listened to by the whole family. Plays, news, dance music and variety shows were all very popular. Many working people dreamt of winning a fortune on the football pools, it was one way of escaping from the poverty, and even if they didn't win the thought of winning was a very pleasant one. So every Saturday millions of people clustered around their wireless sets to listen to the football results. Football was itself a huge attraction, in 1936 there were four Welsh clubs in the football league. See if you can find them in the league tables on the next page. Ten years earlier both Aberdare and Merthyr had also been in the league, and in that year Cardiff City had won the F.A. Cup, while Swansea had got as far as the sixth round. Cardiff had played in the cup final in 1925, losing one-nil to Sheffield United. In 1927 Cardiff City was the only non-English club to win the F.A. cup when they beat Arsenal 1 - nil.

Television broadcasting had begun in 1936, but because TV sets were so expensive there were only a few hundred sets in the whole country, and it was not until after the Second World War that television became popular.

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Sarah Jane had a long hard day working in the home and had just settled down to read one of the latest popular crime thrillers by Agatha Christie when she heard the front door crash against the passage wall. She was very frightened, for she was in the house all by herself. She stretched for the poker, while looking at the kitchen door, when in stumbled Will, her son, his face twisted in pain and smeared with blood.

"What's happened?", she asked anxously. I've been in a fight, Mam," he expalined in gasps. He then went on to describe what had happened to him.

It was the summer of 1936 and he had heard that there was going to be a Fascist meeting at De Winton Field in Tonypandy. Like many of the miners of the South Wales valleys, Will hated everything about the Fascists and was very concerned about the way in which they were gaining power and influence in other countries. He had been disgusted when the British Fascist, Sir Oswald Mosley, had been allowed to speak at Pontypridd Town Hall a few months earlier, but had had some satisfaction when it was decided at Porth Workmen's Institute to organise street protests against such meetings in the area.

This is how he got a bloody nose. Over 2000 people turned up in Tonypandy on 11^th June 1936 to show how much they disliked Mosley and his Fascists with their extreme ideas, blackshirts and salutes. Will had been in the thick of things when the violence broke out between the angry miners and Mosley's 'blackshirt' bodyguard.

The police had acted swiftly against the demonstrators and earlier had given protection to a party of Fascists as they toured Tonypandy giving out leaflets. In fact, Will shared the view with many of his friends that the police secretly liked Mosley and his Fascists. This view was to become firmer later when the police tried to stop local lodge officials from collecting anywhere near Rhondda collieries a special levy from the miners to help the fight against Fascism in Spain. But the collections went on and Rhondda people continued to give what little they had - whether that be money, milk or sugar.

As Will had his bruises and cuts tended to by Sarah, he thought how important it was for the Fascists thugs to be opposed at all times. Like most other Rhondda people he was very aware of the Fascists in Britain, Italy and Spain; but he was not so aware of what the most dangerous Fascist was doing in Germany at this time.

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John Thomas used to buy cigarettes at his friend's cafe. This man, whose name was Mr. Bracchi, had been born in Italy. He often showed John Thomas newspapers which his relatives in Italy had sent him. These newspapers always had photographs of Benito Mussolini, who had become leader of Italy in 1922. Mussolini was known as "Il Duce", which means "The Leader".

It is said that Mussolini did not start talking until the age of three, and that afterwards he hardly ever stopped. He was wounded fighting for Italy during the First World War and sent reports to the news- papers that he had been operated upon 27 times without anesthetic. Obviously, he liked to boast and even to bend the truth in his own favour. When he came back home from the war, he hobbled about on crutches long after he needed to use them.

After the war had ended in 1918, Italy suffered heavy unemployment, and communist ideas spread rapidly. There were riots, but Mussolini said he could restore law and order. He had the support of ex-soldiers, and formed a political party known as the Fascist Party. Fascists dressed in blackshirts, and beat up opponents.

In October 1935 Mussolini's army invaded Abyssinia, a backward country in Africa. He used modern weapons against-this country's army, which was made up of tribesmen armed with spears. His tanks rumbled across the deserts and pounded the mud huts of the people to dust. His aircraft swooped over the villages and sprayed them with poison gas which horribly injured women and children as well as soldiers. The League of Nations stood by helplessly as the Italians took over the country. The British navy seemed to be on the point of attacking Italy, but Mussolini's spies told him that the British were short of ammunition, and so he took no notice of what Britain and other League of Nations countries said. Many Italian women handed over their wedding rings to provide gold to help Mussolini's soldiers. Some of the gold went missing but Mussolini did nothing to find out where it had gone.

Adolf Hitler the leader of Germany watched Mussolini's success in Abyssinia and saw that the League of Nations could be ignored. In 1936 Italy and Germany became allies, this meant that they would help each other in war. They were later joined by Japan and were known as the "Axis".

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John Thomas was horrified when he heard the news from Abyssinia. Deep inside he wanted to help the poor tribesmen. Soon, however, his friends were talking about another war which was taking place in Spain.  In Spain a soldier called General Franco led a revolt against the Republican Government of Spain. Mussolini and Hitler sent Franco help.

In the Rhondda the miners were asked to support the Republicans against Franco and collections were held to send over food parcels and clothing to the families of Republican soldiers. Some men even volunteered to fight for the Republicans and joined an army known as the 'International Brigade' made up of men from many different countries. Nearly 200 men from South Wales went to fight in Spain. Over 100 of them were miners and  John Thomas knew some of them personally. Many, like 50 year old Tommy Picton from Treherbert, were to die there. Tommy had fought in the First World War and had been decorated twice for bravery. In the years after the war as a boxer he had been one of the greatest crowd-pullers at Rhondda boxing matches.

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John Thomas went to a meeting organized by the Spanish Aid Committee, and there he heard about the terrible events that had taken place in the Spanish town of Guernika. After listening to the speech he understood why some of the men from the village had gone to fight in Spain. In the crowded hall of the institute, he heard the speaker telling them about the events of Monday, April 26th 1937. 

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When John listened to the speech about Guernika, he realised that the Germans were helping Franco in Spain. Hitler and Germany began to worry him. It seemed as if Hitler was using the war in Spain for practice. John remembered listening to the Emperor of Abyssinia on the radio when he said 'I t is u s today; it will be you to-morrow! "

Germany had begun to build a strong army, even though she had been forbidden to do so after the First World War.  In 1936 Hitler moved soldiers into the Rhineland, an area of Germany which bordered France. After the First World War Germany had not been allowed to keep any troops in this area. When Hitler moved his army into the Rhineland, no country tried to stop him.

Hitler increased in confidence and began to think about taking over countries in which Germans lived just as he said he would in his book 'Mein Kampf'.

Next he took over Austria and part of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland.  The League of Nations accepted this because many people in Austria and Czechoslovakia were German speaking.  The British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, agreed to Hitler's demands when they met at Munich. Chamberlain felt that by giving in to some of Hitler's demands war in Europe would be avoided. This policy of agreeing to Hitler's wishes was called 'appeasement'.

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