Family Life in the South Wales Valleys

Family life in mining communities was dominated by the pit. The shift system, particularly in large households where many men were employed on different shifts, must have seemed that miners were always either going to or coming back from work. The ‘working day’ of the house was thus a very long one and it was also true that in many houses beds were never empty because of the shift system. The piecework system of wages meant that the amount of money coming into the house was never predictable and of course there was always the dreaded fear of a husband or a son being brought home dead or injured. Perhaps the clearest example of how the pit intruded into the home was the case of bathing. There were no pithead baths in South Wales during this period, so once the miner returned from the pit his first task was to take a bath:-

I was in lodgings ... there were six or seven other miners lodging there. It was only a house with three bedrooms, so you can imagine that we were sleeping on a rota basis ... I'd gallop home to be the first to have a bath. There were no bathrooms: all you had was an old zinc tub and the landlady would have a couple of buckets of water on the fire. If there were five or six of you together, first of all five of you would bath the top half of the body ... and then You stepped back into the bath and washed the bottom part of your body … you’d get the woman from next door … they’d come in here and they’d sit down in the kitchen and they wouldn’t move - even when you were washing the bottom part of your body.

This account by a woman from Pentre shows how the pit dominated the life of the miners’ wife:

She gets up any time from 5 to 6 am, prepares breakfast and sends off, maybe, her son, next comes in another son from the night shift. She then prepares a bath for him, which means the lifting of a heavy boiler on and off the fire. He goes off to bed. Then the younger children get up and get ready for school. When they are safely off, she tries to clean up and clear a little bit of the pit dust . . . Then dinner has to be cooked and her husband got ready for the afternoon shift. Then her son returns again from the morning shift bringing with him some more dust. The same process has to be gone through again etc. He then goes off and she again turns around to clean and tidy up before tea-time and the children home from school . just as she thinks she can have an hour or two to sew or read, she again has to be preparing water and supper for her husband returning from the afternoon shift and so it goes on day after day.

We can see here just how hard miners' wives had to work and why in valley homes 'Mam' often became the dominant person. The women of mining communities in South Wales were well known for being almost obsessed by the need for cleanliness in their houses. With dirt and dust always being brought into the home from the pit, it was a constant battle to keep up standards. Tidiness (being 'tidy') was even extended to the scrubbing of front doorsteps and flagstones in the backyard. It was a mark of self-respect for women to work hard at this and the enjoyment and pride they took in this work can be seen in this account by a Rhondda housewife:

I used to wash the path, we had flagstones, from the back door right down to the toilet. I used to love doing it ... 1 used to love working. And 1 used to wash the pavement from the front door, right past the window right down to the drain ... Beautiful, lovely ...

Another major task in a house full of miners was washing-all done by hand and with filthy pit clothes to clean, terrific hard work. There were also meals to cook, bread to bake, clothes to make and mend and so forth. 'Mam' not only reared the children of the large families that were common at the time, but also took most of the responsibility over them including discipline. This account by a Treorchy woman shows just how much 'Mam' was often a person to be feared. The girl was fifteen and had already been away in domestic service in London ' when one night she stayed out late with a boyfriend:

I went out and I was at half past nine down by the Square. My friend said to me "May, I think your mother is down by the lamp". I said, "Don't be so silly". There she was, flannelette nightie, with a big coat right over her, shouting "Dewch Mewn Yr Ty (Get in the House)!" Duw! You should've seen her. I had the finest clip across the ear, boyfriend or no boyfriend by the side o'me".

Whilst the importance and the hard work of the typical 'Mam' was part and parcel of valley life, not all women were tied to the home in the, way that is sometimes suggested. Many women had jobs and even miners' wives would add to the family earnings by taking in washing, and wallpapering in other houses, for example. The effect of all this hard work on women is described here by one, South Wales miner referring to his mother:

Women get harassed, beyond endurance, nerves frayed, life is hard and unbearable. They become a bundle of nerves . . . Day after day they struggle on, lingering at a miserable existence without hope or colour. The woman sacrifices everything for her family . . . My mother died 56 years of age. I asked the Doctor 'Why? What was wrong?' I was told that there was nothing wrong organically. She was simply worn out ... The constant repetition of work caused through lack of facilities in the house make them almost beasts of burden ... The miners work seven hours themselves and work their women seventeen.

Family Life in the Valleys