Llanerch Memorial

“It's a working man l am
And I've been down under ground
And I swear to God if l ever see the sun
Or for any length of time
I can hold it in my mind
I never again will go down under ground”
Rita MacNeil, “Working Man"

In this part of the world you don’t have to go far to find memorials to those who lost their lives through the coal mining industry. I was told recently of the Llanerch Memorial, one that I’d not come across before but which is on my doorstep, so I was keen to get photos for a piece for the Family History Journal. There was a gap in the rain today so I hoofed it up the old tramway overlooking Cwm Nant Ddu, pausing on the way for a quick chat with a couple of dog walkers about UFO sightings above Twm Barlwm of all things. The memorial is particularly poignant, depicting a miner holding the body of a boy, father and son perhaps, a grim reminder that children worked – and died – in the pits too. Facing them is a row of ‘headstones’ with scenes from their working lives, and their funerals too. My grandfather followed his father down Pochin Colliery just before his eleventh birthday, something my mother swore would not happen to me. Llanerch, originally known as Cwm Nant Ddu Colliery, was rocked by a massive gas explosion, killing one-hundred-and-seventy-six men and boys – fathers and sons.
Nearby fenced off areas warned of capped/filled air shafts, repeated further up the incline where I went to get a view of Cwm Serchan washery in the valley below. No chance of going any closer today, the dog walkers had told me the path had been washed away and with storm Darragh approaching things weren’t going to get any better, mild though the weather was. It came to my mind that my grandfather and many others like him would not have had the choice of returning home when the weather turned; their often long walk to work was part of their everyday – come rain or shine.