Princes or paupers?
One thing I've been trying to work out is how well off a lead miner was in 1880. Books tell me they were poor and then as I read on, i am told they were the most prosperous of the working folk in the hills!
how do you define poor though? They didn't run cars, the culture in the hills was not one to travel and holidays were certainly not granted in bulk. No plasma screen Tv's, no fads. They didn't fritter their money like we did. (There were holidays, the Monday after payday was always Miner's Day and many used it in homage to Baccus. )They tried to grow their own veg and do whatever repairs or building themselves as best they could.
On the flip side, there was no health care, you paid for the Doctor and you had no sick pay. pensions weren't known, so you worked until you couldn't or you would starve.
There were lean times for miners. The pay was dependent on striking a bargen (Bargain), which in effect was an agreement of a % commission for the amount of metal ore raised by each team. This changed according to prices and the pitch that you were digging - some gave out more waste than ore. When lead prices dived in the 80's, the money was tight, that much I know.
So what's the answer? Starving poor or comfortable? Difficult to tell, my take on it all was that most put some aside coin when they could to tide them through the bad times. I can't see many being starving, for they had to climb down the shafts on ladders and manually hammer drills into the rock to make charge holes, then manually shovel the rock into a tram. They wouldn't last a week on that routine! A dilemma though and it shows just how much knowledge has been lost in the sands of time.
Comments
Some people who are not bloggers tell me that they have tried to comment but weren't allowed to. I have made sure that the settings allow anyone in the universe to pass comment. I have tried it myself, by posting a comment without logging in and it works on my home PC.
My ideas on this if you are not a blogger are: - make your comment and click the anonymous option - but do add your name to the comment if you do that, because it's nice to know who you are!
If this still doesn't work and you are trying to do this from an office, it may be that the company firewall might be stopping you. If it doesn't work and you're doing it from home - I haven't got a clue, sorry!
Talerddig
I sometimes use the name Talerddig. No link to the place mind you, it is a windswept barren hilly part of Powys. The highest point of the railway line between Aberystwyth and Shrewsbury The summit is sliced by a steep cutting, which was the deepest in the world in its day. they used the stone to build embankments and bridges further along.
From the train climbing up from Machynlleth, you pass cascading streams and steep hillsides as you fight your way up to a barren summit. there you are met with the green wilderness and twisted wire fences that is rural Wales. the road tries to keep up, as it clings up the valley side, occasionally winding under the railway in some horrendous hairpin that always makes you imagine a juggernaut lying in wait on the other side.
The place is famous for those of the railway persuasion. There you would see the steam engines in all their glory, struggling up, digging in the coal reserves. Perhaps another engine would be on the back to give a bunk up.
It's a wilderness and when the wind doesn't howl or the rain fall, must be very peaceful. As I sit in my office in the middle of a concrete jungle, I dream of lying down close by to Talerddig on a warm summers day, with a gentle cool breeze wafting over me. Just watching the clouds or the trains, or both.
There are no mines nearby, funny that! I am more in tune with the land than the mine. Don't get me started on coastlines!
Note from my daughter
Oh good, the rugby's finished.
Can you stop shouting at the television now?
Resurrection of a nation?
I should be writing, I should really be writing. I should have honed off my blurb and typed up my synopsis. It should be winging it's way off to an agent. I am almost there, perhaps Sunday.
Can't do anything for the moment, I'm too much swept up in the game. what game? THE GAME! I grew up in a time when I was naive enough to watch rugby and expect Wales to win, it was a natural order of things. I bet there's a load of English kids now who think that now with their boys. The whole psyche of the land was based on an attractive successful rugby team, it's funny how a nation is polarised by sport, funny but not unique.
Then there were the lean years, the rugby league poaches, the nearly men. The Thorburn punts, the Davies magic, the Ieuan Evans sidesteps. I remember Wales v Scotland when Ieuan sidestepped 5 scots and the ref to score.... I know, because I was there - outside Radio Rentals in Cardiff Queen Street. Don't knock it, it was a brilliant atmosphere!
Anyway, there is a buzz that I've not known in the West. If the boys can do it, I can foresee a small economic boom. Sales of mementoes will rocket (some may even be bought by others outside my house), some pundits predict a baby boom even! Moreover, it would lift the psyche of a nation ravaged by decline with the crash of manufacturing and the demise of coal and steel amongst others.
And I'll be happy too. Probably a quivering wreck in front of the Tv, like after the France game. After watching that, i believe anything is possible! Ok, I will look forward to my talisman Shane Williams doing the business and pray and cross just about everything that it is so. Then we'll get back to writing!
One thing I do know, I'm going to need earplugs. My wife screams at the TV during these games - and she's Estonian!
It's bad with me
That's the Welsh translation for sorry, but bad is aso a term for illness, which is what I have had since Saturday.
Actually, in South Wales diallect, if you are off work, as I am, you were
bad in bed and if the medic had to call the house you were
bad in bed and under the Doctor!
As in:
He's been bad in bed and under the Doctor for agesI went to the Northampton Book Festival on Saturday and attended two seminars; one by a commissioning editor and one by an agent.
The editor was getting a lot of flak. It appeared a lot of people who had tried for years to get on the ladder at last had their moment to offload and vent their frustrations. She had to patiently remind them that that was the market, but was faced with questions like:
Don't you think it's sad that publishers will choose books that sell before books that challenge curent thinking? (Personally, I call that business)
or
why is it that someone as young as yourself should have the power to say yes or no to accepting work. I mean, you haven't lived long enough. you didn't live through the war... (well anyone born during the war is now at pensionable age...)
She handled that all well. The agent was also quite forthcoming and although painting a depressing state of the market with publishing amalgamations and reduction of book commissions also said he would willingly discuss a project over the phone with anyone - One to bear in mind.
I wonder if independent publishers aren't the answer, especially given my rural Welsh setting and rural Welsh ideas!
I have noticed I am getting greyer as the days go by. Nothing to do with the countdown to the Wales v Ireland game, i'm sure! But we have such a bad record playing them at home...the best comment I saw was:
I'm praying to all the deities I can find in my Observer's book of deities that we win this one. You don't know how much it means to us, or the amount of cash we would shell out on merchandise afterwards!
The next step
After reading Carol Blake's excellent book 'from pitch to publication', I have a few things to do! (No, this is not a 'Dear Carol, please take me on' letter... but the book is highly recommended.)
Her shopping list of presentation material for pitching your book:
Blurb - done, but needs tweaking.
Synopsis - have done one for, for the original story that now looks set to fill three books, so it's the one thing that really needs doing.
Make the first three chapters the best - hmmm... when will a writer ever admit THAT...
Author bio - have one, need's tweaking.
Letter of introduction - not even got there yet.
Work to do, methinks. In the meantime, my side project has taken on a bit of motion. I have finished a prologue, I'm now sketching an epilogue/ end chapter. It may sound strange to write the beginning and end first, especially when I have not researched enough to do the middle! It is good to do this however, because I at least commit to paper those ideas that are going around my head. Also, I remember that at the Winchester festival, they have competitions for things like opening 3 pages, best beginning, best end etc... you never know when it comes useful!
A Synopsis - can't anyone agree?
Trying to get an idea of what is required . Search the net and this is what you find.
It's what goes on the back cover of the book, it's a summary of each chapter. It's a maximum of 1 page, it's two pages at the most, it's at least 6 pages. No, that's a storyline, no...THAT's a storyline.It's the most difficult thing you have to do...sounds about right!
Anybody out there wishing to add to this mayhem will be more than welcome to leave comments in the ususal way!
A brief respite
I have finished my personal reviews, now I must write a synopsis. Everyone's favourite task. You spend 2 years trying to fine tune 80-100, 000 words and then you have to find a dynamic way of summarising the tale in a page of prose!
My friend Rod has sensibly pointed out that the novel may yet be reviewed, but more than likely now by external requests.
There is a strange bit of advice given also, write something else. You feel like you should stay with what you are doing, for you don't want to lose the insight to the lives of your character. Then when you do something else, you open up new emotional avenues and you realise that you, the writer and your character even may benefit in the long run. But it can also act as a distraction to your goal.
So today, i started a new story, a prologue if you like. there's been a terrible strike and it has ended. The managers have won, the defeated workers go back to work. One who worked during this makes his way to the quarry ready to die, as a final end to the heartbreak that this episode has brought to him. For he did not break ranks without reason, nor willingly. yet now he suffers for it. he stands at the top oif the mountain, ready to jump and asks 'how did it all come to this?' - so begins the story. 'Bradwr - the story of a traitor'
We will come back to it from time to time!
Let it snow
It snowed today, very ironic as I was going over my Manuscript and the hero was walking to work through drifts to get to the mine. No work was taking place, as the land was frozen and all the heavy machinery was reliant on the supply of water to power the wheels that drove them.
Makes me think we don't get so much of a problem these days, scrape the ice of the car and drive a little slower, The roads have been gritted for us. we have it easy!
The current state of my novel is that I am revising it for what will perhaps be the last time before I try the literary world. I had an idea for a story (well I had 3, but the other two are tales of future generations and can wait for now.) I wrote that whilst taking a writing course. My tutor gave excellent feedback and by the end I knew it was going too fast.
I then split it up into three stories and rewrote it, adding more scenes and giving more time for characters to grow. There then followed the read throughs. A continuity read, a 'Welsh' read (Is it too Welsh/ not Welsh enough within the context of the English language?), then passing it to selected victims, er... volunteers and we are at the revision process from that. I have just completed a different start and finish based on the feedback.
It's been two years now and I'm at that point where I need to start sending it out. Crossing that threshold is frightening. I'll let you know how it goes...
Dydd Ddewi Sant
Today is the day, i'm supposed to wear a daff. Never liked leeks as a child, they had a funny taste. At least with daffs you weren't tempted to have a bite!
In school, we used to have an Eisteddfod. It involved plays and I remember at 14 co-writing a silly talent show, where I appeared on the panel as Denis Healey. Very welsh, that!
There used to be Eisteddfod's all over the land. Celebrating poem, prose and song. Northampton had one every year, so did Jersey! Now all gone, more's the shame. Maybe things will change, my local sports club has even produced a Welsh menu for the night. It's nice to be recognised.
Funny how the rugby has generated a lot of well-wishes from English fans. More than we deserve, for we've never been so sporting in the past. Ok, I'll say it once. You deserved the World Cup. To go into the Lion's den and beat the Aussies on their own turf was something special. Almost as good as the France game last Saturday....oops, now I'm backsliding!
