Years ago, I did a trip to Wales with college friends with fond memory. It's a pity I never jog down the route that we traveled. All the photos taken and the negatives were lost when I moved houses. I've lost touch with those college friends. All I have left is my memory of it.
It was the start of summer holidays from college, shortly after all the final exams were done. We started driving out from Coventry. I don't remember much of the food. But I remember well the castles that we visited, one of which was close by the water. We had walked up to the top of a castle tower, one of the few that had been restored at the time (since the rest of the castle were in ruinous shape and not fit for visitors, lest they might collapse, I bet). The sky was clear blue; the vista over the water never-ending. It's beautiful.
When we got to Wales, we stayed at the local B&B which were quaint English cottage and rowhouses (no pun intended about the English reference), one of which stood next to a running stream which is most lovely, with trees and grass so green, it's a feast to the eyes. The roads, as anyone who has ever traveled to Wales knows, are narrow, but everything was just so quaint. I love it.
We stopped quite often along the way, with rolling green hills. It's rather deserted, but I never felt lonely. Perhaps it's the occasional stone walls or wooden fence that were put up to mark territory which bears indications of humanity and civilization.
One of the places that we visited was a former coal mine that has long since been closed. We donned coalminer's helmets (with light in front), took the cage-like elevators straight down. The tour guide taught us a song that we sang on our way down. The sounds provided some cheeriness in an otherwise very grim environment where everything is black - it's coal everywhere afterall. When we reached the coal shaft, one of the things the tour guide asked us to do, was to turn off our headlights and to feel how dark it was. That complete darkness, albeit just half a second in duration, is suffocating. One can't help feeling claustrophobic. We proceeded to walking along dark tunnels, seeing more of the same black coal that stretch deep into the earth.
That coal shaft tour didn't take too long. I was only too happy to finally come back up to the ground and see light again. I could not begin to fathom how it must have been like, to spend most (if not all) of one's life with the coal underground, which was exactly what happened to some animals and donkeys that were brought down to the coal shaft for transport and to reach low coal beams too small for adults. In those days, children routinely worked in coal mines since their smaller size allowed them to reach some hard to reach places via small tunnels. Life must have been awful.
After that, we went to visit the museum nearby where the history of Wales, impacts of coal mining (for good and ill), and how politics came into play (in particularly, the rise and fall of coalminers' union), were on display. I was not well-versed in that part of the Welsh history and how coal is intertwined with it, neither did I realize how the coalminers' union came about until that point. Truth be told, I never have too good an impression about unions in general, but as I read through its history, I've come to a better appreciation of how tough the livelihood of coalminers were, and how much exploitation went on before coalminers finally organized to fight back. Unions did serve its purpose, before Margaret Thatcher broke its back eventually.
After that, we went to visit the museum nearby where the history of Wales, impacts of coal mining (for good and ill), and how politics came into play (in particularly, the rise and fall of coalminers' union), were on display. I was not well-versed in that part of the Welsh history and how coal is intertwined with it, neither did I realize how the coalminers' union came about until that point. Truth be told, I never have too good an impression about unions in general, but as I read through its history, I've come to a better appreciation of how tough the livelihood of coalminers were, and how much exploitation went on before coalminers finally organized to fight back. Unions did serve its purpose, before Margaret Thatcher broke its back eventually.
The coalmining in Wales and unionization have stuck with me even to this day, even though that trip to Wales was long history to me now. It's educational as it gives me an appreciation and a different perspective of how unions were born out of the needs to level the playing field between coalminers and their mine owners, in the form of collective bargaining. Although unionization does not make sense in all industries, I do recognize the need for it in low-paying jobs that workers have no bargaining power at all.
Some day, I'd love to go back and visit Wales and England again. Those are places with some of my fond memories.
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