Trawsgrifiad o dâp 2 o gyfweliad â Gwilym Blair Williams gan David Mathias. 1982Hyd: 01:07:00 Hanes ei brofiadau yn y Rhyfel Byd Cyntaf ac atgofion o Lanelli. [trawsgrifiad wedi'i greu Gorffennaf 2025] Nodyn:[Oherwydd ansawdd y recordiadau gwreiddiol, a wnaed yn wreiddiol ar recordwyr caset cludadwy yn y 1980au, mae'r recordiad wedi'i brosesu'n helaeth i wella'r lleisiau a gipiwyd. Mewn rhai achosion, mae'r wybodaeth yn annealladwy. Gall rhai anghywirdebau barhau. Lle'r oedd gwybodaeth yn annealladwy, mae'r trawsgrifiad yn defnyddio [?] i nodi'r digwyddiadau hyn.]

[trawsgrifiad ar gael yn Saesneg yn unig]

 

 

Tâp 2 Ochr 1
 

00:00:04 Gwilym Blair

And in the days that they had the trams there. The horse trams, yes

00:00:06 David Mathias

And this must have been before the First World War well.

00:00:11 Gwilym Blair

Before the yeah, before the 1st world by this one, yeah.

00:00:14 Gwilym Blair

And then went down there, got on the trams and on towards [?]

00:00:27 David Mathias

Swansea Road

00:00:33 Gwilym Blair

Once we got to the slopes. We had to get out and push. The horses couldn’t take the [weight?] and couldn’t travel.

There were a lot of other people on, and they had to get off.

00:00:46 David Mathias

We said it couldn't have been Welsh horses.

00:00:53 Speaker 3

When did, when did? Llanelli start playing at Strade?

00:00:57 Gwilym Blair

Ohh yeah, before the first world War

00:00:59 David Mathias

Yes, these are the club was actually formed in 1872.

[?]

00:01:10 Gwilym Blair

You know, you know the Western template works. My father was worked for couple years.

[?]

00:01:23 David Mathias

My grandfather was a steel worker. In which I don't know which, one of the big works.

00:01:34 Gwilym Blair

My father was there in, 1913[?]. I used to get him with a pony and trap.

I remember one occasion going down there on a wet Sunday, very, very cold and I had to go there. My hands were absolutely frozen, just like that. I had to soak them in warm water before I could move them.

[?]

00:02:55 David Mathias

The pony and trap was considered to be luxury wasn’t it?

00:03:03 Gwilym Blair

Yes, yes, yes if that.

00:03:12 Gwilym Blair

I socially it, [and people who had more?] had a motor car. Yes, Father was very.

My father had a very good eye for a horse.

He used to go around to the village fair, John Brown fair, and Carmarthenshire fair, and pick horses.13 to 13 two, you see.

[cobs] Pit ponies, you see.

13 hands, 13 two. And he’d bring them home, unbroken, and we’d break them in. And muggings had to go on their backs first of all, because I was, I was smallest and the latest.

 

00:04:18 David Mathias

Were you a big family, Mr. Williams?

00:04:23 Gwilym Blair

So no, only four.

No, only four.

My my, my parents had six children, but two died. I had two brothers and a sister.

00:04:32 Speaker 3

How much would you pay for a horse in those days?

00:04:37 Gwilym Blair

Or would be somewhere around about, 40-50 pounds

00:04:44 Speaker 3

As much as that.

00:04:45 Gwilym Blair

Yeah.

Well my father use to break them in you see. Get them to sit in the [?] or a cart, pull a cart. And then he would sell them to North Navigation, working underground.

He would telephone the man who would buy these horses, by the name of Mordecai, he’s tell him I was a horse for you, he’d say alright send it up Williams.

00:05:28 David Mathias

How much would he make on that horse?

00:05:43 Gwilym Blair

[?]

00:05:41 Gwilym Blair

Then My brother and I, just before the First World War started [?] with a couple of trotters, and use to run them in a pony [?], and run them in local horse shows or flower shows.

00:06:03 Speaker 3

They have trotting even in those days. And do they have trotting races even in those?

00:06:08 Gwilym Blair

Oh, yes, yes, yes. In the Clyne Valley near Sketty. Yes. Well, they had a racecourse up there. And they use to hold meetings there, about once every three months.

Yeah, it was. And then any, any, any big Flower Show or show, they'd have, they'd have it run around the field there you see.

And he and I eventually took up breeding, ponies. Stallion breeding. About 1913-14.

00:07:03 David Mathias

And the war came, and you had to leave all that then.

00:07:07 Gwilym Blair

Yes. My brother carried on.

00:07:09 David Mathias

He didn’t volunteer?

00:07:17 Gwilym Blair

No [?] he worked [?] those days still scheduled [?]. He wouldn’t have passed the army test.

My other brother. He wasn't interested. Interested in [working with horses?]

But we here in the village one day. You could see him coming down in the trap along the road. And I though there’s something funny about that horse [?] he had the bridle on the wrong way.

00:08:06 David Mathias

That's a very difficult thing to do Mr. Williams.

And what year were you born? In this. Would this be in 1890?

00:08:20 Gwilym Blair

1892, on Monday I should be 89 this month. This coming month? Yeah.

00:08:37 David Mathias

And how long had the war been going on before you volunteered?

00:08:45 Gwilym Blair

First time I volunteered, and I turned it down in August.

I was in a [?] holiday when the war was declared. I went back to Pontarddulais. And on the first day of the following week, we went to the back on a Saturday and Monday on Monday.

00:09:03 David Mathias

So it you actually went in then 1914.

00:09:06 Gwilym Blair

Yeah. And they tell me down then. But after that it went. At the beginning of November.

That I would actually push into the Royal Welsh Fusiliers.

00:09:24 David Mathias

How did your parents feel about you volunteering?

00:09:27 Gwilym Blair

They didn’t like it at all. My mother worried a lot. I’m afraid it was a lot worse than worry, she had a slight stroke. Just before I went away.

She was worried because I was contemplating joining [?] and I think that worry brought it about.

00:09:56 David Mathias

But did you manage to write to them?

00:09:59 Gwilym Blair

Ohh yes yes, if I didn't write a letter we had post cards. With set statements [?]

The extraordinary thing about that was you handed it to the corporal. The postal collected the post. The post card could be delivered in Alltwen [Swasnea] the next day.

[?] And we used to get parcels and letters from home to the front line. In a matter of 48 hours.

00:10:46 David Mathias

That must have been very good for morale, then?

00:10:50 Gwilym Blair

Yes. Yes.

[?] And newspapers.

00:10:56 Speaker 3

But you must have had in the battalion or in the company you must have had people who could write. Maybe there was, like, there's help for the people who couldn't write for other people.

00:11:09 Gwilym Blair

Yeah, yeah, yes, they did do that, yeah.

[?]

00:11:16 Gwilym Blair

Yes, yes, yes. So later after I got commissioned, I had to censor a lot of those.

00:11:23 Speaker 3

We would have to.

00:11:23 David Mathias

The men were not allowed to write in Welsh were they?

00:11:29 Gwilym Blair

No. Not unless you had a person who could read and speak Welsh.  And if an officer could, he would censor everyone’s letters, you see.

00:11:49 David Mathias

And what was another Welsh spoken?

00:11:51 Gwilym Blair

Oh yes, you just use it on the telephone for communication. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. For the radar or anything, you'd have Welsh spoken.

00:12:02 David Mathias

There is a very interesting story about the fourth Welsh, which is the Llanelli battalion., in the Second Word War they were all Welsh speakers.

And when they were rehearsing for the Normandy invasion here they were, landing on on the South Coast somewhere. Yeah, from landing craft, carrying out the rehearsals. And they did this one night, obviously, under the cloak of secrecy. And they went into some village and dug in. And of course they were using Welsh. And the locals were up in arms because they thought the Germans had that. And they thought they were foreigners, but they were the Fourth Welsh.

00:12:38 Gwilym Blair

Well that’s funny too because a lot of the Bretons speak Welsh.

00:12:53 David Mathias

Yes.

00:12:55 Gwilym Blair

And.

00:12:58 Gwilym Blair

Is Carrington is twinned with Roscoff in Normandy. And they come across. I speake a smattering of French. I had a brief conversation with them, and, [?]

They stared singing their national anthem which is exactly like .Mae Hen Wlad fy Nghadau’.

00:13:57 David Mathias

And of course, Cornwall, hundreds of years ago used to be known as West Wales.

00:14:00 Gwilym Blair

Yes, yes. And Plaid Cymru. No. Meibion Carno.

[?]

00:14:30 David Mathias

This has been a lot in common, but it was a very interesting television programme that like 3 years ago there's been from Vaughn Thomas. Yeah. And he was comparing the Cornish with the Welsh and with tremendous similarities.

00:14:43 Gwilym Blair

Yeah, well, you see. It was all Gauls you see. Cornwall, Ireland, Scotland, Wales all Celtic. And certain parts of [?] with the Irish language, similar to Welsh and the Galic.

The only the only difference is we don't drink whiskey.

00:15:35 David Mathias

Big beer drink is the Welsh beer is the.

00:15:38 Gwilym Blair

Big drink, yeah.

00:15:42 Speaker 3

Do they have good breweries in South Wales?

00:15:45 Gwilym Blair

Oh yes. There’s Ely Brewery in Cardiff

And Brains

Bevan in Neath

Brewery inside it.

00:15:51 David Mathias

Well, isn't it Buckley’s in Llanelli. And Felinfoel Wales.

Felinfoel, funnily enough, was the first brewery to can beer.

00:16:09 Speaker 3

But have they not been taken over? Have they? Have they not been taken over?

00:16:16 Gwilym Blair

Yes, [?] he bought. He bought the mountain up at Aber[?]

And he presented the biggest checker that has been presented to the bank in and he wrote. He wrote the cheque and he is ever been presented to among him in South Wales, yes. Not sure how many millions.

00:16:45 David Mathias

When was this then?

00:16:49 Gwilym Blair

1909.

00:16:54 David Mathias

Could have a dreadnought battleship for that.

00:16:57 Speaker 3

Really.

00:17:00 Gwilym Blair

In those days, you couldn't.

00:17:02 Speaker 3

But I'm interested that they've managed to stay independent for so many years.

[?]

00:17:24 David Mathias

You. You the Buckley, is. Of course, it's Colonel Buckley is the, or was, is dead now actually, Buckley Brewery owner until recently, he was a Welsh Guards officer.

A fine man, a good man, a local gentry.

And the other great soldier, was Colonel Neville, heard of Kenny? He owns some factories in Llanelli.

00:17:55 Gwilym Blair

Yes, he, he. He probably owned the foundry there [the copper]. Yeah. Copper ones. Yeah.

Neville. Richard Neville. I haven’t heard that name for years. I’d forgot all about him.

00:18:12 David Mathias

But strangely enough, I was speaking to a man. Mr. Lewis, about six months ago and he was a first world war soldier, in the Shropshire’s. He was a regular soldier.

He was telling me.

That after the war we all went back to Wales. And of course there wasn't any work for them. Yeah, and he was. He was in the dole queue anyway. And Colonel Neville, arrived and took all of the ex soldiers and created work for them.

00:18:54 Gwilym Blair

Do you know Dai Hopkin Thomas, from Llanelli?

He was a captain in the Welsh Regiment, actually.

 

 

00:19:29 Gwilym Blair

Is Llanelli steel still running?

00:19:34 Gwilym Blair

That that, that works has all been closed down, all has been closed down, the Morfa, the Glanmorfa, is gone. All you have left there now is Trostre.

And you have Felindre works, that; on the way to Pontardawe isn’t’ it.

the car plants of course, which you would know, but the steel has died in Llanelli. Which is very sad because they’ve just spent billions on the Llanelli Steelworks, and it’s the most modern [?] plants in the world, and within 6 months they closed it down.

00:20:17 Gwilym Blair

Well, there's nothing standing, nothing standing upon [?] now. You know the Steelers and can works. And Carbonite works. A nephew of mine was there overseeing the demolition of the of the building and the distribution of the of the of the machinery. The nothing there.

The Valour Perfection, people, the people you know.

00:20:49 David Mathias

Yes, they would in that sort of new industry. Layland. But the Tros[?] was one of the few British steel plants that made a profit.

[?]

00:21:13 Gwilym Blair

Yes, they made the engines in [?]

00:21:33 David Mathias

Kidwelly is still there, the oldest brough in the area.

00:21:37 Gwilym Blair

Where the cockles come from.

[?]

00:21:52 David Mathias

Yes, Kidwelly is there is there, with the castle, long on the Carmarthen road.

00:22:04 Gwilym Blair

Yeah, yeah, but most most of the cockles come from the other side, because there's some fellow living on the other side, on the on the Kidwelly side, he’s objecting to the killing of the sea birds there because they dig up the cockles.

00:22:23 David Mathias

Yes, and the larva bread as well.

Graham brough some larva bread with him.

00:22:33 David Mathias

I don't know whether Ben knows what another bed is, Mr. Williams.

00:22:25
I do.

00:22:37 Gwilym Blair

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. There's wonderful stuff that's good for you. Yeah. Got a lot of iodine in it.

00:22:47 David Mathias

In Llanelli market, you can buy all these things.

00:22:51 Gwilym Blair

They consume a lot of it in north Devon you know. My son brought some back last weekend.

I still have my house done there you know, storing all furniture that’s left there.

00:23:18 David Mathias

What sort of things did your family send to you then, in France? what sort of food did you get sent by your family?

00:23:31 Gwilym Blair

Picau bach ar y maen

00:23:38 David Mathias

Welsh Cakes and things like that.

00:24:02 David Mathias

It's like my father used to get Welsh cakes. He's just sell them to Americans during the War.

00:24:10 Gwilym Blair

But my life is to make them and take them to the Women's Institute. They're not there in 5 minutes.

00:24:24 Gwilym Blair

You get a cast iron plate, about 3/3 inch thick and a little bit little bit little bit bigger than that. It's put down, put that on top of a fire you see, get a tripod, top of the fire.

Warm it up, and make the mixture – currants, butter, and flour, and cook them.

I used to cook them down in Devon. My wife bought a bakestone in [?] in Cardiff and carted it all the way. Put in on the gas stove you see, but couldn’t get the same results. The heat was confined to the center of the [?] and didn’t extend out to the end. So you had an uneven surface. You had to watch, or they would burn, you see. You had to turn them over, whenever the bakestone was [?].

00:26:28 Speaker 3

Again, it's a long time since you talked about Llanelli before the war, the first war.

00:26:40 Gwilym Blair

Oh yes, I can go back to about 1904.

00:26:55 David Mathias

I don't if you recognise yes, you would recognise the main area, Stepney St is still there, so far. They’ve knocked bits of it down.

00:26:59 Gwilym Blair

[?] Marsh. It's in the shop, but nice shop filling further. That’s where the Davises used to have their business you see.

Right in the centre of the town.

00:27:20 David Mathias

No, that's all changed. Buildings are there. The old market has knocked down. My father used to have the corner shop.

00:27:31 Gwilym Blair

I can’t visualise it entirely. The Main Street leading in from Lacharn, near Swansea Road, I can visualize that, with the rows of houses.

00:27:44 David Mathias

You wouldn't actually recognise that now, though, because they've built Swansea road as it was, yes, but as you come into the town centre they’ve built a new round about and new roads to enable traffic to by-pass. And all of Stepney street, the main street then…

[?]

00:27:56 Gwilym Blair

Yes, and that were the [?]march was.

00:28:16 David Mathias

But the town hall of course is a lovely building, is still there. But obviously that used to be York Hotel, on the corner of [?], they knocked it all down, which is very sad because it was a lovely area.

00:28:17 Gwilym Blair

These old towns have lost their..

00:28:31 David Mathias

Yes, well they definitely destroyed Lanelli’s town. The bridge was [?], the old market was the first place to go, and they built a multi storey car park in it’s place.

00:28:50 Gwilym Blair

Well from there was just an overgrown village really, all the places up the valley, they were linked up with each other. Morriston, Llangyfelach, Ynystawe, Clydach, Glais, [Trebanos?], Pontardawe, Alltwen, Ystradgynlais.
 

00:29:42 Speaker 3

Did Llanelli have its own council?

00:29:45 Gwilym Blair

Oh yeah, it's quite the sizable down. Yeah, yeah, it.

00:29:51 David Mathias

Fact it's the biggest town in in the country of Carmarthenshire.

00:29:55 Gwilym Blair

It would be, I, I should say it would be almost the same size as Woking, the central part of Woking.

00:30:10 David Mathias

Yeah. Oh, yes, it's here. It's a big place and it's taking control of the one area now. Now, that's the population there must be. That's me. Getting on. 50, 60 thousand. Yeah. Itself. Yeah. Yeah. But this huge area which is responsible for them.

But it's nice here. I mean I I like Carmarthenshire, I’m a Carmarthenshire man and I’m very proud of it.

00:30:53 Speaker 3

I wish they hadn't changed all the names. I much prefer the old one. Yeah. Names to the new one.

00:31:01 David Mathias

I think most of the people do as well. They just changed it. No one relates to Dyfed.

00:31:03 Gwilym Blair

It is stupid. I mean, divided them up in the four in the four or five areas out there, and people don’t recognize it.

If we don't, if we don't recognise it, when you when you say no when you know how many people know that when represent one.

00:31:38 David Mathias

And as well, and I mean, there's three lovely names Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire, and Pembrokeshire.

00:31:47 Gwilym Blair

And Clwyd, yes.

[end of side 1]

Tâp 2 Ochr 2

 

00:32:00 Gwilym Blair

And Old Jack is. I call in there occasionally to see him. If he’s in the private sitting room, but he’d always have a pint beside him.

Used to call him Jack Hockey. Because he was captain of the hockey team.

00:32:22 David Mathias

Tell me, Mr Williams. In the battalions, obviously there were lots of and Williamses and Joneses and Davises. And presumably you used your last two numbers to identify yourselves. Of your regimental number.

00:32:35 Gwilym Blair

45087 RWF Williams G.

00:32:44 David Mathias

Did you keep the same number when you got promoted when you got commissioned?

[?]

00:32:54 David Mathias

When was your last two again?

00:32:59 Gwilym Blair

45087

00:33:01 David Mathias

So you would have been 87.

00:33:01Unkownn speaker

So you would have been known Williams 87.

[?]

 

00:33:31 Gwilym Blair

But it would mean only the 14-15 star would be will or other rank.

00:33:37 Gwilym Blair

Yes, my private, my rank, the private because that is when I was when I went there and then the other medal is when I was a sergeant and the last one was as an officer.

00:33:51 Speaker 3

Did they put names on them all?

00:33:52 David Mathias

Yes, they did. All the first world war medals. Unlike the second world war.

00:34:06 David Mathias

Well, that's an unusual group though, because it shows the convention [?]

00:34:09 Gwilym Blair

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

00:34:15 David Mathias

From the Old Contemptibles, the men that were in the BEF (British Expeditionary Force), th e1914 star.

00:34:20 Gwilym Blair

Yeah, there there's a difference between the 19[14] that, those who are overseas who went overseas in 1914. In the ribbon they had a little rosette.

00:34:39 Unknown speaker

How often did you get rum rations?

00:34:42 Gwilym Blair

Oh at every stand down.

00:34:50 David Mathias

Did the give you run before you went into action?

00:34:52 Gwilyn Blair

No [?]

Be standing on the tyres all night. The idea was to knock you out you see.

First rum I had. We went in with the guard, the coastal guards in Le Monte for instruction, you see. And in the morning, stand down.

The officers were [?]. The sergeant was carrying a rum jar under his arm. Pour it out.

[?] dixie. And then he doled it out with a tablespoon, you see. And when he did that, when he did that, I laughed, you see.

And he said, you laughing? He said, you drink it. He said, give it all down you in one.

[?] [laughter]

00:36:05 Speaker 3

Did all the men take the rum?

00:36:06 Gwilym Blair

No, no. Some of them put the rum in their tea.

And then, before the tea, before the tea got really cold [?][shaving?]

And you had to clean, you had to shave, you had to shave and wash, you see, before breakfast. They'd come round, inspect you. Even in front line.

Yes. Yes. And then you cooked your own breakfast.

Cooked your own breakfast and had it. Get the old bread and go and get a bomb box and cut it up. We used to have to whittle it up, you see.

Whittle pieces off the box. Of the wooden box, you see. Feed the fire with that, you see.

To avoid smoke. That's how wood makes a bonfire in the garden. That's how wood makes a bonfire in the garden.

We used to have two, we took pieces off the off the wooden. Yeah, feed it to get the flames.

00:37:39 David Mathias

I suppose you didn't give you give your position away that.

00:37:43 Gwilym Blair

Oh, no, no, you go down. You did it down in the bottom of the trench or in the dugout.

00:37:55 David Mathias

And the day then, generally, in the trench, was spent by taking turns at the sentry and

00:38:03 Gwilym Blair

Yes, turns as a sentry, and maintaining the condition of the sandbags where when it was

The weather, you see, the weather badly. And once you got that slimy, sandy stuff, it opened up the wallop. Fill the trench. You'd have to clear that in. Fill the sand bag, and build up the trench and fresh parapet.

00:38:38 David Mathias

The conditions were very, very, very bad. Oh, yes. And going back to the Mametz Wood, Mr. Williams, when you went down into the attack of the Mametz Wood, it's quite a distance down that valley and up the slope. Yes. You must have been pretty worn out by the time you got there. You must have been pretty tired by the time you got there.

00:38:57 Gwilym Blair

I can't recall that. The whole platoon would try and get this machine up. The second wave, the remainder of the company coming up. 30 or 40 men.

00:39:16 David Mathias

What sort of speed was the advance?

00:39:20 Gwilym Blair

Quick walk the slope up the slope up from the valley to [?] was the [?]

The big drop was coming down into the valley from the right-hand side of the road, coming down onto the road, and then from there up the slope was gentle. It would be a distance of, what, 100, 150 yards.

00:39:47 David Mathias

Were you under fire all that time?

00:39:49 Gwilym Blair

Machine gun bullets, yes. You could see the machine gun bullets hitting spots, hitting spots on the hillside. That's why you'd come down, you see.

They were going high, you see. They were trying to catch you coming down the slope. But you'd come down that slower than you would walk.

00:40:17 Unknown speaker

But the start line for that battle must be where the cemetery was.

[?]
 

00:40:29 Gwilym Blair

Coming down from the Mametz Village towards the valley, it would be, this valley where I tell you that I was detonating these bombs, it would be about 300 yards down the road. And immediately before you got around the corner, you know, up into the valley. Then you'd come up from there, from that [?], you know, onto the top, onto the top of the hill.

The path that I went over, was lined up on that line down, so that we were not up against the skyline, you know.

00:41:14 David Mathias

How did you feel, Mr. Williams? How did you feel going into the attack there?

00:41:18 Gwilym Blair

Proper wind-up.

00:41:24 David Mathias

But having got down there into the wood and got on with the business,

00:41:26 Gwilym Blair

Once you were on the move, you forgot about it.

00:41:33 David Mathias

Mametz Wood has got the reputation of being a dreadful battle, all in all.

 

00:41:41 Gwilym Blair

 

Well, you can just imagine what it was like, really, when I told you the percentage that came out. It's difficult to visualize. One of 30 out of 300. But it must have been very difficult.

00:42:02 unknown speaker

It must have been very difficult to exercise any sort of command and control in the wood there.

00:42: [GB]

You couldn't... The artillery would make such a rattle, you couldn't even [?].

And you couldn't hear the firing, you know, when you fire a rifle. When the bullet comes towards you, you get a crack. You're all right.

 

00:42:39 [DM]

But at the end of that, then, you must have been fairly tired.

00:42:45 [GB]

Oh, yes. Nothing much I could do.

I remember this, in the evening that we had to man a line, in case of an attack.

I tried to keep people awake.

I had Bob Jones from Northrop, Bob, he and I were there. and about every 10 minutes we used to dig each other in the ribs to keep awake.

That was about the only time when I really watched and couldn't keep my eyes open.

00:43:24 [DM]

Having got into the wood then and cleared the machine gun, was there a lot of hand-to-hand fighting as you went through? What did it consist of?

00:43:37

They came along in line, and they were fired at by the Germans from the trenches they had. And then as they retired to the wood, they had to stand behind trees and fire at them from behind the trees. And we had to do the same in advance.

 

We had to do the same in advance. We had to push our way through all these broken branches. And so on.

There was a bit of an undergrowth there.

00:44:21 [DM]

But there must have been at the end of it, must have been littered with bodies.

00:44:24

Oh, corpses. Carrying [?] days afterwards.

000:44:27

Did you actually go, you actually went into the wood then after the battle to take the corpses out?

00:44:32

No, we didn't do that in Mametz. We did that in Ypres for the Canadians.

Our own stretcher-bearers came in [in Mametz].

That's the last thing we were told before going. If any of your pals get hit, leave them alone. Go on, that's all you've got to do. On. Go on. You mustn't stop, even if your best pal is killed beside you. Leave it to the stretcher-bearers.

00:45:17 [unknown]

How often did you oversee the commanding officer in the battalion?

00:45:20

Yes. He was an ex-lancer, the colonel. And he used to come around in the trenches singing, ‘Gilbert the Filbert’

And he used to carry a sheep's crook. A shepherd's crook.

And he'd come along singing. I think he did it as much to show that he was coming in any case.

00:45:49 [unknown]

Did you talk to him?

00:45:51 [GB]

Yes. He was very proud of his ability as a horseman.

On more than one occasion, I heard him tell one of the men off, you were walking as you were marching along the road, and you were rather near the grass verge, there was a grass verge there, and he'd come galloping down or cantering down, you see, and the tendency would be when the horse came along near him, to step in. And he'd say, what's the matter with the man?

Can't you think I can ride a horse? [well-liked] Oh, yes, yes.

Ronald Carden

00:46:49 [DM]

Did you know as many of the officers in the Mametz?

00:46:54 [GB]

Yes, quite a number. Rhys Barfield…

00:47:36 [DM]

And the officers generally were from South Wales. [No]. That must have been later in the war, then. It must have been later on in the war that the officers were Welsh.

00:47:55 [GB]

We had some. We had one from North Wales.

Jim Davis, captain. Captain of the [B] company. [Varables?] came from Bristol[?].

Rhys was somewhere in North Wales, around Bangor. Rhys could speak Welsh.

Chris Ellis, and his brother [?] quite a number, quite a number. And most of these.

We had a large number of volunteers from Manchester. Strangely. They came out of the company.

0049:02 [unknown]

Didn't you have a lot of Englishmen? You had a lot of Englishmen in Welsh companies?

00:49:05 [GB]

Yes.

00:49:15 [DM]

In the RWF. I suppose, really, when you were forming the new army battalions, they were filling up.

00:49:25 [GB]

They couldn't get them quick enough.

We nearly wore out the [?] in Llandudno.

00:49:39

Nice place to be billeted. Pardon? Nice place to be billeted.

[?]

00:49:55 [GB]

I hear John Barbirolli, first of all, his first concert in this country, when I was in Llandudno.

London Philharmonic used to come down to Llandudno and play during the summer. And they hadn't gone back, you see, after the summer of 1914. They were still there when we got there, you see.

And the first thing they gave us was a badge with a dragon on it. You stuck that on your button board. And that was your passport.

Your passport, you see. And we go into these concerts on a Sunday night. And I remember this concert quite clearly.

Harry Tubb, Clare Putt, John Barbirolli, what was the name of the tenor?

English tenor. It was a tenor and a bass. And Clare Putt introduced for the first time in England, Giovanni Barbirolli.

Because you know how he came about to play the cello, you know? Well, all his family were violinists, you see.

And his father gave him a violin. Told him he had to play that. But he took it up, started playing it. But he couldn't sit down to play it. He walked around the place. His father got fed up with him walking about whilst he was playing. And he said, I'll make you sit down. So he bought him a cello.

00:51:55 [unknown]

When did he stop playing the cello and take up conducting?

00:52:00 [GB]

Oh, it wasn't for a long time. After the second world war I think.

 

[?] [sherry served]

00:52:53 [DM]

Do you have any mementos of the war Mr. Williams? Any photographs.

00:53:00 [GB]

Only photographs of myself. Oh, I got a photograph of a house of mine who was with me.

00:52:22 [DM]

Presumably at the end of the war the urge was to try and forget it all, wasn't it?

00:53:25

I had a couple taken when I was stationed at Winchester before we crossed over to France in the middle of 1914. No later than that…

[?]

00:54:17 [GB]

Tell me are you researching, the Royal Welsh

00:54:26

Yes, I am. I found a lot has been written about the war.

Everything's been said about the battles and general conditions. But what is lacking is that people haven't people haven't gone to people like yourself then and asked them how they felt and what the war meant to them.

And I'd like to I'd like to look at I'd like to learn the personal side of it.

00:54:57

I think that most of the fellows that were with me where they did they were just damned annoyed. That's about that's about the general feeling. Annoyed. That they had to be doing these things. But morale generally was extremely good.

And they'd be very humorous incidents as well as serious incidents and sad incidents.

Of course if you if any of the fellows in the company of a platoon were wounded or killed you had a quite a shock and it upset you at the time at the time being but it strange thing about it is it passed off very soon, did it? And one didn't dwell, one didn't dwell on it.

00:56:08 [DM]

You couldn't really let yourself dwell on it, could you? You must have developed a very rudient attitude to life. Must have been very brutal.

00:56:22 [GB]

Being fatalistic, you see. If you name it on it, you got it. There's no other way of looking at it.

00:56:35 [unknown]

I think so. I think there's a fatalistic about it. The other thing too is because the human memory is such that it tends to retain the amusing sort of things and it rejects it rejects the unpleasant things.

00:56:53 [GB]

Yes. I remember one incident quite serious, but we [?] for a long time over it. We went up to the line on one occasion and we were walking in a road building a parapet in front of us in front of the entrance to a dugout, you see.

And we were there and there were several fellows around us filling sandbags and they were bending over you see and a burst of machine gun fire came along you see. It was the bullet went through one fellow's arm you see into the buttock right buttock left right buttock of the fellow next to him and it came out and left the fellow. You see.

So we used to tease used to tease him with it. He got he got this he got this shot and he thought about running away. We had a lot a lot of fun over there for a long time.

00:57:58 [unknown]

It interested me when you were talking about wastage and casualties just by sitting in a place without any offensive movement.

00:58:08 [GB]

Oh yes. When I you know as you come down from Mametz, the road on the on the right hand side there was on the bottom of a slope there was a bunker all the way all the way down.

There were several fellows there in a kneeling position you see up against the up against the slope and others and not a spek on them, not a mark. Dead as fish.

Yes, a blast.

00:58:59 [unknown]

Because it's interesting, you see, because the nearest approach to that sort of trench warfare in Europe before 1945 was in Anzio. And Anzio was the only place where we dug trenches. We had mitigation trenches, we had gun pits, we had overhead cover, and people lived underground.

And there was a place called The Fortress, which was a pretty flat bit of ground, but it had these nullars, these [?] running parallel across the field. And there was just one site, this place was called The Fortress, and the battalions were supposed to hold it for a week at a time, six days at a time. You could have 100 to 200 casualties in a battalion, just for being there.

There was no offensive action at all. You were just home, in a certain amount of patrol. There was no offensive action, just being there.

And you were shelled, mercifully, you know, they always dug trenches. [Shrapnel and splinters]. Well, air bursts in those days.

[And stones blown out of the ground]. And people were, you know, just took casualties, just being there. I've been in The Fortress. [must have been very bad underground, demoralizing]

01:00:26 [GB]

I remember, [?]. they were constantly shelling [?]

And we were billeted in a brewery. You know, we had to, we did walk to the entrance of the brewery. We simply had to run and run like hell as fast as we could.

You know, to get in and out of the building. Always shelling. And there was another place in Ypres, it's called Hellfire Corner.

You may have heard of it. It was covered by machine gun fire and artillery fire. And if you took a body in two truck, you had to stop about 100 yards away before coming to the crossroads, you see.

And then you'd rush over in waves. And you'd have to run like the devil to get across it.

01:01:04 [unknown]

But you see, this is one good thing about the German mentality. They were so precise that you knew exactly what they were going to do.

You could really, you could certainly watch by the time it started to shell in you. You knew damn well that at 9 o'clock they were going to shell for 10 minutes or 4 minutes.

01:01:35 [GB]

Another thing is, when the waggons, [?] waggons used to come up with rations and ammunition to the line in Ypres, they could hear, they could hear the rumble on the cobblestone, you see. Start shelling them and they'd follow them right up. Right up to the discharging point. And once they were at the discharging point, they would stop.

Once it started back again, they would follow with artillery, all along the road.

[?]

01:02:17 [unknown]

Well, you see, it's funny these sort of things you were talking about, certain places like [?] and the equivalents of the last one. You could tell of the German mentality. You get a burst of machine gun fire.

I mean, you know damn well that you've got 90 seconds to get from A to B before the next one. You know, they were methodical. Yes, they were methodical.

01:02:40 [GB]

Yes, catch them when they're not looking.

01:02:41 [unknown]

You've gone up to a place, with your company, and you wait for the sort of burst. And then as soon as they say, right, you know damn well that you've got 90 seconds to get from A to B before the next one. Yes, they were methodical.

01:02:59 [GB]

Yes. So, you see, they had all these places marked out differently. See, they probably captured a lot of our old maps with the trench outside on the survey map.

And then all they've got to do is measure that up on a scale and set their sights on that in a hurry. And they're long-range machine guns, you know. They were wonderful.

 

Tape 2 Side 1
 

00:00:04 Gwilym Blair

And in the days that they had the trams there. The horse trams, yes

00:00:06 David Mathias

And this must have been before the First World War well.

00:00:11 Gwilym Blair

Before the yeah, before the 1st world by this one, yeah.

00:00:14 Gwilym Blair

And then went down there, got on the trams and on towards [?]

00:00:27 David Mathias

Swansea Road

00:00:33 Gwilym Blair

Once we got to the slopes. We had to get out and push. The horses couldn’t take the [weight?] and couldn’t travel.

There were a lot of other people on, and they had to get off.

00:00:46 David Mathias

We said it couldn't have been Welsh horses.

00:00:53 Speaker 3

When did, when did? Llanelli start playing at Strade?

00:00:57 Gwilym Blair

Ohh yeah, before the first world War

00:00:59 David Mathias

Yes, these are the club was actually formed in 1872.

[?]

00:01:10 Gwilym Blair

You know, you know the Western template works. My father was worked for couple years.

[?]

00:01:23 David Mathias

My grandfather was a steel worker. In which I don't know which, one of the big works.

00:01:34 Gwilym Blair

My father was there in, 1913[?]. I used to get him with a pony and trap.

I remember one occasion going down there on a wet Sunday, very, very cold and I had to go there. My hands were absolutely frozen, just like that. I had to soak them in warm water before I could move them.

[?]

00:02:55 David Mathias

The pony and trap was considered to be luxury wasn’t it?

00:03:03 Gwilym Blair

Yes, yes, yes if that.

00:03:12 Gwilym Blair

I socially it, [and people who had more?] had a motor car. Yes, Father was very.

My father had a very good eye for a horse.

He used to go around to the village fair, John Brown fair, and Carmarthenshire fair, and pick horses.13 to 13 two, you see.

[cobs] Pit ponies, you see.

13 hands, 13 two. And he’d bring them home, unbroken, and we’d break them in. And muggings had to go on their backs first of all, because I was, I was smallest and the latest.

 

00:04:18 David Mathias

Were you a big family, Mr. Williams?

00:04:23 Gwilym Blair

So no, only four.

No, only four.

My my, my parents had six children, but two died. I had two brothers and a sister.

00:04:32 Speaker 3

How much would you pay for a horse in those days?

00:04:37 Gwilym Blair

Or would be somewhere around about, 40-50 pounds

00:04:44 Speaker 3

As much as that.

00:04:45 Gwilym Blair

Yeah.

Well my father use to break them in you see. Get them to sit in the [?] or a cart, pull a cart. And then he would sell them to North Navigation, working underground.

He would telephone the man who would buy these horses, by the name of Mordecai, he’s tell him I was a horse for you, he’d say alright send it up Williams.

00:05:28 David Mathias

How much would he make on that horse?

00:05:43 Gwilym Blair

[?]

00:05:41 Gwilym Blair

Then My brother and I, just before the First World War started [?] with a couple of trotters, and use to run them in a pony [?], and run them in local horse shows or flower shows.

00:06:03 Speaker 3

They have trotting even in those days. And do they have trotting races even in those?

00:06:08 Gwilym Blair

Oh, yes, yes, yes. In the Clyne Valley near Sketty. Yes. Well, they had a racecourse up there. And they use to hold meetings there, about once every three months.

Yeah, it was. And then any, any, any big Flower Show or show, they'd have, they'd have it run around the field there you see.

And he and I eventually took up breeding, ponies. Stallion breeding. About 1913-14.

00:07:03 David Mathias

And the war came, and you had to leave all that then.

00:07:07 Gwilym Blair

Yes. My brother carried on.

00:07:09 David Mathias

He didn’t volunteer?

00:07:17 Gwilym Blair

No [?] he worked [?] those days still scheduled [?]. He wouldn’t have passed the army test.

My other brother. He wasn't interested. Interested in [working with horses?]

But we here in the village one day. You could see him coming down in the trap along the road. And I though there’s something funny about that horse [?] he had the bridle on the wrong way.

00:08:06 David Mathias

That's a very difficult thing to do Mr. Williams.

And what year were you born? In this. Would this be in 1890?

00:08:20 Gwilym Blair

1892, on Monday I should be 89 this month. This coming month? Yeah.

00:08:37 David Mathias

And how long had the war been going on before you volunteered?

00:08:45 Gwilym Blair

First time I volunteered, and I turned it down in August.

I was in a [?] holiday when the war was declared. I went back to Pontarddulais. And on the first day of the following week, we went to the back on a Saturday and Monday on Monday.

00:09:03 David Mathias

So it you actually went in then 1914.

00:09:06 Gwilym Blair

Yeah. And they tell me down then. But after that it went. At the beginning of November.

That I would actually push into the Royal Welsh Fusiliers.

00:09:24 David Mathias

How did your parents feel about you volunteering?

00:09:27 Gwilym Blair

They didn’t like it at all. My mother worried a lot. I’m afraid it was a lot worse than worry, she had a slight stroke. Just before I went away.

She was worried because I was contemplating joining [?] and I think that worry brought it about.

00:09:56 David Mathias

But did you manage to write to them?

00:09:59 Gwilym Blair

Ohh yes yes, if I didn't write a letter we had post cards. With set statements [?]

The extraordinary thing about that was you handed it to the corporal. The postal collected the post. The post card could be delivered in Alltwen [Swasnea] the next day.

[?] And we used to get parcels and letters from home to the front line. In a matter of 48 hours.

00:10:46 David Mathias

That must have been very good for morale, then?

00:10:50 Gwilym Blair

Yes. Yes.

[?] And newspapers.

00:10:56 Speaker 3

But you must have had in the battalion or in the company you must have had people who could write. Maybe there was, like, there's help for the people who couldn't write for other people.

00:11:09 Gwilym Blair

Yeah, yeah, yes, they did do that, yeah.

[?]

00:11:16 Gwilym Blair

Yes, yes, yes. So later after I got commissioned, I had to censor a lot of those.

00:11:23 Speaker 3

We would have to.

00:11:23 David Mathias

The men were not allowed to write in Welsh were they?

00:11:29 Gwilym Blair

No. Not unless you had a person who could read and speak Welsh.  And if an officer could, he would censor everyone’s letters, you see.

00:11:49 David Mathias

And what was another Welsh spoken?

00:11:51 Gwilym Blair

Oh yes, you just use it on the telephone for communication. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. For the radar or anything, you'd have Welsh spoken.

00:12:02 David Mathias

There is a very interesting story about the fourth Welsh, which is the Llanelli battalion., in the Second Word War they were all Welsh speakers.

And when they were rehearsing for the Normandy invasion here they were, landing on on the South Coast somewhere. Yeah, from landing craft, carrying out the rehearsals. And they did this one night, obviously, under the cloak of secrecy. And they went into some village and dug in. And of course they were using Welsh. And the locals were up in arms because they thought the Germans had that. And they thought they were foreigners, but they were the Fourth Welsh.

00:12:38 Gwilym Blair

Well that’s funny too because a lot of the Bretons speak Welsh.

00:12:53 David Mathias

Yes.

00:12:55 Gwilym Blair

And.

00:12:58 Gwilym Blair

Is Carrington is twinned with Roscoff in Normandy. And they come across. I speake a smattering of French. I had a brief conversation with them, and, [?]

They stared singing their national anthem which is exactly like .Mae Hen Wlad fy Nghadau’.

00:13:57 David Mathias

And of course, Cornwall, hundreds of years ago used to be known as West Wales.

00:14:00 Gwilym Blair

Yes, yes. And Plaid Cymru. No. Meibion Carno.

[?]

00:14:30 David Mathias

This has been a lot in common, but it was a very interesting television programme that like 3 years ago there's been from Vaughn Thomas. Yeah. And he was comparing the Cornish with the Welsh and with tremendous similarities.

00:14:43 Gwilym Blair

Yeah, well, you see. It was all Gauls you see. Cornwall, Ireland, Scotland, Wales all Celtic. And certain parts of [?] with the Irish language, similar to Welsh and the Galic.

The only the only difference is we don't drink whiskey.

00:15:35 David Mathias

Big beer drink is the Welsh beer is the.

00:15:38 Gwilym Blair

Big drink, yeah.

00:15:42 Speaker 3

Do they have good breweries in South Wales?

00:15:45 Gwilym Blair

Oh yes. There’s Ely Brewery in Cardiff

And Brains

Bevan in Neath

Brewery inside it.

00:15:51 David Mathias

Well, isn't it Buckley’s in Llanelli. And Felinfoel Wales.

Felinfoel, funnily enough, was the first brewery to can beer.

00:16:09 Speaker 3

But have they not been taken over? Have they? Have they not been taken over?

00:16:16 Gwilym Blair

Yes, [?] he bought. He bought the mountain up at Aber[?]

And he presented the biggest checker that has been presented to the bank in and he wrote. He wrote the cheque and he is ever been presented to among him in South Wales, yes. Not sure how many millions.

00:16:45 David Mathias

When was this then?

00:16:49 Gwilym Blair

1909.

00:16:54 David Mathias

Could have a dreadnought battleship for that.

00:16:57 Speaker 3

Really.

00:17:00 Gwilym Blair

In those days, you couldn't.

00:17:02 Speaker 3

But I'm interested that they've managed to stay independent for so many years.

[?]

00:17:24 David Mathias

You. You the Buckley, is. Of course, it's Colonel Buckley is the, or was, is dead now actually, Buckley Brewery owner until recently, he was a Welsh Guards officer.

A fine man, a good man, a local gentry.

And the other great soldier, was Colonel Neville, heard of Kenny? He owns some factories in Llanelli.

00:17:55 Gwilym Blair

Yes, he, he. He probably owned the foundry there [the copper]. Yeah. Copper ones. Yeah.

Neville. Richard Neville. I haven’t heard that name for years. I’d forgot all about him.

00:18:12 David Mathias

But strangely enough, I was speaking to a man. Mr. Lewis, about six months ago and he was a first world war soldier, in the Shropshire’s. He was a regular soldier.

He was telling me.

That after the war we all went back to Wales. And of course there wasn't any work for them. Yeah, and he was. He was in the dole queue anyway. And Colonel Neville, arrived and took all of the ex soldiers and created work for them.

00:18:54 Gwilym Blair

Do you know Dai Hopkin Thomas, from Llanelli?

He was a captain in the Welsh Regiment, actually.

 

 

00:19:29 Gwilym Blair

Is Llanelli steel still running?

00:19:34 Gwilym Blair

That that, that works has all been closed down, all has been closed down, the Morfa, the Glanmorfa, is gone. All you have left there now is Trostre.

And you have Felindre works, that; on the way to Pontardawe isn’t’ it.

the car plants of course, which you would know, but the steel has died in Llanelli. Which is very sad because they’ve just spent billions on the Llanelli Steelworks, and it’s the most modern [?] plants in the world, and within 6 months they closed it down.

00:20:17 Gwilym Blair

Well, there's nothing standing, nothing standing upon [?] now. You know the Steelers and can works. And Carbonite works. A nephew of mine was there overseeing the demolition of the of the building and the distribution of the of the of the machinery. The nothing there.

The Valour Perfection, people, the people you know.

00:20:49 David Mathias

Yes, they would in that sort of new industry. Layland. But the Tros[?] was one of the few British steel plants that made a profit.

[?]

00:21:13 Gwilym Blair

Yes, they made the engines in [?]

00:21:33 David Mathias

Kidwelly is still there, the oldest brough in the area.

00:21:37 Gwilym Blair

Where the cockles come from.

[?]

00:21:52 David Mathias

Yes, Kidwelly is there is there, with the castle, long on the Carmarthen road.

00:22:04 Gwilym Blair

Yeah, yeah, but most most of the cockles come from the other side, because there's some fellow living on the other side, on the on the Kidwelly side, he’s objecting to the killing of the sea birds there because they dig up the cockles.

00:22:23 David Mathias

Yes, and the larva bread as well.

Graham brough some larva bread with him.

00:22:33 David Mathias

I don't know whether Ben knows what another bed is, Mr. Williams.

00:22:25
I do.

00:22:37 Gwilym Blair

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. There's wonderful stuff that's good for you. Yeah. Got a lot of iodine in it.

00:22:47 David Mathias

In Llanelli market, you can buy all these things.

00:22:51 Gwilym Blair

They consume a lot of it in north Devon you know. My son brought some back last weekend.

I still have my house done there you know, storing all furniture that’s left there.

00:23:18 David Mathias

What sort of things did your family send to you then, in France? what sort of food did you get sent by your family?

00:23:31 Gwilym Blair

Picau bach ar y maen

00:23:38 David Mathias

Welsh Cakes and things like that.

00:24:02 David Mathias

It's like my father used to get Welsh cakes. He's just sell them to Americans during the War.

00:24:10 Gwilym Blair

But my life is to make them and take them to the Women's Institute. They're not there in 5 minutes.

00:24:24 Gwilym Blair

You get a cast iron plate, about 3/3 inch thick and a little bit little bit little bit bigger than that. It's put down, put that on top of a fire you see, get a tripod, top of the fire.

Warm it up, and make the mixture – currants, butter, and flour, and cook them.

I used to cook them down in Devon. My wife bought a bakestone in [?] in Cardiff and carted it all the way. Put in on the gas stove you see, but couldn’t get the same results. The heat was confined to the center of the [?] and didn’t extend out to the end. So you had an uneven surface. You had to watch, or they would burn, you see. You had to turn them over, whenever the bakestone was [?].

00:26:28 Speaker 3

Again, it's a long time since you talked about Llanelli before the war, the first war.

00:26:40 Gwilym Blair

Oh yes, I can go back to about 1904.

00:26:55 David Mathias

I don't if you recognise yes, you would recognise the main area, Stepney St is still there, so far. They’ve knocked bits of it down.

00:26:59 Gwilym Blair

[?] Marsh. It's in the shop, but nice shop filling further. That’s where the Davises used to have their business you see.

Right in the centre of the town.

00:27:20 David Mathias

No, that's all changed. Buildings are there. The old market has knocked down. My father used to have the corner shop.

00:27:31 Gwilym Blair

I can’t visualise it entirely. The Main Street leading in from Lacharn, near Swansea Road, I can visualize that, with the rows of houses.

00:27:44 David Mathias

You wouldn't actually recognise that now, though, because they've built Swansea road as it was, yes, but as you come into the town centre they’ve built a new round about and new roads to enable traffic to by-pass. And all of Stepney street, the main street then…

[?]

00:27:56 Gwilym Blair

Yes, and that were the [?]march was.

00:28:16 David Mathias

But the town hall of course is a lovely building, is still there. But obviously that used to be York Hotel, on the corner of [?], they knocked it all down, which is very sad because it was a lovely area.

00:28:17 Gwilym Blair

These old towns have lost their..

00:28:31 David Mathias

Yes, well they definitely destroyed Lanelli’s town. The bridge was [?], the old market was the first place to go, and they built a multi storey car park in it’s place.

00:28:50 Gwilym Blair

Well from there was just an overgrown village really, all the places up the valley, they were linked up with each other. Morriston, Llangyfelach, Ynystawe, Clydach, Glais, [Trebanos?], Pontardawe, Alltwen, Ystradgynlais.
 

00:29:42 Speaker 3

Did Llanelli have its own council?

00:29:45 Gwilym Blair

Oh yeah, it's quite the sizable down. Yeah, yeah, it.

00:29:51 David Mathias

Fact it's the biggest town in in the country of Carmarthenshire.

00:29:55 Gwilym Blair

It would be, I, I should say it would be almost the same size as Woking, the central part of Woking.

00:30:10 David Mathias

Yeah. Oh, yes, it's here. It's a big place and it's taking control of the one area now. Now, that's the population there must be. That's me. Getting on. 50, 60 thousand. Yeah. Itself. Yeah. Yeah. But this huge area which is responsible for them.

But it's nice here. I mean I I like Carmarthenshire, I’m a Carmarthenshire man and I’m very proud of it.

00:30:53 Speaker 3

I wish they hadn't changed all the names. I much prefer the old one. Yeah. Names to the new one.

00:31:01 David Mathias

I think most of the people do as well. They just changed it. No one relates to Dyfed.

00:31:03 Gwilym Blair

It is stupid. I mean, divided them up in the four in the four or five areas out there, and people don’t recognize it.

If we don't, if we don't recognise it, when you when you say no when you know how many people know that when represent one.

00:31:38 David Mathias

And as well, and I mean, there's three lovely names Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire, and Pembrokeshire.

00:31:47 Gwilym Blair

And Clwyd, yes.

[end of side 1]

Tape 2 Side 2

 

00:32:00 Gwilym Blair

And Old Jack is. I call in there occasionally to see him. If he’s in the private sitting room, but he’d always have a pint beside him.

Used to call him Jack Hockey. Because he was captain of the hockey team.

00:32:22 David Mathias

Tell me, Mr Williams. In the battalions, obviously there were lots of and Williamses and Joneses and Davises. And presumably you used your last two numbers to identify yourselves. Of your regimental number.

00:32:35 Gwilym Blair

45087 RWF Williams G.

00:32:44 David Mathias

Did you keep the same number when you got promoted when you got commissioned?

[?]

00:32:54 David Mathias

When was your last two again?

00:32:59 Gwilym Blair

45087

00:33:01 David Mathias

So you would have been 87.

00:33:01Unkownn speaker

So you would have been known Williams 87.

[?]

 

00:33:31 Gwilym Blair

But it would mean only the 14-15 star would be will or other rank.

00:33:37 Gwilym Blair

Yes, my private, my rank, the private because that is when I was when I went there and then the other medal is when I was a sergeant and the last one was as an officer.

00:33:51 Speaker 3

Did they put names on them all?

00:33:52 David Mathias

Yes, they did. All the first world war medals. Unlike the second world war.

00:34:06 David Mathias

Well, that's an unusual group though, because it shows the convention [?]

00:34:09 Gwilym Blair

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

00:34:15 David Mathias

From the Old Contemptibles, the men that were in the BEF (British Expeditionary Force), th e1914 star.

00:34:20 Gwilym Blair

Yeah, there there's a difference between the 19[14] that, those who are overseas who went overseas in 1914. In the ribbon they had a little rosette.

00:34:39 Unknown speaker

How often did you get rum rations?

00:34:42 Gwilym Blair

Oh at every stand down.

00:34:50 David Mathias

Did the give you run before you went into action?

00:34:52 Gwilyn Blair

No [?]

Be standing on the tyres all night. The idea was to knock you out you see.

First rum I had. We went in with the guard, the coastal guards in Le Monte for instruction, you see. And in the morning, stand down.

The officers were [?]. The sergeant was carrying a rum jar under his arm. Pour it out.

[?] dixie. And then he doled it out with a tablespoon, you see. And when he did that, when he did that, I laughed, you see.

And he said, you laughing? He said, you drink it. He said, give it all down you in one.

[?] [laughter]

00:36:05 Speaker 3

Did all the men take the rum?

00:36:06 Gwilym Blair

No, no. Some of them put the rum in their tea.

And then, before the tea, before the tea got really cold [?][shaving?]

And you had to clean, you had to shave, you had to shave and wash, you see, before breakfast. They'd come round, inspect you. Even in front line.

Yes. Yes. And then you cooked your own breakfast.

Cooked your own breakfast and had it. Get the old bread and go and get a bomb box and cut it up. We used to have to whittle it up, you see.

Whittle pieces off the box. Of the wooden box, you see. Feed the fire with that, you see.

To avoid smoke. That's how wood makes a bonfire in the garden. That's how wood makes a bonfire in the garden.

We used to have two, we took pieces off the off the wooden. Yeah, feed it to get the flames.

00:37:39 David Mathias

I suppose you didn't give you give your position away that.

00:37:43 Gwilym Blair

Oh, no, no, you go down. You did it down in the bottom of the trench or in the dugout.

00:37:55 David Mathias

And the day then, generally, in the trench, was spent by taking turns at the sentry and

00:38:03 Gwilym Blair

Yes, turns as a sentry, and maintaining the condition of the sandbags where when it was

The weather, you see, the weather badly. And once you got that slimy, sandy stuff, it opened up the wallop. Fill the trench. You'd have to clear that in. Fill the sand bag, and build up the trench and fresh parapet.

00:38:38 David Mathias

The conditions were very, very, very bad. Oh, yes. And going back to the Mametz Wood, Mr. Williams, when you went down into the attack of the Mametz Wood, it's quite a distance down that valley and up the slope. Yes. You must have been pretty worn out by the time you got there. You must have been pretty tired by the time you got there.

00:38:57 Gwilym Blair

I can't recall that. The whole platoon would try and get this machine up. The second wave, the remainder of the company coming up. 30 or 40 men.

00:39:16 David Mathias

What sort of speed was the advance?

00:39:20 Gwilym Blair

Quick walk the slope up the slope up from the valley to [?] was the [?]

The big drop was coming down into the valley from the right-hand side of the road, coming down onto the road, and then from there up the slope was gentle. It would be a distance of, what, 100, 150 yards.

00:39:47 David Mathias

Were you under fire all that time?

00:39:49 Gwilym Blair

Machine gun bullets, yes. You could see the machine gun bullets hitting spots, hitting spots on the hillside. That's why you'd come down, you see.

They were going high, you see. They were trying to catch you coming down the slope. But you'd come down that slower than you would walk.

00:40:17 Unknown speaker

But the start line for that battle must be where the cemetery was.

[?]
 

00:40:29 Gwilym Blair

Coming down from the Mametz Village towards the valley, it would be, this valley where I tell you that I was detonating these bombs, it would be about 300 yards down the road. And immediately before you got around the corner, you know, up into the valley. Then you'd come up from there, from that [?], you know, onto the top, onto the top of the hill.

The path that I went over, was lined up on that line down, so that we were not up against the skyline, you know.

00:41:14 David Mathias

How did you feel, Mr. Williams? How did you feel going into the attack there?

00:41:18 Gwilym Blair

Proper wind-up.

00:41:24 David Mathias

But having got down there into the wood and got on with the business,

00:41:26 Gwilym Blair

Once you were on the move, you forgot about it.

00:41:33 David Mathias

Mametz Wood has got the reputation of being a dreadful battle, all in all.

 

00:41:41 Gwilym Blair

 

Well, you can just imagine what it was like, really, when I told you the percentage that came out. It's difficult to visualize. One of 30 out of 300. But it must have been very difficult.

00:42:02 unknown speaker

It must have been very difficult to exercise any sort of command and control in the wood there.

00:42: [GB]

You couldn't... The artillery would make such a rattle, you couldn't even [?].

And you couldn't hear the firing, you know, when you fire a rifle. When the bullet comes towards you, you get a crack. You're all right.

 

00:42:39 [DM]

But at the end of that, then, you must have been fairly tired.

00:42:45 [GB]

Oh, yes. Nothing much I could do.

I remember this, in the evening that we had to man a line, in case of an attack.

I tried to keep people awake.

I had Bob Jones from Northrop, Bob, he and I were there. and about every 10 minutes we used to dig each other in the ribs to keep awake.

That was about the only time when I really watched and couldn't keep my eyes open.

00:43:24 [DM]

Having got into the wood then and cleared the machine gun, was there a lot of hand-to-hand fighting as you went through? What did it consist of?

00:43:37

They came along in line, and they were fired at by the Germans from the trenches they had. And then as they retired to the wood, they had to stand behind trees and fire at them from behind the trees. And we had to do the same in advance.

 

We had to do the same in advance. We had to push our way through all these broken branches. And so on.

There was a bit of an undergrowth there.

00:44:21 [DM]

But there must have been at the end of it, must have been littered with bodies.

00:44:24

Oh, corpses. Carrying [?] days afterwards.

000:44:27

Did you actually go, you actually went into the wood then after the battle to take the corpses out?

00:44:32

No, we didn't do that in Mametz. We did that in Ypres for the Canadians.

Our own stretcher-bearers came in [in Mametz].

That's the last thing we were told before going. If any of your pals get hit, leave them alone. Go on, that's all you've got to do. On. Go on. You mustn't stop, even if your best pal is killed beside you. Leave it to the stretcher-bearers.

00:45:17 [unknown]

How often did you oversee the commanding officer in the battalion?

00:45:20

Yes. He was an ex-lancer, the colonel. And he used to come around in the trenches singing, ‘Gilbert the Filbert’

And he used to carry a sheep's crook. A shepherd's crook.

And he'd come along singing. I think he did it as much to show that he was coming in any case.

00:45:49 [unknown]

Did you talk to him?

00:45:51 [GB]

Yes. He was very proud of his ability as a horseman.

On more than one occasion, I heard him tell one of the men off, you were walking as you were marching along the road, and you were rather near the grass verge, there was a grass verge there, and he'd come galloping down or cantering down, you see, and the tendency would be when the horse came along near him, to step in. And he'd say, what's the matter with the man?

Can't you think I can ride a horse? [well-liked] Oh, yes, yes.

Ronald Carden

00:46:49 [DM]

Did you know as many of the officers in the Mametz?

00:46:54 [GB]

Yes, quite a number. Rhys Barfield…

00:47:36 [DM]

And the officers generally were from South Wales. [No]. That must have been later in the war, then. It must have been later on in the war that the officers were Welsh.

00:47:55 [GB]

We had some. We had one from North Wales.

Jim Davis, captain. Captain of the [B] company. [Varables?] came from Bristol[?].

Rhys was somewhere in North Wales, around Bangor. Rhys could speak Welsh.

Chris Ellis, and his brother [?] quite a number, quite a number. And most of these.

We had a large number of volunteers from Manchester. Strangely. They came out of the company.

0049:02 [unknown]

Didn't you have a lot of Englishmen? You had a lot of Englishmen in Welsh companies?

00:49:05 [GB]

Yes.

00:49:15 [DM]

In the RWF. I suppose, really, when you were forming the new army battalions, they were filling up.

00:49:25 [GB]

They couldn't get them quick enough.

We nearly wore out the [?] in Llandudno.

00:49:39

Nice place to be billeted. Pardon? Nice place to be billeted.

[?]

00:49:55 [GB]

I hear John Barbirolli, first of all, his first concert in this country, when I was in Llandudno.

London Philharmonic used to come down to Llandudno and play during the summer. And they hadn't gone back, you see, after the summer of 1914. They were still there when we got there, you see.

And the first thing they gave us was a badge with a dragon on it. You stuck that on your button board. And that was your passport.

Your passport, you see. And we go into these concerts on a Sunday night. And I remember this concert quite clearly.

Harry Tubb, Clare Putt, John Barbirolli, what was the name of the tenor?

English tenor. It was a tenor and a bass. And Clare Putt introduced for the first time in England, Giovanni Barbirolli.

Because you know how he came about to play the cello, you know? Well, all his family were violinists, you see.

And his father gave him a violin. Told him he had to play that. But he took it up, started playing it. But he couldn't sit down to play it. He walked around the place. His father got fed up with him walking about whilst he was playing. And he said, I'll make you sit down. So he bought him a cello.

00:51:55 [unknown]

When did he stop playing the cello and take up conducting?

00:52:00 [GB]

Oh, it wasn't for a long time. After the second world war I think.

 

[?] [sherry served]

00:52:53 [DM]

Do you have any mementos of the war Mr. Williams? Any photographs.

00:53:00 [GB]

Only photographs of myself. Oh, I got a photograph of a house of mine who was with me.

00:52:22 [DM]

Presumably at the end of the war the urge was to try and forget it all, wasn't it?

00:53:25

I had a couple taken when I was stationed at Winchester before we crossed over to France in the middle of 1914. No later than that…

[?]

00:54:17 [GB]

Tell me are you researching, the Royal Welsh

00:54:26

Yes, I am. I found a lot has been written about the war.

Everything's been said about the battles and general conditions. But what is lacking is that people haven't people haven't gone to people like yourself then and asked them how they felt and what the war meant to them.

And I'd like to I'd like to look at I'd like to learn the personal side of it.

00:54:57

I think that most of the fellows that were with me where they did they were just damned annoyed. That's about that's about the general feeling. Annoyed. That they had to be doing these things. But morale generally was extremely good.

And they'd be very humorous incidents as well as serious incidents and sad incidents.

Of course if you if any of the fellows in the company of a platoon were wounded or killed you had a quite a shock and it upset you at the time at the time being but it strange thing about it is it passed off very soon, did it? And one didn't dwell, one didn't dwell on it.

00:56:08 [DM]

You couldn't really let yourself dwell on it, could you? You must have developed a very rudient attitude to life. Must have been very brutal.

00:56:22 [GB]

Being fatalistic, you see. If you name it on it, you got it. There's no other way of looking at it.

00:56:35 [unknown]

I think so. I think there's a fatalistic about it. The other thing too is because the human memory is such that it tends to retain the amusing sort of things and it rejects it rejects the unpleasant things.

00:56:53 [GB]

Yes. I remember one incident quite serious, but we [?] for a long time over it. We went up to the line on one occasion and we were walking in a road building a parapet in front of us in front of the entrance to a dugout, you see.

And we were there and there were several fellows around us filling sandbags and they were bending over you see and a burst of machine gun fire came along you see. It was the bullet went through one fellow's arm you see into the buttock right buttock left right buttock of the fellow next to him and it came out and left the fellow. You see.

So we used to tease used to tease him with it. He got he got this he got this shot and he thought about running away. We had a lot a lot of fun over there for a long time.

00:57:58 [unknown]

It interested me when you were talking about wastage and casualties just by sitting in a place without any offensive movement.

00:58:08 [GB]

Oh yes. When I you know as you come down from Mametz, the road on the on the right hand side there was on the bottom of a slope there was a bunker all the way all the way down.

There were several fellows there in a kneeling position you see up against the up against the slope and others and not a spek on them, not a mark. Dead as fish.

Yes, a blast.

00:58:59 [unknown]

Because it's interesting, you see, because the nearest approach to that sort of trench warfare in Europe before 1945 was in Anzio. And Anzio was the only place where we dug trenches. We had mitigation trenches, we had gun pits, we had overhead cover, and people lived underground.

And there was a place called The Fortress, which was a pretty flat bit of ground, but it had these nullars, these [?] running parallel across the field. And there was just one site, this place was called The Fortress, and the battalions were supposed to hold it for a week at a time, six days at a time. You could have 100 to 200 casualties in a battalion, just for being there.

There was no offensive action at all. You were just home, in a certain amount of patrol. There was no offensive action, just being there.

And you were shelled, mercifully, you know, they always dug trenches. [Shrapnel and splinters]. Well, air bursts in those days.

[And stones blown out of the ground]. And people were, you know, just took casualties, just being there. I've been in The Fortress. [must have been very bad underground, demoralizing]

01:00:26 [GB]

I remember, [?]. they were constantly shelling [?]

And we were billeted in a brewery. You know, we had to, we did walk to the entrance of the brewery. We simply had to run and run like hell as fast as we could.

You know, to get in and out of the building. Always shelling. And there was another place in Ypres, it's called Hellfire Corner.

You may have heard of it. It was covered by machine gun fire and artillery fire. And if you took a body in two truck, you had to stop about 100 yards away before coming to the crossroads, you see.

And then you'd rush over in waves. And you'd have to run like the devil to get across it.

01:01:04 [unknown]

But you see, this is one good thing about the German mentality. They were so precise that you knew exactly what they were going to do.

You could really, you could certainly watch by the time it started to shell in you. You knew damn well that at 9 o'clock they were going to shell for 10 minutes or 4 minutes.

01:01:35 [GB]

Another thing is, when the waggons, [?] waggons used to come up with rations and ammunition to the line in Ypres, they could hear, they could hear the rumble on the cobblestone, you see. Start shelling them and they'd follow them right up. Right up to the discharging point. And once they were at the discharging point, they would stop.

Once it started back again, they would follow with artillery, all along the road.

[?]

01:02:17 [unknown]

Well, you see, it's funny these sort of things you were talking about, certain places like [?] and the equivalents of the last one. You could tell of the German mentality. You get a burst of machine gun fire.

I mean, you know damn well that you've got 90 seconds to get from A to B before the next one. You know, they were methodical. Yes, they were methodical.

01:02:40 [GB]

Yes, catch them when they're not looking.

01:02:41 [unknown]

You've gone up to a place, with your company, and you wait for the sort of burst. And then as soon as they say, right, you know damn well that you've got 90 seconds to get from A to B before the next one. Yes, they were methodical.

01:02:59 [GB]

Yes. So, you see, they had all these places marked out differently. See, they probably captured a lot of our old maps with the trench outside on the survey map.

And then all they've got to do is measure that up on a scale and set their sights on that in a hurry. And they're long-range machine guns, you know. They were wonderful.