“All I am doing is extending to the entire population of Britain the benefits we had in Tredegar for a generation or more. We are going to ‘Tredegar-ise’ you.”
Aneurin Bevan
Introduction
Situated on the banks of the Sirhowy River in the county of Blaenau Gwent, in the southeast of Wales, the Welsh town of Tredegar comes from the Welsh words Troed-y-gaer, literally translating as the foot of the camp. This town was once part of the epicentre of the mining community where coal-dusted brave souls risked their lives to dig out the dark diamonds that helped fuel an economy, with rows of terrace houses adorning the streets and hot summers and bleak winters. An ancient earthwork lights up this town with a fuzz of rich green grass covering it. This is where the late Ray Reardon played as a child, sticking a lead pipe in the ground to sit on cooking jacket potatoes and smoking brown papers with his friends.
A clock soars above the town centre in one full of steep streets. The pubs that changed hands many times were once where Ray frequented for a couple of pints before he went to the social club to dance and keep a watchful eye for a pretty girl. These hills of coal, fire and iron house Tredegar House, Tredegar Arms Hotel and pubs like the Nags Head Inn, Railway Tavern and the Belle Vue. If these streets could talk, they would tell you about the snooker rivalry between Ray Readon and Cliff Wilson—the hive of snooker activity in Tredegar Working Men’s Institute. It was where miners once came to rest their weary bodies, sup pints, put the world to rights and watch a fascinating game of snooker played by Reardon, Wilson and others.
The Mother
Once soaring into the skies was the spinning wheel of the colliery—a place where Ray, his father and his grandfather toiled during their working day. Pale-skinned and muscular, these community giants were respected but rewarded with love rather than copious sums of money. Blackened and tired, they resurfaced to the dusk of the day. Returning to their tiny homes to scrub the toil from their bodies in a tin bath in front of a coal fire. Their children are waiting to hug their father, and a loving wife is ready for a hot meal of sustenance and a ploom of steam coming from a hot mug of tea.
This once-small community still only has a population of 15,000 and was once a lever of the Industrial Revolution and a hive of rebellion with three riots taking place here in the 1800s. The Irish community was driven out of the town with bricks and furniture thrown into the street and this and their homes were burnt to a crisp. Beaten and bruised they left and troops had to be called in to quell the violence. Often used as a filming location, Labour Party figures like Aneurin Bevan and Neil Kinnock hailed from this area with a set of stones built to commemorate Bevan. A town where Ray Reardon once played marbles and was so proud to call his spiritual home.
