Cwmardy

This novel, published in 1937 and republished in 2006 as part of the Library of Wales project, is a key novel of industrial fiction as it depicts the emergence of a trade union movement among the miners of a valley in South Wales. Whereas the main conflict in the novel is a lengthy miners’ strike, the First World War features towards the end of the novel. The central character, Len Roberts, an aspiring leader of the local mine workers, is involved in arranging an anti-war lecture by a socialist activist. His father, a Boer War veteran, volunteered for active service but Len, having also volunteered, did not pass the medical and remained at home to work in the mine and support his mother.

Lewis Jones (born 1897) began work in a colliery at the age of 12 and was part of the workforce involved in the famous 1910-1911 strike that led to the Tonypandy riots in which large numbers of policemen and soliders were used to control the striking workers. Given that there is a strong autobiographical current in this novel, it would seem likely that the author did not serve in the war on account of some physical infirmity (as is described in the case of Len Roberts in the novel). He died of a heart attack in 1939 while campaigning in support of the Spanish Republic.

In this novel, the author describes how the striking miners’ protest is violently suppressed by the army. The troops opened fire on the protesters. In the aftermath, Ezra Jones, the senior leader of the miners, speaks to his men in a low voice:
“My poor friends, we have arrived at the saddest moment of our lives. The strike, which we began with so much confidence and faith, has brought us nothing but misery, injury and, now, death. The forces against us are so many and so great that they can smash our determination by bludgeon and bullet in the name of law and order. I don't know what we can do.”
Len’s response is emphatic:
“We can't expect to fight a battle without suffering hurt... We can grieve for our poor butties who have been battered and shot but to give in now will be to betray all the principles for which they have suffered and died.”

When the actual war comes, Len’s father joins up. His wife, Siân, tells her son:
“Your dad be gone... Perhaps he will never come back to us. The good Lord alone knows what he have gone for. I don't. They do say the Shermans are cruel. Perhaps they be; I don't know. But wasn't our own sodegers cruel that night they did shoot down our men for nothing? Them was supposed to be our own flesh and blood but that did make no difference. When their guns went 'bang', our men did drop just as sure as it was Sherman guns.”

Len’s own opinion of the war also reflected the military attack on the strikers:
“Although I don't know what it is and can't explain it, something inside me tells me that we must let the people know the two sides of the war. Wherever we turn now we only hear one side. Everybody is wrong and terrible and cruel except our own people. I can't believe this. There are bound to be some decent people among the Germans. We are told that they do this, that and the other but I can't forget what our own soldiers did to us during the strike.”