WHAT'S IN A NAME?
by Eira McKibbin

'Machynys' is signposted with Trostre as you come into Llanelli from the M4, and again off New Dock Road in town. But following the signs, you never know whether you've got there or passed it. So I got a guided tour from Eira, the author of the piece below, and her sister who still lives round the corner. We met up on a rainy day outside the buildings now occupied by builders' merchants WAM. Although the two sisters were born and brought up within a few yards, it took them a while to find their bearings between closed-off roads, new roundabouts and remould dunes. We left the car and hopped over puddles, past a pile of brick and timber, down a pitted track towards the sea. On the left, Bwlch y Gwynt, a pond with swans and cygnets. On the right, across a strip of flat dead ground and up a grassy ridge, a bit of ivy-covered wall. That's our landmark, said my guides, Machynys Farm.

We turn off the road and push uphill through soaking grass, waist high with yellow veitch and thistles. The stub of stone wall at the top, on a line between the yellow roof of WAM and the butt of the Gower across the water, is what must have been the oldest building in Llanelli. Apart from the square of overgrown stones, only a brick gateway still stands, facing seawards. What we're looking for now is round the corner, where the ground slopes off to the west. We find ourselves overlooking a flimsy fence, at some stunted shrubs, staked and shielded from the wind by plastic mesh, 'That's where it was, our house... and the steelworks there'.

Saturday nights were so tranquil. The steelworks was shut down. Everything around you was eerie and unearthly..

.The one thing you could depend on, Saturday evening was my mother's rabbit-dinner. You could smell onion gravy down on Burry Road. But sleep was hard to come by on Saturday nights. We missed our lullaby, the gnawing, roaring sounds of the gantry. The steelworks ran alongside our houses, the six houses of Cliff Terrace and the 13 opposite in Bay View. Cliff Terrace used to be known as Tai Gaffer, with bigger houses built for foremen at the works. My mother used to say there had originally been 20 houses in Bay View, but a few were demolished to make way for Richard Thomas and Baldwin. Across the grass between Cliff Terrace and Bay View hung communal clothes lines, where, on a fine Monday, you could see displayed the cleanest washing in the land.

On Saturdays, we missed the sounds of the engines, laden with coal from the tip, steaming and shunting back and forth. Normally, we could hear the trucks coupling up, the ingots crashing from the furnaces - the same furnaces that lent their orange-glowing flames, shadows dancing, to our bedroom ceilings. How secure it made me feel. It completely locked out the dark mackerel sky outside. Unless you wanted to read, and light a candle, the furnaces gave adequate light. Enough for 'magic lanterns' on the wall.

Sunday morning came, and the peace was soon shattered by the stoking up of newly-lit furnaces and men clip-clopping in their clogs. White sweatshirts round their necks and enamel teacans in hand, they marched along Brick Row for a refill at the canteen. The canteen was sited at the bottom of the Cliff and served the industries of Machynys. It also served us children. We used it as a meeting place on cold winter evenings, and many's the hot treat we had, straight from the oven. I can smell the homemade pies, pasties and dinners. Such security in the warm building.
On Sundays in summer, neighbours would gather outside for a natter, on everlasting wooden benches made of sleepers from the steelworks. The screeching of seagulls from the Channel was a signal to everyone that Will Hopkins and crew were home from a day's fishing. He used dragnets, and the trolleys trundled home with the catch to Number One, Cliff Terrace. Full of flapping, slithering fish, they were - flatfish, mackerel and whiting. If there were rays in the haul they were hung like show-pieces from the wall. Those pink, limewashed walls were so high and private. In the back yard, the rest of the Hopkins family were waiting, all hands on deck, to sort and weigh the fish, ready to sell to the neighbours.

At Eddie John's Gospel Hall down on Burry Road, children sang their hearts out on Sunday afternoons. 'Jesus loves me...' we sang. 'You must sing loud or God won't hear you,' said Uncle Eddie. We got trips for good attendance, for the day to Llansteffan or Ferryside. We used to prepare for those trips for three days. My mother would boil a hambone for sandwiches, buy us a new dress and shoes. It was the event of the year.

Further up Burry Road was the Ambulance Room, the panacea for all our headaches, cuts and scrapes. Nobody had a medicine cupboard and we all received first class treatment there. The Ambulance Room also saw lots of more serious accidents, some fatal. My father, who drove a crane, was on his back for months after a pin came out. The peculiar thing was that the accidents at the steelworks seemed to happen on Sundays.
 Opposite the Ambulance Room were the works ponds. The steam rising from them was like a cloud of candy floss blocking out Brick Row as you walked up Burry Road. In the warm water, there were gold fish, and we fished for them with home-made nets

Brick Row had three houses that were lived in - Mary Annie Rees, Gwennie and Jonah Brennan and Mrs. Clement. The end house was used as 'Pegging Office' for the steelworks. The walls inside were full of clock-cards in racks. Through a glass partition, you could see the 'Timee' sitting by an open fireplace. A brown enamel teapot - at least it was brown if you blew the soot off - sat on one hob, a black cast iron kettle on the other, simmering, ready for the next cup of tea. In winter, this was our bus shelter. 
Past the Canteen, at the Cliff bottom, were two houses. The Holloways lived in one and Hattie and Walter Rees in the other. Then, up a little further on your right, were the Works Offices, once a school, where my mother went as a child. And across the road from there, the farm.

Machynys Farm, Cliff Terrace and School.

Machynys Farm was such a beautiful building. Legend has it that it was once a monastery, and I have read that beams in the old farm house dated back to the 15th century. Later, it belonged to the Stepney family, who cut down the avenue of trees that led from the farm to Ty Llanelli. It once had a lovely walled garden. As I remember it, there was just the farm, with about 50 acres of land and huge stately rooms. The staircase was a masterpiece of carpentry. In the basement there was a trap-door, leading to a tunnel. It was said that the monks had a tunnel under the estuary to Llanridian Church.

The farm, demolished in the 'seventies, was a source of education as well as mystery to us as children, the wonder of seeing a calf being born and the amazement when it stood on its feet so soon after. For the privilege of helping milking and preparing the cattle cake, we had to muck out the cowsheds. At haymaking, we would be so tired at the end of the day, but still did not want to go home. But our parents knew we were safe.

You see, we were almost self-sufficient on our little island - which is what Machynys once was. We got dairy produce from the farm, fish from Will Hopkins, or my brother Howard who had his own dragnets. There were rabbits from the tip, and cockles and mussels from the 'traeth'.

At the bottom of the hill, on the same side as Cliff Terrace, was the Power House, an old chapel converted to the needs of industry. In the garden there were apples and peartrees, blackberries and tons of rhubarb. There was also a shed, where Jack Andrews sold cigarettes and pop, and took bets on a lunchtime. He kept all his stock in that shed, but I never remember any break ins.

In summer, we picked elderflowers which my mother made into a cure-all tea. In our cupboard, there were a few bottles of that, alongside the goosegrease, the liniment, and an ointment for aches and pains. Only my mother was allowed in the cupboard, because only she knew what was in the mixtures.

On the tip, we had our black diamond mountains, making coal merchants a very rare sight. One way or another, we had our coal fires free, even if that meant dodging works policemen Will and Dai Payne. These two brothers didn't miss much, apart from my mother's buckets of 'cols' - the layer of cinders, under which she hid the coal. Most of this transport went on while the brothers slept on nightshift, but one time a group of women was caught when Dai stuck his head out of an air raid shelter by the railway. The women dropped their buckets and ran. In court, the buckets were held as evidence, and to be reclaimed. Most of the women were too afraid to come forward, but one who did own up was fined £1. As this was cheaper than the cost of a new bucket, the other three women went to pay their fines and get their buckets back. In fact, they got off with warnings, but from that day on they carried their 'cols' in carrier bags.

The steelworks wasn't the only industry. Machynys was linked to the mainland early in the last century, and a whole family of industries were set up. Burry Tinplate works, Thomas and Clement foundry, Nevill's foundry, Burry Box Company and Richard Thomas Mills near Maliphant Row. The thirst of these heavy industries was served by the Globe Inn on Maliphant Row and the 'Tafarn' at Bwlch y Gwynt.

It was also near Maliphant row that the fuel bricks were stored. They were an excellent source of heat and marvellous for heating the ovens we all had. As time went on and stocks depleted, word went around that all the coal houses in the area would be opened for inspection. Very soon, everyone was white washing their coalhouse interiors, false walls of neatly stacked-up fuel bricks.

For other provisions, we went to Roberts the Shop, across the channel. The Roberts were a brother and sister, two really Christian people. Harry was placid but easily flustered when his sister ordered him around or people demanded more than their ration books allowed. Annie, his sister, was the accountant, always watchful on a high wooden stool behind her much-treasured wooden desk, which she banged shut when she'd had a bad day. There she sat, stern-faced with her two grey plaits wound round like earphones over her ears. Frightening if you hadn't detected the kindness underneath the austere surface. I say they were Christian because nobody ever left the shop without food, whatever their circumstances.

On Fridays, my mother got her 'pay' from my father, and however far she made it stretch, it wasn't always enough. I remember her sending me with her purse with two-pound-ten, a list as long as your arm and a note asking for the money to come off the bill. I made sure I passed it to Harry, so that he would get the tut-tuts and black looks from under his sister's glasses. But I got the goods. Most families were in the same boat, Miss Roberts knew that people were genuinely struggling.

There was a community, with values that could not be learnt from books, and an education where everyone spoke common sense. It hurt when people were forced to move. Their roots were torn up and many people died soon after. For what we remember, only the farm wall is left as a marker. If the houses and works - and the jobs! - could not be kept, why did they have to demolish the farm? I get angry when I see the bold sign 'Morfa Park'. Morfa, the marsh, is devouring our island Machynys. The cliff itself has been graded out for this new environment. Behind the new Afon Dafen bridge, the Channel - where Will Hopkins tied up his boat - is half filled in

.

Richard Thomas Mills & Wharf, the Channel where Will Hopkins moored his boat.

We are left with the ghost of a girl with a lamp who stood on the cliff to lure the boats aground. She set light to the gorse, we were told, and was found with her throat cut beneath the cliff. Andthe beach, the 'traeth' where we learnt to swim in the long hot summer, tipping over rocks for crabs. I can still smell the log fires we made for cooking periwinkles in tin cans. Across the estuary, we could see red buses, but the Gower might have been America...

What's three thousand miles, or 40 years? I can still hear children singing round the Pegging Office on New Year Morning, to be rewarded greatly for our carols.

It's no longer raining as we walk back down through the unkempt hay. Standing out from the rubble that used to be Burry Mills is a massive timber plinth. Tipped half on end, like a raft in a storm, it must have resisted the contractors plant. Across the pitted roadway, Bwlch y Gwynt is windy still