always been Catrin’s best friend?’ May cut in tactfully.
‘Yes. Lowri is a relative of mine, a second cousin I believe, and when she came here as a servant we impressed on both Catrin and Tom that they were to think of her as a cousin and not merely as a maid.’
‘We’ve always had that easy relationship with all the servants here,’ Tom added. ‘In Wales most of us like to think that we’re all more or less one class. When a lad is hired at Michaelmas to be the junior in a farm – “gwas bach” we call him, “the little lad” – it’s very rare for him to leave the family afterwards, he shares their poverty in the hard times, and shares their meals in the kitchen until he’s too old to work and then retires to one of the cottages. It’s almost unheard of for him to try to better himself by moving to another farm and it’s a disgrace to the family if that happens. It means he was treated badly. But most often the sons of the house and the ‘gwas’ are firm friends. The very word “gwas” can’t be translated as “servant” but as “lad”.
‘I have to admit that it’s very different in England,’ May replied. ‘I’ve been to stay in one or two very grand houses with some of the friends I went to school with, and there the servants are trained to turn round to face the wall if they come across any of the family in any of the passages. I always found it very embarrassing.’
Josi and Tom looked at each other in amazement. ‘It’s no wonder that the Russians are planning a revolution,’ Tom said. ‘If I were a serf and treated like that I’d certainly be one of the revolutionaries and prepared to give my life for the cause.’
‘And I wouldn’t blame you, son.’
‘But there’s unrest in the army too, so many of the rank and file are suspicious and antagonistic towards their officers. Believe me there’ll be a great upheaval when the war is finally over. During my time in France, well over two and a half years, I came across dozens, perhaps hundreds of South Wales miners or sons of mining families. Oh, they swear and spit and speak a comedy type of bastardised English, all “butty” and ‘‘duw-duw’’and “mynufferni”, but they’re all intelligent and very politically aware. Their leaders are sent to Ruskin College by the Working Men’s Union and they come back Marxists to a man and they all seem to be waiting for a class war. Of course they regarded me as bit of a joke, but at least I managed to convince them that I was no spy and eventually they recognised that I was passionately interested in what they had to say.’
‘I can understand what you’re saying, Tom. But I do hope there’ll be no revolution in England. Think of all the bloodshed and mindless killing in France in the eighteenth century.’
‘Yes. But there was never quite as much inequality afterwards. It prevented the rich becoming ever richer and the poor being left to starve. The conditions in France before the revolution were indescribably vile. Anyway, all I’m ever likely to do is talk. I’m very unlikely to take part in any earth-shattering events. I’ve had enough of action for the remainder of my life. I couldn’t ever be a Marxist anyway; it’s too extreme and too idealistic. I mean, take the best of our chapel people, those who really believe in the Sermon on the Mount, are there any that really give all their money to the poor? Or even share it with the poor? As Christians, we know what to do but haven’t the will to do it and I think Marxism would be exactly the same. I think the most resonant verse in the Bible is when God, having sent the great flood to punish the sinners in Noah’s time, sets the rainbow in the sky as a solemn promise that it would never happen again, having realised that “man is evil in his heart”. That’s a hard truth, but it needs to be accepted so that we don’t become too idealistic. All the same, there certainly needs to be something in between
‘Yes. Lowri is a relative of mine, a second cousin I believe, and when she came here as a servant we impressed on both Catrin and Tom that they were to think of her as a cousin and not merely as a maid.’
‘We’ve always had that easy relationship with all the servants here,’ Tom added. ‘In Wales most of us like to think that we’re all more or less one class. When a lad is hired at Michaelmas to be the junior in a farm – “gwas bach” we call him, “the little lad” – it’s very rare for him to leave the family afterwards, he shares their poverty in the hard times, and shares their meals in the kitchen until he’s too old to work and then retires to one of the cottages. It’s almost unheard of for him to try to better himself by moving to another farm and it’s a disgrace to the family if that happens. It means he was treated badly. But most often the sons of the house and the ‘gwas’ are firm friends. The very word “gwas” can’t be translated as “servant” but as “lad”.
‘I have to admit that it’s very different in England,’ May replied. ‘I’ve been to stay in one or two very grand houses with some of the friends I went to school with, and there the servants are trained to turn round to face the wall if they come across any of the family in any of the passages. I always found it very embarrassing.’
Josi and Tom looked at each other in amazement. ‘It’s no wonder that the Russians are planning a revolution,’ Tom said. ‘If I were a serf and treated like that I’d certainly be one of the revolutionaries and prepared to give my life for the cause.’
‘And I wouldn’t blame you, son.’
‘But there’s unrest in the army too, so many of the rank and file are suspicious and antagonistic towards their officers. Believe me there’ll be a great upheaval when the war is finally over. During my time in France, well over two and a half years, I came across dozens, perhaps hundreds of South Wales miners or sons of mining families. Oh, they swear and spit and speak a comedy type of bastardised English, all “butty” and ‘‘duw-duw’’and “mynufferni”, but they’re all intelligent and very politically aware. Their leaders are sent to Ruskin College by the Working Men’s Union and they come back Marxists to a man and they all seem to be waiting for a class war. Of course they regarded me as bit of a joke, but at least I managed to convince them that I was no spy and eventually they recognised that I was passionately interested in what they had to say.’
‘I can understand what you’re saying, Tom. But I do hope there’ll be no revolution in England. Think of all the bloodshed and mindless killing in France in the eighteenth century.’
‘Yes. But there was never quite as much inequality afterwards. It prevented the rich becoming ever richer and the poor being left to starve. The conditions in France before the revolution were indescribably vile. Anyway, all I’m ever likely to do is talk. I’m very unlikely to take part in any earth-shattering events. I’ve had enough of action for the remainder of my life. I couldn’t ever be a Marxist anyway; it’s too extreme and too idealistic. I mean, take the best of our chapel people, those who really believe in the Sermon on the Mount, are there any that really give all their money to the poor? Or even share it with the poor? As Christians, we know what to do but haven’t the will to do it and I think Marxism would be exactly the same. I think the most resonant verse in the Bible is when God, having sent the great flood to punish the sinners in Noah’s time, sets the rainbow in the sky as a solemn promise that it would never happen again, having realised that “man is evil in his heart”. That’s a hard truth, but it needs to be accepted so that we don’t become too idealistic. All the same, there certainly needs to be something in between
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