About two years ago, the National Museum in Cardiff curated an exhibition called The Valleys. The exhibition featured a myriad of objects which showcased both the well- and lesser-known cultural and social history of the South Wales Valleys. These objects ranged from portraits of miners to sports memorabilia to speeches from Aneurin Bevan – there was even a documentary on the miner-turned-glam-rock-wrestler from Brynmawr, Adrian ‘Kid Tarzan’ Street (I highly recommend checking it out). At the centre of the exhibition was the story of a colourful working-class culture that resisted, fought, and thrived in spite of neglect and oppression, in an endeavour to bring about a fairer future.
One item that instantly stood out to me was a quote from Raymond Williams’ 1958 essay, sprawled on the left-hand wall as you entered the exhibition. It read:
‘Culture is ordinary: that is where we must start. To grow up in that country was to see the shape of a culture, and its modes of change. I could stand on the mountains and look north to the farms and the cathedral, or south to the smoke and the flare of the blast furnace making a second sunset.’
In his full essay, Williams argues that culture has long been associated with privilege and wealth. He goes on to reject these sentiments, arguing that culture belongs to all of us, everywhere. It is in our communities, heritage, and landscapes, informing our collective identities and bringing us closer together.
The Valleys, for example, is not an area of privilege or wealth, and yet it has a very specific and easily recognisable culture, which has gone on to form a distinctive collective identity within its communities. Sometimes this identity is ridiculed and looked down upon; sometimes it is celebrated in exhibitions at national museums. Nevertheless, this identity has survived and evolved over the years, rooted in its rich heritage and mirrored by its ever-changing landscape.
This relationship between landscape, heritage, and identity isn’t just abstract—it’s deeply personal. I grew up in a little village called Cwm Clydach, a stone’s throw away from what used to be the pithead baths of the old Cambrian Colliery. Originally, Clydach was farmland, with a tiny population—until coal was discovered there in the mid-nineteenth century. Suddenly, there was an influx of migrant miners, eager to begin work in the newly formed collieries. Quiet, rolling farmland was transformed into an industrial haven. Hundreds and thousands of terraced houses were built to house the miners and their families, and as workers’ rights movements and the unions progressed, sports facilities, workmen’s halls and miners’ libraries joined the man-made structures that would come to define the coalfield landscape. By simply observing the change in Clydach’s natural and man-made landscapes during this period, we can tell a lot about the identity of the community that was forming: working-class, close-knit, politically minded, and union-centric.
Now, the natural landscape of Clydach is a far cry from the industrial environment of the past. The mines are gone, and wind turbines have replaced the pit wheels. This change began in the mid-20th century, as the UK went through a period of deindustrialisation. In 1966, the Cambrian Colliery closed, largely influenced by the final Cambrian Disaster in 1965. The disaster killed 31 men—a year after Aberfan, which killed 116 children and 28 adults. A pit wheel at the site of the explosion now serves as a memorial to this disaster, as well as to the 33 people who died in the original Cambrian Disaster in 1905. Over recent years, the wheel has been joined by posts marking the deep shafts of Cambrian, and signs which go into more detail about the history of the Valleys. These are features of the new Cwm Clydach Country Park, which is now being advertised as a heritage site and ‘a nature-lovers’ paradise’ by the local council, in an attempt to attract tourism to the Rhondda.
Despite the change in natural landscape, the memorials are not the only remnants of the locality’s coal-mining past. People still live in the terraced houses that once housed miners; choir rehearsals and ballet lessons take place in the miners’ halls and working men’s clubs; miners’ libraries still serve as places of education. Even the odd Friday or Saturday night when you can’t be bothered to get the train into Cardiff can be spent at the NUM club, singing along to some questionable tribute bands. The result is a landscape where the past lives in dichotic harmony with the present. Some might argue that it represents how the Valleys have been left behind—forgotten by post-Thatcher Britain. I counter that. I believe it tells the story of an innovative community who, when faced with the threat of abandonment, used and repurposed their heritage to create much-needed community facilities and attract tourism in an endeavour to revive their local economy.
Still, the transformation of the landscape is only part of the story. To understand the true identity of the Valleys, we must also confront the legacy of exploitation—both environmental and human—that continues to shape the region. From farming to coal to wind, the landscapes of the Valleys have followed a pattern of being exploited for their rich natural resources. Similarly, their people have also been exploited. Historically, this has been through hard labour, poor working conditions, and poverty. More recently, the Valleys have been exposed to exploitative far-right political campaigns promising quick fixes to issues that have arisen from years of neglect—neglect stemming from the same isolationist and punch-down ideologies that got us into this situation in the first place.
But these people—who see us as easy prey for their sensationalist tactics—do not understand the heritage of a diverse people that is the Valleys: descended from migrant workers across Wales, the UK, and beyond. They don’t know these people whose great-grandfathers volunteered to fight against fascism abroad in 1936, or whose fathers and grandfathers fought for their livelihoods in 1984–85, in a movement that was fuelled by international aid, as well as support from LGBTQ+ groups and women’s groups. Of course, one cannot pretend that the Valleys have always been a pillar of acceptance and tolerance—there have been race riots and bigotry scattered throughout our history, often instigated by the lazy arguments that blamed those less fortunate than us for our issues, rather than the wealthy politicians who ran the country or owned the mines.
One cannot remember the good without the bad, and evidently this particular history lesson is something we are still yet to learn from. Therein lie the contradictions. There’s no doubt the Valleys have done well in memorialising their history, but perhaps that is no longer enough. We must go beyond monuments and moments of silence; we must actively engage with our heritage, read about it, and learn from it too. Yes, it is painful and difficult to confront the struggles of our ancestors, but if we fail to do so, we risk losing a vital part of our identity—and with it, a powerful tool in our resistance against the far right.
Even now, as lush greenery disguises the once coal-scarred mountains, gradually erasing signs of our mining days—days which now seem further away than they actually are—there are still echoes of past exploitation. It happens every now and then, when the weather’s been particularly wet: the earth bleeds black, and a forgotten coal heap edges an inch closer to the town below. When this happens, it is our reminder to remember: remember our heritage, remember the neglect we have suffered from out-of-touch politicians, and remember to resist them—and fight for a fairer future.
Written for the Heritage Network Youth Forum by Phoebe Shanley, National Lottery Heritage Fund UK Heritage Trainee at the Heritage Network.
Photo Credit – Gwern Wiliam ap Gwyn
