Book Review - Around Llanelli by Brian Davies

Images of Wales: Around Llanelli by Brian Davies (Tempus Publishing; £12.99). Review by John Williams, LCH member and editor of A People's History: Glanymor and Tyisha.

Assembling great wadges of old photographs into collections and flogging them off has become something of a cottage industry in recent times. And, not surprisingly, the books usually sell well, given that interest in local history has soared in recent times, not just round these parts but all over Wales.

My quibble with most of the collections I've seen (and I collect books about dear old Wales) is that the photograph captions are so often frustratingly short of detail. In many cases, the photographs themselves are rendered almost useless because unless we were privy to that particular event (and we're not all that old) we're left wondering about the context.

So it's good to see Around Wales, a collection where the words are regarded as almost as important as the photographs. It makes the book so much more enjoyable.

Another reason I like Brian Davies's book is his unstinting recognition that working people (his father toiled at Morewoods Tin workers) are just as important to the Llanelli story as the bigwigs and captains of industry.

As he puts it in his introduction, "...it will be obvious from my selection of material that I have inclined heavily to photographs that put an emphasis on people. Whether it is Edwardian boys and girls standing smartly (and still) in the street while the photographers took their shots, whether it tinplate workers, steelworkers, pottery workers, artists or whatever... My selection of photographs of streets, for example, leans heavily towards what is described as animated street scenes. This quite deliberate. Whilst lovely and historic buildings can be destroyed, the people that built them, lived in them or worked in them are those that made and created the history of Llanelli. They are the people whose character has shaped the town."

Among the more dramatic images are those that chronicle the violent aftermath of the authorities' lethal reaction to the Llanelli railway strike of August 1911 - a key event in the town's history.

Troops were rushed to the town and, on August 19th, five marksmen from the Worcester Regiment fired into a crowd that had gathered in gardens alongside the railway line at Union Bridge. Two people were killed and two injured and the townspeople's fury led to widespread looting. Four others died when explosives blew up in a goods siding and the damage included an attack on a train carrying army kit and provisions.

Four of the photograph shown here were sent by a Llanelli woman, Alice Rees to a friend (they were taken by her brother). She added detailed comments that have come down to us as a valuable contemporary account of this terrible episode.

Elsewhere in the book, there are a couple of photographs which cast the military in a more favourable light, both depicting John Davies - the first taken in 1915 when as a Lance Corporal with the 17th Battalion of the Welsh Regiment he was awarded the Military Medal for bravery (he carried a wounded officer back to his lines) and the second taken in 1955 when Mr Davies was a postman in Dafan.

I have a fondness for old images of vehicles and there is a magnificent full-page photo, taken about 1912, of crowded open-top electric trams passing each other in Stepney Street, the destination board of one reading "Felin-Foel" and the other the "Railway Station". In the background can be seen another tram. As if to emphasis that this new-fangled electricity wasn't having it all its own way, there are two horse-drawn vehicles in the shot, one driven by a top-hatted individual in a splendid frock-coat.

Parc Howard Museum in Llanelli houses a fine collection of Llanelly Pottery and Mr Davies' book carries a photo, taken around 1900, of the Roberts family, which includes Sarah Roberts, who painted the cockerel plates that are today much coveted by collectors.

I hear that Mr Davies is preparing to follow up this current publication and is trawling the town for suitable images. I wish him luck, for it's difficult to see how he could even match, leave along surpass the present volume.

I thoroughly recommend Images of Wales: Around Llanelli. The book came out around last Christmas, is still on sale in local bookshops .

John Williams, 2005.

Busy Stepney Street around 1912.	John Davies, MM, in 1915	The Roberts family, including plate painter Sarah Roberts, around 1900.
Carriage windows smashed on August 19th, 1911.