Letter 6 | March 5 2001

Hi,

I am very glad that there is a website dedicated to Nantyglo and Blaina and hope that its creation will capture the attention and imagination of anyone who was born or has lived in that very special place. The two towns (villages, really) have always been known as Nantyglo and Blaina. The large black and white cast iron signs at each end of the valley—one at the top of the valley at the entrance to Nantyglo and the other at the bottom, just as the road leaves Bourneville to move into Blaina—even declares to the visitor that he is about to enter 'Nantyglo and Blaina Urban District Council'.

Even though they are joined together, there has always been a very strong and very real sense of rivalry, most keenly felt on the local rugby pitches. Blaina [players] were still playing 'down the Duffryn' when I was growing up, although around the time of Blaina's centenary year in 1975—when they beat Newport, Pontypool, Aberavon and anyone else who dared come near—they moved up the hill to Cwm Celyn's Central Park, not a stone's throw from Nantyglo. If anyone can remember the cup game against Gareth Edwards' mighty Cardiff side, they might just remember three young kids—me, my sister Jolie and our inseparable friend Robert Hale—squashed into the packed rugby ground, pinned against the iron railings, waving the biggest banner in the ground. Made of an old sheet and two broom handles, it screamed out in big red hand-drawn letters 'C'Mon Blaina'. Although we hoped it would raise the team just one more time, Blaina unfortunately lost—but they did go down fighting. At least us three young kids were picked out by the TV cameras and featured, for a moment at least, on that weekend's Rugby Special!

Sadly, Blaina's rugby team, like the town itself, has seen better days. As the shops close and houses get boarded up, it is difficult—and sad—to contemplate the thriving, busy and—for a kid—hugely exciting Blaina of the 'sixties and 'seventies when I played on the coal tips, chased the steam engines and hitched lifts on the back of guard's vans at the tail end of the long, fully-laden coal trains, wandered around the sidings and Beynon's pithead, fished in the Feeder and spent hours on end climbing up the mountains searching for wimberries. I left for university when I was seventeen and have not lived there since. Now with my immediate family either moved on or passed away, the need to return regularly is no longer there. But every time I do go back, I still feel the pride, the pin-pricks of excitement and the sense of adventure that I used to feel when I was growing up—especially when Blaina's famous rugby team ran out onto the field.

Thank you for starting this website. I hope that it brings together people who know Blaina and Nantyglo and generates interest around the globe.

Best regards,
Llewellyn Bankes-Hughes
Director of Publishing

BunkerNews
MRC Business Information Group Ltd
5 Worcester St
Oxford, OX1 2BX, England

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    © Jon Kennedy 2001