A Bugle For The New Day

Chapter one, part seven.

“Brynllech!” Proclaimed Geriant with a sweep of his arm grand enough to herald their arrival in the promised land, but indicating in reality a vista of depredation and upheaval on a scale suggestive of a planet lost in space and ravaged by meteorites. The broad shallow valley below them and the lower slopes of the hills beyond had been subjected to decades of tearing at the earth in search of the blue-grey treasure of slate, resulting in a proliferation of spoil heaps, menacing mountains of waste tumbling in precarious falls of debris, ever advancing, as though the unwanted dross sought to engulf those responsible for the violation.

The actual workings in the narrow vein, where the slate rock struggled to reach a thickness of sixty feet, could only be seen as openings to tunnels honeycombing the hillsides and leading underground to chambers where the slate was mined and transported to the surface on a maze of tramway lines. Open quarrying was carried out in gaping holes staring blindly at the sky like empty eyes, these marking the run of the deep vein with a cleavage of a thousand feet and more.

Standing out among the buildings on the floor of the valley, was a large sombre structure shouldering it’s imperious bulk above a shabby collection of tin sheds and ramshackle workshops housing the machinery necessary to dress the slate to the requirements of the world outside. This dreary looking place, home for the working week to the Owens and the rest of the journeying quarrymen, presented a depressing prospect when viewed from Glyn’s vantage point, but closer inspection would reveal that attempts had been made to mitigate the impression given by the severity of it’s name, The Barracks. The slab walls, it would be found, were of dressed stone-nothing out of shape or ill-placed here- the sills planed and imposing, the roof purlins extended beyond the walls with ogee-carved ends and the windows always gay with floral curtains. Trellis-work framed the front door with climbing roses, colourful in the summer, and there was a small garden with primulas and raspberries attended by the quarrymen. But a greyness hung on everything, the quarry a pervading force not to be denied.

Rising at the far end of the valley, effectively hiding the drab scene from the rest of the world, rocky buttresses thrust against the sky and water glinted in the morning light. It was here that the Nant Sarn stream began it’s journey to the sea, forming on the lower slope a man made reservoir complete with dam and valve tower to provide the source of power for the quarry machinery. Wooden paddle wheels, stationed at points where energy was required, had the water fed to them through a system of slate lined channels, the main culvert running alongside a rough road leading from a derelict farm and a collection of cottages with walls of slate enclosing tidy gardens encouraging spring flowers and a hint of first fruit blossom.

Various places were pointed out to Glyn, including the Manager’s house and his office and the powder magazines, but nothing the young boy saw raised his spirits higher than his bootlaces. He had seen Brynllech many times, running errands for his Mam, carrying messages and tit-bits hot from the oven, but then, in the imaginative childhood he had to leave behind, the quarry seemed to have a rosy glow of an adventurous place where grown ups fought the earth and won. Now he knew differently; he saw it with new eyes and he saw it as a prison, a place of incarceration where he would spend the rest of his days going on for ever and ever.

 Clouds of dust would blot out the sun and the bowels of the earth and sky, machinery would throb to the hiss of steam and the song of the birds would be drowned and gone. For him, that really was the end of the world…..

To be continued.

© Mark Pearson 2007.

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