Recalling ‘the dirtiest workplace in Europe’

FOR many, it resembled a relic of the Dickensian era. Covering 168 acres and once dubbed “the dirtiest workplace in Europe”, at times the temperature got so unbearable that the metal zip on your trouser fly would heat up and leave you with burns.

In other areas, noxious dust would fall like rain, getting in your eyes, airways and under your skin.

Those who worked at the Phurnacite smokeless fuel plant which started up in 1942, took their lives into their hands each time they clocked on.

Some were snatched away in fatal accidents, others were lost by assorted work-related illnesses such as lung cancer and emphysema.

But the danger of the work and conditions were offset by the lifelong friendships that were forged there, and, for many it was a way of life.

And the closure of the notorious Abercwmboi coke works – the 30th anniversary of which is marked this year – left a huge hole in the local community.

While the land it left scarred and barren may have been slowly reclaimed by nature some voids have been harder to fill.

Voids which many, like Paul Davies, feel still exist today.

“I started out there in ‘85 and saw out its last five years,” said the 51-year-old from Aberdare.

“I worked in every section of the plant and enjoyed it – it was like one big family, both during and after hours.

“All the wives and girlfriends got on too and there was a big social life.”

They’d all convene for a pint at the social club and pitch together to fund family get-togethers, kids’ parties and annual outings.

The dad-of-three, who afterwards continued to work in a smaller satellite plant at the same site, added that the closure saw many men lose their sense of purpose.

“A couple of times a week there’d be a funeral procession on the main road and we’d go out and tip our hats. They were the final send-offs to guys who used to work there but had since given up. It was a sad end.”

But there’s no denying the danger of the jobs they’d had.

“I saw one lad get his hand crushed, while another was run over by a wagon. It went over his legs and he died in my arms. You don’t forget something like that.”

Nevertheless, Paul, who’s since suffered a stroke as the result of a subsequent job working with liquid styrene – a known nerve irritant – still misses the place.

“I was upset when it shut,” he said. “I may be partially paralysed down one side and reliant on a walking frame, but I’d go back tomorrow if I could.”

Similarly, Byron Tyson has fond memories of his 25 years working there, if not the job itself.

The 84-year-old Dominican native, who wound up in South Wales from the Caribbean quite by chance, says that his adoptive home couldn’t have made him feel more welcome.

“I was in the Merchant Navy heading for Norway when a friend of mine had an accident while docked in Cardiff, so I decided to stay behind and look after him,” he said.

“There I met my wife, who was a trainee nurse at the Royal Infirmary, and that was that.”

The pair set up home in Aberdare in 1964 and Byron started at the Phurnacite, where, as the plant’s first black worker, he said he had to ‘work twice as hard to prove his worth.’

“The place was a bit of a mess, very dirty, and with hardly any health and safety to speak of.

“There must have been thousands of men working there and I was the only black man.

“With those kind of numbers, you’re always going to get a problem, but, by and large, everyone was really nice. Yes, the camaraderie there was second to none – we bonded, helped each other out. They treated me like a brother and I’ll never forget that.”

He added that he’d often leave the house at six in the morning and not return home until late.

Even then he’d sometimes get a call asking him to go back down to the plant again.

“This was like family to me and we still meet up even now,” added Bryon, who enjoys weekly reunions with ex-workmates on the benches outside the shops in Aberdare – so much so, the group have nicknamed the spot Tyson Square.

“We set the world to rights and to lose them would, to me, be like losing a relative, my own blood.”

Talking of which, Chas Davies was just an 18-yearold apprentice fitter when he followed his father through the gates of the Phurnacite that first time.

“Me and my dad worked there, although he’d been there a long while before I turned up,” says the 77-year-old retired machinery operator who now lives in Aberaman.

“I started there in the mid ‘60s and it was a terrible place,” he sighed. “There were so many different things in there that could kill you – the sulphur, the tar, the fumes, the dust.

“We were just bits of kids really, and the only real protection we had was this thick, greasy barrier cream which we were supposed to smear on our hands. There were no goggles, masks or anything like that.

“That stuff would get on your skin, you see, and you’d have a bad reaction to it, like pitch warts, which was the name given to the black bumps that would break out all over you.”

Chas stuck it out for about eight years, leaving in the early ‘70s.

“It was a good craic working with those lads, but it was a crazy environment,” he said.

“Luckily my health never suffered, so when people ask me why I didn’t try getting compensation like the others, I just shrug and say, ‘Because I’m fine.’”

He’s referring to the small group of ex-staff who, in 2012, successfully brought a test case to the High Court on behalf of nearly 200 workers who held British Coal accountable for them falling ill at work.

“I’ve had nothing wrong with me, but so many people I knew who worked there have died early. So there’s got to be something in it, hasn’t there?”

Those who lived near it certainly had their suspicions about the health threats posed by what they’d come to call the Egg Factory, so christened because of the sulphurous stink it kicked out.

A blot on the landscape, it covered the houses nearby in a film of filth you could run your finger through, while the phones in the Phurnacite offices