MORNING SERIAL

THESE blocks were railway sleepers, and it was here, in 1804, that the first ever steam locomotive in the world had run on rails.

Designed by the Cornish engineer, Richard Trevithick, the event was prompted by a bet between two ironmasters, and the engine hauled wagons holding a load of iron and men the ten miles or so between Penydarren and Abercynon – the world’s first railway journey.

My father told me the story every time we passed this way, and I was happy to listen whilst I searched for more of the sleeper stones by kicking away their covering layer of moss and grass, as the modern railway running on a trackbed a little further up the hill clattered above us.

He told the story with a mixture of pride and aggravation. Pride because our valley had been first, and aggravation because all the credit for the first railway journey had gone to Stephenson and his ‘Rocket’ which had run on the Liverpool-Manchester railway some twenty-five years later. It was not the last time, by any means, that I would hear a story of how the Valleys had been overlooked, and our achievements sidelined or forgotten.

It was time to strike out for home now, along to the Black Lion signal box and to Merthyr Vale. Time to contemplate the red and black wine gums still in my pocket.

My father and I must have walked that route dozens of times and I cherished the time I spent with him. Sometimes we talked incessantly all the way, sometimes in companionable silence, always happily.

My Dad, despite, or perhaps because of, his upbringing in this most industrial of places, was always drawn to the countryside.

In the summer holidays he would drag us along to agricultural shows in Brecon or Abergavenny, which I must admit bored me, but he would stand for hours admiring the animals and had a special fondness for horses. It was as if he felt he had missed out on something.