Open Secrets - Chapter 1

Open Secrets Chapter 6

"Shall we come and move it out of your way mother Rebecca?" shouted John, in a kindly tone of voice.

Huw reached out his hands, groping wildly and pinching Dai Prodger’s bottom, as if by accident.

“Oi,” said Dai indignantly, but Huw was now back in character.

 "Wait! It feels like a big gate put across the road to stop your old mother."

“Big old arse more like,” shouted Twm Beulu, who was quite drunk.

 "We will break it down, mother. Nothing stands in your way," cried John.

 "Perhaps it will open,” Huw quavered in a plaintive voice,  “ Oh, fy mhlant annwyl, Oh my dear children, it is locked and bolted. What can be done?"

 "It must be taken down, mother,” shouted Twm, Harri Taf and John,” You and your children must be able to pass."

 "Off with it then, my children, dyma ni blant, i’r ceffylau  - to horse, to horse,” shouted Huw, pulling his mob cap down even more firmly over his head and making his way to the stable yard, at first hobbling like an old woman but soon picking up his skirts and running like a twenty five year old man.

John relished being part of a team of men again. His life had been family orientated and otherwise solitary for a very long time.  Before the famine in Ireland, the companionship of working together with other men, whether it was bringing in the potato crop, building a stone wall or going out fishing had been an integral part of the daily round.  All those activities had collapsed when the potato crop failed and when they had first come to Wales, it had taken time for him to become accepted.

It had been easier for Ann and the boys, for they were in the village all the time and especially with the birth of George, they had made friends with other families. For John, driving his cartloads of lime or produce along the winding roads of Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire, it had been more difficult.

He had gained all sorts of knowledge on his travels, and had met a much wider variety of people than ever before in his life. He had been at the local farms and markets early and late and even down to the ports and docksides of Neyland, Tenby and  Milford occasionally.  He had seen men blacker than pitch and men with ferocious whiskers and wearing enormous bound head dresses and swarthy men with dark flashing eyes and gold ear-rings.  He had seen men with monkeys and even once a travelling beast show with an elephant and a camel, on the road north to Aberystwyth.  He hadn’t been able to wait to get back home after that trip to tell Ann about his adventures, and she had shared his excitement and even said, rather wistfully, that she wished she could have seen some of these wonders too.

Huw’s shouts of encouragement brought him back to reality.

“Come on boys,we’ve had the word that it’s safe to ride tonight.  If we go now we’ll have the toll booth alight and be back here by one o’clock!”  Huw Williams was daubing charcoal liberally on his own face and the face of anyone who came near him as he careered across the yard.

“Yes, come on,” Dai Prodger shouted, and the men and the horses all streamed out into the chilly autumn night.

“I couldn’t do this riding side saddle,” Dai complained, as he bundled his voluminous flannel skirts onto the fat old mare he was riding.

“You make a lovely girl Dai,” shouted one of the other men and everyone joined in the ribaldry until they were out of the stable yard. Then all fell silent as the horses picked their way delicately over the rough cart track, only illuminated sporadically by a few watery rays of moonlight.

The men knew that they should be safe tonight.  The local constable, in any case, sympathised with them and hated the unfair road tolls too.

It was a good ten mile ride to the hated toll booth.  When they were within half a mile of their destination, the men all dismounted and prepared their torches of pine knots soaked in oil for lighting as  soon as they were within striking distance of the  toll booth.

“Euros Alarch is waiting for us by the toll booth,” Huw whispered.  He’ll look after the horses whilst we set it alight.  Let’s go!”

Quiet as mice (surprisingly quietly for a band of grown men) they crept the last few hundred yards to the toll booth, then, suddenly, howling and screaming like banshees, they charged towards the small building, brandishing their lighted torches and setting the toll booth alight..  Innocuous enough in itself, this and all other toll booths represented the unfair road tax (and a whole variety of other social injustices which the local people despised.) The toll booths symbolised the English, the landlords, the aristocracy and the powerbrokers, none of whom did anything to endear themselves to the people of West Wales.