The Valleys of Wales

    Anyone from southwestern Pennsylvania would likely feel right at home if they visited the New Tredegar Valley of Wales. The never-ending horizon of rolling hills and the little coal mining villages would seem so familiar.  This picture of Elliottstown New Tredegar was taken in 1951 and is from the National Library of Wales. It was sent to me by Seth Crook, a distant cousin who lives in Scotland and is also a descendant  of the Bush family.

Here is what the photo inspired Seth to write:

"I find the photo in attachment rather moving, Taken in 1951 it is view of Elliottstown New Tredegar. In the middle distance you can see the row of Powell Terrace/Tredegar Road/Duffryn Terrace. Margaret lived on Duffryn terrace when she returned to New Tredegar in 1951. On the same row was her older brother John and family and also her nephew Thomas and family. When the photograph was taken fifty years later there was possibly still a grandson of John Price – Victor Alexander – living on the row. So this is the spot where Margaret would have lost husband and three kids. Her son will I think have been killed at the Elliott mine. Samuel Hamer will have been miner her, along with the brother Edward. Also Robert Bush, Margaret’s second husband. I love the way the row trails into the hills. It is one of my favourite photographs summing up both the struggle of these lives. I got the photo from the National Library of Wales. The colliery was owned by Powell Duffryn, hence the names of the streets.

Note to Randi. This is very much the world of the mining Oddfellows who would have been important before the miners unions really got going. Effectively the whole valley would have turned around the mine. There would have been a need for the insurance/health care connected with the oddfellows. Not coincidentally this is the general spot from where the founder of our National Health Service came from who very much made it his business to found the national health service and to nationalise the mines."