Retail rules the skyline
Just when I think I've cracked it, that's when I'm thrown!
I'm walking home from the shop and here comes a rotund fella in dirty trackies and frayed trainers leading a pony down the hill.
He rules the road and cars give him a wide berth.
I nod over to him and he announces - ' Yewwhezullezzz!'
I've lived in Merthyr for 36 years, don't speak in the accent yet write in it. I couldn't fathom what he was on about.
When me and my wife first moved here we actually thought most people were speaking Welsh. Ironically, on the John's Travel buses up to Heolgerrig (which are still going) most people were at that time.
It was going to Newport last Sunday got me thinking about Merthyr : had it improved or deteriorated over those years?
Apart from a long Muslim peace demo - with men and women strictly segregated - Newport was as dead as Merthyr centre on a Sunday....except for a few skateboarders and stray alkies .
The main centre of activity was the large building site , trying to get the shopping complex ready for opening this week.
As my friend and fellow poet Jonathan Edwards said - ' To turn Newport into the same place as everywhere.'
Certainly it reminded me of many towns in the Valleys : rundown, closed down and full of Pound and Charity Shops and moneylenders.
It's odd how the demise of the Valleys after coal, iron and manufacturing went away, is blamed primarily on location and lack of investment in infrastructure.
Yet Newport's dilapidation confounds this. Proximity to the M4 corridor hasn't brought wealth.
Manufacturing has been largely replaced by the retail sector, just as Merthyr's retail parks drain the town centre of business.
It is the whole of Wales (with the possible exception of the capital) which is still suffering from economic depression.
Capitalism has failed us, as has the British state.
Massive hand-outs to multi-nationals followed the decline of heavy industries and our manufacturing base.
These, in turn, moved elsewhere in the world in search of cheaper labour.
Successive Labour governments in Cardiff Bay have failed to provide any alternatives. constantly seeking outside investment rather than deploying local skills.
Tower Colliery was a model for what could've been achieved everywhere, but workers' co-operatives have had very little encouragement.
Speaking from experience, we tried to set up a publishing co-op a few years back, but simply could not raise enough finance to match a grant. Advice was plentiful , but financial support virtually impossible.
Co-operatives need to be given maximum backing to flourish and build eco-friendly housing and renovate run-down properties, recycle furniture , provide allotment-grown food to needy communities and the many other things that would be sustainable and invaluable.
When we first came here, we often went to factory shops : a toy factory, two clothes factories and OP chocolates all within easy reach.
Only the latter is left.
The next factory to open here will be making armoured vehicles on the site of the Linde fork-lift truck plant.
As with the meat factory and opencast mine we have accepted jobs whatever the costs to animal and human life and to the environment.
It's nothing new : think of the dangers of ironworks and mines.
36 years ago Merthyr certainly had bands and writers.
In fact , Merthyr Writers' Circle managed to get my first book in dialect 'Graffiti Narratives' banned from Smith's because of its 'language'!
Now the town is a cultural hub, with highly talented rock groups, singer-songwriters and artists a-plenty.
Yet all this is constantly under threat from austerity measures and only recently our Open Mic poetry nights have had all finance withdrawn, so it feels like over a decade of meetings and visits by well-known writers from Gillian Clarke to Owen Sheers will come to an end.
However, we are determined to carry on and raise enough money to pay writers' expenses.
It's not ideal. Writers should be paid a proper fee and the need for a Welsh Writers' Union once again is paramount.
Despite the rise of UKIP and their bigoted culture of blame, Merthyr still retains the spirit of 1831. We demand 'caws' as well as 'bara', more than just the flung crumbs.
SABOTAGE
I ewsed t work with video machines
up Irwin, till ey closed
tha factree down.
An then, on-a lines
makin desks an filin cabinets
some robots coulda done.
I lost ev'rythin arfta :
wife, job an ome ;
darkness like no other.
At las I'm comin up agen,
startin t breathe pewer air :
there's a new factree openin.
I don' wanna do it.
makin armoured cars
f fewture bloody wars.
I marched the streets b'fore
'gainst Iraq, Afghanistan an Gaza.
I don' take it, my benefit disappears.
Orready I'm plannin t scheme :
a wire yer, a loose connection.
Sabotage, s nobuddy knows.
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