Where and how did they live

My maternal ancestors lived in what seems to my modern eye a beautiful and idyllic environment - the Prices originating in the parish of Myddfai in Carmarthshire and the Joneses just over the county boundary in the parishes of Llywel, Cray and Senny in Breconshire. Both pairs of my mother’s grandparents ended their days in the Senny Valley.

Senny Valley looking towards Fan Nedd from Tyleglas

Today, travelling around the districts in which they worked and farmed I can be literally staggered with the glorious countryside and hills that surround me. What would it have meant to them? That is a difficult question to answer when you consider that many of them were comparatively poor and worked outdoors the whole year around in bad conditions as well as good. But if the experience of my father and uncles and others I have known and spoken to, who lived and worked on the land, is anything to go by, they appreciated it too. It may have been their workplace, but it was also their playground and the places and the characters that inhabited that landscape became very dear to them.

The village of Myddfai from the top of Mynydd Bach

I have read with interest books, often just booklets, which have been written by local people about the people and the localities in which they lived. These memoirs recall characters and a way of life which has almost disappeared. It can often seem that in general we pay more attention to the ancient past than we do to the recent past. It is worth while investigating it now while we have the opportunity. Local knowledge can vanish in a very short time.