Interview with Grandad George Harrison
George Harrison born Varteg Wales 1909
George Harrison loves to talk of his Welsh childhood and maybe not so much about war which was traumatic for him. We always called him Pop rather than Grandad.
George Harrison loves to talk of his Welsh childhood and maybe not so much about war which was traumatic for him. We always called him Pop rather than Grandad.
My mother Emma Hawkins was born in about 1874 and my father John Harrison was born in 1872. My mother originated from the Forest of Dean. My father was from Pwlldu which was an isolated place in Wales. His father (actually grandfather) was a miller on a big estate. My mother used to live in Priddles towards the pits above Varteg. Priddles was the name of the people who lived on the mountain and wasn't a place in itself. My father was an examiner at the colliery from 1915 until he retired. During the strikes my father carried on working because he was an examiner. The men would molest others, but he'd walk through unharmed because he was doing it for safety purposes. When the Varteg colliery closed down only two were kept on and one was my dad. He had the overmans job. Mum was one of 21 children, as there had been two marriages. My dad came and lived as a lodger with my mums family, just as I had done with Eileen. I was one of the Invincibles, a team of rugby players, from the age of 14 years onwards. They never lost at home for ten years. My parents had 8 children. Amy (Emma) was the mother of Lavena, and there was also Will. There was 11 years between me and Nan Higgs (Jane Ann).
My father was superintendent of the chapel and my mother used to see to the linen there. When money belonging to the church went missing out of a top drawer she had a breakdown. There was nobody like my father. He had the patience of Job. He was a very placid lovely man who loved his children and would do anything for them. He cleaned everyone's shoes. The family practically worshipped him. He was always well dressed. He spent hours in front of the glass brushing and doing his hair. He wore hard collars and fronts, MP collars they were called, and always a dark suit and a bowler hat.
My father was superintendent of the chapel and my mother used to see to the linen there. When money belonging to the church went missing out of a top drawer she had a breakdown. There was nobody like my father. He had the patience of Job. He was a very placid lovely man who loved his children and would do anything for them. He cleaned everyone's shoes. The family practically worshipped him. He was always well dressed. He spent hours in front of the glass brushing and doing his hair. He wore hard collars and fronts, MP collars they were called, and always a dark suit and a bowler hat.
My mother was always tidy. She used to wash her hands about a thousand times a day. She wouldn't handle money. She wanted nothing to do with it. She got terrible tantrums at which times she'd fall on the ones who did most for her, like my dad. She would imagine that she could see moving things and that they were moving towards her, which would get her upset. Whatever this was on, she'd want to destroy it, to burn everything. It was terribly upsetting for us children and frightened us, though she never hit us. When she went out she was as normal as anyone. She was thought a lot of in the church. She was seen as the local character. She used to walk around a lot.
Originally my family went to the Wesleyan chapel in Varteg, then the Primitive Methodists in Garndiffaith, now called Methodists. We went to chapel every Sunday, morning, afternoon and night. My father was not dynamic religiously but he was a believer. My mother was quite religious. They didn't allow cards in the house and the only music was from hymn books on the piano. Local preachers used to come to our house.
The standards were poor then. Maybe they had a joint on Sunday and that would be the lot. The neighbours would eat corn beef. They would come round to ours for an oxo to eat when they had no meat. We ate bread with hot water on it and pepper and salt, which we called Kettle Broth. My father smoked. My mother didn't. He didn't drink though, and was 40 or 50 before he ever drank at all. He smoked strong Shag tobacco in clay pipes. He had his best pipes as well but loved his clay pipe. He reckoned there was an art to staining clay pipes. Paper would be rolled up to make tapers by us children for him and put in a container. He told me not to smoke cigarettes, only a pipe, and this I followed. Dad shaved with old cutthroats, which were razors like a knife with a sharp edge. He used to cut himself more with modern safety razors when he started using them than he did with the old cutthroat. My father was a philanthropist. During the strikes he'd sometimes give half his wages away. If anyone asked, he'd give them money. He had 6d once with which he wanted to go out, but a man came then begging for 6d. How annoyed he then was, going out for a walk, when he saw the man drinking in the pub with his 6d!
Me and my brothers and sisters did choir singing. We had no money, but we didn't mind and were happy, even though our childhood was difficult. There was a dance on Saturday nights in Varteg and a six piece band would be there, which used to go round all the villages. The band hall dancing was half a crown which is about 12 and a half pence now. Roy Jenkins's grandfather lived on the same road as my parents. There were no Conservatives. There was only Liberal and Labour. The majority were Labour. Both my parents were Liberal voters. Sometimes we walked to Pontypool town. We thought nothing of walking the 3 or 4 miles there and back. During the Depression no end of people walked from South Wales to London looking for jobs.
My mothers youngest sister was Sarah Jane. A nephew of the family was Henry Fox. My sister Alice, besides having a son Ralph, also had Jean, who had a son Paul, and she had Brian, who was a director of Courage's Brewery and didn't have any family, and David, who was a headmaster and had two kids. My parents were buried in Varteg in a Wesleyan unmarked grave.
I went through school as 12 months older than I was. I left school at 13 because they thought I was 14. I didn't want to carry on at school. I'd been in the top class, but you were allowed to leave if you had something to do. My family told them I was going to look after Lavena. At my family home in Wales we used to have ten white loaves of bread, weighing 4lbs each, twice the size of a loaf nowadays, delivered on a Saturday. The milkmaid used to have a yoke with little measures, and she used to take the top of when it was raining to make more milk!
I recall that my father, John Harrison, would go by train to Brynmawr, then walk to Govilon where he'd visit relatives by the name of White. He used to visit the Pritchard's in Govilon as well as the Whites. The old Mr White was always shaking.
Of the war:
We had no proper tents, so used to make tents out of capes. We were very close, living with other men. My best friend got killed in the war. Being in Scapa Flow in the Orkneys was so boring that a couple of the men there cracked up. We had to compress the snow to make water, and it took an enormous amount of snow just to make a little water.
We had no proper tents, so used to make tents out of capes. We were very close, living with other men. My best friend got killed in the war. Being in Scapa Flow in the Orkneys was so boring that a couple of the men there cracked up. We had to compress the snow to make water, and it took an enormous amount of snow just to make a little water.