Job hunting in South Wales
Gerda Cohen
It's market day in Llanelli, clucking with damp cosy shoppers, the rain falling calmly on a Grecian Methodist Temple, a rinsed Tabernacle and a drowned rugby pitch. 'Bound to clear up soon.' The people are invincibly cheerful. Bound to save. Duport Works, somehow. Privately-owned Duport have sold out to British Steel and declared closure of their plant at Llanelli. Duport's been here since 1907,' said one of the steelmen tramping out of the works gate, 'We shall put up a fight.' I had expected steelmen to be titans; not these short, blobby men with bad teeth and open, trusting faces. 'You can blame BSC and the bloody government for putting us out of business.' The company had just installed electric arc furnaces at a cost of £30 million to produce engineering steel from scrap iron, 'Funny notion, really; there's too much capacity anyhow.' Their voices wander up and down like the little hills of Carmarthen. 'I feel bitter,' one said, 'they let us dowfi. .
In the town centre whole streets have been torn out and replaced by a pedestrian grid, formica forever, soaked litter and brave new shrubs among the chain-stores. 'You've no idea what an improvement,' hum the couple who share my cafe 'table. 'The town is so much nicer, it might be . Brighton!' Don't exaggerate, my dear, you never seen Brighton.' They're quite old, steaming away in Welsh tweed, feet close under the table. 'Enjoying it now?' They watch me try a bun like a kerb-stone, washed down by spoonbending tea. 'Best tea in the world, that.' Past the bundled-up wives and the Penclawwd cockle stall, Army Careers have opened a smart new office. Dummy officers lean in the entrance, tight-lipped. Six lads are waiting inside, all with short hair-cuts and no 0 Levels. 'Truth is we're inundated,' the recruiting Sergeant told me, 'I've been sent here from Yorkshire to help out.'
Across the road Mr Edwards, Butcher, grieved over the departing lads. 'What a time to leave,' he said, his eye switching from boys to prime Welsh lamb. 'Llanelli is improving fast, never been better.' He arranged some petite Welsh legs in the window. 'We've got a full-back, you probably heard of him, Quinnel, most impressive. Bridgend had better watch out. Llanelli is on the up.'
Swansea's slate roofs are sleek with wet; its soaked dog-biscuit chapels have been given over to bingo; and the defunct South Dock has been turned into an Industrial Museum. There are just two people trailing round the Museum, one ybung man, one old. Glyn Banks from Gorseinon, glad of a chat, said he took redundancy at 55. He made it sound like a strange and wonderful seaside resort, `Rhedundd-on-Sea'. 'I'm getting used to Rhedundd-on-sea, never thought I would.' Shyly he beckoned me over to a photographic display of people making tin-plate. 'That's me in thin vest and clogs, working in the Hot Mill.'
The faces stare out — blank, Thirties, thin and mustachioed. 'They're all dead', he said, letting out a treble laugh. 'I'm tee tee, never touch drink.' Glyn Banks explained that in Hot Mill, until modernisation, the intense heat of molten metal drove the workers to quench their thirst during the dinner-break. 'Dangerous', he said solemnly. We both gazed at the exhibits, brandnew machinery embalmed in oil. 'My grandson, now, lost his job at Velindre.' British Steel have made 1,200 redundant at their modern tin-plate works north of Swansea. 'Tins are old-fashioned,' said Glyn, as he traipsed over to the motor-bike display, 'peas is frozen. That's progress . .
British motor bikes are lined up in the Museum ready to zoom across the carpet, and a young fellow inspected them, arms akimbo. He had a bright scornful smile and hair like anthracite, and was wearing a pink shirt bulging with rugby muscle. His name was Byron Price and he had no patience with his countrymen. `Oh us Welsh — we're an English invention.' Before I could get a word in, he Urged me to go to the window. There was empty dockland out there, sodden soot, and a couple of tracked excavators, scooping out black slime from the South Dock bed. 'Swansea Marina,' he exclaimed with a grin, `if the cash holds out. Typical Swansea, voting for a Marina when you can't afford a yacht!' Byron had been earning £60 a week as a factory cleaner until the firm went on short-time. `I'd have had to move anyway,' he said. 'Father won't let me stay home. I'm a graduate, see, biology First Class at Cardiff. A whole crowd of us graduated last year, no jobs.' So what did they do? 'Went to a kibbutz,' he said, smiling hard, 'they hated it after a month.' Byron pouted, admiring his anthracite hair in the window. 'There's no hope for me here. It's London, join the London Welsh. Not a bad team.' He grinned. 'I hate bloody London.' Off he loped into the sloshing rain, tall and jaunty, alone.
It was St David's Day yesterday, and the bank clerks at Nat West were blushing in steeple hats and aprons whiter than best emulsion. The Western Mail mentions that of the 160,000 unemployed in Wales, half are under 25. It doesn't rate a head-line. There are two Jobcentres in Swansea, one for manual and one for clerical workers. and both as warm as a tumble-drier. People stand around, looking cheerful, flicking ash on to the new carpet. Men chat in snug arm-chairs, chain-smoking Embassy cigarettes. At first glance there seem to be jobs in plenty. But analysis proves otherwise. 'Star Job of the Week' proclaims a big board, 'Traffic Warden in London'. Or you are invited to join the Metropolitan Police, if you are over five foot six. This amused two jeering skinheads, their hands thrust Ill dirty jeans. 'You're a bloody dwarf.' 'You're a f. . . midget'. No notice is taken by the girls, safe behind the Enquiry Desk. One is doe-eyed, a faraway miss. You can scent her 'Intimate by Revlon' drift over the cigarette smoke along with her dream)/ look. 'Zimbabwe . .' asked a man at Enquiries, 'Where would that be now?' A special board announced that South Africa and Zimbabwe required contract electricians, urgently. 'Well I dunno about South Africa, 'muttered the mild man,' All them blacks.' He winked at me cautiouslY. 'But my earnings-related run out soon and my wife has got bad nerves.' He lit a stub. The girl came back to say that Zimbabwe, was the correct name for Rhodesia. 'FalleY, he said, laughing. 'Sounded a Welsh place to me.' A gentle titter ran. round the Jobcentre. 'Anyway,' she told him kindly as he trotted out, 'You're over the age limit, over 35.' Leaflets lay on the wet pavement, offering Jobseeker tickets on South Wales bus routes. At Swansea Leisure Centre, this rainY afternoon, the unemployed can avail themselves of free gym and a swim to follow. 5° do they? I wander into the wonderful garish; Leisure Centre, its pool bobbing with liviu green children, its glass dome covered with green and yellow plastic cow-pats. Welsh notices abound; it could be Patagonia. 141 chaniater esgidiau bob dydd,' I read, as I wade into sub-tropical Swansea. 'Meal you musn't swim in your shoes,' gurgleu someone coming out of a dive. Only three males in the water; the rest are recumbent with brown seaweed moustaches, talking their heads off on the make-believe beach. 'You from London? You got a Leisure Centre good as this?' I readily admit that we haven't, but ask to to about the recession. Can people afford use it? They tell me that Berwyn Price — 'the Olympic hurdler' — has introduced free recreation for the unemployed, desPite doubt from the City Council. Oh they're mean, Swansea,' roars a burly fellow with ginger fuzz down to his navel, 'They charge 30p for swimming and 10p for spectating: The cheek!' All agreed, spectating shoulaf be gratis. 'We're from Aberafan, out °t work,' said one. British Steel at Port Talba had laid off 900 men — 'Oh months ag°,,' we're living off our fat.' You are Wu: hams!' said another and they piled into.,' scrummage. Blubbery, friendly, sad Sono' Wales.
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