Welsh Journals

late. I had to pinch myself to keep awake. At last I heard his voice next door, "Are they awake?" he asked. "Yes, Daddy, I am," I cried. "Sorry I'm so late," he said, "I've been down in the valleys helping in the soup kitchens." This must have been in about 1924. That was a difficult time for the coal industry. Who could have believed then, that in 1990 there would be no coal mined in the Rhondda? Who could have believed then that the number of farming folk would have decreased to their present day levels? I have been describing the past. What of the future? We shall be greatly influenced by the European Community, and even by changes in tariffs. We shall never see the country areas as populated as they were in the 1920s. Others will be able to describe the next fifty years, when the time comes.