A Valleys legend: Into the heart of mining, trade unions and community

Introduction by Mike Church, author of A Valleys Legend – biography of Christopher ‘Gyp’ Davies

I first met Christopher ‘Gyp’ Davies about six years ago when I was asked to visit Caerau Men’s Shed, near Maesteg, and capture some of the stories they had around mining and associated tales. Gyp (nobody knows him as anything else!) stayed in the background as Chair and nudged the other lads into the limelight.

I got to know Gyp over the years and realised his fascinating life story was one that encapsulated everything about mining, trade unions and the painful collapse of community in the South Wales Valleys.

He had me crying and laughing at his tales of toothpaste and vinegar sandwiches alongside the hardships his mother and father endured. They were his bedrock, and both were larger than life characters as Gyp retold their stories and his own.

Gyp is a strongman who used to bend 6″ nails with his bare hands as a fit young miner, he also had a habit of drinking and then stripping off to sing ‘If I were a rich man…..’

But he is much more than a beer swilling rugby macho man. He has had his own personal demons and struggled with his own mental health. He has been to some very dark places and come out the other side.

His journey to become Mayor and Chair of the Men’s Shed shows his very real strength and his profound generosity and willingness to help others. The words of his fellow Shedders in the book give an insight into the real power and incredible warmth of the man.

A Valleys Legend captures the hardship of mining life but, hopefully, offers some tips on how the whole South Wales Coalfield might have the sparks of a genuine recovery if people and politicians really invest in their communities and stand shoulder to shoulder.

A chapter from A Valleys Legend

A union man

WE LIVE IN an ever-changing world.

Gyp grew into his working life with a deep understanding of the importance of trade unions. His father was a union man and people came to the house for his advice and support. His father told him that with his first pay packet the most important thing he could do was join the union.

Gyp’s father was the vice chair of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). On a Sunday he remembers his father would spend the afternoon helping miners fill in compensation forms. Gyp marvelled at the respect people had for his father and how appreciative they were of what he did for them, even though Gyp never really understood at that stage exactly what was going on.

As Gyp says, being a miner and a union man is ‘in my blood’. It has shaped his whole life and their issues affect the whole family, the whole community. His father, his grandfather and his uncles were all miners.

For Gyp it’s a part of what being Welsh should be as we are all a product of that history and that struggle for working people’s rights. Gyp remains passionate to this day about the coal mining industry and its heritage and what it means to Wales.

We are now living in an age when Labour Party politicians are disciplined for standing on a picket line… this is the very same Labour Party that was formed by and for working-class people to ensure they had a vote and a voice in the corridors of power!

Gyp himself became head of a union after he left the mines and began work at the Maesteg Paper Mill. He was awarded a silver medal of merit for being the union rep for thirty years, in what is now known as the Unite union. He was also awarded the President’s Safety Award for the most hours without an accident in the mill (250,000 work hours, accident-free).

Gyp readily admits he was a thorn in the management’s side for all those years. He jokingly said that, when he left, the managers probably threw a party. He was also a hard worker and a grafter. He had, most crucially, the backing of all the men. If he said to shut down the machines, then the machines would shut down without question.

Sometimes it was because of wages and sometimes it was because of safety reasons.

He made sure that workers were entitled to sick pay for up to three months and then he got that extended to a year.

He had no agenda and no ego. Gyp was genuinely all about fighting for the rights of his fellow workers. He knew there were many in the mill who couldn’t read or write, so Gyp became the learning rep and he made sure those who needed help could get it and move themselves forward, and all in the strictest confidence.

If workers had accidents at work, then Gyp would visit them and hear their needs and concerns.

He visited one man in hospital in Swansea after he’d had a nasty accident, injuring his legs. The man told Gyp they wouldn’t let him home from the hospital until his house had handrails leading up to it and inside.

Gyp confronted a manager about this and the manager replied, ‘Well what do you want me to do about it?’

Gyp brought his huge bear-like hands thumping down on the table in reply and boomed, ‘I WANT YOU TO SHOW SOME FUCKING COMPASSION!’

The manager flinched and pens went flying through the air and Gyp broke his little finger in the process.

Needless to say, the fitters and woodworkers in the plant made the rails and fitted them the next day. The handrails are still outside that house to this day.

The management marvelled at how popular Gyp was with the workers. They even asked him why the men trusted him so much more than management.

Gyp replied in true fashion: ‘I know what each and every one of them has in their sandwiches each day.’ He then pointed at a worker as he walked by: ‘See him. That’s Brian and he’ll have cheese and onion.’

The management bought into the myth of the man, although Gyp tells me now he didn’t have a clue what Brian had in his sandwiches. The point was that Gyp really did know the men and stood by them at all times and stood up to management on their behalf… and every one of them knew that.

To this day Gyp cannot understand workers not gathering together, bargaining collectively and belonging to a trade union.

A Valleys Legend – biography of Christopher ‘Gyp’ Davies is published on October 1 by Y Lolfa. Find out more HERE

Life story of former miner Gyp, a working-class man from south Wales who has led an extraordinary life of hard, dangerous work while struggling with alcoholism and depression. He talks of Valleys life, the rise and fall of coal mining, toxic masculinity, trade unions and mental health.