English: A4240 Alexandra Road, Gorseinon The church is St Catherine's church. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Grandfather: The Goddard Family: Grandpa Goddard

It starts on the Common - windswept, unkempt, intermittant, with wirey  grasses, tufts along improbable sandy paths. This is where nothing- land meets nothing- sky, all dark and cumbersome. There is nothing pretentious about a shabby common. Yes, It all starts on this common and ends there as well.

I never knew my grandfather. Never heard or remember any stories about him. Was never hugged or loved by him. Never went fishing, never heard him whistle or swear. Perhaps you’ll think me somewhat savaged by his absence, still in some kind of embroiling regret or continuing anger. This is not the case. How can one be angry about a ghost or a non-figure? Perhaps, instead of the real man,  I’ve embroidered a replacement figment , a larger than life figure, a personification of my own imagination. Yes - perhaps I’ve done a little of that. I think I see him at times.

Let’s understand the facts as I know them. William David John Goddard was born on the 13th December, 1889 at the Cross, Ravenhill. He was married to Elizabeth Mary Hoyles on the 27th December, 1909 at St David’s Church,  Penllergaer, Near Swansea. William and Elizabeth had a good number of children: My father , the eldest - Ewart Maldwyn Goddard and in no particular order: Ronnie, Cyril, Mansel - also known as Sid, Elvet, Archie and the one girl, Brenda. By my reckoning that’s 7 children. Two survive as I write: Archie and Brenda.

He died on 14th May, 1936 in Gorseinon hospital following a mining accident at Garngoch Number three Colliery on the Common. His accident sheet  records that he died of shock following compound fractures of his left leg caused by a fall of coal. In graphic terms he was crushed by the fall, and bled all the way up to the surface and then all the way to the hospital. Am I angry about that? Too bloody right I am. The incompetency by authority and management and the lack of a safe environment meant he had no chance of survival. He left a widow and 7 children. My grandmother, Gu Goddard was left to fend for the family with help from those like my father, who was older and bringing in money. Gu Goddard was of farming stock and in 1936 was 45 years old. She set about her new all embracing and encompassing tasks with the formidable distinction that only an older generation seem to have possessed. She was to myself, my sister and all our cousins both grandmother and grandfather. Unfortunately, enveloped in all these responsibilities, there was no time for hugs, kisses and not much compassion about. She ruled - there was no other way. She ruled the roost and kept the family together in the toughest of ways. She was the only grandfather I ever knew. I’ve written about her in my poem about a cousin. There are hints of her nature in these words:

“Cousin Alan” by Vernon Goddard

Spring Sun. Sunday, Holy Day but not holiday.

Early Bells wake up St Catherine.

Incensed priest fogs & dances with the altar.

Lead glazed glancing lights.

Sun smashes glass into myriads,

Hazy Crazy,

Blue & red, purple  & gold.

In short trousers 

Bare Knees smarting

From too much kneeling

I clatter out

Of oak doors greyed and old 

From too much listening.

In Sunday dark and best

I troop to Mam-Gu’s, en famille.

Loosening tie

Forgetting St Catherine,

Loosening Belief.

Promise of Apple tart,

Tea, playing with cousins, hearing uncles swear

With meaty words and perhaps,

Perhaps,

A woodbine behind a hidden tree

In Penllergare Forest.

Mam-Gu, older than St Catherine

And nearer to God

Loves her sons. The house,

This Theatre,

Leans with people.

The card table buckles with

Brothers, uncles, Fathers, sons, men & boys.

But no Grandfather.

Sisters, aunties, mothers, daughters whisper gossip in the kitchen. 

Mam-Gu presides.

Cards – Crib or Nap are played, money is lost and tempers too.

Men shout, Women walkabout.

I look from face to face.

There are too many on stage for me to be noticed. 

Mam-Gu does not see beyond her boys.

I edge into anonymity.

And to be……not like them.

Cousins congregate in the Orchard.

Simple play, ferocious sweat in the Spring heat.

Sun cuts the apple trees through.

Climb, spy, hide, seek. Girl cousins, my sister, shriek & giggle.

Boy cousins, Alan, look manly

Savouring the packet in the pocket 

And the quiet unheard rattle of matches.

Practice swear words unspoken.

Shirt collars white, striped school ties long discarded,

Glistening pale skin, braces and short trousers, reddened knees.

Holy Wood. I watch and observe.

Apple pie still moistening on the tongue,

Tinned peaches,

Even metallic strawberries

Sweet as treacle.

Fresh picked Blackberries

Crawling.

Later escape for the boy cousins to the Common.

Penllergaer Common

Land of my Grandfathers

Pit and wild Pony.

All feral grass & dune

Ups & Downs

Paths to No-where

And Some where.

Alan knows all the paths.

C’mon he says. C’mon we’ll get a swim in before dark.

Foreboding settles on my

Brylcreamed head

Foreboding on my well-eaten apple pie.

Foreboding knees.

C’mon he says. C’mon there’s the pit pond. C’mon.

Alan’s Sunday best  lies at the water side. He’s in and happy.

No I shout. I’m having a fag.

I sit smoking, looking, seeing.

Alan swims in circles. The pond broods around him

It is treacle skimmed,

Blackest of sand,

Sooted.

Hot water, pit water, pitted with hiss and bubble.

Sweated vapour hangs

Swirls into darkening sky.

Foreboding kisses me, full, on the lips.

Alan swims in circles.

Vultures I think.

The water did for him that day.

Caught something from the rats they said.

Then

In days

Came

A fever,

Ruining

Weakening

A firm heart.

Then St Vitus danced inside him

And with him for years thereafter.

Black Sabbath.

Who can say what a day can bring.

Sunday, Funday, Holiday, Black Sabbath.

You take a swim you smoke a cigarette.

Black Sea partings.

That day I knew I was Observor, fond of fags and words 

Not being part of, separate.

Alan, one with nature

Belonging, in the game of life, living

Found a rat who joined his play

Swam like a dolphin

Where my grandfather lay.

And the spirit of my grandfather still lies for me on Garngoch common. And all the paraphenalia of the pit, its big wheel, the clanking railways, the remnants of coal, the pit ponies, the props, the canteen lie buried there as well, with my dream of the man.

How the hell I wish I had known him, seen his face, felt his tough worn hands, heard a story or two about pit life. And I would have smiled for him.......

So, it ended for him on the Common - windswept, unkempt, intermittant, with wirey  grasses, tufts along improbable sandy paths. This is where nothing land meets nothing sky, all dark and cumbersome. There is nothing pretentious about a shabby common. Yes, It all starts on this common and ends there as well.

Copy right    ©  David Vernon Goddard November 2011  and again 25th October 2014......

Notes:

Mam-Gu…………Grandmother

Penllergaer/Penllergare Woods………..small village where my grandmother lived.

There are rituals in all families. Whilst my grandmother lived all her sons & one daughter were expected to visit and stay to tea on a Sunday. This was a large, loud gathering.

My grandfather died from a rock fall in one of the mines on Penllergaer/Gargoch common. 

I never knew him. 

I still have his watch though........

Gorseinon Cinema NOW CLOSED FOR BUSINESS ~ The usherette has left the building!

Hollywood star pays tribute to tiny cinema’s closing scene
Feb 25 2008 by Robin Turner, Western Mail


A TOUCH of Hollywood glamour was brought to a quiet Welsh street at the weekend when one of the smallest cinemas in the world closed its doors for the last time.

Hollywood actor and film director Kenneth Branagh walked up the red carpet for the final film at La Charrette, the cinema housed in an old railway wagon in Gorseinon, Swansea.
The tiny, 23-seat cinema hosted a world premiere to bow out with acclaimed director Danny Boyle’s highly rated Alien Love Triangle.

Branagh, who stars in the film with ex-Friends star Courteney Cox, said, “This is fantastic. It is a romantic idea and a symbol for why people go to the cinema.”
Walking into the atmospheric cinema, the Belfast-born star said, “This is like the street I grew up on, so I feel completely at home.”
Branagh, who wore a tuxedo for the event and was sporting a moustache, described Alien Love Triangle as a “lost film” by one of “our greatest directors”.
He added, “After 10 years and having seen an uncompleted version of it, I’m slightly nervous about it. I hope people like it. I hope the rest of the world gets to see it.”
Saturday night’s premiere and La Charrette’s finale, which was a black tie affair, was put together by BBC2 film critic Mark Kermode.
He learned of the venue’s closure when it was featured on the BBC’s The Culture Show and was eager to ensure it had a fitting send off.
The film sees Branagh play a physics lecturer who rushes home to tell his wife, played by Courteney Cox, he has perfected his dream of teleportation.
She tops his news, however, with the revelation that she is in fact a male alien disguised as a female human.
After contacting all of the UK’s major film distributors and sending them pictures of La Charrette, Mr Kermode said he received offers of several upcoming movies to bring down the final curtain.
But he decided to ask Alien Love Triangle’s producer Andrew Macdonald for the film because he wanted “something special, something unique, something unattainable”.
The unlikely cinema venue was built by the late film projectionist and Gorseinon electrician Gwyn Phillips.
He had a dream of owning his own cinema after failing to get in to see Tarzan, starring Johnny Weissmuller, at his local cinema The Lido, in 1942.
The doorman told him there were not enough seats.
Later he would establish his first cinema in a redundant coal shed.
Then, in 1955 he bought an old railway wagon – La Charrette is French for wagon – and so began the story of one of the world’s smallest cinemas.
It was only pipped in the “world’s smallest” list by a Nottingham cinema which has 21 seats and The Terrace Theatre in Tinonee, Australia, which has 22.

But, after 53 years, La Charette has become too costly to maintain, because of its crumbling structure. Mr Phillips’s family and friends, who carried on running the cinema after his death, have had to admit defeat to rotting timbers, advancing rust and a leaking roof.
Ron Williams, the chairman of La Charrette said, “We decided we had to close it before it collapsed all around us.”

Many locals who used the cinema are sad to see it go.
Barbara Rees, of Gorseinon, who did her courting at the cinema, said, “When I started having boyfriends I went to see Gwyn’s films.
“If the picture got a bit boring I would concentrate on the boyfriend but if the picture was interesting I’d concentrate on the picture.”
David and Margo Lewis have been regulars at La Charrette for decades.
Mr Lewis said, “I don’t think we’ve been to another cinema in Britain in 30 years – we get all we want here.”
The event was organised by and filmed for The Culture Show and will be screened on BBC2 on Saturday, 1 March.

Cinema in Gorseinon to close.........

Branagh and Cox lead farewell to the smallest cinema in Britain

By Ciar Byrne, Arts and Media CorrespondentTuesday, 19 February 2008


Kenneth Branagh does not usually attend film premieres in back gardens, but this Saturday he will make an exception.

Branagh will make an artistic pilgrimage to Gorseinon, near Swansea, to mark the end of an era for La Charrette, Britain's smallest cinema.

The tiny venue, a 23-seat room with flock wallpaper and hand-operated curtains built in a disused railway carriage, has been showing films since 1953 but, with age, has gradually fallen into disrepair. It was to have made its swansong in October last year with a screening of Oceans 13.

That was until Mark Kermode stepped in. When the film critic visited La Charrette for BBC2's The Culture Show, he fell in love and decided to give it a special send-off. After ringing round his contacts, he came up with a unique way to bid farewell to the historic picture house, before it was dismantled and moved to a heritage park in the Gower.

Mr Kermode said: "Our idea was to send it off in fine style; to give it a really good last hurrah."
On Saturday, Branagh is to attend the black tie premiere of Alien Love Triangle, a "lost" film by Danny Boyle, in which Branagh co-stars with the Hollywood actresses Courteney Cox and Heather Graham. It is believed that Cox has also screened a special message for La Charrette.
The 30-minute film, about a scientist who discovers his wife is a male alien, was made by the team behind Trainspotting, including director Boyle, screenwriter John Hodge and producer Andrew Macdonald.
It was originally intended to be released as one of a trilogy of short films, but the other two – Mimic and Imposter – were turned into full-length feature films and Alien Love Triangle has languished unseen.
It will be a far cry from the red carpet in Leicester Square. Instead, La Charrette is approached through a wrought-iron gate, along a residential drive. The cinema was built in 1953 by Gwyn Phillips, an electrician who fell in love with the movies while working as a projectionist in his youth.
In a black and white film interview, Mr Phillips explained the advantages that his cinema had over bigger venues. "I think it's the atmosphere of it all," he said.
Mr Phillips died in 1996, but his widow, Rita, kept his dream alive, much to the delight of regulars, some of whom attended the cinema for more than 50 years.
The films shown at La Charrette were just as mainstream as those at bigger venues. According to a meticulously kept, hand-written record of every film shown at the cinema, the first to be screened there in 1953 was Reluctant Heroes, followed in the same year by Oliver Twist, King Kong and Winchester '73.
In the mid-seventies, the cinema showed the James Bond movie Live and Let Die, The French Connection and the controversial Straw Dogs. More recently, Saving Private Ryan, Elizabeth and The Queen have been shown.
A regular, Barbara Rees, remembered "courting" at La Charrette in its early days. "When I started courting it was going to see Gwyn's films," she told The Culture Show. "If the picture got a bit boring, I'd concentrate on the boyfriend, if the picture was interesting I'd concentrate on the picture."

Donald and Margo Lewis recalled: "In 30 years I don't think we ever went to another cinema in this country. We've seen all we wanted to see here."
Sadly, the decaying structure of the old railway carriage – La Charrette is French for carriage – means the cinema must now close.
Ron Williams, the chair of La Charrette, said: "The structure of the building is rotting away – the timber is rotting, the steel is rotting and the roof is leaking – so we thought it had better close before it collapsed around us."
But not before Branagh has seen it out in style, at a ceremony that will be recorded for posterity and screened on The Culture Show on 1 March.


Britain's small screens
The Old Market Hall, Shrewsbury
This building has served as an auction room, an air-raid shelter and a courthouse since 1596, and is now a (very) small cinema.
The Ritz, Belper, Derbyshire
Holding only 99 seats, it has served as a picture house since the 1930s.
The Electric Palace, Hastings, East Sussex
Has 52 seats and shows classics and foreign cinema.
The Palace Cinema, Broadstairs, Kent
This is often wrongly believed to be Britain's smallest cinema because of a very small exterior but it has seating underground for 111.
The Ultimate Picture Palace, Oxford
Another well-loved and cosy place showing cult films and classics. It seats 80 people.
The Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre, Dumfries, Scotland
Has 69 places and is well-loved by its local community.