Hiraeth

Hiraeth.

Hiraeth hiraeth (noun) A calling for home and the feeling of being back at one’s homeland.

An expression of the bond felt with one’s home.

A combination of homesickness and nostalgia. Hiraeth is a deeper feeling that makes homesickness seem like a scratch on the surface. A word that cannot be summarised or explained. It is the feeling of longing for home, or a time where one felt most at home. Whilst appreciating one’s Welsh heritage, it is an expression of the bond felt with one’s homeland.

This book is an investigation into the concept of hiraeth and a quest to find the true meaning, or to explore if such a feeling can be defined. Speaking to people of all ages, this book goes on a journey around the Rhondda Valleys, hearing people’s personal experiences with the word hiraeth and their home town of the Rhon da Valleys.

By Ruby Rosser

Kath Honeyfield

Gerald Honeyfield

Gerald Honeyfield, known to his friends and family as “G�, still lives in the same house in Primrose Street where he was born. Hiraeth to G is pigeons and a pint in his local club at the end of the street. He married Kath (Auntie Kath), she moved in with him and his family and they have lived there ever since.

G kept pigeons at the top of his garden for 51 years, first becoming interested in them through a neighbour. Primrose Street is an extremely close-knit neighbourly community where neighbours become close friends almost like family.

G knows no different to living in the Valleys, in Primrose Street. Hiraeth for him is an appreciation of this close family like community.

Lisa Boulter

When I think of the Valleys I think of home.

I’ve lived here all my life, I live in the actual street I was born. I was born in the front room with half the neighbours outside awaiting my arrival. Hiraeth to me is a feeling of belonging and bond I have with my home in the Valleys. My parents live in the same street, my brother lives in the street below me and my nieces and nephews live close to us. I love a holiday away but I am a home bird at heart.

Hiraeth isn’t as much of a longing for the past for me. I know nothing else other than the Valleys being such a warm and welcoming place. A community where people look out for one another and close friends are practically family. Being from the Rhondda is a part of my identity and has made me who I am today. The feeling of hiraeth comes down to the people, the landscape is beautiful but it’s the people who make it such a great place to live.

Marion Middle

I have lived here in this same house for 51 years so to me hiraeth is home, and the sense of belonging that comes from the landscape. I see a big cross embedded on the mountain out of my bedroom window and the allotments my husband used to work on.

My family are always around me and I enjoy the community feeling of the Valleys. The feeling I get when I come home from being away and being back amongst the hills and terraced houses is like no other feeling.

Ann Harvey

I am proud to be Welsh and from the Valleys, hiraeth to me is the friendship amongst my neighbours. My mother still has the same neighbours 52 years on and they have always been known to me as Auntie and Uncle and their children call my mother Auntie, you can walk straight in to your neighbour’s house and you are always welcome.

Whenever I visit a place with beautiful mountains, I am instantly reminded of the Welsh mountains of home, there is no better view from the top of the Rhigos or Bwlch mountains.

The community spirit, despite not being as it was when I was a child is still there today. When I was a child we had street parties, day trips and there were constantly children playing in the street. Moving to to a different part of the Rhondda, I do not know my neighbours and often find myself longing for the community spirit that was around when I was a child.

However, during the lockdown a sense of the community spirit returned.

Being a key worker every Thursday when my neighbours clapped in the street, it brought back the memories of the community spirit that was around when I was a child and was a very emotional time.

Craig Middle

Craig Middle grew up in Primrose Street in Tonypandy, so he has experienced the feelings of family and friendship that are unique to the Rhondda Valleys. Family is very important to Craig, and he now lives five minutes away in the village of Penygraig on an exclusive plot of land with his sister Ann owning the only other house on the plot.

Craig was a local councillor in the Valleys for many years and hiraeth to him is the strong community he grew up in and represented as a councillor.

Being born and bred in a street of terraced houses, the feeling of belonging is definitely heightened as there was a strong sense of community feeling. I do think we have lost some of that feeling over the years, but certainly during my childhood it was there through the people and places, the local shops and the club at the end of the street.

I love going back to the club especially on Christmas day, seeing everyone and getting together, it draws me back to the past.

Living in Primrose Street we were more like family than neighbours, and we still are one big family today. Every time I visit Primrose Street, fond memories come back to me and this is the feeling of hiraeth.

Rachel and Gwenan Gibbins

At first, I thought hiraeth was just a passion that we feel for Wales, but thinking more about it I realise it’s a spiritual feeling, that we can’t quite define, it’s a nostalgic longing for the past, and the sacrifices that were made by previous generations. I think this is sparked from the oppression our ancestors suffered, being controlled by English governments outside of Wales who tried to stop them speaking the Welsh language.

We continue to face struggles as we live in an area of deprivation, but somehow, this links us to the past and strengthens our communities.

Personally, I feel hiraeth is Welshness, the passion and the language. Especially if you’ve moved away, it’s an appreciation for our landscape and where we live, with elements of nostalgia too. Maybe for the older generation it’s a case of looking back through rose tinted glasses.

I think the feeling of hiraeth makes us want to stay and belong, even though it may not be the best place to live, that feeling is always there drawing us home.

Hiraeth is something in our soul that we don’t realise is there, until we feel that calling to be home again. I went away to university in Leicester and I never thought I’d want to come back, but I missed the Welsh mountains, and the community spirit called me back. I think community spirit is always there even though some people look back with longing and say things are not the same in the modern world, for me it still exists, it’s just evolving with society.

I suppose it is more of a tradition now, something we don’t really feel everyday, until there’s something like this pandemic or the recent flooding we experienced in the Rhondda, then you realise the community spirit in our Valleys is as strong as ever.

Things like Old Smokey in Tylorstown (an old coal tip) are scars from the past and even though they are scars, we respect them as they help make us who we are. I know people would never want to be back down the mines, but we are defined by the mines as our history and heritage. It’s what makes us so proud and passionate, because our grandparents and great grandparents gave so much and lived such hard lives. I think hiraeth grows with you, as does the appreciation for where we live and the history that we all share.

Lynda Edwards

Hiraeth for me is the friendship and community of Tonypandy, my hometown.

Girls I went to school with at 3 (that’s 81 years ago!) are still very dear friends, more like relatives. The small town of Tonypandy, quite famous for the coal industry (but that is history now!) still has the feeling of togetherness. There is no need to ever feel lonely in Tonypandy, there’s always someone ready to talk and laugh with you.

The mining industry was a huge part of my life growing up and has really informed who I am as a person. We were a big family of nine and we also had my mambo living with us, so we didn’t have a lot of money and we always felt grateful for the food put in front of us. I lost my father when I was 16 to “Black Lung”, the accumulation of coal dust in the lungs, a terrible disease that claimed the lives of so many miners at that time.

Even though I don’t long for this time of tragedy, struggle and hardship, I long for the sense of community and the bond felt with everyone around me, as we were united by the hard lives we lived. I think we look back at these times with fond memories and feelings of nostalgia, but now with only two out of seven siblings left, a part of my soul will strive for that feeling of belonging and togetherness that we felt as a big family and strong community.

However, that togetherness carries on within my family today, and the community of Tonypandy is still as welcoming and as warm as ever, so the next generation continue to feel hiraeth!

Jeremy Edwards

To me hiraeth is the feeling of belonging to a special place and the Valleys are a very special and unique place. I was born and grew up in Tonypandy and although I now live a few miles away,I still feel a strong bond with the places and people from my childhood.

The local park in Tonypandy is one of these places, I would have played in this park most days growing up and also brought my own children here to play. I met my best friend on our first day of school when we were three years old and 47 years later, we are still best mates. I think that type of friendship, which is so common in the Valleys, is what makes this place so special.

Rose Fisher

I left school when I was 16 to get work experience as all I could see for me in Cwmbran was leaving school to get married then working in a shop and I didn’t want that. I worked as a receptionist in a local hotel for 4 years and then suddenly when I was 20 it was me and my suitcase moving up to London for a position in a hotel on Earl’s Court Road. I worked in another hotel in Tewkesbury before being promoted to manage a hotel in Swindon and where I met my husband John. We then moved out to Australia which is where we live now.

Wales, the Valleys to me was family and getting together, it still feels the same. It’s the people that make it. It’s the people for me. Although I can remember, it was 2006 I was visiting home and I was driving the big car with my Sister and our four children. We were visiting my cousin Helen in Swansea, then we went across the Rhigos, through Treorchy and back down into the Valleys. From Cwmbran, what we used to do as children is catch the buses, three buses, Cwmbran to Cardiff, Cardiff on up. It was all grey.

It was on the motorway roads, so it was all grey and it always had been. But this one time when I drove from Helen’s across, and I came down into Treorchy, it was all green, and I’d never seen the Valleys like that, and I had realised the effect of the amazing landscape.

The draw to home comes from the memories of seeing people and the family. I always think if I were to leave here, where would I go, Swindon, Cwmbran or the Valleys?

It would be the Valleys.

The need to go home, there is an inner feeling, okay it’s time to go home now. I want to touch base, I want to see and feel home. It’s that inner feeling, it’s not a sad feeling that gets me down, but suddenly there is the feeling and the urge to look at flights home.

Ivor Bartlett

Ivor Bartlett, known to everyone as Pete Bartlett, was a boxing trainer for local boys for over 50 years. He trained young boys from the Valleys as a way of keeping them out of trouble. He not only taught them how to box but they also learned respect and discipline from him. Most are grown men now and they are forever grateful to him for the values he taught them. Pete, now in his ninetieth year, is well known and loved by so many in the Valleys for his years of dedication to boxing and he is one of the characters who make these Valleys so special.

Cerys Paschali

There’s no-one more Welsh than a Welsh person outside of Wales.

I think Welsh people are all on the same level, we come from the same place and are equals. I think out of the UK population Welsh people are the least travelled and there’s only a small minority who have left Wales to live somewhere else. I think that’s because Welsh people have a special bond with home. I think how I miss the landscape, and I want to go back to Wales and to be able to see the mountains and hear the Welsh accents.

Since the lockdown I have been actively learning Welsh, which is perhaps something I wouldn’t have done if I was still living in Wales, but living away it keeps me connected to home. It’s been a real eye opener, that there are so many people speaking Welsh outside of Wales, again showing the strong emotional connection Welsh people have to home. This to me is hiraeth and the landscape and the sound of the Welsh language always trigger feelings of hiraeth in me. When we dream, we always put ourselves somewhere we know, a lot of my childhood was spent in the Valleys visiting my family so I know the Welsh Valleys are the place of my dreams.

Isabel Rosser

Jeff Rosser

Haydn Rosser

I was born in number 91 Penygraig Road in 1939 and when I got married in 1962, aged 23, I moved across the road to number 19 and I have continued to live there for the last 58 years with my wife Joan.

I haven’t left her side, except when I was doing my National Service training in Benghazi, Libya. I was away from home for 16 months and I experienced so much homesickness during that time.

It’s only until now due to Covid 19 that we have been apart again and suddenly I feel a strong longing for the past and the feeling of hiraeth calls me, bringing back memories of how I felt during my National Service. The feeling in my soul of the Welsh mountains calling me and the longing to wake up and see the view of the Valleys from my bedroom.

Returning home from my National Service I felt a great sense of relief, and I still have that feeling every day as I get older, as I find a great comfort in my surroundings and the familiarity of life in the Valleys.

Davinia Warn

I was born just outside of London and moved to Wales when I was 11 years old.

Coming to Wales made me realise how much other places lack the feeling of togetherness, everyone had their own friends, but no real sense of community.

I moved from Pontyclun which is just outside of the Valleys to Tonypandy when I was 30 and then I found an even stronger sense of community living in the Rhondda Valleys. The people are so welcoming, no matter where I’m from, where I’m living in the Rhondda, or who my neighbours are people are so welcoming and warm.

When I’m driving up the Valleys through the mountains and I see our landscape I feel so lucky to call these Valleys home. When I was younger, I never had the feeling of belonging as I moved around a lot, it wasn’t until I came to the Valleys that I felt a true sense of belonging and it felt so natural. I don’t think that feeling will ever be lost, we will always pull together and be equals and knowing that makes me feel at home. Even though I’m not officially Welsh, I feel proud to live here and that is my hiraeth!

Tricia Brown

Hiraeth is a deep-rooted pride in where we come from. The struggles of the past unite us and the old saying will always ring true, “To be born Welsh is to be born privileged, not with a silver spoon in your mouth, but with music in your blood and poetry in your soul.” It’s deep rooted and for me that also tells of the hiraeth, deep within your soul that will always call you to come home, come back to Wales to your heritage even if only for a little while.

I’ve been away for 50 years and I’ve found that people don’t have the draw to home that the Welsh have.

It’s indescribable to someone who isn’t Welsh. It doesn’t matter where you are from in Wales, if you’re away and you meet another Welsh person you instantly have a bond, through the kindness and friendship, it’s like a root you hold onto, and the roots of hiraeth go deep into my soul and I’ll never cut them out.

The sad thing is there aren’t many opportunities left in Wales, and I think you need to experience life outside of the Valleys to be able to appreciate it fully. As I get older the calling is worse, especially now I’m retired and I have time to be home. The friendships you form when young are always there, they never go. I’ve been friends with the same three girls for 60 years and when I come home, we meet up and talk about the past, which is something you lose when you move away, as you are living in the present.

The memories I’ve got of being young on Tylacelyn Road, Penygraig and getting bread for my Granny from the local bakery Pontrhydyfen.

She never had a top on the bread and I always used to get a telling off, but I could never resist the warm soft bread, because it wasn’t just bread, it was Pontrhydyfen’s bread.

I can still taste it now!

I think home still exists as long as you have family there. I feel a peace at home that I don’t feel here in America, it’s an overwhelming feeling of hiraeth.

It’ll be rooted within me until the day I die, and when I do die my ashes will be scattered in the Welsh Valleys so I will be home one day.

There’s a voice in my head sometimes, or music, or a hymn telling me to go home. When I’m feeling just a little lonely, especially during the pandemic, I feel like going home. It’s so flat here, sometimes I look around and long to see a Welsh mountain!

Shannon Hicks

Hiraeth for me was definitely heightened during the Covid19 pandemic, before I was in the mindset that there was nothing here for me in the Valleys.

However, I now have a much greater appreciation for the landscape around me, and feel a great sense of security from the mountains that surround me.

There is definitely a lack of opportunities for young people in the Valleys, however hiraeth for me is knowing we are all equals, and all in this together, protected by the landscapes from the harsh outside world. Which is what gives me the feeling of peace and belonging being in the Rhondda.

Jade Howells

When me and my bestfriend Meg go for our daily walks around the track, I find myself feeling present in the moment, and really taking in my surroundings. Being with one of closest and dearest friends, and surrounded by the beautiful landscape that is home to all the people dear to me, I feel an overwhelming sense of pride and hiraeth.

I’m still young, so hiraeth for me is in the little moments, feeling the warmth of the sun when I’m out the garden, taking in the views from the track, and walking down the streets of terraced houses and remembering the history of the Valleys. Hiraeth isn’t as much as a longing for the past, it is more a celebration of my Heritage.

Meghan Walsh

I’m from Tonypandy originally but Clydach Vale has always been close to my heart, as I have family who grew up there. So going down to the track and looking up towards Clydach lit up by the sun I feel so content. I know the Rhondda Valleys are seen as a deprived area, but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

Looking at the landscape and mountains we have makes me really take a step back and enjoy the area I am in. I don’t know any different, so sometimes I find I don’t take it in enough, I try to be present on my daily walks that I started with Jade in lockdown, because who knows what the future holds.

I find being surrounded by the mountains very comforting, as I know I am secure here, surrounded by my friends and family.

After going through the process of making this book, I feel much closer to my home and reassured that the people and places will always be there, however much our society changes. The feeling in my soul I will never lose, and the Hiraeth calling me back will only become stronger as I grow older and more nostalgic for the past.

Constructing this book I realised what hiraeth means to me, it’s this book and everyone it features, the people I go back to everytime. The old feeling of sadness that home and the Rhondda Valleys were something of my past has faded, realising that home will remain a constant in my life, and the relief and instant feeling of relaxation I get once I go back will never go away, as a part of me will always be there.

With thanks to Kath Honeyfield Gerald Honeyfield Lisa Boulter Marion Middle Ann Harvey Craig Middle Rachel Gibbins Lynda Edwards Jeremy Edwards Rose Fisher

Ivor Bartlett Cerys Paschali Isabel Rosser Jeff Rosser Haydn Rosser Davinia Warn Tricia Brown Shannon Hicks Jade Howells Meghan Walsh

By Ruby Rosser