As work to dismantle the houses begun – marketing officer Julie Williams realised that a film was needed to document the process and which could later be shown to visitors of the museum to tell their history and reveal the stories in the stones.

The company that undertook the film project was Llun Y Felin, run by Angela and Dyfan Roberts who lived nearby in Llanrug. Together they created the loveliest film entitled Stories in the Stones – a film which  - like the houses - has stood the test of time and is still shown daily at the museum – and now, for the first time, online! 

Here Angela Roberts looks back at some of her memories of the process of putting the film together.

What makes a home? Is it bricks and mortar, or is it people? When the National Slate Museum chose our small ‘husband and wife’ television company to record the moving of four slate quarrymen’s houses from Tanygrisiau to the museum – it was the stories of those who had lived in them that I was particularly excited to unearth from the rubble.

Unusually, the names and occupations of all families and lodgers had been carefully documented – going right the way back to the houses’ very first residents 150 years prior. Slate, of course, was their raison d’être. ‘The Slate Quarries of North Wales’, published in 1873, describes Blaenau and district as a ‘City of Slates’ with parapets, kerb stones, chimneys and roofs hewn out of slate, and larders, kitchen tables and mantlepieces fashioned out of slate. Letters by an unknown author of that time read:

I had gone to the Welsh Slate Company’s quarry and, in returning by the rubble heaps, I came across a smart looking boy pulling out slabs from amongst the waste. I entered into conversation with him.

“For what purpose are you gathering stones?”

“To make slates, sir.”

“Are they not too small to make slates?”

“Not to make small slates, sir!”

The boy knew what he was talking about. All slate was useful. Hadn’t he been working in the slate quarries since the age of six?! The writer continues:

“I reached the quarry at noon, and was allowed the privilege of steaming my clothes before the peat-fire in the weigh-taker’s hut. The men soon came filing in, each man taking a can from the fireplace. I entered a conversation and soon found that in politics they were eminently radical, in sympathies generally warm-hearted, and as impulsive as Celts in general.”

A little condescending? Perhaps. But radical, warm-hearted and impulsive – of course they were! And I was soon to find out that nothing much in that respect had changed down all those long years.

Trips with Julie and Dyfan to meet former residents of 1-4 Fron Haul and their relations were an out and out joy. And it was such a privilege to sit and listen to their stories over biscuits and home-made cake and endless cups of tea.

Aneurin Davies was in his nineties at the time, still running his own farm and still as mischievous as he must have been as a child. He couldn’t help chuckling telling us about the tricks he and his friends used to get up to – placing a halfpenny on the train track for a passing train to squash it to the size of a penny, and then straight off to the shop to try and exchange it for sweets (unsuccessfully as it turned out)!

Marian Jones was another who spoke lovingly of a special childhood - with memories of bikes, hulahoops and hay fields, of collecting tadpoles and binging on sweet stolen sugar peas.

Robin Lloyd Jones recalled visiting his grandfather in number 3 - the portrait of Italian revolutionary Garibaldi at the top of the stairs, the Bible and pipe on the table, the taking turns to bathe in front of the fire in an old tin bath.

While Doreen Davies thought back with a smile to her mam cooking up feasts in the cast iron range.  “How on earth she did it, but we always had plenty to eat… oh, she was especially good at making apple tart and cacan gri – you know, Welsh cake.”

Abel Lloyd had lived in Fron Haul the longest - for over 76 years, indeed, since his birth. He remembered sheets being pinned to the ceilings to make the home warmer and talked of collecting water from the downpipe and the well to make tea – as the water from the tap had a really bad taste. But, rather than the hard times, most of all he remembered the good times and the joy of living in a close community.

Like Marian and Aneurin and Robin and Doreen, he talked of carnivals and get-togethers and kindnesses and a village of Aunty this and Uncle that – even if neighbours weren’t actually related by blood at all. Like the others, he had a lifetime of stories to tell us about 1-4 Fron Haul.

And, as Robin himself so eloquently answered me,

“What makes a home? Not, in the end, the cushions, the wallpaper, the colour of the paint – but the stories of the people who lived there, the stories in the stones.

In 2017 the National Waterfront team undertook ‘Asylum Seeker and Refugee Awareness Training'. What they learned inspired them to engage further with local refugee communities. An active programme of engagement, support and participation, created in partnership with local refugees and support agencies was developed to welcome and help integrate refugees and those seeking asylum into the community. This has included hosting a monthly support group, sewing and creative writing classes, a ballet class for children seeking sanctuary, for which local dance schools donated spare shoes and leotards, and two exhibitions: Chips, Curry Cappuccino and Young, Migrant and Welsh from the Ethnic Minorities and Youth Support Team Wales.

In recognition of this work, in June of 2018 the National Waterfront Museum became the UK’s first Museum of Sanctuary. What follows is an edited blog, written by museum curator Ian Smith in 2017 about the museums’ learning journey. It has been updated to reflect today’s statistics on refugees and asylum seekers worldwide.

Wales is culturally diverse from three hundred years of industrial heritage and a history of people coming here for work in mining and quarrying, dock yards and heavy industry. Lately jobs in tourism, modern industry and students coming to study at our universities make us a melting pot of cultures. Swansea has been at the heart of multicultural Wales since the industrial revolution, a place where people of different races, cultures and faiths have lived side by side for centuries. It is a city that has benefited from the vibrancy and creativity of a multicultural population. Unsurprisingly with this background, Swansea became a ‘City of Sanctuary’ in 2010, the second one in the UK after Sheffield.

Part of my job is in the Public History Team for Amgueddfa Cymru. This means we actively seek out different groups and individuals in the community and gather their stories and history. Through my job I have met people who have been displaced from their homeland for various reasons and are seeking safety and shelter.

So, when in May 2017, I attended ‘Asylum Seeker and Refugee Awareness’ training at the Waterfront Museum as part of our staff training, I thought I was fairly clued up about the subject.

The training was delivered by a lady working for Swansea City of Sanctuary and another lady who was an asylum seeker and she told us about her personal experiences.

It’s strange, we see stuff on the TV and news and read stories in the papers and get a picture in our heads about a situation but very often is only half a story. Learning factual numbers and hearing personal testimony made me realise how far off the mark I was, how little I knew.

For instance, we were asked to rank the top ten countries of the world in order of which ones take the most refugees. As a group we managed to name one or two correctly.

Today the countries that host the largest numbers of refugees are : Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon, Iran, Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Uganda.

Surprised? I was. The UK, Germany or France don’t make the top ten even though I was convinced they would as it seems to make headlines on a regular basis in our media. The biggest refugee camp in the world is Cox’s Bazar in Southern Bangladesh, which houses nearly a million Rohingya people who have fled their home country of Myanmar.  

We learned what the difference is between an asylum seeker and a refugee. Both are displaced persons – they have had to leave their country of origin for lots of different reasons; war, religious beliefs, persecution or sexual orientation.

An asylum seeker is a person who is fleeing persecution in their home country, has come to the UK and made themselves known to the authorities. They then exercise their legal right to apply for asylum. If they are granted asylum here then they have ‘refugee’ status.

I found out that many of these desperate people are brought to Europe and the UK by traffickers and quite often have no idea which country they are in. Most are stripped of belongings and passports so have no way of proving who they are, their age and marital status etc. when questioned by the authorities.

After assessment and a screening interview, if the person becomes an asylum seeker they then have to wait until their case is further assessed to get refugee status or be rejected. At any time during this process people can be subject to detention, deportation or destitution. Destitution means having no recourse to public funds, having no money and nowhere to live.

Asylum seekers are dispersed all over the country and are given free accommodation in private lettings. They are not allowed to work. They receive a maximum of £37.75 a week per person - £5.39 a day for food, toiletries, everyday needs and travel. As asylum seekers have to regularly sign in at an immigration office, which can be some distance from where they live, a day’s money can be used up in bus fares.

The application process can take years for a person to get a decision on refugee status and the onus is on the asylum seeker to prove persecution of an ongoing threat and not a one off occurrence.

For many this period in limbo can be very difficult. The lady we spoke to told us to imagine you suddenly found yourself in somewhere like China and couldn’t speak the language or understand the culture. Finding your way around and doing simple tasks is almost impossible. For example, she told us her and her two young children were placed in a house in Swansea on a cold January day. The house was cold, it had central heating but she had never seen central heating controls before and didn’t know how to work it. This lady was a psychologist in her own country but her qualifications are useless in the UK. She told us that even with all these problems she felt safe here, which was all she wanted for her family.

After the process is completed and refugee status is granted, as refugees they have the right to work and apply for family reunification. If refugee status is not granted there are a number of avenues for appeal but ultimately if status is not granted then the person can be deported.

After listening to the trainer and hearing the stories of asylum seekers I was left with a helpless feeling inside me. Every story we heard made me think ‘what if that was me and my family?’ and how grateful we would be to find somewhere to feel safe. The biggest point I took away from the morning was: Refugees are just people like you and me who had jobs, housing, education and good standards of living, suddenly taken away from them through no fault of their own. They just need the chance to start over again without fear.

In the year ending March 2020, the UK offered protection – in the form of asylum, humanitarian protection, alternative forms of leave and resettlement – to 20,339 people

The Waterfront continues to work with local refugee and asylum seeker groups, and to welcome new friends from across the world to our Swansea community.

 

Cardiff and Vale UHB have an established Young Onset Dementia Service that meets regularly, providing different activities and support for anyone who receives a diagnosis of a progressive dementia before the age of 65.

Every month on a Friday, the group meets for a walk in a different location in Cardiff and St Fagans National Museum of History is really pleased to have become one of those locations. Learning staff meet with the group four times a year to take a seasonal walk around the site. We look at nature, animals, how the seasons are changing and of course the historic buildings and collection. After our walk we get together for a cup of tea and a biscuit and have a chat.

The group leader has said that ‘the walks are fantastically popular and very well attended. The walks provide an outlet for people to come together and learn that they are not alone in the challenges they experience and gain mutual support and friendship.’

The session is relaxed and friendly and hopefully a safe space for the group enabling them to feel confident in returning in their own time.

If you ask the right questions and listen carefully, there is no one who does not have an interesting story to tell. I grew up on stories of my mother’s younger years and the home front in World War Two. Family friends would come every weekend to Saturday tea or Sunday lunch and conversation would often revolve around memories of nursing during the war, bringing alive everyday life in ways history books seldom do. 

Workshop at Butetown History & Arts Centre

Decades later when I was involved in an oral history project on Cardiff Docklands in World War Two, I heard very different stories of life during the war from people who grew up and lived in Tiger Bay. These stories remain important in retelling the history of Wales and the UK in a more inclusive way. They illuminate the positive contributions made by minorities, despite day-to-day and institutional racism. Similar issues came to the fore again in the UK last year with the Windrush scandal and they are currently being raised by Covid19.

Life stories are an engaging and accessible way of getting to know more about the many people in Wales today who have settled here after escaping war and violence in their home countries. Telling one’s story can be both difficult and life affirming. Listening to refugee stories cuts through the empathy fatigue and indifference produced by 24-hour news. Individual stories tell us how it feels to become a refugee, to lose one’s home and the life one has known, to have to deal with a traumatic past and an uncertain future. They throw light on the many obstacles to creating a new life in an unfamiliar environment. They also reveal the positive contributions that refugees make to Wales today and how we can help smooth the process of settling in, both via social policy and in everyday life. Our partnership with the National Museum means that these stories will become a permanent part of the history of contemporary Wales. 

Knowing more about the lives of others is enriching and important in shaping the sort of society in which we wish to live. My hopes for this project are that it will attract community support and help improve current and future refugee experience. It aims to give participants a sense of agency and ownership and to prove a positive experience for all involved. 

https://refugee.wales