Subject: Fwd: Early Years
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2008 02:16:38 EDT
Dear Myron, Please find below the latest page of Crystal Spheres.      Myron Wyn Evans was born in Craigcefnparc, near Swansea in Wales on May 26th 1950.  His parents were Edward Ivor Evans and Mary Evans. At only two years of age Myron was admitted to his local hospital, Morriston War Hospital for an emergency operation for intestinal twisting and was not expected to live more than half an hour.  However, due to the then new National Health Service and a very skillful surgeon Myron survived the operation.  In the next bed to Myron was a young patient with polio, which was prevalent before the polio vaccine was developed.  The operation was successful, but the discomfort from this operation lasted many years.      Craigcefnparc is a small town in the South Wales coalfield where most of the men folk, earned a living underground in the mines..  The coal miners would emerge from the drift covered in coal dust, and walk up the steep valley back to the village, wearing helmets and safety lamps. The dangers of coal mining were ever present in the village with frequent accidents, some of which were fatal, caused by badly supported gallery roofs.  The roofs were held up by sprags or beams of wood, and the pressure often bent them.  The most common cause of accidents was falling stones, and there was also the ever present danger of fire damp, or methane.  At the time of Myron’s birth his father Edward was a colliery shotman, responsible for bringing down the coal face with gunpowder and had already worked for fourteen years in the Nixon drift mine.  Edward worked not only as a coal miner, but also for the Mines’ Rescue Service where he won bronze, silver and gold medals.      Myron’s mother Mary was the daughter of a coal miner, Thomas Elim Havard Jones, Head Deacon of Elim Welsh Baptist Chapel, Craigcefnparc, descending from an eleventh century Norman family, the Havard or Harvard family.  The hidden danger in the mines was disease from coal dust, called black lung.  Myron’s grandfather suffered from this disease and could walk only a few yards at a time.  He was helped with a respirator but it gradually got worse.  In the prime of his life he had been a brass band leader, so one room of Myron’s home was filled with musical instruments.  Myron’s grandfather composed four part harmonyin do re mi notation in the room their living room.  Myron’s education started in his family home, where he now lives once again. His grandfather Thomas taught Myron the alphabet on a piece of hardboard in front of the steam coal fire.  The only thing that has changed is that the open steam coal fire has become an anthracite stove.        When Myron was four his family moved to a two acre smallholding called Pant y Bedw.  Myron’s father worked on this holding alongside his job as a coal miner. Myron happily worked on the smallholding from his early years, mainly looking after the animals, usually two or three head of cattle, pigs, chickens and turkeys which were grown for Christmas and sold. The turkeys were as big as Myron in the early days, so he learned to run fast and to hunt for free range eggs.      On the smallholding the hay harvest was the busiest and best time of the year, around early June.  It was still done mainly by hand, so one of Myron’s tasks was to turn the hay with a wooden rake, in order to dry it.  It was then arranged in stacks of loose hay for the main haystack, into which it was forked by hand.  Later it was baled by tractor.  There is nothing to beat the smell of fresh hay after the harvest.  This hay was fed to the cattle in winter, sheltered in a small cattle shed.  Some members of the family such as Myron’s uncle uncle, farmed on a much bigger scale, with the Massey Ferguson and Fordson Major tractors, mainly producing milk which had to be pasteurized with a generator driven machine.  The farmhouses often had no electricity and this way of life was basically the same as in Celtic and pre Celtic times.  They produced almost all the food needed by the family, including delicious bread, butter, cheese and milk, vegetables and fruit.  Sometime the big shire horses would be used for steep slopes, where the tractor could overturn.  To collect sheep on the high moorland tough Welsh mountain ponies were used without saddle or bridle.  So if a horse felt like it, it need only dip its head to get rid of its master and deposit the latter in a wet bog, which the horse invariably chose as the wettest spot.  Myron was wise to this hazard so would hold strongly on to the mane and would diplomatically assure the horse of a good pile of oats upon return.  In the evening air, the wild moorland was often intensely silent and beautiful, giving a great sense of freedom in a vast expanse of nature unchanged for ten thousand years.      Myron attended Craigcefnparc Primary School from 1954 to 1961, before continuing his education at Pontardawe Grammar School until 1968.  CraigcefnparcPrimary Schoolis spectacularly situated on the side of a very steep glacial valley and was built by the miners to cater for the village, which in 1954 was still a drift mining community and almost entirely Welsh speaking with two well attended nonconformist and Welsh speaking chapels. The Nixon and Hendy drifts mined steam coal from the Craigola Seam by digging into the side of the steep glacial valley, known as the Lower Clydach Valley.  Its ancient Celtic name is Glyn Eithrym, and it is this name that Myron took on 7th July 2008, when he was awarded his armorial ensigns following his appointment to the Civil List for his contribution to science.  Kerry
Many thanks for writing this up! “Crystal Spheres” is a really good biography now as well as a history of the Civil List scientists. It is certainly true that I work best here in the village and I think that this is the best way to pursue any intellectual activity – in an environment that suits one best.
