Invisible Scars

We tend to associate scars with some kind of physical representation. From the scars left on the body after an accident or surgery to the scars on the landscape as a result of natural disaster or human intervention. But some scars are invisible. And just like a human psyche can be hurt - emotionally and psychologically - and the outside world be unaware of the pain by looking at that person's face and demeanour, the landscape and a community can also bear scars that have been hidden by nature or the passage of time. But the hurt remains in people's memories. And sometimes even a map can hint at a scar.

If you look at the OS Explorer Map for the Port Talbot area (165) and cast your eyes below the large blue 39 that marks the motorway junction at Margam you'll see the word 'Groes' stamped on a patch of green. 

And that's what you'll see there if you take a drive. Greenery. And a network of roads. But prior to 1975 the scene would have been completely different. 

Lots of people in Port Talbot remember the tragic and shameful story of the beautiful, Cotswold-like Groes village built in the 1830s, designed by the architect Edward Haycock (1790-1870). They remember the long fight with the Welsh Office to preserve it, and losing that fight, and how it was condemned to rubble in 1974, by the Inspector of the Public Inquiry and the Secretary of State for Wales, Conservative MP, Peter Thomas, in order to build the eastern extension of the M4. Condemned, even though, two years earlier, Port Talbot Council’s deputy engineer, M. Emyr Jones, had suggested an alternative route for the motorway, to the south of the village, on the sea side of the A48, which only added an extra 51 metres to the motorway’s overall length. The only part of the village to be saved was Beulah, the village's 'round' chapel (it's actually octagonal). It was dismantled and rebuilt at Margam's Tollgate Park in 1975.

So next time you pass Junction 39 on the M4, or join it there, or circle the roundabout on your journey along the A48, remember Groes invisible amongst the green. One of our town's invisible scars. 

I'll let another Port Talbot author, the poet Gwyn Williams (1904-1990) who was born in Beverley Street, have the final word on Groes.

Groes: Margam

We have the scarred valleys to thank them for,
where veins of coal and ore were scraped off eastwards;
they have drowned valleys for the thirst of their
factories; we have dark ranked conifers massed
where sheep once grazed the sweet upland grass;
we have caravan outliers of Wolverhampton
on the few flat acres where wheat once ripened;
they have torn our railroad up and only cut
motorways through our land for their conveniences
the throb and stench and staining of their industries
hands out the fivers from fingers of scorn.
And now the Vandals set about to erase
(and slavish Glamorgan seems to accept it)
this lovely village where my mother was born.

From Collected Poems 1936 to 1986
Gomer Press 1987