The Pi,ano

The sun did shine on the rain-washed roofs and streets of Afon Tawe, with its stone bridge, houses, a pub, a Chapel and the Schoolhouse.

And though there was the stillness, softened by the wind and the song of the river as it passed under the stone bridge, there was no music to the village. But for this morning. This morning there was beautiful notes, never heard before, drifting upon the air, for Afon Tawe had a pi’ano. To be sung by the school-mistress, Megan Evans, to the children, young and old, mesmerised by the rush of sounds, not known to them before now.

It’s not that the village had no music, why sheep-dip-morgan had his fiddle and would play well after a pint or three in the ‘Stone-bridge’ on Saturdays. And of course, we had our choirs. The children sang in the school, the ladies sang in the chapel and the men sang on Fridays, to keep them out the pub.

Myfanwy, was often heard along the valley to bring the drovers home. ‘Give it some hwyl boys’ the choir master Gerrydd Jones, would cry, to the raising of throats as if downing the last pint.

But now ours, at this time, was the only village in the Tawe valley with a pi’ano, so the people came from as far as ‘Ynys-Tal-y-Feran’ to hear it sung. And concerts were held at a penny a chair or a half-penny for the standing.

This good fortune, of course, could not last, for we feared the school-mistress Miss Megan would be snapped up, by the boys of Neath with their fine money and fancy clothes. But Miss Megan would have the none of it.

No, for our disaster came not in the form of young man’s wants, but from the damp. The mist rising from the Tawe did play upon the pi’anos fine heart, to the great displeasure of Miss Megan. But what was to be done?

To us, who did not know the sounds of the pi’ano, we did not hear it, but Miss Megan was most annoyed, and as, in her wilful way, did seek out from Swansea, (oh my god!) a man who could put the tune back into our pi’ano. And though it would be fifteen shillings and a day’s free lodging, through dark mutterings, it was paid, for we feared the losing of our good school teacher, more than the tuning of the pi’ano.

This was all when I was a little girl and sang at Miss Megan’s side, long, long ago.

Miss Megan is gone now, to the Swansea man it was, and so has our lovely pi’ano.

But we still have our song, for we are a musical nation, and ‘Myfanwy’, is still heard on Fridays, and the ladies on Thursdays.

And the children ...

Well, they sing all the time.