My Friend Eric

We have a Hell’s Angel living opposite us. He comes out of his house most days, clothed from head to toe in black leather. As he stands, legs astride, doing up his gauntlets, he challengingly surveys his surroundings. The scene is reflected in the shiny black visor of his helmet behind which hides today’s mood. He cuts a menacing figure as he strides to his garage and wheels out the bike, a shiny Suzuki. Mounting, he opens the throttle and the machine roars out its challenge to the neighbourhood like a lion staking out its territory. A few final adjustments to gauntlet and helmet and he’s away, off to explore the countryside, over dirt tracks in the mountains and to far flung towns to the north. He’ll be gone for two or three hours then the deep rumble of the Suzuki will announce his return, another day well spent.
His name is Eric and he is eighty one years old.
Born in Brynamman in 1925, he was the eldest son of Ita and Amelia Jones. Grandpa Isaac Jones had a smallholding nearby and Eric spent a lot of his early childhood there, helping with the work and acquiring his lifelong love of horses at this time.
Once a much industrialised locality, Brynamman in the 1930s saw the closure of the brickworks, many of the mines and the only remnant of the ironworks was a huge slagheap. Most of the fathers in the village were miners and, pre-Welfare State, times were very hard. Ita Jones was a mechanic and part time lorry driver so Eric perhaps suffered a little less than his schoolmates but the whole area was very deprived. It was during this time that a group of miners got together and opened up their own drift. The workers were divided into 6 shifts with each shift working a week at a time. They received, in lieu of wages, 2cwt of coal a week for which the only payment was tuppence delivery charge. The biggest difficulty facing them was getting the coal to the surface. They rigged up a large steel drum to which they attached a long handle on each side. A steel hawser was wound around the drum and then affixed to the tram at the coal face. Two men on each handle painfully and slowly hauled up the coal filled tram. Eventually they came to Ita for advice. He rigged up an old lorry engine to the contraption and a crowd, including Eric, gathered to watch the result. The engine was switched on, the drum revolved and the coal steadily rose. Ita was paid the same as the miners – 2cwt of coal a week - and honour was satisfied. Although he didn’t understand the implications at the time Eric now recalls it as the first time he witnessed socialism at work. “For the people and not for profit,” he says.
Although the Amman Valley was very rugby orientated Eric was not much interested, preferring to spend his time at the smallholding, but when he went to secondary school in Ammanford he became more attracted to sport. He discovered a love of athletics, played rugby and cricket for the school teams and in his final year won the Victor Ludorum Prize for sport.
On leaving school he started an apprenticeship at the Lewis Foundry in Ammanford. It was about this time that he bought his first motorbike and even an accident in which he broke his collarbone did not put him off. He soon sold this machine for a more powerful one, something he would repeat until marriage and a family necessitated the purchase of a car. He also gave up sport at this time but in its place he returned to an old love, singing. His fine tenor voice earned him many first places in Eisteddfodau, and he was a member of many choirs and Concert parties. He studied with Madam Holloway-Morgan, a famous teacher in Ammanford, and sang in numerous operettas.
Meanwhile his enthusiasm for horses was not forgotten and he took up trotting racing. Buying an American brood mare, he bred two first class colts from her and won more awards to add to his collection. Travelling to courses in England meant leaving home at midday on a Saturday and not returning until two or three o’clock on Sunday morning, so he and a group of fellow enthusiasts got together to purchase land at Tairgwaith and set up a course there. Although he no longer has horses of his own he is still very much involved with this enterprise, having been Chairman for eighteen years.
In the 1960s he decided to set up business on his own, and with his usual flair and determination was soon taking commissions from local factories and mines for spare parts and repairs. Even the loss of the tips of three fingers after an accident with a grinding machine didn’t slow him down, but it wasn’t until he retired that he returned to motorcycling as a hobby.
At the beginning I called him a Hells Angel, but in view of his very active life and the two knee replacement operations he has undergone, perhaps I should have called him ‘The Bionic Man’.