Will Jones
From Festipedia, hosted by the FR Heritage Group
FR platelayer and husband of Tan-Y-Bwlch volunteer station mistress Bessie Jones.
Will & Bessie Jones, Tan-y-Bwlch. Photo:- FR Archives
In June 1955, Will Jones was seconded to the FR by his employer, Merioneth County Council, for urgent permanent way work. This was a part-time arrangement, all that the railway could afford. In January 1956 Will became a full-time employee at a weekly wage of £7. At that time, the Manager, Allan Garraway, was paid £450 per year. Will Jones and his wife Bessie lived in the Tan-y-Bwlch station house to which Will had first moved in 1924, they married in 1929. He was there as platelayer and stationmaster and Bessie was a niece of near-by Creuau farm. Will was also required to take a turn as guard on the passenger trains. Will still found time to keep a smallholding and deliver coal from the Tan-y-Bwlch wharf to Rhyd and Llanfrothen.
Will Jones, platelayer & raconteur, photographed in 1960. Photo:- FR Archives
Will became a roadman during the closed years. On his return, Will proved to be an invaluable and ever patient teacher of a succession of volunteer track gangs. During the lunch hour he was in his element as a storyteller and a few of his tales found their way into the magazine. One hilarious tale concerned the delivery of a pig in a livestock box (transferred from the GWR to the FR Co. at Blaenau Ffestiniog) to farmer Parry at Dduallt sometime after 1923. Naturally the pig escaped, but the really interesting thing was that the farmer had sent his lad to meet the train with a horse-drawn sled, there being no roads at Dduallt. On another occasion Will said, in a most serious tone, "You people are a very bad influence on me (pause) Last night I went home and spoke English to Bessie!". Bessie Jones continued her teas and her costumed appearances when the trains returned to Tan-y-Bwlch daily during the season for ten years until they both retired in 1968 to Will"s home village of Waunfawr. At his retirement, Will joined forces with Tom Davies of Bron Madoc to collaborate with the FR Magazine editors in the production of three articles for the magazine on the operation of gravity slate trains. These articles are of great value as few people (perhaps none) now remember the mechanics of this particular daily mode of operation. They were reprinted in booklet form in 1986.
Will died in 1981 and the magazine said (plus much else): "William Jones, Head Ganger FR Co., who possessed an intelligent, ingenious and cultured Welsh mind"
The last word about Will and Bessie belongs just to Will:
- Memories will linger on and on,
- Till we ourselves will all be gone.
- I see a straight just round this bend,
- Optically, both lines meet at the very end.
Bessie and Will Jones are buried at St Garmon's Church, Bettws Garmon, close to the WHR. They are in the new part of the graveyard, behind the church - fifth row back, eighth from the church end. There is a carving of Bessie and a Fairlie on the stone; the grave is covered in marble chips because that is what the railways are ballasted with in Heaven. If you're passing, would you please clean the ballast of moss? Thank you.
[edit]References
- Some Industrial Influence on The evolution of Landscape in Snowdonia, North Wales
A study by Noel Walley. - FRM-20-07, 45-03, 65-20, 95-02 and many others
- HGJ-49-21 Will and Bessie Jones – a personal recollection by Phillip Vaughan Davies