Myfanwy Haycock

Whilst Myfanwy Haycock is not one of Wales' best-known poets, it is no reflection on her craft. Not only was she a fine poet, winning first prize in the Port Talbot National Eisteddfod in 1932 - one of her bardic chairs, won in the Ebbw Vales Eisteddfod, can be seen in Pontypool Museum, she was also talented as an artist and prose writer.

Myfanwy was born in 1913 in Pentrepiod near Pontnewynydd, the youngest of three daughters of a local miner, James Haycock and his wife, Alice. Myfanwy was acknowledged as being talented from an early age and attended the girls' grammar school in Pontypool and then the art college in Cardiff.

Not unnaturally she was not interested in teaching and, instead, went in for journalism, short story writing and illustrating. However, when the Second World War broke out she went to work as a wages clerk in Glascoed Munitions Factory and then as a teacher in Usk College of Agriculture. Subsequently, in 1943 she joined the BBC in London where two of her plays and many of her poems were broadcast.

After the war, Myfanwy continued working in journalism together with her art and poetry. In 1947 she married Arthur Merion Williams from Borth in Ceredigion, who was a consultant anaesthetist. The couple married in Llanofer Church, near Pontypool, which is on the Llanofer estate - Lady Llanofer being one of the main proponents of the Welsh culture during the 19th century. Myfanwy then moved to Buckland, near Reigate, Surrey because of her husband's work and where she brought up three children until her early death in 1963.

Her work shows that Wales was never far from her thoughts - the poem below is about a scene from further up the valley, near Blaenafon,

On the Mountain Road near Blaenafon.

The road is a living thing. It leaps
Across the mountainside's soft folds, and creeps
Within the hollows,
Then suddenly it follows
Obediently the old stone wall that throws
A friend's arm around it as it goes

Upon its downward way, it will not wait
For someone to unhitch the mountain gate;
But slips below it,
Half turning then to blow it
A pebbly kiss - Oh I am very sure
That I have walked this way before...

Her work has been described by A.G. Prys-Jones as "imagery often touched with elfin whimsicality".