Welsh Journals

December 1934. A Commissioner for England and Wales and another for Scotland were appointed. Speaking in the House of Commons, Neville Chamberlain, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, declared: "We are going to give the Commissioners very wide discretion. They must not be afraid of trying experiments, even if those experiments fail." When Peter Scott put his plans before the Commissioner, the latter declared the project to be a "promising experiment nowhere else attempted". He promised to subsidise the scheme in Monmouthshire over a long enough period to test Scott's claim that it offered a workable method of meeting the special needs of the long unemployed. Lancashire not being designated a Special Area, he was not able to assist the Wigan Society. In South Wales the headquarters and industrial workshops were set up at Westlake's Brewery, Cwmavon. This five storey building had been derelict for six years when S.P.S. Ltd. bought it in November 1934 for £ 3,250. During the next two years a further £ 6,000 was spent on the buildings and more than £ 7,000 on equipment. Always known as "The Old Brewery", the building was in an appalling state of disrepair, windows broken, doors smashed, vats, tanks and other debris scattered about, everything impregnated with the reek of beer. Every floor but one had to be constructed anew. During 1935, over 100 members, former carpenters, electricians and plumbers, put in many 'capital Hours' (i.e. non- productive times) adapting the building. Production departments were opened as soon as rooms became available. The first activities were wood-working, boot repairing and tailoring. A bakery and a knitting department were opened soon afterwards. Early in 1936 the former beer cellar was converted into a kitchen and canteen. By the autumn a second oven of larger capacity had been installed in the bakery, increasing the output to 9,000 half-quartern loaves per month. A grain cleaning plant and flour mill further improved the quality of the bread and provided bran and sharps for the stock at the farm. A room devoted to handicrafts and furniture making was put under the charge of a German refugee as full-time instructor. The weaving department, under the supervision of a Scottish weaver, produced cloth of excellent quality one of the most successful of the Brewery products. The Brewery grounds were made attractive by an open-air theatre built during a student work-camp with stone from the neighbouring Beili Glas Quarry. A slaughter house and piggeries were built later, also with stone from Beili Glas. During 1937 a butcher's shop was installed where the meat, mostly home-grown, was cut up for distribution every Friday. Adjoining the canteen a room was set aside for making jam and pickles. The Brewery now also housed a smithy, boiler house, garage, distributive stores and stables. The planning of the Cwmavon complex and the establishment within a period of 21/2 years of this range of skilled activities, carried on within a single building by unemployed men receiving no cash reward, was no mean achievement. Sir George Gillett, having followed Sir Malcolm Steward as Commissioner for the Special Areas, visited S.P.S. at mid-summer 1936 and said in a speech at the Brewery: "I have been used to business all my life and one of the things I admire most about this show is the wonderful organisation it is quite impossible to carry on work of this sort without organisation and brains in every detail." Credit for this rested chiefly with Jim Forrester, the S.P.S. Area Organiser, a young man who had the rare ability of combining the vision of a Peter Scott with the official management of a business. Jim Forrester had indeed a rare personality. Taking part as a nineteen year old Oxford undergraduate in the spectacular international work camp at Brynmawr in 1931, he chose to be known as 'Jim Forrester', though his true name was James Brabazon Grimston, carrying