Salt, or Evelyn on the Shore | Halen, neu Evelyn ar y Lan
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“If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.”
― Rudyard Kipling.
I love visiting Museums. You’ll always hear Writers and Storytellers say that stories, in whatever form, bind us and that we can only really learn how to evolve through our collective stories. They’re right of course, or I believe they are, but in a Museum, we begin to understand what this actually means, in practice. If you visit the Holyhead Maritime Museum, you will find that stories are bursting out of the curiosities in the display cabinets. China cups, captain’s cuffs, wreck finds, diving suits, ship parts, medals – countless objects that send us hurling into the worlds they come from, like nothing else does, forcing us to empathise, to reflect, to see – as a physical part of that story is there in front of our eyes.
Salt, or Evelyn on the Shore is one such story as it started with a dagger at the Museum, or, officially, A Midshipman’s Poniard which is on display there. Thanks to the efforts of community historians such as Peter Scott Roberts and other volunteers attached to the Museum, we came to know much of the Poniard’s owner. He was Jan Christiaan Van Aller, a Dutch mariner of the Royal Netherlands Navy, who landed in Holyhead following the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940, along with many of his Dutch crewmates. His story is worthy of the telling, but when I discovered who had donated the Poniard to the Museum, I was compelled to tell another side of the story, because it was one Holyhead woman by the name of Evelyn Hughes who had cherished the Poniard, given to her for safe keeping, for over 60 years.
With the help of Peter Scott Roberts, I was able to trace Sue Bugh, the daughter of Evelyn Hughes, or Eve, who sadly passed some years ago. Sue has since been talking to me about the life of her dear Mam, whose early life in Holyhead wasn’t easy, having experienced the loss of her father and sister as a child. That said, the Holyhead Community, recovering from the Great War, drew in and helped the family to cope. Eve had a great love of Porthdafarch and the wild flowers that grow up there on the cliffs, often visiting the beach to sit with her knitting. She worked hard on the mail boat service between Holyhead and Dublin, while also bringing up two children as a single Mam, having been separated from her first husband. Through all her hardships, she had become fond of the Dutch sailor, after he had befriended her family, and they agreed to write when he was sadly posted to Jakarta in the Dutch East Indies. When the letters suddenly stopped, dear Evelyn assumed he had been killed in action.
So, Jan’s Poniard, given to him when he passed out as a cadet in 1939, stayed with Evelyn throughout the long years of her life. She kept it close to her, and even took it in her luggage on trips abroad before 1965. I think it’s no exaggeration to say that Eve treasured this object, and Sue observed often that her Mam’s thoughts were often elsewhere, perhaps pondering on what might have been had Jan returned.
It strikes me that there were and are so many women who have cried for love that has been lost due to war. This poem follows the salt in Holyhead’s air to the salt in its women’s tears, and I thank Sue and Peter for sharing her story with me. Most of all, I acknowledge the sorrow of Evelyn, and the many women like her, who have been left alone after the Captain’s call.
Salt, or Evelyn on the Shore
The salt is in the wind where the beach bellows wide,
In the night, in the proud Port town.
On Newry Street, smell it in the tightly terraced rows
Through the windows where the grain falls down.
Past the Stanley Arms, smell it on the pavements
In the dregs of the landlord’s beer,
And it sits in the cracks of the Roman Fort
Where the dead watch the boats draw near.
In the church yard, on the stones of sleeping sailors,
Who the sea took all for its own,
The salt is in their soil and it holds them there still
In the dark, a grain for a bone.
It flies, a salt spectre, on Hyfrydle chapel’s towers
stinging in the rain in the breeze,
It’s looking for its kin in the face of a lover,
Down the lanes, in the gorse, past the trees.
It speeds in the night, past Penrhos Feliw
The salt on the standing stone,
Then it sees her awake, a drift in the dark
A woman in the wind all alone.
She walks by the boom of the sea by the moon,
The salt now settled in her hair,
It mingles with the water falling down on her face,
for her sailor is no longer there.
They rode their bikes here, the salt in their spokes
With the scent of cowslips by the shore,
and they walked to their chapel, under big open skies,
and prayed not to be riven by War.
His Captain had called him out to her sea,
So he gave her his dagger of gold,
The salt crusted thick on the side of his ship
and on her skin, in Porthdafarch, in the cold.
Copyright, Gillian Brownson 2021
“Pe bai hanes yn cael ei ddysgu ar ffurf straeon, ni fyddai byth yn cael ei anghofio.”
― Rudyard Kipling.
Rwyf wrth fy modd yn ymweld ag amgueddfeydd. Byddwch bob amser yn clywed Awduron a Storïwyr yn dweud bod straeon, beth bynnag fo’u ffurf, yn ein rhwymo at ein gilydd ac mai dim ond drwy’n straeon cyfunol y gallwn ni ddysgu sut i esblygu. Maen nhw'n iawn wrth gwrs, neu rwy'n credu eu bod nhw, ond mewn amgueddfa rydyn ni'n dechrau deall beth mae hyn yn ei olygu mewn gwirionedd, yn ymarferol. Os ewch chi i Amgueddfa Forwrol Caergybi, fe welwch fod yna straeon yn llifo o'r hynodion yn y cypyrddau arddangos. Cwpanau tsieini, cyffiau capten, darganfyddiadau o longddrylliadau, siwtiau deifio, rhannau o longau, medalau – gwrthrychau di-rif sy'n ein hanfon ar ruthr i'r byd maen nhw’n dod ohono, fel dim byd arall, gan ein gorfodi i uniaethu, myfyrio, gweld – gan fod rhan gorfforol o'r stori yno o flaen ein llygaid.
Mae Salt, or Evelyn on the Shore yn un stori o’r fath gan ei bod wedi dechrau â dagr yn yr Amgueddfa, neu, yn swyddogol, Poniard Canol-longwr sy’n cael ei arddangos yno. Diolch i ymdrechion haneswyr cymunedol fel Peter Scott Roberts a gwirfoddolwyr eraill sy'n gysylltiedig â'r Amgueddfa, daethom i wybod llawer am berchennog y Poniard, sef Jan Christiaan Van Aller, morwr yn Llynges Frenhinol yr Iseldiroedd, a laniodd yng Nghaergybi ar ôl i’r Almaen oresgyn yr Iseldiroedd ym 1940, ynghyd â llawer o'i gyd-forwyr o'r Iseldiroedd. Mae ei stori'n haeddu cael ei hadrodd, ond pan ddarganfyddais pwy oedd wedi rhoi'r Poniard i'r Amgueddfa, fe'm gorfodwyd i adrodd ochr arall i'r stori, oherwydd dynes o Gaergybi o’r enw Evelyn Hughes oedd wedi gofalu am y Poniard, a roddwyd iddi i’w gadw'n ddiogel, am fwy na 60 mlynedd.
Gyda chymorth Peter Scott Roberts, fe lwyddais i ddod o hyd i Sue Bugh, merch Evelyn Hughes, neu Eve, a fu farw rai blynyddoedd yn ôl yn anffodus. Ers hynny mae Sue wedi bod yn siarad â mi am fywyd ei hannwyl fam, nad oedd ei bywyd cynnar yng Nghaergybi yn hawdd, ar ôl colli ei thad a'i chwaer fel plentyn. Wedi dweud hynny, tynnodd cymuned Caergybi, a oedd yn gwella ar ôl y Rhyfel Mawr, at ei gilydd a helpu'r teulu i ymdopi. Roedd gan Eve gariad mawr at Borthdafarch a'r blodau gwyllt sy'n tyfu yno ar y clogwyni, ac yn aml byddai’n mynd i'r traeth i eistedd a gwau. Bu’n gweithio’n galed ar wasanaeth y llongau post rhwng Caergybi a Dulyn, a hefyd magu dau o blant fel mam sengl, ar ôl cael ei gwahanu oddi wrth ei gŵr cyntaf. Drwy’r holl galedi, roedd wedi dod yn hoff o’r morwr o’r Iseldiroedd, ar ôl iddo ddod yn gyfeillgar i'w theulu, a chytunodd y ddau i ysgrifennu at ei gilydd pan gafodd Jan ei anfon yn anffodus i Jakarta yn India’r Dwyrain yr Iseldiroedd. Pan ddaeth y llythyrau i ben yn sydyn, tybiodd yr annwyl Evelyn ei fod wedi'i ladd wrth ymladd.
Felly, dyma Poniard Jan, a gyflwynwyd iddo pan basiodd ei gwrs fel cadét ym 1939, yn aros ym meddiant Evelyn drwy gydol blynyddoedd hir ei bywyd. Fe'i cadwodd yn agos ati, a hyd yn oed mynd ag ef yn ei bagiau ar dripiau dros y môr cyn 1965. Dwy ddim yn credu mai gor-ddweud yw dweud bod Eve wedi trysori'r gwrthrych hwn, a sylwodd Sue fod meddwl ei Mam yn aml mewn man arall, efallai'n dychmygu’r hyn a allasai fod pe bai Jan wedi dychwelyd.
Mae'n fy nharo i fod cymaint o fenywod wedi crio oherwydd cariad a gollwyd yn sgil rhyfel. Mae'r gerdd hon yn dilyn yr halen yn aer Caergybi i'r halen yn nagrau merched y dref, ac rwy’n ddiolchgar i Sue a Peter am rannu ei stori gyda mi. Yn bennaf oll, rwy’n cydnabod tristwch Evelyn, a'r nifer fawr o fenywod tebyg iddi, sydd wedi'u gadael ar eu pen eu hunain ar ôl i’r Capten alw.