This collection consists of a miscellanous group of papers relating to Aberpergwm Colliery, Cwmllynfell Colliery and the filming of 'The Silent Village', a film based on the massacre at Lidice during World War Two, in Cymgeidd.
Aberpergwm Colliery was located near Glyn-neath, Vale of Neath. The name originally covered a number of different slants worked in the area from the early 1800s. The Aberpergwm Slant was re-opened in 1906 and worked by the Aberpergwm Colliery Company. Aberpergwm Colliey was closed in 1985.
Cwmllynfell Colliery was located in the Swansea Valley. The name was used for a series of anthracite mines dating from 1825. In 1878 the No. 1 pit was closed and in 1880 the No. 2 pit was also closed. By 1917 the colliery was managed by the Colliery Investment Trust Limited. By 1932 it was in the hands of Henderson's Welsh Anthracite Collieries Limited which was by that time a subsiduary of the Amalgamated Anthracite Collieries Limited. The colliery was cloosed in 1959.
In 1942 the Nazis massacred every man and woman in the mining village of Lidice in Czechoslavakia. A few months later Humphrey Jennings, Director of the Ministry of Information's Crown Film Unit approached Arthur Horner, President of the South Wales Miners' Federation, looking for a mining village which could be used as the setting for a film retelling of the story of Lidice as it could have happened if the Nazis had ruled in Wales. Cymgiedd in the Swansea Valley was suggested and the local people there rose to the challenge. A Film Committee was set up and many of the residents of Cymgeidd acted in the film, using their own names and often playing similar roles to those they held in their own real community . The film was called 'The Silent Village' and was premiered in Cymgeidd Welfare Hall.
From the guide to the D.L. Evans (Abercrave), 1902-1943, (Swansea University)
