Apprenticeships, tanks and gritty teeth
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Hubert Edwards was born and raised in Newborough, and after leaving school (at age 15 years) began work with the Forestry Commission in 1951. “There were about 50 men working in the forest, mostly young lads about the same age as me,” he recalls.
“We biked or walked from the village at about 7:30 – it was an 8-hour day and I was paid £8 a week, with a bonus for the number of trees planted. We had an apprenticeship of about six to seven months.”
Hubert worked with the Forestry Commission from 1951-1961, and his co-workers would sometimes discuss that there had to be better jobs: “One man (‘Len, Gallt y Rhedyn’) left and joined the police and became head of the CID.”
Hubert’s first job was preparing the area to plant the Marram grass, and for sand stabilisation so trees could be planted: “I went with my uncle Owen Hugh Edwards to Betws y Coed to collect the twigs, and helped the men spread them on the sand.”
The fences reached about 10 feet eventually and would – along with the Marram
grass – help to hold back the sand. “They tried using tarmac once,”
he remembers. “But it didn’t work because it wouldn’t last. The Marram
grass worked best.”
It was planted by hand with spades, the grass transplanted from thicker areas to infill thinner areas.
The tree planting continued behind the fences, and Hubert remembers and old army tank being used to go where other vehicles couldn’t: “It was there about six months, but cost too much, so then the work had to be done by the men – it was very hard work.”
The tree seedlings were planted without additional fertiliser or water into the
sandy ground. “We had a bag on our backs – like a postman’s bag – that
each held three seedlings. The seedlings were planted three feet apart. We used
poles to keep the plantings in line. They would mature to about 10 feet within
9-10 months.”
A tent provided shelter from the weather and was moved as they worked different areas: “Near the beach, at lunchtime, the sand got everywhere, even in the sandwiches,” says Hubert.
He recalls cold winters, while the summer weather was very hot. The warm sunshine attracted visitors, who would sometimes get stuck in deep sand: ” ‘Johnny Mac’ from Penmachno would use machines to pull visitors from the sands when they got stuck,” recalls Hubert. “They just wouldn’t listen to warnings!”