Catalogue

Moses Kellow: The Autobiography of the Croesor Quarry Manager Kellow (1862–1943) was the manager of Croesor and Parc quarries from the mid 1890s until 1930. After going blind at the age of 80 he dictated his autobiography, which the late Rodney Weaver nicely described in an article (reproduced as an appendix to the book) as ‘Not always accurate and tantalisingly vague in places’.
The autobiography, rather than being a chronological account, consists of a number of episodes from Kellow’s life plus his reflections on various topics. He describes his intellectual and technical successes (Kellow not being one to hide his light under a bushel) plus his reflections on religion, his improvements to the fuel consumption of his car, his health, travels in America and Europe (with observations, generally unfavourable, on continental hotel staff), experiences in local politics and as a county councillor and accounts of various misfortunes and near accidents, both in and outside the quarries, that befell him. Overall, Kellow comes across as an intelligent, able, well-informed and thoroughly remarkable man, albeit opinionated. However, he was obviously not without humour, and has the grace at one point to describe his autobiography as a ‘somewhat haphazard account of [his] life and activities’.
From the industrial and particularly mining history perspective, the sections of most interest are obviously Kellow’s activities relating to slate quarrying and especially his accounts of the provision and use of electricity at Croesor Quarry and the development of the Kellow drill. However, his autobiography also provides a fascinating view of life in and around the quarrying industry in north-west Wales from the later part of the nineteenth century to the years preceding the Second World War.
Kellow’s autobiography was originally published in instalments in the Quarry Managers’ Journal in 1944–5. This edition has been produced from WMS member Adrian Barrell’s transcription of those instalments. Providing context is a foreword by Adrian and nine appendices which include poems by Kellow, his applications for membership to the institutions of Civil Engineers (1903) and Mechanical Engineers (1913), obituaries and details of the inscription on his grave, details of his wills, information about Kellow’s family and oral recollections of Kellow collected by Adrian.
Although Kellow’s autobiography is available both as originally published and in Adrian Barrell’s transcription deposited in some reference libraries, this excellent and well-produced book makes Kellow’s life story and the valuable supporting material by Adrian available to the wider public. I whole-heartedly recommend it.

This book, along with the other reviewed in this magazine have more than one thing in common, in that they were both written during the life time of their authors, using memory as the chief driver of the text.
In the case of this book, a very handy pocket size, the person writing was a larger than life character who used self promotion as a way of life!
This is not to say that the book is not a fascinating read, it is and it adds to our local knowledge of what was around the line for anyone interested in our railway. The Croesor Tramway, its origins and the slate quarries of the whole valley are brought to life with this book.
Written in the personal style of a man in his 80’s who was almost blind and dictated more than 70 years ago as instalments for the Quarry Managers Journal, during the second world war, however unlikely, it is a good read.

Review for the CYMDEITHAS HANES A CHOFNODION MEIRIONNYDD/MERIONETH HISTORICAL AND RECORD SOCIETY JOURNAL October 2019.
Moses Kellow was a man of some consequence in the state quarrying world between the 1890s-1930s, and this publication of his autobiography, edited by Mrs Cathy Woodhead, provides a suitable testimony to his achievements. Born in 1862 to Cornish parents (his father became a quarry manager) who moved when he was three to Caernarfon. Kellow achieved much in life. Besides managing the Croesor and Parc slate quarries (which he arranged to have amalgamated in 1896; they finally closed in 1930), he was a talented and innovative engineer who developed, among other things, what was known as the Kellow hydraulic drill, and he also introduced three~phase hydro-generated electricity into quarry workings. A man of many parts, at one time he managed a 160 acre farm on behalf of his father, and played a significant part in local government, rising to become chairman of the county council. ln his eighties he went blind, but never one to resist a challenge - and still clear minded -inthe early 1940s, while living at Penrhyndeudraeth, he set to and dictated from memory the story of his life. The text of his autobiography was later researched and transcribed by Adrian Barrell, and now forms the heart of this book.
In nearly forty generally short chapters Kellow takes us through his life, with a subject headings ranging from general reflections (‘My Guiding Principal’) to his extensive travels (‘Visits to Continental Art Galleries’, ‘The Alps’) to accounts, sometimes quite technical, on the mining industry (‘Saw Tables and Other Innovations’, ‘Quarry Cash F low Problems And Attempts To Solve Them’). In one chapter he describes how he developed his portable Kellow drill; it gained an international reputation and resulted in him being invited to the United States to demonstrate his invention, which utilized high water pressure instead of compressed air, and was capable of getting work done far more quickly than with traditional drills. Fans of Moses Kellow will, no doubt, be interested in all this, and the sections dealing with the world of slate will surely be of value to keen students of the subject (in 2017 it was announced that Gwynedd’s slate mining region was to be put forward as a World Heritage site). But one does wonder to what degree the book as a whole will engage the more general reader. There are some ten chapters, for example, on his travels, but travel writing was not really his forte - his gifts did not lie in that direction - and the functional accounts, without any great insights, are not that interesting.
But one thing is for sure: the man’s character and personality shines though every page. He was clearly a formidable character, one with great drive, whether battling with Llanfrothen parish council on some matter of voting procedure which he considered to be unlawful, or seeking out improvements wherever possible so that the quarrying of slate could be achieved more effectively. And he got going from an early age. He proudly notes: ‘Before I was twenty years of age I was elected a member of the School Board of the combined parishes of Llanfrothen and Llanfihangel-y-traethau on which I served for six years’, and again: ‘Before I was twenty-one years of age, I undertook the management of the Park Quarry’.
The book ends with a number of appendices, including two self-penned birthday poems, applications he made to engineering institutions, obituaries published on his death aged eighty-three, in 1943, his will and even the inscriptions on the family gravestone in Tan-Lan cemetery, Llanfrothen. So there is no shortage of information on this remarkable man, and his autobiography and other supporting sections of the book will no doubt be useful to those interested in slate mining history and anyone associated with, or part of, the Kellow family.

The Criccieth Castle, a three-masted iron sailing ship, was wrecked to the east of Cape Horn in July 1912. She was about 180 miles off the Falklands and the crew abandoned ship into two lifeboats, one of which was soon lost with all hands. The remaining boat held Captain Robert Thomas, his pregnant wife, Catherine, 4 year old son, Bobbie and 15 seamen. During an eight day journey in a small open boat they suffered the most severe hardships, eleven of them (including Captain Thomas and his family) eventually reaching Cape Pembroke Lighthouse. A brief account of the adventure appeared in the Falkland Islands Journal (Elliott, 2000).

Cathy Woodhead has pulled together all the reports, accounts and available evidence to tell the full story of the loss of the Criccieth Castle. Focusing her book around the Thomas family, particularly Catherine, she goes into every detail of the last voyage of the ship, the sinking, the rescue and the subsequent fate of the Thomas family and most of the crew. As Robert Cadwalader rightly says in his Foreword “It is good that this story is being told before it slips from memory”. Cathy Woodhead was inspired by her mother (Jocelyn Greenway), who in 1958 using Robert Thomas' 1913 article in Wide World Magazine, ghost wrote the story for Catherine Thomas for the book 'The Last Of The Cape Horners'. Hence we can confidently accept the authenticity of Cathy’s account and the evidence presented, in full (in appendices) of the various official documents and accounts surrounding the sinking and rescue.

It is a truly remarkable story – indeed the similarity with the epic voyage of the James Caird from Elephant Island to South Georgia by Shackleton and his crew some 4 years later is drawn to mind. Whereas we have good accounts of Worsley’s superb navigational skills on that journey, Robert Thomas did not document the voyage but appeared to be basing his journey to safety on previous knowledge of the outline of the Falklands, a hurried estimate of the ship’s position as she sank and one compass bearing to sail to the Falklands. The fact that he reached Cape Pembroke Lighthouse in a small, overloaded open boat leaking badly due to damage sustained from smashing into the ship’s side while being launched, a scrap of a sail, no tiller (he lashed an oar on), was washed overboard once, had virtually no food or water and barely entrusting steering the boat to anyone else over the period of 8 days is nothing short of miraculous and deserves greater recognition in the lexicon of notable open-boat journeys.

Cathy Woodhead’s book does us a great favour by drawing all information on the loss of the Criccieth Castle between two covers. Her detail of other crew members and family trees will be of considerable benefit to other historians following the trials of the many sailors who plied around the Horn. In the Falklands, the fate of the lifeboat used is well documented. The book is well written, clearly illustrated and is thoroughly recommended to all interested in the Falklands, particularly its maritime history.

If like me, you have a bus pass, grey hair and regard a friend as someone you climb with rather than a sophisticated camming device, then this book is for you. In 1976 Peter Benson joined the Rucksack Club and over the years contributed articles to the club’s journal on a regular basis. These are not stories of hard climbs and daring do, though he does have one or two narrow escapes, but of adventures with friends and partners on mountains and moors and at home and abroad over a period of 70 years. As he says in his introduction, mountaineering activities are neither dull nor boring and these adjectives certainly can’t be applied to this delightful book.
Written in a style which is both very readable and amusing, nearly every story makes use of a variety of colloquial words and expressions, so much so that the author includes a glossary at the end of the book. The range of tales can at best be described as an eclectic mixture. For example, an ascent of Great Gully on Craig Yr Ysfa in the winter of 1954/55 in Tricounis with long axes, ex-WD carabiners and woolly balaclavas; no crampons, crash helmets or curved picks. Another chapter of a trip to the Dolomites in the late 50’s, recounts an early attempt on the Brandler/Hasse on the Cima Grande involving 1600 feet of rope and the rear seat from a van! A hilarious account of a descent from Dinas Cromlech in the dark with a 60 pound rucksack reminded me of the Bricklayer’s Story by the late Gerard Hoffnung. Interspersed between the climbing and mountaineering stories are tales of peat bashing over the Marsden-Edale, a solo 1000 km cycle trip along the River Elbe from Cuxhaven to Prague and stories of lively encounters with a variety of continental mountaineers. Have I got any complaints? Yes the book could have been longer.

As the title suggests, this is more a series of anecdotes than a continuous narrative and details some of the adventures, experiences and musings of the author from his early climbing life. The stories certainly have an old school feel to them with references to Tricouni nails, hawser-laid rope and peg hammers, with much of the humour being derived from these recollections from a bygone age. There are some genuinely entertaining pieces such as the description of a descent from Dinas Cromlech in the dark and some more orthodox contributions simply telling the tale of a successful trek or climb but all are delivered in a light-hearted, informal style with the voice of the author a strong linguistic presence. There is a distinctly laddish element in much of the book with tales of the boys getting ‘all slickered up’ and ‘guzzlin’ the old ale’ and even a description of the author’s ‘rightroyal scuffle’ with his friend, Harold, occasioned by a breakdown in communication and a missed meeting in Mallaig.
The style is colloquial and conversational with many Lancashire idioms and slang terms employed to create a sense of place and time and in keeping with the original purpose of the stories which was to entertain readers of the Rucksack Club Journal. There is considerable variety of topic, however, with anecdotes ranging from search and rescue in the Scottish Highlands to a bike trip to the Czech Republic as well as the usual tales of near disaster on both rock and snow. Pinnacle Club members will read with interest the references to PC member, Sally Keir, who emerges from the text as a very competent and adventurous climber who is a foil to her more disorganised and slightly outrageous husband.
The book is now in the Cwm Dyli library collection.

What a lovely and very special book. It's one that all generations can enjoy - the older, like myself, with nostalgia and the younger, as an inspiration to go out and adventure. I love the illustrations and the freshness of the narrative - it takes me back to my own childhood and the adventures that I enjoyed.

A charming book illuminated by evocative photographs and exquisite paintings

What a joyful little book!...Inevitably it will be compared with Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons series and rightly so! Jocelyn Greenway writes clearly and simply; no frills, no padding, just accurate descriptive prose that evokes time and place perfectly. Her husband Robert has the keen eye of a first rate illustrator. His images are a perfect complement to the words…This little book is a delightful evocation of a nearly bygone age. I loved it.

This charming gem of a book is loaded to the gunwales with a cargo of rich nostalgia all the more poignant because the story relates to a real family. A lovely antidote to today’s risk-averse, over-technical age and one to which many old seadogs would be glad to return

A delightful book, evocative, nostalgic, full of charm

As the credit crunch haunts us all it’s a relief to bask in a nostalgic view of sailing when life was simple, boats small and adventures big. One such set of voyages back in time can be enjoyed with this winsome little book about a 22ft Hillyard, Puffin, based at the Parkstone Yacht Club in Poole, Dorset in the 1950s. She was sailed by her skipper, architecture lecturer Robert Greenway, his wife Jocelyn, wrote the articles, which now make up this book, and their three children, in daring dashes across the Channel and then on to France, Belgium and Holland. It is illustrated with simple but charming oil paintings and sketches by Robert and wonderful period photographs of Jocelyn sailing in a polka dot headscarf, the children learning to swim in a lifebuoy with a warp round it, and the son heaving up a riding light still wearing his gartered school socks. The book is edited by Cathy Woodhead (née Greenway) – one of the children in the book – who states: ‘Looking back, I feel privileged to have had such a rich childhood’. She’s right and it’s a lesson we should try to re-learn as the material world slumps before our very eyes.

This is a fascinating account of a family’s series of holiday voyages in their 22-ft Hillyard sailing boat in the 1950s, across the English Channel and along the waterways of France, the Netherlands and Belgium. Illustrated by a series of evocative photographs and charming paintings, this book exudes nostalgia on every page and poignantly recalls a bygone (better?) age through its simple descriptive text. Comparisons with Arthur Ransome’s wonderful swallows and Amazons books are inevitable.

Cunliffe on Cruising August 2009
I dipped in, and was captivated. Puffin’s Log is about family holidays on a diminutive wooden yacht in the early 1950s. The work is illustrated with charming sketches and watercolours, plus a few monochrome photographs. The text is deliciously uncomplicated. The 22ft yacht has the tightest of headroom and a minute petrol engine whose consumption would be measured in pints, so little was it used. There is only one pair of bunks, but a mattress tossed up into the focsle affords modest comfort at bed-time to the two small girls. The son, somewhat older, dosses down on spare sails between his parents.
Puffin lives on a mooring half a mile out in Poole Harbour, probably at the cost of a few shillings a year. The writer, Jocelyn Greenway, does comment that their holidays are very economical. They row out, come wind or weather, in a clinker-built dinghy which they then tow to wherever they are going. The children are encouraged to use this to develop their seamanship skills, which, of course, in the absence of an outboard engine, they do. When it rains in harbour, things are a bit tight, but somehow they manage. They cruise to the Solent and all the usual South Coast destinations, but they also spend time in the Seine Bay and twice make it to Holland and the Ijsselmeer. This is good going by any standards in such a craft which, you’ll note, doesn’t even have a self-draining cockpit, much less VHF radio, liferaft and all the other paraphernalia without which many of us wouldn’t leave harbour. Irresponsible? You could say that, but I won’t. Robert Greenway had just come through WWII, fighting in India and Burma. He was a qualified architect and a university lecturer. A man of experience few of us can equal, and no fool. The love and care for one another which shines through his wife’s accounts are simply a joy, and we can be grateful to their daughter Cathy for having the logs bound and published. ..You’ve only to read Jocelyn’s account and see the art that Robert found time to produce to feel their inner peace. As I remarked at the outset, we can’t turn back the clock, but we’d be crazy not to learn a few lessons from the Greenways.

Those were the days
Tom Cunliffe got it right in contrasting yet more officialdom with the charm in Jocelyn Greenway's book, Puffin's Log (August). Our boat has more instruments than Simon Rattle could shake his stick at, yet only the echosounder and log get switched on. The pencil, compass and chart seem to work. But the scariest point Tom makes is that unlike the Greenways, we live in a checklist society. Recent visitors aboard asked if I'd carried out a risk assessment. I replied that I'd always mentally done so ever since I crossed the Thames Estuary in a scow with a bit of blackout curtain as a sail. (I didn't tell them I was nine years old at the time and had to be rescued off the Essex bank). On the other hand, when the Greenways sailed Puffin from Poole (wonder how much the mooring fee was then?) the whole sailing world was Swallows and Amazons, Robin Knox- Johnston wasn't even a British India cadet and Dee Caffari's parents were toddlers! Tom says we'd be crazy not to learn lessons from the Greenways. Which ones? Adventure? Common sense? Why bother, when you can switch on the tri-data and chartplotter instead.