THE GOSPEL HALL
LLOYD STREET
(Denomination: Plymouth Brethren)
CONTENTS 1 Introduction to the Plymouth Brethren 2 William Herbert 3 The Plymouth Brethren Again 4 Donald Peers and the Plymouth Brethren 5 Two notable Plymouth Brethren 6 The Plymouth Brethren today 1. INTRODUCTION TO THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN
The Gospel Hall is the place of worship for Ammanford's Plymouth Brethren, a relatively small church compared to the far larger memberships of the town's major denominations, the Independents, Baptists, Calvinistic Methodists and Anglican Church. Yet so far at least the Gospel Hall has survived he passage of time where some other, larger, churches have fallen by the wayside.
The Plymouth Brethren were – and indeed still are – an evangelical and fundamentalist Christian Protestant sect characterized by extreme simplicity of belief and living. The movement was founded in Dublin about 1827. One of the founder-members was the Reverend John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), a one-time Anglican priest (hence they are sometimes called Darbyites). An assembly was held in Plymouth in 1831 to celebrate its arrival in England (from where the name derives) but in obedience to some mysterious law that sees all human organisations eventually separate into warring factions, by 1848 the movement had split into 'Open' and 'Exclusive' assemblies. The 'Open', more moderate wing of the church happily accept non-members into their church services while the 'Exclusives' refuse communion to all those not of their persuasion. Ammanford belongs to the more moderate 'Open' wing. Contrary to a common myth, most Brethren in the UK were not found in the fishing communities of north-east Scotland (though they existed there), but in the central Scottish coalfields of west Fife, mid- and west Lothian, Lanarkshire and Ayrshire. In Ammanford they are more commonly known as the 'Gospel Hall' after the name of their church in Lloyd Street. There are also Gospel Halls in Pantyffynnon and Penygroes and the Brethren's cemetery for the locality is near the Tycroes Gospel Hall.
The Plymouth Brethren are unusual in refusing a denominational name; they do not generally refer to themselves as "Plymouth Brethren," nor do they regard themselves as a denomination, citing I Corinthians 3:4, where Paul scolds believers for dividing themselves into groups. Thus there is no denominational headquarters, no minister, no single standard of affiliation or formal membership. Each local assembly is independent and autonomous, informally linked with other assemblies only by a common heritage and common emphasis on the primacy of the weekly Breaking of Bread service.
The Brethren prefer to understand themselves as "gathered unto the name of Jesus Christ alone." The term they use for themselves is "the assemblies," and members are "saints," "believers," and (perhaps confusingly) just "Christians." Members are usually aware of the term "Plymouth Brethren"; members use it in tax returns and may, when clarity requires, refer to their group as "those called by the world the Plymouth Brethren," or "Christian Brethren." Informally, some may refer to "the PBs."
Many Plymouth Brethren assemblies meet in a building called a "Gospel Hall" or "Bible Chapel" (Open Brethren). Organizationally, the emphasis is on the fact that "the church" is not a building, but rather is the called-out assembly (ecclesia) of individuals, called out by God to be His people.
The children of church members were brought up with the utmost strictness: they disapprove of all forms of entertainment, including sport, dancing, cinema, theatres and gambling, with public houses and alcohol being especially singled out for their disapproval. Even books, other than the Bible and certain devotional works, were banned from some Brethren households. The untold tensions that such severe restrictions can cause between parents and children may easily be imagined, especially in the twentieth century when mass entertainment took off explosively from the 1920s onwards.
The movement started in Ammanford around 1888, holding gatherings on Sundays in an ante-room of the long-vanished Ivorites Hall, with week-night meetings in private houses. They later assembled at the also-vanished hall of the anti-drink Rechabites movement near Ammanford Railway Station. The Brethren benefitted enormously from the 1904 Welsh Revival and with a growing membership it was decided to proceed with building a Church in Lloyd Street and the Gospel Hall was registered as a "Place of Meeting for Religious Worship" on the 30th of March 1911.
1 Introduction to the Plymouth Brethren 2 William Herbert 3 The Plymouth Brethren Again 4 Donald Peers and the Plymouth Brethren 5 Two notable Plymouth Brethren 6 The Plymouth Brethren today 2. WILLIAM HERBERT
The prime mover in this new church movement was a Mr William Herbert of Llwynon, High Street, who was also one of the town's most influential entrepreneurs and he and his brother Henry were major players in Ammanford's industrial development at the beginning of the twentieth century.
John and Mary Herbert of Cathilas Farm, Heolddu, were proud of their children, who in their respective fields had a considerable effect on the development of Ammanford. The eldest son, Mr. Henry Herbert of Brynmarlais, Bonllwyn, a Justice of the Peace and local councilor, took a leading part in the development of both Ammanford and Pantyffynnon Collieries. He also contributed to many major civil engineering schemes in the area such as the introduction of the town's water and sewerage systems. Anne Herbert married Evan Evans (the chemist) of Gwynfryn, College Street, who built the multi-story block of business premises in College Street that makes up today's Ammanford Square. It was he who also built the Arcade of shops leading to the now vanished Palace Cinema, also his creation. Herbert Herbert, the youngest of the children, qualified as a doctor, setting up in practice in Tumble, and finally we come to William Herbert of our story who involved himself in various business ventures while also being active in the local branch of the Plymouth Brethren.
William Herbert had became a converted gospeller after attending a religious meeting on his emigration to New Zealand in 1884, and such was his commitment and dedication that after his return to Ammanford in 1888 he was often seen at the street corners of Ammanford with his Bible in hand preaching to those who cared to listen to him.
His time in New Zealand had been spent in the timber trade and he took over and developed the Baltic Sawmills on Park Street in the early part of the century until its sale in the 1920s. Over the years such a small-scale business became uneconomic and the Baltic Sawmills ceased trading in 1988. After its abandonment that year it was subject to increasing vandalism until purchased by the local council in 1990, and was eventually demolished and replaced by a custom-built government Benefits Agency in 1996.
But in 1909 William Herbert embarked on another enterprise of even greater significance to the town: the establishment of the electricity generating station known as the Power House, which he built across the road from the Baltic Sawmills. We take the supply and use of electricity today for granted and think nothing of the matter, at least until the bills arrive, but it's worth making a short detour in this story about an obscure local church to gain an insight into how electricity arrived in our little town (and also see how the Protestant work ethic operates in practice).
The Power House
As an integral part of the operation of the Baltic Sawmills William Herbert installed electrical generators to drive various motors and for lighting the premises. Following a common practice of the day neighbouring properties enjoyed the privilege of connecting into these circuits as a private supply.Coal gas (commercially viable since 1802 and extensively used as a lighting medium) was available in most of the adjoining towns and hamlets by the 1890s. For some unknown reason, Ammanford and the Amman Valley did not attract such investment until around 1905, when the Amman Valley Gas Light Company was formed and it took yet another four years before they were able to distribute a supply of gas to individual homes in the district.
William Herbert quickly realised the huge potential of the new technology as a competitive source of power for lighting and other uses. In 1909 he opened the Power House in Park Street and started to generate electricity for sale to private consumers as a commercial venture.
Negotiations took place with the Ammanford Urban District Council to establish the rights to erect poles on various roads for a distribution network through overhead cables. The formal agreement signed between the two parties later proved to be loaded in favour of the local authority, who more or less set themselves up as the consumers' watchdog, overseeing the charges which the operator could bill for the electricity supply.
At times the constant wrangling between the two parties over this and other contentious issues became quite embittered. In March 1924, the Ammanford Urban District Council finally resolved to buy out William Herbert and become the sole owners of the electricity distribution at a cost in the region of £17,000. The pound in 1924 had the purchasing power of £45 in 2010 (Bank of England figure) so the sale of the Power House brought William Herbert about £750,000 in today's money. As he also sold the Baltic Sawmills at the same time he was quite a wealthy man by anyone's standards. How William Herbert squared this with Christ's numerous denunciations of wealth only a spiritualist can tell us now. If the the Bible he always carried with him was the same as ours today, the New Testament still tells us the following:
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal." [Matthew 6:19]
"Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." [Mark 10: 23-25]
"Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." [Mark 10: 23-25]
But the purchase of the Power House by Ammanford Urban District Council didn't provide Ammanford with a trouble free electricity supply. Besides the administration difficulties of managing a publicly owned business, with the laborious referrals and decisions of the Electricity Committee appointed by Council, other problems were soon in evidence. For one, the privately owned Llanelly Electrical Supply Company obtained an order to construct their own distribution network in the area, encroaching on what had been an exclusive monopoly of the Council until then. Ammanford Colliery was the first company to take up the alternative option and many more followed.
To encourage the use of its own electricity, the Council embarked on a series of ambitious sales promotions, offering deferred payment terms, holding demonstrations of various household appliances in the Drill Hall, and advertising in local newspapers. One such notice appeared on the 5th of January 1928 giving details of the hire of a vacuum cleaner with a slogan – "five hours of household drudgery done for the cost of one unit of electricity". The writers of advertising slogans still had a lot to learn.
The increase in the use of electricity by domestic and commercial consumers created major complications, as the 180,000 units per day produced by the Council-owned generating plant at Park Street were unable to meet demand without complete restructuring. An agreement was reached in 1933 with the Llanelly Electrical Supply Company for the purchase of bulk supplies to redistribute through the existing Council network. The generators and plant at the Power House, now redundant, were shut down and in time dismantled. But nothing is ever simple, and these changes also led to further complications involving the switchover from the Council's DC (direct current) supply to the AC (alternating current) of the Llanelly company, and countless appliances, motors, wireless sets etc., had to be modified or even replaced.
In 1935 a rather macabre proposal appeared before the Council to convert the now defunct Power House buildings into a mortuary, though this idea was thrown out after objections received from seven local residents. The Ammanford Volunteer Fire Brigade later occupied part of the premises as the Town's Fire Station.
The Ammanford Urban District Council continued to operate the town's electricity supply right up to the nationalisation of the industry in 1948, when all assets were taken over by the South Wales Electricity Board. The Power House building was used by numerous business ventures after nationalisation, resistant, for a few years at least, to all the changes elsewhere in the town. But the writing was on the wall for the old place, and its doom was finally pronounced in May 2006 when it yielded to the unfriendly advance of a bulldozer. A bypass, dodging around the south side of the town centre and diverting traffic up the Amman valley, is now the future for this part of Ammanford.
Fortunately, the company building the bypass, Costain, had the foresight to rescue the name-plate of the power house with its creation date, and embed it into a brick roundabout facing the former site. A small gesture to Ammanford's past, perhaps; nevertheless, it's a gesture that many developers who've demolished other parts of the town's architectural heritage haven't bothered to make.
1 Introduction to the Plymouth Brethren 2 William Herbert 3 The Plymouth Brethren Again 4 Donald Peers and the Plymouth Brethren 5 Two notable Plymouth Brethren 6 The Plymouth Brethren today 3. THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN AGAIN
But back to William Herbert and the Plymouth Brethren. As an instigator of the new Gospel Hall (and a leading benefactor) William Herbert had a significant influence on the design of the building, and his shrewd approach to detail ensured the floor of the new hall was constructed with a built-in slope, the object being to discourage the premises being used for any purpose other than preaching the Gospel (no dancing!).
The Gospel Hall, home of Ammanford's Plymouth Brethren. It was built in 1911 with a sloping floor to discourage the hall being used other than to preach the Gospel (no dancing!) William Herbert seems to have impressed even some members of Ammanford's other churches, no mean feat given the disputatious nature of religion. One such admirer was the Minister of Ammanford's Calvinistic Methodists at Bethany church, W. Nantlais Williams, who wrote a biography of him after his death, which included this:
Just think of some of the things which offended us. He preached in the open-air! – a very unusual thing to do. It was quite unorthodox. All the "right" preaching we thought was to be done in the pulpits, in a respectable way. It was only cheap jacks who held forth on a street corner. Moreover he carried a Bible with him. What an offensive display of godliness. He had not been set apart to preach, either. Who was this layman who had never been to any Theological College nor ordained to preach by any Church, who dared to encroach on the preserves of the trained ministers of Christ? The most offensive thing of all was what he taught. He said that we had to be "born again" – all of us. We would have had no objection to this, of course, if he had confined his message to well-known sinners in the town, but when he insisted that all members of Churches – and ministers as well – had to undergo this spiritual experience, and that no one was really saved, whatever his profession was, unless he knew too that he was saved, perhaps it was this assurance of salvation (Sicrwydd Cadwedigaeth) that was chiefly the bone of contention in the town. Regeneration in itself is a drastic thing to preach … it created a stir, and an ill-feeling as well … in Ammanford the town was divided between all the people and Mr. Herbert. He stood alone.
....There was also his attitude towards the Churches … Since everybody, according to his standpoint, had to know that he was saved and as nobody in the Churches had such knowledge … it stood to reason to Mr. Herbert that all members in the Churches were lost. Yes, the ministers and deacons and members of all the Churches – including the young minister of Bethany – were lost. This led him at that time to speak disparagingly of the Churches almost in every address …[William Herbert of Ammanford, with some reminiscences of the Welsh Revival by the Rev. W. Nantlais Williams and Others, 1937.]William Herbert's openly expressed contempt for the other churches in Ammanford might explain something that happened in 1925. At a meeting of Ammanford Urban District Council held on the 4th of March 1925, a member attempted to move a proposal of testimonial to William Herbert in recognition of: "the way in which he had managed the Electric Undertaking in the Town, during the time it was in his hands". The Motion, however, didn't command sufficient support and was defeated. The Council in those days consisted almost entirely of local church and chapel worthies so perhaps William Herbert's speaking 'disparagingly of the churches almost in every address' lingered on in rather too many memories.
The Gospel Hall also upset other, more 'respectable', church members by the type of people they were prepared to accept into their ranks. Nantlais again:
But perhaps the most outstanding convert was Eli, the Carpenter – (Eli y Saer).
....Eli was originally from Carmarthen … His life in Ammanford, however, was not exemplary in any way. In fact he became a confirmed drunkard, and as hopeless a character as one could imagine. Nobody thought that Eli could be reclaimed. One night he set fire to a shed in which he slept. Mrs. Davies, however, had a strange dream about that time, if not in fact the night of the fire. She saw in her dream a man bearing the name Eliezer in some terrible plight appealing for help. One can imagine her surprise when she found afterwards that a man by the name of Eliezer ("Eli") had put a shed on fire close by, and that he was lying in a field which adjoined her house in a miserable condition. She pleaded with him to come inside for some food. Having come as far as the door, Eli, observing his hands and his general condition, could not think of entering the house, so some food was given him to partake of outside. The next step in this spiritual drama was Mrs. Davies' pleading with her family to allow her to take him in altogether as a lodger. Naturally there was a definite objection to such a procedure. Entertaining as lodger the despised Eli who was not much better than a tramp! But ultimately Mrs. Davies, the wonderful interceder she was, won her point; and with her importunity at the throne of Grace, and Mr. Herbert's testimony, Eli became a new man, and what a beautiful character he turned out to be.
....We shall never forget an open-air meeting held on the Square in a later year, when the leader of the meeting, the Rev. Seth Joshua, testified to God's grace in saving a drunkard like himself, and threw out the question:
...."Is there anybody else here who has been saved from the sawdust of the tap-room? Let him come on to say so."
....In a flash came the answer from the back of the ring:
...."Yes, here's one."
.... It was Eli. He made his way calmly through the crowd to the middle of the ring, and bore such a wonderful testimony to God's grace in saving him that many were moved to tears, such power accompanied his words. William Herbert of Ammanford, with some reminiscences of the Welsh Revival by the Rev. W. Nantlais Williams and Others, 1937.]
1 Introduction to the Plymouth Brethren 2 William Herbert 3 The Plymouth Brethren Again 4 Donald Peers and the Plymouth Brethren 5 Two notable Plymouth Brethren 6 The Plymouth Brethren today 4. DONALD PEERS AND THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN
Ammanford's most famous Plymouth Brother was the fifties' pop star Donald Peers (1908-1973). At the age of 42 he became a pop idol as the result of his BBC radio programme 'Cavalier of Song'. He made BBC musical history by earning £600 per week (multiply that by 20 in today's money) and receiving 3,000 fan letters a week. Perhaps his greatest professional triumph came on the 9th May 1949 when he gave a solo performance at the Albert Hall, London. An audience of 8,602 people paid to hear him give a two-hour solo performance accompanied only by two pianists. He also had his own TV show in the early 1960s.
His father, Frank, was a leading member of Ammanford's Plymouth Brethren church. During his time in Ammanford Frank Peers was a respected Elder at the Gospel Hall and a lay-preacher who had been converted during his younger days spent in Chicago. As Donald Peers relates in his autobiography, Pathway, published at the height of his fame in 1951:
My father, as I came to know him, has always been a man of the highest religious principles, a godly and upright character if ever there was one. It was while still in Chicago, I have heard him say, that his religion became a ruling force in his life, or, as some would say, he was "converted". He, and my mother with him, became members of the Plymouth Brethren. The young Englishman, who held his own with the roughest and toughest characters who wrested a living in the vast stockyards, became an evangelist and lay preacher.[Donald Peers, 'Pathway', 1951, page 17.]
The Plymouth Brethren have a reputation for a very severe lifestyle by the standards of most other churches, and although the Ammanford Brethren belong to the more moderate 'Open' branch of that church, we get occasional glimpses into this side of them in 'Pathway'. Here Donald Peers tells us his father never joined in any sports and had only once gone to a theatre after his conversion in 1894. Even when his son returned to give concerts in Ammanford after he'd become famous, Frank Peers refused to attend, listening instead on the radio. His father's daily routine is also described:
Father was busy each night at some meeting or other with the Brethren at the Gospel Hall. He was completely and happily immersed in his religion. Each morning, before leaving for work at six o'clock, he would read a chapter of the Bible. Home again at about three-thirty in the afternoon, he would bath and then, like a true son of Kent, work for a while in his garden. Later, the Bible was taken down again for a while, and then, between seven-thirty and eight o'clock, he would quietly make his way to the Gospel Hall. The family would attend chapel at least twice every Sunday, and much as I loved the old people, this was an environment that seemed too narrow to appeal to me as a setting in which to spend the rest of my life. [Donald Peers, 'Pathway', 1951, page 46.]
Donald Peers' solution to the problem of how to spend the rest of his life was simple, but effective – he left home (and the church) the day before his 16th birthday. Initially he became an itinerant painter and decorator before entering showbusiness some years later and becoming Britain's first ever 'pop star' in the 1940s. (A longer item on Donald Peers can be found in the 'People' section of this website, along with the first five chapters of his autobiography, Pathway.)
Donald Peers' upbringing seems to have been quite easy-going in comparison to some other Plymouth Brethren families, or at least compared to those from the 'Exclusive' wing of the church, but even so, there was still a line which was not to be crossed:
At a Sunday School Treat – I had "found my voice" by then – my contribution was a sacred song. Polite applause at the end must have turned my head, for I immediately burst into a completely unrehearsed and unsolicited encore, and I sang with glee and gusto.
.....I shall never forget how the faces round me grew sterner with each line-especially my father's. One glance at the look on his face made me realize the fate that was in store for my temerity. But even in those days there must have been in me the germ of the performer who, having once started, will go on to the bitter end in front of the most unsympathetic audience. On to the bitter end I went, amid a startled hush from my audience which was almost a tangible thing. And indeed the end was bitter – and my "end" was subsequently painful in the extreme.
.....It was early to bed that night, after one of the few severe spankings I remember. I avoided singing comic songs at any of the children's parties I went to in the future. 'Pathway', page 28.
1 Introduction to the Plymouth Brethren 2 William Herbert 3 The Plymouth Brethren Again 4 Donald Peers and the Plymouth Brethren 5 Two notable Plymouth Brethren 6 The Plymouth Brethren today 5. NOTABLE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN
1. Garrison Keillor
Garrison Keillor at a public reading American humourist and broadcaster Garrison Keillor was born in 1942 in Minnesota, in the Midwest of America, the child of Exclusive Brethren parents, and he now lives in New York. It was as host to the live radio show, A Prairie Home Companion from 1974 to 1987 that he came to fame an oral storyteller of great popularity (his talks are available in the UK as cassettes issued by the BBC). The novel Lake Wobegon Days (1985), a distingsuished addition to the American humorous tradition, brought his satirical portrayal of Midwestern life to a wider public. The book alludes to the Plymouth Brethren, but the Protestant community which it mainly deals with are the Lutherans. Plymouth Brethren are forbidden to engage in dancing, drinking, cards and other frivolities, so his family became adept story tellers. He wanted to write, and set a goal of writing for the New Yorker magazine, which he first did in 1969. After doing a story on the Grand Ole Opry for the New Yorker, he decided to try his own radio variety show. Prairie Home Companion was an instant hit, and went national in 1980, on the strength of the stories Keillor told of the mythical community of Lake Wobegon. The fictional residents of Lake Wobegon have been described as 'God's Frozen People, the Scandinavian settlers of the American Midwest, a quirky cast of characters united only by their religious faith and distrust of worldliness'. Here is a summary of Keillor's life and career:
Keillor was born Gary Edward Keillor in 1942 and grew up during the postwar years in two then-rural, now-suburban Minnesota towns, Anoka and Brooklyn Park, just northwest of Minneapolis. He was the third of Grace and John Keillor's six children. John worked as a railway clerk and a freelance carpenter. Two seeds that would grow into prolifically fruit-bearing trees were planted early in Garrison Keillor's life, one of them by him and the other by his family.
....The seed Gary planted, entirely under his own steam and with no encouragement from his parents, was writing. From a very young age, Keillor was a loner who intensely valued his own privacy but was fascinated by other people and coveted their admiration. He started newspapers at both of the elementary schools he attended and wrote most of the articles himself. In junior high he published some poems in his school's literary magazine. This was "at a time when boys didn't write poetry," Keillor says, so he published them under the name Garrison, "a name that means strength and "don't give me a hard time about this." Soon afterward, he found a copy of The New Yorker magazine at the public library. It struck him as "a fabulous sight, an immense glittering ocean liner off the coast of Minnesota." "I can't imagine a kid who loved to read and had thoughts of writing not looking at this in wonder and admiration," he recalled many years later in an interview with Roy Blount, Jr. While other boys hid copies of Playboy in their room between the mattress and the box springs, Keillor smuggled home The New Yorker. "My people weren't much for literature," he says, "and they were dead set against conspicuous wealth, so a magazine in which classy paragraphs marched down the aisle between columns of diamond necklaces and French cognacs was not a magazine they welcomed into their homes." He still has the first copy he ever bought, a 1957 issue with a short story by John Cheever and articles by A.J. Leibling, Richard Rovere, and Wolcott Gibbs.
....Keillor's people – his parents, uncles, aunts, and cousins – were Plymouth Brethren, members of a loose affiliation of small congregations that had originated in a rebellion against the pomp and worldliness of the established church in early 19th-century England. Dancing, card-playing, drinking, smoking, and, as soon as they came along, movies and television were forbidden. Radio, for some reason, was okay, which meant that the Keillors spent a lot of time in front of the radio. Because a priesthood of believers took the place of ordained clergy in Brethren congregations, their lengthy Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night meetings consisted of songs, spontaneous prayers, words of inspiration and admonition from whichever of the men felt moved to offer them, and celebration of the Lord's Supper. Keillor did not need to show The New Yorker to his parents to know that they would despise the value it placed on wit and worldly success. They had already told him that his decision to publish his schoolboy poems was "a shame on the family [From: Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter 2001]Of his current religious beliefs, Keillor says: "I believe in the propositions in the Apostles' Creed that we stand and recite Sunday morning in the Episcopal church. Or in the Lutheran church. I tend to be Episcopalian in Minnesota and Lutheran in New York, though now, having married an Episcopalian, it is easier to drift in that direction." When Keillor toured Britain in 1999 he gave an interview about his Brethren background and his attitude to faith and literature . To read the full interview click HERE. (This article first appeared in the Brethren Archivists and Historians Network Review (BAHNR), a journal of Plymouth Brethren history.)
Garrison Keillor has website where you can also listen to his radio show on Prairie Home Companion.
2. Carol Clewlow
Novelist Carol Clewlow, who left the Plymouth Brethren when she was eighteen Born in 1947, novelist Carol Clewlow is the best known of Britain's (former) Plymouth Brethren today. Like Donald Peers, who was sixteen when he left the Brethren, and Garrison Keillor, who was twenty, she left the movement at a young age, in her case at eighteen. The reason was the same in each case: the severity of the Brethren's attitude to culture and the arts. Any mistakes her parents made with her are forgiven, she says. "Everything they ever did for me was done in love. When I left the Brethren at 18, it broke their hearts because they had to live with the dreadful knowledge that my soul was lost and I would not be with them in the hereafter." There is a streak of fundamentalism in all her writing, acknowledges Clewlow, because of her upbringing. Born and bred in the West Country, she was raised by her late parents in what she calls- "a very colourful, apocalyptic religion", and one which has given her prose an almost biblical turn of phrase.
Her first novel, Keeping the Faith, was written in Clewlow's final year at Newcastle University, where she read English and Philosophy, after 20 years in journalism. This included three years as a reporter on the Belfast Telegraph at the height of the Troubles and a spell as women's editor of the China Mail in Hong Kong, which she combined with working as an escort in the evenings. The Hong Kong stint started when she became a bar girl-hostess after her money ran out on the hippie trail – an experience she has drawn on in her 2005 novel, Not Married, Not Bothered.
She never planned to become a novelist. "I was probably the only hack I knew who wasn't writing a book. One day I received an invitation to the funeral of my great-uncle, the last of the preachers in my family. On it were the words: 'He kept the faith.'"
"All my life I knew I was looking for something. I never knew what it was. I'd had a pleasant career in journalism, yet I always felt discontented and had this feeling there was something else. After that letter arrived, I sat down to write at 6pm. I came to at 6am. I had written about five pages – the first five pages of Keeping the Faith. I still think it's the best writing in the book. I'd found what I wanted to do. My life changed profoundly overnight."
For her Degree finals, Clewlow submitted a 20,000-word draft as part of a creative-writing project. Although her tutor urged her to show it to a publisher, she insisted on working on it for another year; then stuck it in a drawer. "I thought, 'This is so self-indulgent'. But a thriller-writer friend insisted on showing it to his agent. A month later Faber wanted to publish it. University was "like the cage door flying open; it was just wonderful," she says.
Unfortunately, they were not so keen on her second book. "They were horrified when they heard the title, A Woman's Guide to Adultery. But I've always wanted to produce hugely popular, well-written novels. I've no problems with shop assistants or hairdressers sitting on buses reading my books. I'd be thrilled if that happened." Michael Joseph/Penguin offered a great deal of money, virtually for that brilliant title alone. It came out in 1989 and was translated into 15 languages. In just two years Clewlow made around £200,000. A Woman's Guide to Adultery, now a Virago Modern Classic, got sensational reviews. Fay Weldon enthused: "Erotic, compelling, painful, and elating by turns." But in the USA it bombed, after selling for $100,000 (£57,000). "It seemed to hit a raw nerve, best summed up by one review, 'We don't need this European sense of sin'. And this in the year that their culture produced Fatal Attraction. They just couldn't cope with my tough feminist polemic, I guess."
Her other novels include One For The Money and Love in the Modern Sense.
The above information about Carol Clewlow has been summarised from an interview given in The Scotsman, 24th December 2004.
1 Introduction to the Plymouth Brethren 2 William Herbert 3 The Plymouth Brethren Again 4 Donald Peers and the Plymouth Brethren 5 Two notable Plymouth Brethren 6 The Plymouth Brethren today 6. THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN TODAY
After his death in September 1937 William Herbert was described by his biographer, Nantlais, as 'Saint, Businessman and Preacher', not three human qualities normally found together in one person, which make this claim, if true, a novelty to be savoured. The family connections with the Church were continued by his daughter, Dr Gladys Herbert, who took an active interest her father's creation for many years to come.
The Plymouth Brethren continue to worship in their little Gospel Hall, sloping floor and all, and can even be seen occasionally evangelising on the streets of Ammanford in the spirit of their founder William Herbert, advising all and sundry to prepare to meet their doom. Unfortunately for the Brethren, a new religion, shopping, has replaced the two- thousand-year old Christianity on Ammanford's streets. Its worshippers, called consumers, seem far too preoccupied to take heed of this rather drastic warning, preparing to meet (and even exceed) their credit limits instead.
Ammanford's Plymouth Brethren also suffered a split in 1977 which resulted in the formation of Ammanford Evangelical Church by a breakaway group. For many years after their creation the Evangelicals led a nomadic life, very much like their parental Plymouth Brethren before them, and various venues were used for their worship including Ammanford Pensioners' Hall and the local St John's Ambulance premises. Finally they raised sufficient funds to purchase and restore the abandoned English Wesleyan Church on Wind Street. They opened the building for worship in 2003 and have today one of the town's largest congregations, having used the intervening years to build up their membership. (A fuller story of Ammanford's English Wesleyan Church can also be found in this section of the website, or click HERE.)
For those who'd like to find out more about William Herbert, the full text of the biography by Nantlais can be found in the 'People' section of this website or by clicking HERE.
An online article on the Plymouth Brethren can be found on the free encyclopedia website, Wikipedia, on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Brethren.A fuller history of Ammanford's Plymouth Brethren can be read in PDF format by clicking HERE. The article will open in anew window.
Sources: — Ammanford: Origin of street names and notable historic records; WTH Locksmith, 2000. — William Herbert of Ammanford, with some reminiscences of the Welsh Revival, by the Rev. W. Nantlais Williams and Others, 1937. — Donald Peers, Pathway: a Biography, 1951.
1 Introduction to the Plymouth Brethren 2 William Herbert 3 The Plymouth Brethren Again 4 Donald Peers and the Plymouth Brethren 5 Two notable Plymouth Brethren 6 The Plymouth Brethren today
