Y Caban

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Just a short reflection on the historical significance of workers' self-education. In the slate quarries of North Wales, there was a tradition whereby workers on their short meal breaks from the customary twelve-hour shifts; gathering to eat and drink the usually meagre fare they carried with them*, would gather in a communal hut, usually constructed from waste materials on site, called Y Caban - the cabin.

Rather than simply take a break and eat, discussions on politics and history would be the focus of the break, with singing and poetry in equal measure. For many of the younger apprentices - Jermon(s) in the dialect - for whom, aged between sixteen and twenty-one, this would represent the only continuing education they would ever get.

It was from these self-created, self-taught beginnings that the University College of North Wales, later Univ. Wales, Bangor was formed; by subscription from the quarrymen themselves, in 1884; receiving its charter the following year. Institutions like this, the Workers' Educational Association, and I'm reminded by an old friend from the Birmingham days, Dawn Hamill**, The Midland Adult School Union; alongside many other colleges of continuing education throughout the UK, have over the last century and more, enabled working people to get an education otherwise denied to them by dint of class division and lack of opportunity. cf. blog posts passim regarding my views on wealth and privilege.

*Usually cold tea, buttermilk and bread. They would often have a five-mile walk to and from work before six AM and after six PM: some from further afield never saw home apart from Sundays.

**Dawn Hamill: 'The Last Class – The Story of The Midland Adult School Union 1845-2020' soon to be published. cf. Dawn's blog: Mind The Gap

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