Hiraeth. The “long aching sorrow”¹ that accompanies the mind as it travels the long roads home when the body cannot. Over 300 miles² sat between Dai and the daily toil of the tubeworks, the conical heaps of toxic slag, the air choked with coal smoke, the small row house on Chemical Road³, and his beloved sister, Ann. It was the longing for the smallest of moments that gripped him on that cold, December evening—”a pocket full of peanuts,” “an old arm chair,” “a dripping tin full of rice pudding,” the warm embrace of family. Christmas would soon arrive and he would still be long from home. But while he wouldn’t see his sister this year, he would still write to her:

“You have always been with me in spirit at all times, like you are tonight… I listened in one night to a Male Voice concert from Pentrepoeth school, and from there, I walked across the field over the old tramroad & through the gate and spent a happy hour with you all at home like I used to all the years I lived with you. But it was spirit-walk.”

1. A London Eisteddfod. The Wrexham Advertiser. Jan. 1, 1876, p. 8, col. 4. Digital Images. National Library of Wales. https://newspapers.library.wales/view/4581925/4581933/53/Hiraeth%2BAND%2BLonging?from=search, accessed Apr. 20, 2026. ↩︎
2. At that time, Dai was living at 114 Victoria Road, Darlington, Durham, England. ↩︎
3. Dai lived for a time with his sister and brother-in-law at their home on Chemical Road, Morriston, Swansea. ↩︎