15. money it always went on paying off that credit

they had already been charged. On top of which it never seemed as if The Company had enough money to pay the men their wages. Lots of us thought that Quigley was ripping off The Company. But all Quigley would ever say, was that he was still waiting for their money to arrive or that the ship had been delayed by bad weather out of St. John’s Narrows. We all knew that his bad management was the cause of The Company’s difficulties. They was alright when the Government was supporting them.”
“Where was Jeffrey whilst all this was going on. I thought he was the owner of the L.D.W.C. Ltd.?”
“We never saw him again from straight after The Party until about 1947 I think it was. Nobody knew where he was or what he was doing. He was a wily old fox. Some thought he had gone back to his other pit prop cutting operation in Finland and The Baltic. Others said he was holed up in his offices in Cardiff or visiting New York and all sorts of places with the money he had pocketed. Nobody really knew what was going on behind the scenes to this day. Eventually in 1935, the men went on strike because it just wasn’t worth carrying on anymore on the money they was getting. The Company Manager always expected too much. None of The Englishman as we called them ever considered those terrible conditions in the woods the men were working under. The black fly infestation got so bad some days whilst they were working that they would tell how they’d crunched up and swallowed mouthfuls so they’se could breath. Them flies were so thick in the woods the air was black all around them. Even the bears wouldn’t stay in there in those conditions. They would get themselves off down to the water’s edge somewhere or into the water.
The men were expected to cut three cords of wood each and every day