Picking Potatoes - Pontllanfraith Schoolboys at Bassaleg Harvest Camp

Schoolboys and spuds in the great outdoors – Bassaleg pupils get their hands dirty for the war effort

Pontllanfraith schoolboys swap their books for buckets for the war effort at Bassaleg Harvest Camp. Potato picking and corn stooking are the main tasks, with some help from the Land Girls. There’s ploughing, too, with tractors and horses under skies ploughed by warplanes. It’s hungry work, and the cornish pasties devoured in the field are as welcome as the supper and hot showers back at base.

The filmmaker, Evan Owen Jones (1905-88), was born and brought up in Prospect House, North Street, Abercynon, to parents who hailed from Tudweiliog on the Llŷn peninsula. He studied art at the Slade School of Art and taught the subject at Aberpennar Grammar School, Pontllanfraith High School and Llandrindod College. He passed his last years at Mynytho, Gwynedd.