These words were said by Prime Minister Winston Churchill in reference to the Battle of Britain (July 10, 1940 – October 31, 1940) – England confrontation in the sky with Nazi Luftwaffe. England held off the Germans for two reasons – there were always brave British men to pilot the Hurricanes and Spitfires and common ordinary blokes and bloketes kept building the planes, Germany didn’t have the men or the ability to replace the planes.
My Dad W. Alvin Thomas was one of those “Blokes” that built the planes (Spitfires). This pictures was taken and sent home from Birmingham.
My Dad always went by Alvin, never Al. As noted he had a perfectly good first Name Wilfred, but he insisted on Alvin. If you are foolish enough to look up Alvin on the web you’ll have people who will tell you it is German (Teutonic), or maybe Celtic and that it means everything from Loyal or noble friend, love by all and my favorite – friend of elves. But I think names are defined by the people who wear them. But the web will bring up singing chipmunks and Alvin York – the hero of WWI.
My favorite Alvin is Joseph Smith’s brother. He was one of the earliest heroes of the Church and a great older brother.
Alvin’s Grave in Palmyra, New York 
A Drawing of What Alvin might have looked like
Because of the brutal surgery Joseph endured when a very young boy he would be crippled well into his early teens and I envision Alvin always being there for him, his champion. The perfect older brother. My dad always said that Uncle Harold was always that for him.
Alvin was also a great champion for Joseph’s calling as the prophet/restorer and looking after his mom and dad. He was the driving force behind the building of this house for his folks. He did his own chores and then double time himself out to get the resources they needed to build a home for mom and dad. He died in November of 1823 and is buried in Palmyra, New York (See photo of Grave above).
As he died from an ill advised doctor’s cure of mercury poisoning he called Hyrum and Joseph to him. He charged Hyrum with the job of finishing and securing the house for mom and dad. And he told Joseph to be obedient to the Angel Moroni, who had made his first visit in September of 1823, so he could get the record, Alvin the Eldest brother believed in the gospel as it was being revealed through his younger brother. One of the Smith Family’s greatest griefs was that Alvin, an exceptional young man, had died before the Restoration had took place. In 1836 Joseph had a wonderful Revelation or Vision (Doctrine and Covenants 137: 5 – 9.) He saw his loved brother Alvin in the Celestial Kingdom and was told that those who have missed access to the blessing of the Gospel will be judged by the intent and nature of their hearts. The family had grieved over the loss of Alvin and had been taught that because he had not been “churched” he would be doomed to hell.
Joseph sees Alvin in the Celestial Kingdom see D&C 137
On 10 August 1840, the Prophet made the first public mention of the doctrine of baptism for the dead at the funeral of Seymour Brunson. (History of the Church, 4:179, 231.). Joseph Smith, Sr., died the next month. On his deathbed he earnestly requested that Alvin be baptized vicariously, and some of his last words were, “I see Alvin.” 6 In accordance with his father’s request, Hyrum Smith was baptized for Alvin by proxy in 1840 and again in 1841 in Nauvoo (“Nauvoo Baptisms for the Dead,” Book A, Church Genealogical Society Archives, pp. 145, 149).
The Smith Family
Everything I remember about my father’s family remind me they were like the Smiths, faithful to the Truth and each other.
Alvin the first was born in the middle of World War 1 – 30 of July 1916. In 1914 – 1919 coal would have been king, the blood of the British Navy – the Navy ran on coal not gas. A Welsh Coal miner’s war front would be down in the mine. And I assume that where Grandpa Thomas was in World War 1 – There and in Church.
Pontypool Branch about 1920 That’s Grandpa with the Mustache on the far right. He is the Branch President. I think Uncle Harold is on the first row on the left second one in. He looks really serious. Aunt Gladys might be three to the left of my dad, third in on the left front row.
My Dad was full of stories. He told of his singing “I am a Mormon Boy” in church and how he wandered the hills around the Varteg where he was born in the “Five Houses.” He was born “checking the Grass” full of what the German called Wanderlust and the Welsh called Hwyl or hunting or drifting to find how best to sing one’s true self songs and promise.
The Five Houses
If my dad told a story he had a purpose – maybe for laugh (usually at his own expense), to teach or to make you feel better. My memories of my dad’s stories he told me were about me feeling better about myself, to feel normal or not alone. Some examples…..
On the day I got my driver license I had my first accident. I ran into a parked car. I called the cops and then my dad. I had been in no hurry to get a license and I was a very timid driver. So I was feeling very stupid and dad knew it and so he told me about how he had fallen in the sewer. Dad never said it, but he just told me how dumb he had been and I felt better.
When he was about 10 or 12 he had a hero – William Boyd a silent movie super hero.
The William Boyd my dad knew and the Hopalong Cassidy I knew
My dad said he seen his hero in a silent movie take a rope or lariat make a loop and then he threw the rope across a chasm and lasso a big rock and then tied the other end to a tree and cross the chasm hand over hand.
It’s amazing what a 10 or 12 year old thinks is possible
My 10 year old dad had to try this, but where? Fortunately or more unfortunately he knew just the place.
There is no picture that catches the images in my mind – imagine it here
There was some kind of open pit sewer a short walk from his home and it just happened to have an old rusted cable that hung right over the sewer pit. Yeah, you know where this going. He climbed to the pit and with the courage only a ten year old could have, he jump out and caught the cable. I don’t know how many hand over hands he got before the cable snapped and he fell head first into Varteg’s leavings. As dad told it, the sewer was like mucky quick sand. And some how my dad slithered out. He looked like a tar baby, but it wasn’t tar.
After my dad told me about his adventure I’d didn’t feel so stupid about my car accident anymore – this was my dad purpose in telling me the story. I thought he’d made it up, but when I asked my aunts about it, all three of them – started clucking about it for an hour – how he looked, the smell, horsing him off and how long before they could stand to let him in the house.
I have a vague memory of my Dad taking me alone to see Hopalong Cassidy and his horse Topper at the old Fairgrounds. As I think back upon it I wonder who was most excited me or dad. He was a hero to both of us. I can remember Hoppy talking to the kids in the crowd and having Topper do some tricks for us. He made a real point of telling us kids to be good. Obey our parents, be honest and kind. I heard that Boyd took his influence on kids very seriously. That’s why whenever he was in a Bar in a movie he’d always make a point of ordering a Sarsaparilla, a Root Beer, a soft drink. My dad was not a traveling kind of guy and to take time off from work would have been a big deal – but he took time off for me, wow.
My dad loved his memories of Wales. I had a chance to live there for several months with my aunts and cousins when I was a missionary. While I was there I had an interesting experience while tracking. My companion and I had been knocking on doors for quite a while when a door opened and a man starred it me and then said, “What’s your name?” I responded “Alvin David Thomas.” He said, “that he had gone to school with my dad Alvin.” I wish I had the presence of mind to pause and ask some questions, but at twenty I couldn’t think of any. Boy I have them now.
The Welsh Mountains of South Wales
Another story my dad told me to make me feel better was about being afraid of the dark. I couldn’t sleep without a light on. I was cursed and blessed with a very active imagination and in the dark my mind went to dark places – Zombies, Ghosts and being attacked by the devil. I think I was well into my teens thirteen or maybe even fifteen as I lay in my bed terrified of the dark. I think I was sleeping in the basement of this house on 7000 South. I slept on the south east side with a small window above me and cement floors, cold and creepy walls with bugs and spiders. Covered with terror sweat I couldn’t stand it anymore and shamefully made my way to my mom and dad’s bedroom. I’d be just stumbling into my teens – a Deacon or a Teacher in the priesthood.
This is the house of my young life, 3rd Grade to my junior year in High School. Can you see the little windows in the basement? I slept on the opposite side of the house. My window look out onto the Butler’s Driveway.
Dad noticed me in the doorway of his bedroom and sense quickly that I was afraid – he knew of what. He slipped quietly out of bed so we wouldn’t wake mom and gently led me into the living room. Without asking what my problem was he told me about how frightened he was of the dark when he was my age. He said there was no running water in the Five Houses in Varteg so it was his job to to get the water from a tap or pump about a half a mile a way.
Dad on the way for water at 13
He said that his mom, my Grandma Thomas, seemed to send him for water in the middle of the night a lot and he hated it because he was afraid of the dark. I bet it was dark, no street lights and maybe only lamp light from his home, the Five Houses, to give him a sense of where he was. As he walked further away from home he would have been more exposed to things that might lurked in the dark. My dad was scared, just like me. One night my Grandpa Thomas sensed his son, Alvin’s fear of the dark and decided to make the walk with him.
This is how I Remember my Grandpa Thomas.
As they walked my Grandpa Thomas, my dad’s dad, began to point out the beauty of the dark – how the stars, most times the moon and these heavenly lights illuminated the dark. Grandpa talked about how Jesus was born, we think, at night and how night time provides time to sleep and rest, a gift. As my dad walked with his dad his fears dissipated and the dark lost its terrors. I notice that my dad and I were sitting in the dark and my dark anxiety was dissipating too. My capacity to fear would hang around for a while, yet, but my fear of the darkness began to ebb. I have thought – it probably not long after Grandpa and my dad’s talked about the dark and the fear of it that my dad would go down into the cold and dark of the mines, the pits. I didn’t know it then, but I would work a lot in the dark myself – graveyard shift 11 PM to 7 AM.
This is me in the right time frame, 7th Grade.
Grandpa Thomas would die in January of 1958. Both Dad and I were about to lose him.
Grandpa Thomas would die on January 19, 1958 – I was 14. As I look at this picture I remember being there. I think I was a pall bearer. I can see my Grandma centered in the picture, devastated, with my Dad to the left and Uncle Harold to the right turning to talk to Aunt Edith. I can see Aunt Gladys behind my dad and Aunt Effie head just over my dad’s right shoulder. Dad would die on May 17, 1991. He’d live for 33 years with his Dad gone. Today, Febuary 22, 2017 my dad has been gone for 26 years.
Another story my dad told me was how he “a good Mormon boy” was caught smoking. My dad’s Grandpa William Forward (my Great Grandpa) like to smoke, but with his wife commitment to the Mormon’s Word of Wisdom he had to sneak his ciggees.
Great Grandpa William Forward never took to the Church, but he liked the missionaries and he let Grandma Forward feed them.
That’s where my dad came in, Grandpa Forward would bribe his grandson Alvin to pick up the cigarettes for him at the corner store. As part of his bribe, I suspect some toffees he threw in a few smokes. My dad couldn’t wait to try out the mystery of smoking. His plan was to sneak into the shed and then light up in secret splendor. Only one problem Grandpa Thomas was on to sneaky Alvin. Everything was going according to the Secret Smoker’s amazing plans. He made himself comfortable, hunkered down in the straw and lit up. He took a deep drag on his smoke, a trail of smoke quaff into the air and he exploded with predetermine coughing of a novice smoker – a full bucket of water splashed over his head and cigarette. Grandpa who had been hiding and watching the fledgling sinner had jumped in and with the excuse accidental drowning by saying he saw the smoke suspecting their was a fire in the shed. Alvin’s first assault on the Word of Wisdom was a bust.
Still another story told to me by dad was how he learned how to deal with dirty jokes. As novice miner he was assaulted by the other, older miners unseemly stories about women and young girls. Alvin tried not to hear, but the stories stuck and he found his mind drifting to the unseemly images described in the filthy stories. He couldn’t shake the naughty stuff – so he told me he prayed to his Father in Heaven to help him keep these things out of his mind. He told me a kind Father heard his prayers and he found he could no longer remember the nasty stuff after these story were told.
Something my Dad and I had in common was a wounded right hand. Dad’s wound, from the mining accident, was much worst, it cut across his hand, but like Dad then I still have the scar. Someone at school, Mount Jordan, had stab me in the hand with a pencil. The point had broken off and was still lodged in my hand. Mom pick me up and she took me to the Tick Tock Shop and there Dad tried to dig the point out. No bullet or belt to bite on, just Dad going after my “owie” with a pocket knife. It a blur now, I don’t know how we got it out. My best guess is that the wound festered and pushed it out. I can remember Dad being angry about it and speaking sharply to me, but I know it was “I’m the Dad and I can’t fix this” frustration. Ask and I’ll show where the pencil stab was.
Dad’s scar across his hand was always there to remind him of why he left South Wales. I don’t know this story – how long he was in school, where the school was or when and why he went to Birmingham. The questions is in the wind. The Answer will find me.
My Dad about the time that the Transition would begin. He would go to Birmingham and help make planes to win a war.
