Cwm

He wondered what it had been in the past.

As he sat alone at the table, large cappuccino at hand, he remembered the exterior was old, Victorian, made up of sturdy large stones that had withstood centuries.

Could have been a factory, or warehouse or something.
There was no need for one of them around here any more.

It was a pub now.

Instead of workers coming and going, toiling, it was the unemployed who seemed to frequent the premises. Single mums, retired mums, old men and retired men who sipped their pints alone in the day time hours. Staring off or totally unaware. Men who had seen better days, who had had hard lives and now basked in the calm of the pub.

It's light and airy in here.

It's ceiling was high and the table spread out. A kind of escape for some of these people.

Most of the noise came from the the staff, he was sat relatively close to the bar, and the clatter of knives and forks and plates. It was all intermittent.

The old men could reflect on their past lives, they could lamentingly contemplate past eras they had seen come and go, eras of their lives, of togetherness and comradeship, or innocence and corruption.

All very distant now.

The accent is nice.

He liked hearing the chirpy nature of the staff, the optimism in their voices. The dulcet tones and subtle Welsh inflections. Soft and calming they seemed. There was nothing abrupt or abrasive in the sound. It soothed.

Not such a bad place to retire.

No one bothered the slow munching and sipping.

He wondered about the transition in time.

When did it all change? Was it gradual or sudden?

A comparative youth such as he couldn't understand. He'll have too ask one of the old men, or go to the library. Today a pub, but once a hub of work, of soot covered flat cap wearing miners.

What kind of places are these now?

Idyllic islands, a drift of the tough punishing working world, all but cut off from the urban centres, languishing now in their tree covered hills and rocked streams. A microcosm of a nation perhaps. He wasn't sure, but it seemed a natural conclusion.

A baby's babbling broke his thought.