Gwyn Jones

The name Gwyn Jones came up today when having a coffee with a friend who had recently been present at the dedication of a plaque at Aberystwyth University to the man who was a professor there.
Gwyn Jones came from my home town of Blackwood; he was near contemporary of my father and they knew each other. Occasionally they would meet in the main street in Blackwood and chat - they were acquaintances rather than friends.
Their lives had followed different paths though they began similarly.
Gwyn Jones had gone to secondary school followed by university followed by a teaching post, followed by a professorship at Aberystwyth. He wrote novels and short stories though he is best known for his translation of the Mabinogion and his writings on Icelandic sagas. He was born in 1907.
My father was born in 1895, went to primary school but did not attend secondary school because his father had died suddenly and so he had to become the bread winner. He was working in the coal mine from about twelve onwards, rose to an office job on the surface, from there to a Labour Exchange and from there to work in the Coal Board where he eventually succeeded to a post as Labour Relations Officer in Cardiff.
He too wrote novels none of which were published; he wrote short stories too as did Gwyn Jones and some of them were published and broadcast.
Gwyn Jones wrote in a beautiful style which, I always felt, had a trace of the academic about it. My father wrote in a more flamboyant style which had nothing of academia about it at all.
I wonder what would have happened if my father had gone into Secondary education instead of working down the mine; he should have and could have if his mother had taken up an offer from an uncle of his to pay the fees necessary for such an education. But how could she? There was little if any provision then for widows with children as far as I know. So down the pit he went. And here I am. It wouldn't be me writing this if he had gone the other way.
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both....." (Frost)