Family has 'lost touch' with work

Betsan Powys returned to the Cynon Valley to catch up with a family she reported on nine years ago

Nine years ago BBC Wales' current political editor Betsan Powys met the Warners, a low-income, large family who live on the Perthcelyn estate near Mountain Ash in Rhondda Cynon Taf. Here she writes about returning to film them nine years later for a new Week In Week Out special.

No-one calls me 'babes' anymore. In fact no-one - except the Warners - ever called me 'babes' but after nearly a decade, it's nice to hear it again.

Mum and grandmother to 25 (27 by the time the film is done) Ann is at the door when I arrive at the house.

It takes me a moment or two to work out how she knew I was about to knock on it. It's all because of the new shed the boys put up to house dad, Glen's tools.

When the pits closed and the job in Phurnacite in Abercwmboi went too, Glen worked as a carpenter and knows the value of his tools.

The shot from the CCTV camera trained on the shed is beamed onto the television in the corner of the lounge. The Warners always see you coming before you see them.

The welcome is as warm as ever. These are good people who've had it tough for as long as they can remember. They want more and better for their children but seem to feel, sat in the lounge for hours on end, that they have no stake in delivering that better life.

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The huge sack of spuds is in exactly the same spot as it was nearly a decade ago, leaning against the wall of the kitchen.

Glen and the boys have made and put in a new kitchen. Jolene and I compare notes - our sons born just weeks apart. Boys, we decide, will be boys.

I give Ann junior a hug, before realising that this is Teri - the youngest of the brood, 10 when I last met her. She's left school and would be on a training course if it wasn't for the snow. I get a feeling it's not just the snow keeping her away.

The real Ann junior arrives with baby Seren, born on New Year's Eve. She's been made redundant and Seren's dad has lost his job.

You don't hear them talk about fiscal stimulus, about the recession but they feel it coming. Only four of the 13 children have jobs. It's not just that the others don't work. Chat to them and they seem to have lost touch with work and everything that goes with it.

'Values'

They don't do drugs big time like plenty of others around them. They haven't been in trouble with the police like plenty of others around them. They've been brought up well. Glen and Ann have values and they've tried to pass them on but the work ethic? It never made it.

Yes, they should smoke less, drink less Red Bull or the cheaper substitutes, drink far less cherry brandy on a Friday night, watch less TV, eat fewer chips and crisps. They don't want to and they're not going to.

Neither are they going to insist their grandchildren work hard in school and dismiss complaints that the teachers have it in for them. Perhaps they should but they don't want to and they're not going to.

They should mean it when they say they'd take any job cleaning toilets if it meant a better life for newly born and unborn babies but they probably don't.

Live life the Warners way just for a few weeks and you'll see it just doesn't work like that. Perhaps it should but it doesn't.