This week there is a new memorial stone to “William (Bill) Boycott, Tinplate Roller-Man”. For years he worked, together with quite a large proportion of Penallt men, first at Redbrook, where the works founded in 1771 closed in 1961, and afterwards at Llanwern. He kept his 3 ft-long, 10 lb weight tongs, but the long ones – a tremendous weight – he left at the works. Mrs Boycott had the tongs carved on his memorial stone.
It was a very hard life, and Mrs Boycott remembers him coming home and pouring the sweat out of his boots. She says their early years were as hard as most of the villagers’, but they had good food – fresh and nourishing – and without any additives!
[from: Penallt – A Village Miscellany]