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The New Coterie  Volume 1   Issue: 5  Spring, 1927  Page: 78
 
 The Marvel By Geoffrey West
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GEOFFREY WEST

THE MARVEL
 
MYSELF, I saw young David Isaac Evans, the Martegg Marvel, but twice altogether, yet I recall each occasion vividly and he remains stamped upon my memory as a definite personality.

The first time was in a Cardiff cinema — a large bare hall, like an immense barn, with high roof-lights turned up to reveal the curtained screen and narrow stage beneath, the latter furnished with a purely ornamental chair and a table upon which lay several compact objects not, at my distance, immediately recognisable. The orchestra suddenly hushed its clamour, there was a moment’s silence; then a long shrill note sounded from behind a curtain, the violins took it up, and to a soft accompaniment a slight figure walked lightly on to the stage, a concertina between his hands, and his whole body swaying exaggeratedly to the persuasive rhythms of “Felix kept on walking.” At the centre he paused, turned to the audience, increased the volume of sound, then unexpectedly cut it short and stood bowing. A prolonged applause greeted him, and as it continued I surveyed him with a casual curiosity. He seemed a strangely tiny figure against the high curtains, and yet I felt, almost at once, an instinctive repulsion. His blonde wig covered his head, but it remained obviously a wig for all that, and a poor one; I guessed at black hair beneath, for he was one of that dark, small-eyed ferrety type so common in the southern Welsh hills that one imagines there must be, hidden in those mountains, some prolific breeding-place, some witch’s cauldron whence they come bubbling up into scarcely human being. His face was a mask of doll-like pink and white, with eyes set in what seemed large staring sockets, so deeply blue were the lids tinted. He was dressed as a boy of fourteen, in schoolboy clothes, a costume which his thin build entirely suited, but he suggested nothing youthful to me; I found the long face, the grinning mouth, simply repulsive.
The New Coterie  Volume 1   Issue: 5  Spring, 1927  Page: 79
 
 The Marvel By Geoffrey West
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As the clapping died down he bowed again, raised his hands, nodded to the conductor, and broke out into an emphatic version, with variations, of “Cornin’ Thro’ the Rye.” At its end he turned to the table behind him and took up one of the objects which lay there — another concertina of, perhaps, half the size of the one discarded. That was the essence of his performance; he had altogether six or seven instruments of various proportions, from one which rested easily within the palm of the hand to a monstrosity which he could scarcely wield. He used them with effective contrast, playing upon one the latest jazz tunes, upon another sentimental favourites; a silver-plated one was reserved for hymn-tunes and “Home, Sweet Home,” while with the largest he gave what was almost an organ rendering of “The Lost Chord.” It was all vastly appreciated by his audience, and he had to appear again and again to acknowledge the applause; the Welsh are notoriously a musical people.

The second encounter took place a year or so later, at his parents’ home in Martegg itself; the impression left by that closer meeting was hardly more favourable. His environment then, certainly, lent him little attraction, for the family consisted of colliery folk, miners, and its members had necessarily to live near their work. The small house was one of a row of dilapidated cottages clutching precariously the steep slope of the blackened mountainside; from the muddy track which ran down across the railway to the pit-head beyond the visitor went directly into the confined and gloomy living-room which took up the greater part of the ground-floor. It was winter, and evening; the lamp on the table was lighted, and chairs had been drawn up within the circle of its illumination for John Evans and myself. Mrs. Evans sat sewing somewhere in the background, and I did not at first notice the huddled figure in the shadow, leaning toward the glowing rather than brilliant fire in the hearth. He made no movement; it was not until his father called him by name that he turned his head and looked sulkily toward us. I did not recognise him, though I might have done so had it occurred to me, for he was exactly what I had anticipated — black-haired, with tiny eyes, pointed nose and little chin.

“Come, Dai,” said his father, but after that instant’s regard, still without a word, he turned back to the fire. John Evans grunted. “I don’t know what to make of the boy since his accident,” he told me. “You can’t think, the way he takes on!
The New Coterie  Volume 1   Issue: 5  Spring, 1927  Page: 80
 
 The Marvel By Geoffrey West
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See these photies, now — you’d not know him for the same.” It was upon looking at them that I first realised the identity of young Dai Evans and the Martegg Marvel.

Later that evening, on the way to the station, his father told me something of his history; the other details I have gathered from a variety of sources.

Even as a young boy, apparently, David Evans had displayed “musical taste” — he liked to get with a crowd of friends and sing and sing until the neighbours protested. He was, long before he left school at the age of fourteen to go into the mine, an applauded concertinist, the pride of his companions. At first, and to a great extent always, he played by ear; he was extraordinarily quick at picking up the popular tunes. He was invited to play at the local Band of Hope meetings, and presently his proud father took him to a “musical evening” at the local political club, where the suggestion was made publicly, and as publicly approved, that he was, “reely, good enough for the alls.” But it was still five years before he achieved his first professional appearance, five years of disappointment and hard work. It was labour, he felt sometimes, without reward, yet there were compensations; he became, in Martegg at least, a personality, set apart from his fellows as one who was, potentially if not actually, an artiste. There was nothing he loved better than to gather a circle of friends, and when he had eked out his repertoire with all the stage-tricks he had learnt — the smirking, the bowing, the swaying from side to side — to hear them say that “there wasn’t none to touch ’im,” or that “Dai’s a fair marvel.” “A fair marvel”! — that expressed his own opinion of himself so exactly that when at last he blossomed into larger fame it was as “The Martegg Marvel” that he chose to be known.

He began, with his first engagement, a new life. His work in the mine became no more to him than eating or sleeping, and he seemed to live only when he was made-up and waiting for his cue, when the moment came and for a brief quarter of an hour he gave of his best, the focus of hundreds of pairs of eyes, when he heard the great roar of beating hands, when he was Dai Evans no longer, but the Martegg Marvel. Usually it was in village cinemas that he appeared, but he was not unknown in the larger towns, and he had no prouder moment than when, paying a return visit to Cardiff, his audience seemed
The New Coterie  Volume 1   Issue: 5  Spring, 1927  Page: 81
 
 The Marvel By Geoffrey West
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to recognise him even as he walked on. Famous indeed he was, a marvel, a marvel!

But one day in the mine his left hand was pinned beneath a sudden “fall” — when it was released three fingers had to be amputated, and the rest was little more than dead flesh. His musical career, clearly, was over, but that was a fact that he refused to accept, and when at last it was forced upon him he sank into a kind of stupor from which he could be roused only to anger. Even when he was found easier employment at the pit-head he went about it so sulkily that his family expected every day to hear of his discharge.

Time, it is said, will reconcile us to most things; though Dai stood out and refused to be comforted his fretting came presently to be accepted as a part of his natural being. The past, of course, was not utterly buried; a certain glory still attached itself to him, and his criticism, the authoritative criticism of an ex-professional, was widely sought. It was thus that, one fatal evening not long after my visit, Joshua Lewis brought his son Owen to the seat of judgment. A group was formed about the fire, and the grinning nervous boy uncased his concertina and began to play. From the corner nearest the door Dai watched him with sullen eyes. There was a murmur of approval at the end of the first tune, but the critic was silent; at the end of the second John Evans cried, “Bravo, boy!” and told his wife to reach down Dai’s silver instrument for Owen to play “Home, Sweet Home” — the universal test-piece. In the corner the tiny eyes brightened, then went dark again … his own instrument! When the last note had died away John Evans again spoke first: “Good lad! Josh, the lad’s a marvel. That’s what he is — a marvel!”

There was a sudden movement as Dai rose to his feet; he was visibly trembling, but without a word he walked to the door, opened it quickly, and went out. As it closed an approaching train whistled shrilly. They heard him give a kind of inarticulate cry, and then his feet running on the path. The circle scattered in surprise, and John Evans went to the door. He shouted, then he too began to run. But Dai, crossing the railway line, had been knocked down even as his father called; he was killed immediately. It was said at the inquest that he had put himself in front of the train deliberately, but this the father would not let himself believe.
The New Coterie  Volume 1   Issue: 5  Spring, 1927  Page: 82
 
 The Marvel By Geoffrey West
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Bissill, George William [1896-1973. UK. Painter/Poster/Furniture Designer]
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DESIGN FOR A BOOKPLATE. BY BISSILL
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It was a grand funeral; everyone in the village seemed to be there, splendid in black and carrying expensive wreaths — an affair that would have done the dead boy’s heart good to see. What with one thing and another it was well into the second year before the family was able to pay the last bill. Upon the gravestone was carved Dai’s name and his title, “The Martegg Marvel.” To this latter young Owen Lewis, coveting it for himself, wished to object, but under the circumstances was persuaded not to.