THE Jones family from Denbigh have been picked to take part in BBC Cymru Wales’s new series set in Snowdonia 1890.
Snowdonia 1890 follows on from the two Coal House series which transported families back to live in a mining community in Blaenavon, south Wales, first in the 1920s and then during World War II.
This new programmes are filmed mainly in Rhosgadfan on the slopes of Snowdonia, as well as other locations around the area.
The series sees two specially selected families embark on an epic journey as they commit to living as closely as they can to the 1890 way of life.
The families will be helped by local people such as a butcher, preacher and teacher, who will appear as 1890 versions of themselves.
Viewers will see the families swapping their comfortable existence for a life as smallholders, keeping animals, working the land and selling home produce to supplement the meagre wages of the men, who will be taking on the life of quarrymen.
They will have to quickly master the craft of splitting and shaping slate and making their way daily to the quarry along a mountain trail.
The women will be the homemakers and housewives whilst the children of the families will attend school, Victorian style.
Grandmother Heulwen, 75, the oldest member of the Jones family, said one motivation for taking part came from her late father who was a Snowdonia quarryman.
She said her son David, a partner in a law firm, had always been keen to know more about the life of the grandfather he never knew.
“He wants to know because of my past, of losing my dad in the quarry. He wants to see what kind of life dad had,” she said.
Joining the pair will be David’s wife Catrin and eldest son Ben, 18, Ela, 11, and Jac, nine.
Daughter Ela, 11 thinks she’ll miss “the shower and shampoo and thing you take for granted... like pens and drawing.”
But Ela’s confident that her family will stick it out.
“We’ll be a unit because that’s what we are, just a family. We’ll get through it” she added.
Parents David, a partner in a law firm, Catrin, a tribunals officer, brother Jac, 9 and big brother Ben, 18, make up the rest of the Jones family.
The manual labour was on the minds of Ben and his dad David.
“I’m looking forward to some graft… I get in the car, go to school, stay in school and come home,” said Ben. “I’ll have to be a lot more independent and think for myself.”
David is looking forward to “going back to a way of life that we never get the chance to understand,” while admitting the manual labour would be “a shock to the system”.
The series starts on Monday October 18, on BBC One Wales and continues every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening for three weeks.