With the death of Brother Peter, Belmont has lost one
of her founder members as he was the first claustral
brother to be received after the Belmont Community
gained its independence.
Alfred Jones, son of Mordecai and Ellen Jones, was born at
Ebbw Vale, Monmouthshire, on January 2.5th, 1897. Shortly
afterwards his parents moved to Cardiff, but while still a boy he
returned to Ebbw Vale to live with relatives. His boyhood was
hard and not altogether happy. He started work at thirteen and
became a boiler-maker in the steelworks. While still a young
man he moved again to Cardiff, where he plied his trade in the
shipyards.
During the Great War of 1914-18 he was a trooper in the
cavalry, mainly in France, but with a brief expedition into
the Mediterranean theatre (which he thoroughly enjoyed and
never tired of recalling). He also served in the Machine Gun
Corps and was wounded in the Battle of the Somme. Towards
the end of the war he was transferred to the newly-formed
Royal Flying Corps.
He must have begun at an early age the process of self-
education which he continued to the end of his life. (During the
last few weeks of his life he began to re-read the works of
Thomas Hardy.) As a soldier he read the works of Wilfrid
Owen, Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon. His search for
truth led him to the Catholic Church and he was received at
Belmont in April 1920. Just over a year later he joined the
Belmont Community, making his temporary profession on
June 21st, 1922, and his final Profession on June 24th, 1925.
From the beginning, Brother Peter had definite views
about monasticism and in accordance with these he soon
applied his native skill to the joiner's trade. Although mainly
self-taught he soon became, inevitably it seemed, a master
craftsman. He was slow and extremely painstaking, but his
work is monumental: the oak floor in the Middle Sacristy and
three massive (and utterly indispensable) chests, another fine
oak floor in St. Raphael's Chapel and the stylish furnishings
in the Sacristy there, besides innumerable lesser items newly
made or repaired.
My schoolboy memory of him at this period is an aloof
figure, gaunt, balding, yet with high-coloured cheeks, severe,
righteous, humourless, with an acid tongue, not suffering fools
at all, the terror of small boys, whom he seemed to regard as a
constant threat to a precarious world-order, yet inspiring awe
and a certain pride for his legendary skill as a craftsman.
The Second World War called Brother Peter away from his
workshop—to the kitchen sink. Shortage of domestic staff and
the sudden growth of the School meant crisis in the pantry. It
need hardly be said that he became a most efficient washer-up.
What was more surprising was an unsuspected patience shown
in these humble chores and even a rare sally of sly humour.
Although he had little enough time off, he used it to build up a
thriving apiary. Starting from scratch, learning as he went
along, in a short time he became an acknowledged local expert,
consulted by bee-keepers of much longer experience. As if this
were not enough he became an active member of the Belmont
Abbey wartime auxiliary Fire Brigade, answered fire calls by
day and night and helped to win for Belmont the trophy for
the most efficient brigade in the area.
After the War and the austerity years, instead of going back
to his carpentry he took over the small Abbey Farm, which
then included arable, poultry and pig farming. He gradually
built up a pedigree herd of the then new Welsh Landrace breed.
As in everything else he tackled, he became an acknowledged
expert in pig farming. Extremely fastidious himself, he had
exacting standards of hygiene for his livestock, and the farm
became known as the "Pig Palace". In the earlier days he used
to become touchingly fond of his charges and was known to
weep when the van came to take them away to the bacon
factory.
The arctic winter of 1962 created appalling problems for the
farmer. Brother Peter struggled on at what was realised only
later to have been an impossible task and he fell seriously ill.
He recovered sufficiently to start work again, but it became
increasingly evident that his health had been permanently
impaired. A slight limp and slurring of speech became more
pronounced, but in spite of this, even though he had to give up
the farm, he would not give up work altogether. He returned to
his carpenter's shop where he cheerfully carried out such repairs
and odd jobs as his failing strength and skill would allow. It was
in all these diminishments that his humanity and humility
showed themselves. With each year that went by he became
more mellow, kindlier, more understanding, not afraid to smile
at himself, finding more and more the friendship which he had
always needed and had yet seemed to frighten away. The kind
things which everybody said about him at the end were not
formalities, he had won them in a lifelong struggle with himself.
The story of his life makes a satisfying whole. It seems that
he needed, and he certainly used, the allotted span of seventy
years. Throughout all his monastic life, however depressing the
times, however overworked he was, he was rigidly faithful to
his obligations of prayer and to the sacraments of the church.
As time went by, this became for him more than a mere duty.
Grace worked through the craggy material of nature to produce
a complete man, strong, human, lovable and holy. We are
richer for his part in our life—may he rest in peace.

Bro Peters skillful work lives on in the Abbey Sacristy