Cambria by Chris Jones

WALES’S MAGAZINE

cambria Cylchgrawn Cenedlaethol Cymru

The National Magazine of Wales

£3.50 €3.50

VOLUME/CYFROL 12 NUMBER/RHIF 1

Welsh Lavender JIM PARC NEST

Our New Archdruid Wales needs to wise up to business ST JOHN ROBERTS

Welsh Martyr “When is a magazine more than a magazine? When it turns its readers into collectors - and so tells us something about what makes a great magazine in the process.” From WHAT’S NEXT MAGAZINE ISSUE 1 2010

CONTENTS VOLUME 12 NUMBER 1

8 8 8

EDITOR’S LETTER

LETTERS

POLITICS& OPINION

CLIVE BETTS, SIÔN JOBBINS

JIM PARC NEST - OUR NEW ARCHDRUID introduces us to poet and writer T. James Jones - bardic name Jim Parc Nest - who has been elected the new Archdruid of Wales.

MEIC STEPHENS

REMEMBERING A FEARLESS WELSH MARTYR DAVID JONES tells the story of St John Roberts, a farmer’s son from Trawsfynydd who became a Benedictine monk and was martyred at Tyburn in 1610. Special celebrations have been taking place at Abaty Cymer and in Westminster.

WELSH LAVENDER COVER STORY - BETHAN JOHN visits a lavender farm in Powys and discovers a burgeoning and - trend-setting - Welsh industry.

A BRIDGE SO FAIR EDMUND BUCK visits Pont Dolauhirion, which spans the Tywi near Llanymddyfri, built by pioneering Welsh civil engineer William Edwards.

8 8 8 8

ENVIRONMENT

TRAVEL

30 33 33

LITERATURE

NATURE EISTEDDFOD QUIZ

on The Cry of the Sea

GWYN GRIFFITHS CHRIS KINSEY

on Mistral, ‘The Virgil of Provence’

on newts and hawks

How well do you know your country’s culture?

MUSIC & OPERA ART

PETER JONES

EDUCATION

PROFESSOR JOHN HEYWOOD THOMAS:

MOTORING

JOHN A. EDWARDS:

DIRECTORY

The best places to eat in Wales

FOOD

DOROTHY DAVIES

ONLOOKER

Achub y Plant, Y Gelli/Hay, Neath Steam & Vintage, BAFTAs

LEARN WELSH

MIRANDA MORTON:

WHAT’S HOT

cambria’s

POETRY

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

VICKY MOLLER

36 45 44 48 50

BOOKS

ARCHITECTURE

Y CLAWR / THE COVER:

RUSSELL THOMAS: Craig MEIC STEPHENS

Cefn Parc; MALCOLM BALLIN on Dalen

on the publishing scene in Wales

JOHN BARNIE; JIM PARC NEST JOHN IDRIS JONES NORMA LORD:

on the new Newport High School

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg; Rigoletto

on the life and work of Jonah Jones Vision for a University

Hybrids - Toyota and Peugeot Electrique

- Salad Days

Defnyddiwch eich Cymraeg! Rygbi

guide to events and exhibitions around Wales

Meisydd Lafant - Nancy Durham harvesting lavender in Powys © Carl Ryan 2010

CONTRIBUTORS VOLUME

12 NUMBER 1 2010

MEIC STEPHENS, is a journalist and poet and has written, edited and translated some 150 books about our country’s culture. FOUNDER & PUBLISHER

Henry Jones-Davies is a regular and valued contributor to Welsh periodicals.

EDITOR

Frances Jones-Davies

SIÔN JOBBINS

PATRONS

Jan Morris D. Huw John Siân Phillips Dr R. Brinley Jones John Elfed Jones John Hefin Dr Arturo L Roberts Mary Lloyd Jones Meredydd Evans

represents cambria in the press section of the National Assembly.

CLIVE BETTS

is a journalist, author and renowned authority on Breton history, art and culture. GWYN GRIFFITHS

JOHN A. EDWARDS

is a Welsh motoring journalist of many years experience.

ADVISORY BOARD

Professor Meic Stephens Aneurin Jones Jonathan Adams Myrddin ap Dafydd Wil Aaron Menna Elfyn Elisabeth Luard David Gravell

is an environmentalist and writer living in Pembrokeshire.

VICKY MOLLER

CARL RYAN is a professional photographer specialising in extreme sports photography.

is a professional photographer specialising in the landscape of Wales.

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Frances Davies LITERARY EDITOR

Meic Stephens EDITOR-AT-LARGE

RESEARCH EDITOR

Rhobert ap Steffan MOTORING EDITOR

John A Edwards ART DIRECTION

Simon Wigley

David Williams, Carl Ryan, Mari Sterling, John Keates

MARI STERLING

FEATURES EDITOR

PHOTOGRAPHY

is a poet who won the 2008 BBC Wildlife Poet of the Year Competition.

CHRIS KINSEY

- THE NATIONAL MAGAZINE OF WALES © 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced by any means without the prior permission of the publisher in writing. cambria is published bimonthly by Cyhoeddwyr Cymrica Cyfyngedig, PO BOX 22, CAERFYRDDIN/CARMARTHEN, SA32 7YH, Cymru/Wales. ISSN: 1366-0675. All material submitted must be accompanied by a stamped, selfaddressed envelope. The publisher will not be held responsible for loss, damage or any other injury to unsolicited manuscripts or artwork (including drawings, photographs, and transparencies). We cannot guarantee a response to unsolicited matter. cambria magazine has made every effort to ensure that proper permission has been obtained for the reproduction of all illustrations in this issue, and we apologise unreservedly for any errors or oversights. Views and opinions expressed by individual writers in this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the editor or the publisher. All information in this publication has been verified to the best of the authors’ and publishers’ ability; however Cyhoeddwyr Cymrica Cyfyngedig does not accept responsibility for any loss arising from reliance on it. Subscriptions for 6 issues: British Isles £18 - All other countries £28. Single copies: £3.50 plus 70p postage. The first copy of a new subscription application will be mailed by second class post for addresses in the British Isles, and by surface mail for the rest of the world. Please allow 6 weeks for overseas delivery. Argraffwyd gan: HSW Print, Tonypandy.

Clive Betts

Siôn T. Jobbins

NORMA LORD is a lifelong opera lover and music journalist.

cambria

POLITICAL EDITOR

WEBMASTER

Chris Jones

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FROM THE EDITOR

highlighting what a tough world it is for aspiring young journalists, how fierce the competition and negligible the rewards, and more so now than ever as so many arms of the media are cutting back on real journalism, and simply regurgitate press releases as news. For the last few summers we have been lucky enough to have work experience students from the Cardiff School of Journalism, the ‘Oxbridge’ of the media world. They have been an asset to the magazine and proof of the excellence of their alma mater. However, browsing the internet and ‘googling’ the school did give food for thought; when so many fairly eminent journalists have studied here in Wales why should there still be so much cultural insensitivity? This term seems rather apt, for I first saw it in a document we were sent proposing a Welsh postal service, Post Cymru, which documented the relationship of the Royal Mail with Wales. The Royal Mail say there is not sufficient interest in Welsh stamps for them to produce them, the ‘proof ’ being that they are available from post offices but very rarely asked for. While the dragon has been depicted several times over the years it is rarely the classic red Welsh dragon and Welsh historic occasions are rarely marked. Virtually nothing is taught in schools of our history, little enough in Wales let alone across the border. Other religions, other histories and other cultures are widely celebrated and taught: the American Civil War, Ann Frank, Diwali and haikus to take a random, and however worthy, selection, but not englyns or struggles of the Princes or the wonderfully progressive and egalitarian laws of Hywel Dda. ‘When in Rome’ is an adage I feel all should live by; however, that is hard to do if you don’t even know that you are, essentially, in a different country, and if the indigenous youth is not taught its own country’s history. The Urdd, the National and Llangollen too, provide us all year around with entertainment, showcasing a talent in which we seem to be incredibly rich. On the first day of the Urdd Eisteddfod I dropped in on Mrs Davies the Post; she was her usual hospitable and good humoured self, but as I left she reminded me gently that it was the Urdd and for the next week it wouldn’t be convenient to receive visitors as she didn’t want to miss a thing. I love the National Eisteddfod, I love the total immersion of Welshness, of hearing it everywhere, of the music, the poetry, the whole atmosphere, and despite my inadequate knowledge of the Language of Heaven, I have never felt anything but welcome there, and I wish all would experience the charm and the uniqueness of this great cultural festival. As usual, we have a stand at the Eisteddfod, so please, if you can, do come and see us, we always love to meet our readers. Back issues, binders, flags and ties, and more will all be available. Over the week many of the contributors can be found at our stand. We thrive on your feedback, suggestions and experiences and look forward to seeing as many of you as possible. RECENTLY AN ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE SUNDAY TIMES

MARI STERLING

FRANCES JONES-DAVIES

MYFYRDOD

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

(1856–1950) Irish dramatist, critic, pamphleteer and novelist

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letters tribute to hywel teifi EDITOR

It was with particular interest and much appreciation that I read the tributes and encomia to Hywel Teifi Edwards in the recent edition of Cambria. I was a contemporary and friend of his at UCW Aberystwyth during the impressionable years of the 1950’s. We both played in the college soccer team. Aberarth as he was invariably known, had a strong persona: friendly, sociable and passionate. Ebullient is the word that springs to my mind when I appraise his temperament. Hywel Teifi’s exuberance was a trademark on the playing field. The college soccer team played second fiddle to the Rugby XVI but that was of no matter to him. The college team would be engaged in inter-collegiate matches. However, the competition in the mid-Wales league was tougher and the relative youthfulness of the College team was often pitted against teams of greater maturity and robustness notably Llanidloes and Llandrindod Wells. It was in such matches that the brio of Hywel Teifi lifted the spirits, his potent charisma already in much evidence. On leaving Aberystwyth our paths diverged as I took up a career in England. I returned in 1974 as Head of Gwernyfed High School. Some thirty years had elapsed by the time I met Hywel Teifi again at Brecon. He was there to drum up support for the National Eisteddfod scheduled for Builth Wells. There is a certain fascination in pondering upon the progress and outcome of the lives of ones contemporaries. In Hywel Teifi’s case, in spite of the passing years his personal attributes were palpably the same. There was perhaps a hint of irascibility, no doubt a concomitant of his passionate nature.

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When I wrote to him in the Autumn of last year to congratulate him on the programme about him on S4C, I quoted some lines from Wordsworth which (for me) are apt and pertinent in relation to him. ‘The Child is father of the man And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each in natural piety.’

I hastened to add that I was not using ‘piety’ in the narrow religious and literal sense, but in the sense of duty to parents, heritage and patrimony. Hywel Teifi’s nostalgia for the Aberarth of his childhood was patent. His outstanding contribution to the language and culture of Wales provides a fitting testimonial to his life’s achievements. Hugh Jones, Abergwili, Caerfyrddin

bodes ill for the Welsh people. Where is the ‘fire in the belly’ of our young patriots of yesteryear? When will a genuinely nationalist agenda once more guide our political life. When will our only national party stop being ‘all things to all people’? Where is Plaid’s condemnation of the appalling Murder Academy of St Athan - the very idea an affront to Christian and national values? There is no doubt that if, in 1969, Plaid’s leaders had made a proud and dignified stand against the ‘Investiture’ burlesque, the government would have caved in. Wales then, as now, was weighed in the balance and found wanting. There are many evil signs today that lead me to believe Wales is slowly bleeding to death while good men and women fret and fiddle over paltry issues and trifling affairs. To echo Thomas Paine, we have ‘summer patriots’ aplenty, what we need now are ‘winter patriots’ - and quickly. Idwal Lloyd Price Henllan

bleeding to death EDITOR

help please In December 1913 the great Irish nationalist and revolutionary Padraig Pearse wrote these words: May it not be said with entire truth that the reason why Ireland is not free is that Ireland has not deserved to be free. Men who have ceased to be men cannot claims the rights of men; and men who have suffered themselves to be deprived of their manhood have suffered the greatest of all indignities.....We are in a strict sense not fit for freedom; and freedom we shall never attain.

Ireland, of course, as we in Wales are only too painfully aware, won her freedom after a fierce and bitter fight, but are these words not strangely applicable to the Wales of today? Plaid Cymru’s dismal showing at the British General Election

EDITOR

I wonder if any of your readers could help find some evidence that Fred Perry and Dan Maskell visited Cyfarthfa School and played tennis there. The centenary of the opening of the school is coming up in the near future and any help would be much appreciated. Margaret Davies Merthyr Tudful We are always delighted to receive letters of every opinion. It may prove necessary to edit letters for space and clarity. Letters should be exclusive to

cambria

magazine.

letters ARTES MUNDI - a response by David Petersen “The first article of an Ascendancy’s creed is, and always has been, that the natives are a lesser breed, and that anything that is theirs (except their land and their gold!) is therefore of little value…..In the course of time the natives become tainted with these doctrines, and cry approval when the untruths of the Ascendancy are echoed from some distant place, as if at last a fair judgement has been pronounced”. HIDDEN IRELAND

(1924) by Daniel Corkery “In Wales, the application of an unmodified high art critique to Welsh visual culture remains a significant instrument of colonialism. Unchallenged here, it continues to devalue the indigenous work and therefore undermines the self-confidence of a Nation”. “Our lack of confidence disables us from taking our own product as seriously as we take the product of other cultures, both as makers and as consumers. The visual image is an essential medium for the assertion of national identity: the denial of the aesthetics of one is the denial of the politics of another.” THE AESTHETICS OF RELEVANCE

(1993) by Peter Lord

hen the National Museum of Wales opened its doors to the public in 1927, its council was quite clear as to what the Museum was for: “It is intended that the new Museum shall be primarily and essentially National in character. Its special and characteristic function must, according to the views of the council, be to teach the

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stranger about Wales and to teach the Welsh people about their own country. Nothing should be admitted… which does not illustrate or elucidate Wales in some aspect or other”. [Lines from the opening ceremony of the building in 1927.] Ever since the Artes Mundi was first staged in the National Museum, I have been trying to understand why - and what - it is doing there. Looking at the impressive list of partners, supporters and sponsors some thirty one in all - it is easy to

“The Arts Council ‘in’ Wales should become the Arts Council ‘of ’ Wales. Its priorities should be to support the promotion of Welsh artists over and above this biennial farce.” see why the person in charge of attracting funding for Artes Mundi, has been recognised in an award: The Hollis Outstanding Contribution to Sponsorship Award. Sponsorship income has risen by 280% and, despite the current economic climate, has continued to secure new and promising business partnerships. I would guess that this now runs to millions! The travel expenses for those who have to roam the world searching out the selected artists from the 500 nominations must

also be impressive. As indeed is the prize money of £40,000 - the largest visual arts prize in the world. How can a relatively small nation like Wales afford this extravagant bi-annual jamboree, and is it worth it? How does it benefit our indigenous visual culture? And at what cost to our developing self-confidence? The very name speaks volumes about its blatant snub to Wales, when we have a perfectly appropriate term of Celfyddydau’r Byd. Since its inception in 2004, Artes Mundi has scraped the barrel of virtually all funding available for the visual arts in Wales, and there has been a noticeable lack of major commissions or exhibitions featuring Welsh art or artists any where in Wales. The Arts Council ‘in’ Wales should become the Arts Council ‘of ’ Wales. At present it appears to support any cultural activity in Wales, other than Welsh culture. Its priorities should be to support the promotion of Welsh artists, over and above this biennial farce. Where is our Welsh National Gallery, where we can exhibit and appreciate our own artist’s work? We are told that, at present, we cannot afford to build one. But if we cannot afford to celebrate our own artists’ work then we certainly cannot afford this grandiose and unsustainable circus. The sooner it is scrapped, the healthier our own culture will be, and we can again build up our own Welsh visual art and enjoy and celebrate it both in Wales and throughout the world, by liberating Welsh-based funding agencies and sponsors from this expensive and extravagant indulgence, which does great harm to our country.

POLITICS

Clive Betts

Wake-up call for Plaid

hree political parties did quite well in Wales during the Westminster election which has just passed. And three did rather badly. Looking ahead, to the political prospects revealed in the voting booths in our 40 constituencies, the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats can all feel pleased about what the future might hold. The Tories are on the up; Labour slipped much less than they feared and they believe the ground can easily be reclaimed. While the Lib Dems are maintaining, and indeed growing, both their rural and city presences. But, as I said, three parties did badly. The British National Party has been shown how utterly “unbritish” it is (whatever that might mean). The United Kingdom Independence Party is also clearly a busted-flush, with all its Welsh hopes surely dashed now its near-cheer-leader in Wales - David Davies, of Monmouth - has become chairman of the Welsh Select Committee in Westminster. David has stated he will now stay mum during the campaign against the springtime referendum on extra powers for the Assembly, surely UKIP’s likely next outing in this country of ours (if not theirs). And the third party? Well, what future can there be for Plaid Cymru, the self-proclaimed party of Wales, when it loses its deposit in 11 constituencies out of 40? That involves getting less than 5% of the vote. In both Newport seats, the “party of Wales” even got fewer votes than the BNP. Perhaps it’s time for Plaid’s Assembly group to start campaigning for the border with England to be redrawn. Alyn and Deeside, Delyn, Brecon and Radnor, and Monmouth all adjoin the border so it would be quite an easy cartographical exercise. And what more would you expect, anyway, from Newport and most of Cardiff and Swansea? But it was not always so. Did Plaid not once hold 11 constituency seats in Wales, compared to an unchanged three now? And were not two of them in the heart of Labour’s erstwhile southern Valleys stronghold? Admittedly, Plaid currently provides ministers to the Welsh government as part of the coalition deal. But what will happen next May? The size of the vote in the Assembly election will assuredly be larger than that for Westminster this May. But what combination of constituency and regional-seat returns will provide enough AMs to enable Ieuan Wyn Jones to hold on to his post of Deputy First Minster after what has happened? This May, Plaid attracted a mere 11% of the votes (compared with Lib Dems’ and Conservatives’ 20% each and Labour’s 36%).

Oh for a mab darogan with a message of fire to spur the electorate’s pencil-fingers as they mark their ballot-papers! Oh for the return of a leader such as Dafydd Wigley Studying the voting pattern over 40 years, that sends Plaid’s support back to the pre-devolution era. For those with ultra-long memories, that was the time when Labour usually pulled in around 50% of the vote; the Tories, around 30, and the Lib Dems, something in the lower-teens. In that glorious first Assembly election in 1999, Plaid seemed to be breaking through to everywhere west of the Dyke, with 29% of the vote. But not this May. Certainly, Ieuan is proving himself a competent minister, as are his fellow ministers and deputies. But what sort of campaigning message is that? “We’ve proved how we can help the civil service run the government”? Oh, for a mab darogan with a message of fire to spur the electorate’s pencil-fingers as they mark their ballotpapers! Oh, for the return of a leader such as Dafydd Wigley - we have never heard the full story of how he was hounded out while suffering from what proved a temporary illness. The mab darogan who tells us he doesn’t want the job (these lying politicians!) is surely Adam Price, on academic sabbatical to the United States after stepping down from Carmarthen East & Dinefwr at Westminster. At least, he should be back in harness in Cardiff in time to repair the train-wreck that Plaid seems to be heading for next May. So, what happened in May, in detail, and what does it tells us about how Wales is changing? First, let’s turn to Scotland. That country’s governing SNP won only six seats, having lost its Glasgow by-election gain. But, more important, its national vote edged upwards (by 2% to 20%), and, most important of all, the SNP lost not a single deposit. In Wales, by contrast, our own nationalist party is seeing the country revert to something like the antediluvian, pre-Gwynfor days. The Plaid’s only hope lay in the Welsh-speaking heartlands. It’s not so different today. The core seems as safe as houses: Arfon, Meirionnydd Nant Conwy and Carmarthen East & Dinefwr. Then, there’s a penumbra, seats which one day might go Plaid; but there are none of the miniscule majorities which so

enthuse campaigners - although Labour hold Ynys Môn by fewer than 2,500 votes. Which brings us down to differential voting - the electorate in some constituencies vote radically differently according to the election. The non-Welsh parties have been laughing their heads over Plaid’s Westminster performance in both Aberconwy (based around Llandudno) and Carmarthen West & South Pembroke (where Tenby’s the problem). In Cardiff both seats are either currently held, or within a whisker. But in both Plaid plunged to fourth place during the Westminster poll. In both, the crucial party may have been Labour, the previous incumbent in at least part of the two seats. But also the Lib Dems, who used to poll well in Conwy, and who seemed to have convinced voters in the southern seat that they are a trustworthy home for devolution-friendly voters. Perhaps next year Plaid will be able to turn the tables. Perhaps. As was made blindingly clear in Ceredigion, the weakness of Plaid nationally means the party can be overturned locally when the mood is right, or wrong. Helen Mary Jones, Plaid’s director of elections (and AM for Llanelli), vehemently denied to Cambria that there was anything wrong with her party’s campaign in Ceredigion, or with its candidate. But the loss of the Westminster seat in 2005 indicates all is not well. Cynog Dafis broke through by attracting Green voters (who are usually English). And the high proportion of English settlers is clearly an issue. Not unsurprisingly, some Pleidwyr have reacted poorly, even to the extent of ridiculing Mr Dafis’s past success. A new style of candidate is needed, who can seize the political initiative in the county as Mr Dafis managed so well. Perhaps the London Coalition government’s plan to reduce the number of constituencies (by about four in Wales) will provide Plaid with the necessary opportunity. Then we come to the Labourite region - the solid acres of red in the southern Valleys - where Plaid’s breakthroughs were managed in 1999. Some say that’s due to continue with the slow death of working class supremacy and of a belief in a leadership provided by the unions, particularly with a Marxist leadership. Ms Jones, who doesn’t believe in criticising would-be voters, is unable to agree with the diagnosis. Presumably First Minister Carwyn Jones doesn’t either. But the fact is the Valleys are changing. You can tell that from the 2008 council election results. Previously Labour controlled eight councils; then just two (Neath and Rhondda-Cynon-Taf ). So, a gigantic political gap has opened up. But only in one area has Plaid managed to benefit. Effectively, the party now controls Caerffili. Once, Plaid controlled RCT, now no more. I think they controlled Merthyr for a time - but everyone’s forgotten

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by now. Indeed, Caerffili (which includes Islwyn constituency) and RCT constituencies provide some of the outer-penumbra of seats where Plaid’s performance isn’t quite the stuff of music-hall jokes. Local Pleidwyr mention the name of father-of-devolution Ron Davies, a leading member of the Plaid-led Caerffili council, as a candidate-successor to Lindsay Whittle, who has tried seven times for the seat. Rhondda, Cynon Valley and Neath constituencies re all part of this political region. But in next-door seats such as Aberavon and Torfaen, Plaid has got nowhere. In Torfaen council Plaid is even busy propping up a Labour administration decimated by opposition parties in 2008. The truth is, no party has arisen (except occasionally) to replace Labour in the Valleys. True, the electorate is fed up with Labour, but Plaid, the Lib Dems and the Tories are hardly ever up to the mark. Assembly or Westminster success often depends on earlier hard work at council level. And if you’ve got only two members on a council - which is so often the situation for all parties in the Valleys - you clearly aren’t up to it. Masses of independents are no substitute. The Lib Dems are open about the prior importance of council-chamber success. The party boasts significantlyfewer councillors throughout Wales than Plaid. But at least they have a strategy and are organised. The result is they can be seen sometimes as the viable alternative to Plaid and nationalism. In Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire, the party, to Plaid’s fury, has acted to block Plaid running the council. Perhaps because thereby they might prevent Plaid winning some of the constituency seats? In Cardiff, Swansea and Newport, the Lib Dem strategy is seen most clearly. Here, the Lib Dems are either clearly leading the authorities or providing significant members of the cabinet. Which has - perhaps unsurprisingly - led to them winning Cardiff Central constituency and coming close in both Swansea West and Newport East. The party’s next target is clearly Wrexham; the party leads the council. And within 4,000 votes of winning at Westminster. Perhaps significantly, the party came a close second last month in Pontypridd, where Plaid was forced down to fourth. Before local government reorganisation, Pontypridd was part of Taff-Ely council. This was the first council to boast a Plaid Cymru leader - Janet Davies, the former regional AM. Her success in fighting old-style Labour to a halt, ably helped by local busman Clayton Jones, shows the way many thought the Valleys were going. But the path forwards has been halted. What’s gone wrong?

OPINION

Siôn Jobbins

Business in Welsh ‘like asking for condoms’

“T

here is no Welsh word for entrepreneur.” Yes! And said without a hint of irony. Would I bother telling him that ‘entrepreneur’ was a French word? What the over-heard conversationalist was trying to say was that the Welsh language was incompatible with the business world. In that respect, the man’s prejudice, or view, isn’t unique. In fact, many Welsh-speakers may even agree with him. With this in mind, I was very interested to read an article about the founding of the first designated Welsh-language bookshop. Not Siop-y-Pethe in Aberystwyth in the late 1960s, as I’d thought, but one opened a decade earlier in Llanrwst by Arianwen and Dafydd Parri. The article was written by their son, Myrddin ap Dafydd, who is himself the founder of a successful publishing and printing firm, Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, and has twice been chaired bard at the National Eisteddfod. The story of the establishment of that first bookshop in Llanrwst says a lot about the relationship between the Welsh language and business … and shows how far things have moved on since the 1950s. There was a constant source on concern after the Second World War about the decline in the sale of Welsh-language books. The opportunity to buy Welsh publications was also decreasing as publishing houses stopped producing books in the language and shopkeepers who, had traditionally stocked Welsh books, gave priority to English newspapers and magazines. However, Dafydd and Arianwen Parri saw this time, of all times, as a business opportunity. Newly returned from London, the young married couple settled down in Flintshire. Between 1953 and 1955 they saw a gap in the market and began selling Welsh books on a ‘sale or return’ basis from the back of an old post van in Llanrwst market and also at literary societies. Business was good. During his time selling books on Llanrwst’s Square, Myrddin’s father would take £50 worth of books to sell. On a good day he’d sell them all. That compared well with a teacher’s monthly wage of £30. The pair bought the house and shop at Tan-y-graig in Llanrwst for £1,260 in 1955 and managed to clear the debt through the sales of selling Welsh merchandise and books in the first two or three years.

He was trying to say that the Welsh language was incompatible with the business world. In that respect, the man’s prejudice or view - isn’t unique. In fact, many Welsh-speakers may even agree with him. And it was on Llanrwst Square that the idea was born. Myrddin’s father found a job at nearby Pentrefoelas primary school and Myrddin’s sister, Gwawr, (the first of five) was born in 1955 when the young family moved from Flintshire to Tan-y-graig. With Gwenno the three month old baby sleeping in old book boxes, Arianwen opened her ‘Siop Llyfrau Cymraeg’, putting empty boxes behind the books so that the shelves looked fuller! Their success, no doubt came as a surprise to many of the pair’s friends and family. Not that anyone denied the pair weren’t industrious and good business people, but that they were doing so with such prominence to the Welsh language. To give a Welsh name to your business was a very unusual thing in the 1950s. As Myrddin says, to include the word ‘Cymraeg’ was even rarer. A few snippets sum up the peculiar, paradoxically repressed atmosphere of the Prime Minister MacMillan’s ‘you’ve never had it so good’ era in Welsh-speaking Wales. ‘One Monday, some weeks after opening the shop and in anticipation of the November fair week, my mother was clearing the old merchandise and placing new titles in the shop window. She overheard an old women tell her friend smugly as they passed, ‘Mae hon yn cau, yli. Ro’n i’n deud wrthat ti mai dyna fasa’i hanas hi, yn do’n? Gormod o Gymraeg, yli.’ (this one’s closing, see. I told you that’s what would happen didn’t I? Too much Welsh, see).’ But close members of the family were also concerned about the ‘gormod o Gymraeg’. Myrddin’s uncle, Ifan Owen of near-by Eglwys-bach, came into the shop one day, and suggested - in an incredibly nice way of course that there was too much Welsh on the sign outside and that was bad for business. Myrddin’s parents had also just installed a telephone and had written ‘Ffôn’ not ‘Telephone’ on the sign. Old Ifan agreed that it was very

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‘Peidiwch â defnyddio gormod arni hi rhag i chi ddychryn pobol!’ (‘don’t use it [Welsh] too much in case you scare people!’) nice to come into a shop and be served in Welsh but added, ‘Peidiwch â defnyddio gormod arni hi rhag i chi ddychryn pobol!’ (‘don’t use it [Welsh] too much in case you scare people!’). To put this in context, the 1951 census 81% of the people of Llanrwst spoke Welsh - 6% could speak only Welsh! For a rural market town in the 1950s and 60s the vast amount of their trade (even during tourist season) would have been local people and the vast majority of them spoke Welsh. Who were they so afraid of offending? ‘The attitude was still alive even twenty years later,’ recalls Myrddin. ‘By this time, Iorwerth, my mother’s brother and his wife, Irene, ran a business selling Welshlanguage greeting cards which they’d supply to shops across Wales. In several areas the shopkeepers would refuse to exhibit Welsh language cards, ‘rhag pechu yn erbyn y Saeson, chi’n gw’bod’ (‘so as not to offend English people, y’know’). The cards would be kept in boxes under the counter and the customer would have ask for them, ‘fel gofyn am gondoms’ (‘like asking for condoms!’) as Iorwerth would say!’ Who were these mysterious people who’d be frightened by the Welsh language? As Myrddin recalls, ‘the Welsh sign attracted many English people and visitors from Europe.’ The ‘frightened Englishman’ is the great bogeyman in Welsh psychology and it took Welsh nationalists, like Myrddin’s parents, to prove that many English people weren’t as ignorant as the majority non-nationalists presumed they were. For the ‘frightened Englishman’ is really the shadow of the ‘scared, and scarred, Welshman’. What was at the root of this Cold War era attitude towards the Welsh language? This peculiar attitude has to do with the systematic way Welsh was closed out of the world of business and how the Welsh themselves then chose to cut off their language from the business world too. It’s long been argued that the Welsh language wasn’t compatible with commerce and town life. As Adam Price MP said in his brave lecture, ‘Wales: England’s First Colony’ to the Institute of Welsh Politics at Aberystwyth in November 2009, the Welsh were ‘confined to the favelas of medieval Wales on the margins of town or in the rural uplands.’ This psychology stayed with them or rather with their attitude towards the Welsh language. Kidwelly founded in the 1100s, had English, French or Flemish burgesses - but no Welsh (or forinseci - yes, ‘for-

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eigners’) - the Welsh were literally foreigners in their own land. Towns like Carmarthen, Montgomery and Aberystwyth in the middle ages were sites of growth for a nascent property-owning English merchant class, but the Welsh became outcasts. In reaction to Llywelyn Bren's revolt of 1294, Edward I banned Welshmen from holding land in borough towns. Punitive Laws in the wake of the Glyndw ˆr Rebellion decreed in 1401 that no Welshman was to enjoy the privilege of burgess status (an absolute prohibition traditionally reserved for the Jews). Almost a century and a half after Glyndw ˆr’s uprising, Henry VIII pressed through the Laws of Wales of 1536 and ’42. These laws are sometimes grandly-named the Acts of Union. The term was coined in 1901 by O.M. Edwards MP for Meirionnydd. I don’t think the year is a coincidence. Maybe in the centenary of Ireland’s ‘Act of Union’ and in an echo of Scotland’s famous Act, O.M. tried to give some status to Wales as a constituent nation in the British Isles. He did this by elevating an ‘Act’ whose declared intention was "utterly to extirpe alle and singular sinister usages and customs" belonging to Wales. Yes, the Welsh, especially the crachach (nobilty), were glad to be relieved of the punitive laws from Glynd_r’s time, but it came at a cost. Section XXVI of the 1542 Law states: ‘That all Mayors, Bailiffs and Head Officers of Corporate Towns in Wales ... always they follow the Course, Trade and Fashion of the Laws and Customs of the Realm of England, and not of any Welsh Laws or Customs.’ The Welsh became a part of a larger common market, and just like our present European common market, were glad of the free movement of produce even if it meant ‘standardising’ common rules . However, unlike the present European market, the Laws of Wales stipulated that to be successful the Welsh would have to change their language and culture. English was the language of money. Unlike another small nation, the Basques who were allowed to keep their Fueros (laws) when they were subsumed into the Spanish state, the Welsh lost everything. The Fueros which the Basques kept so jealously have allowed them to keep their taxes and decide how much is given to Madrid. It’s no coincidence then that the Basque lands are among the richest and most mercantile in Spain ... unlike Wales in the UK. These Laws of Wales were kept on the statute books for centuries. The Laws passed in 1536 were not repealed until 21 December 1993; and the Laws passed in 1543 were repealed on 3 January 1995. So, obscure medieval edicts and laws which should be the stuff of pub quizzes and dusty academia are still quoted because their effects were still felt in the twentieth century.

It’s undeniable that use of the English language would have spread through Wales and especially in association with commerce - speakers of all small language communities after all understand the need to be bi or trilingual. But the nature of Wales’s relationship with the British state was a colonised one. The 1847 Report into Education was still alive in Super Mac’s chapel-going Llanrwst of the 1950s. Many people, Welsh-speakers as much as anyone, still accepted its view that, ‘the Welsh language is a vast drawback to Wales, and a manifold barrier to the moral progress and commercial prosperity of the people.’ The reaction to Myrddin ap Dafydd’s family setting up the first designated Welsh language book shop gives an insight into the mentality of the age. You were as likely to see Welsh used commercially then as you are today of seeing Zulu, Wolof or Quechua on the shop fronts of South Africa, Senegal or Peru today - and for the same reasons. There’s enough there to fill several hours on the psychiatrists chair. And in fact, the Welsh condition has filled hours at Dr Dilys Davies’s psychiatrist’s sofa at Guy’s Hospital. The two old women’s Schadenfreude of their assumed failure of the new venture because it used ‘too much Welsh’ was what Adam Price MP calls a ‘sociological equivalent of Stockholm syndrome’ or what experts like Frantz Fanon of Martinique called 'adhesion' to the dominator. For, one way of overcoming the feeling of powerlessness that flows from being dominated is to identify with the dominator sometimes even unconsciously. Dilys Davies, has called this a form of cultural autism and drawn analogies with sexual abuse which, for all its pervasiveness, was once met by a wall of silence. Colonisation is Wales’s ‘dangerous idea’, a ‘dirty little secret’, a ‘painful memory’ that has to be repressed. In this respect, it’s not difficult to see why being Welsh nationalist, or ‘Welsh nash’ as it was called, was such a scorned position to take. It put you literally, and with all puns intended, ‘beyond the Pale’. For every nation’s struggle for status or independence begins with a civil war. Today there are some 50 ‘Siopau Llyfrau Cymraeg’ across Wales and about 1,100 books are published annually in Wales, about half of them in Welsh. This compares with some 1,500 published annually in Icelandic or 1,700 in Estonian. The small business revolution which Arianwen Parri began in Llanrwst has spread across Wales and clawed away at some of the cringe the Welsh felt when confronted with their own language used publicly. It has also help sustain an indigenous Welsh industry whose annual turnover is around £10m. Arianwen and Dafydd Parri not only sold books, they sold an idea. That idea turned on its head centuries of economic assumptions and prejudice and made Wales, and them, richer for it.

yn wyneb haul

llygad goleuni JIM PARC NEST

Profile of Our New Archdruid MEIC STEPHENS

ith the death of Dic Jones last summer a huge gap in our cultural life has been filled Between 1982 and 1994 he worked in the Scripts by the appointment of T. James Jones, or Department of Radio Cymru where he contributed Jim Parc Nest as he is known in literary circles, as episodes to the long-running soap Pobol y Cwm. This is Archdruid of Wales. His bardic name derives from the a writer, a consummate craftsman, who can turn his farm near Castellnewydd Emlyn where he was born in hand to most literary forms. 1934 into a family which Nor is he a stranger to includes his brothers, John controversy. In 1979 his Gwilym Jones, now sequence of poems dealing Recorder of the Gorsedd with the Devolution referof Bards, and Aled Gwyn, endum of that year was the broadcaster, and his deemed worthy of the nephew Tudur Dylan Crown but the prize was Jones, one of our best withheld because he had younger poets. Like them, written it in collaboration he is a distinguished poet with the American-Welsh in the Welsh language, in poet Jon Dressel, which both the free and strict was against the rules. The metres, having won the poems were published as Crown twice (in 1986 and Cerddi Ianws - the Janus 1988) and the Chair once Poems. The two collabo(in 2007). It’s a measure of rated again in writing the the esteem in which he is poems in the volume Face held that Mererid to Face / Wyneb yn Wyneb Hopwood, also a winner (1997), dealing in part of both Chair and Crown with the second referenas well as the Prose Medal, dum held in 1997 which and the only other candibrought the National date for the post, withdrew Assembly into being. so that Jim Parc Nest Among his most recent could be appointed withbooks are Eiliadau o yr archdderwydd cymru - jim parc nest out it having to go to a Berthyn (1991), O Barc vote. Nest (1997) and Diwrnod i’r Brenin (2002). Some of Tom James Jones, to give him his full name, was eduthese poems are tender evocations of family and bro, cated at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth while others tackle more public themes. and the Presbyterian College in Carmarthen and served Jim Parc Nest lives with his wife Manon Rhys, one of as a minister with the Independents in Swansea and the foremost prose-writers in Welsh, who is about to Carmarthen before joining the staff of Trinity College in give up the co-editorship of the Academi’s magazine 1975 as a lecturer in Welsh and Drama. The great sucTaliesin after a ten-year stint, and they live in Pontcanna cess of his translation of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk in Cardiff. He will make an impressive Archdruid, with Wood, published under the title Dan y Wenallt (1968), his command of Gorsedd ceremony, his fine voice and encouraged him to persevere with his own writing. He dignified stage presence. We wish him well and look forwent on to publish eight plays and translate some of the ward to his first appearance at the Eisteddfod when the work of N.F. Simpson and Richard Vaughan into Welsh. eyes of all Wales will be on him.

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E T I F E D D I A E T H - H E R I TA G E

ST JOHN ROBERTS Fearless Welsh Martyr DAVID JONES

“A

mid all the religious who have laboured in that island this man may be reckoned the chief, both as regards labour and fruitfulness of preaching.” So wrote seventeenth century chronicler Bucelin when commenting on a Welshman who was regarded as a living saint to the plague stricken population of the city of London and founder of a house for English Benedictine monks, whose blood was shed in fearless defence of his faith . John Roberts was born at Trawsfynydd, Merionethshire in 1577. He was the eldest son of Protestant Robert ap Ellis ap Gruffydd whom it was said was descended from princes of north Wales. His early education was entrusted to the care of an elderly priest and Roberts was later to say that this had a profound influence on him, for from an early age he considered himself to be a Catholic. In 1595, after showing considerable academic promise, he went to St. John’s College, Oxford but left after two years without taking a degree. Instead, he opted to enrol as a law student at one of the Inns of Court, which at the time were considered ‘hotbeds of Popery’. By 1598, he had decided to travel to mainland Europe and whilst in France, under the influence of fellow exiles, he decided to convert to Catholicism. Fired by his new faith and following advice from English priest John Cecil, he decided to enter as a student at the English College of St. Alban’s, Valladolid. He was admitted 18 October, 1598 after he: “humbly begged to be admitted...on account of the burning desire he had to become a labourer in our Lord’s vineyard.” Some months later he moved to the Benedictine Community of St. Benedito de Valladolid and late in 1600, made his religious profession at the great Abbey of St Martin at Santiago de Compostela. From there he went to study at Salamanca where he was ordained priest in 1602. In April 1603, despite knowing the dangers of arrest, imprisonment and worse, in the company of another priest he made an attempt to return to his homeland. The two made the trip by boat to England in disguise, wearing plumed hats and swords at their sides. Despite the authorities being tipped off by a spy, they succeeded in entering the country but soon after were tracked down, arrested and sentenced to perpetual banishment.

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Father Roberts returned to Douai but undaunted by his earlier failure, soon after made another attempt at returning to Britain. This time he was successful and he journeyed to London where he laboured zealously among plague-stricken people there. Of his efforts among the sick and dying one chronicler wrote: “This is he who held the salvation of the English people as more precious than his life-blood - a man of great constancy, remarkable for zeal and charity; who whilst a most grievous pestilence was raging in London, with most persevering devotion, endured to assist, to administer the Sacraments, and to preach the Faith for the sake of Christ…” The following year, whilst in the company of four postulants on the way to Spain he was again stopped and arrested at an English port. After questioning him the authorities failed to recognise he was a priest and released him. He continued his journey to Spain with his companions but soon after again returned to London. In 1605, Father Roberts came perilously close to being implicated in the Gunpowder Plot. On 5 November, the house of Mrs. Percy, first wife of conspirator Thomas Percy, situated on the corner of Holborn and Chancery Lane was searched and the priest was found there. After interrogation, he was acquitted of any complicity in the plot itself but was still imprisoned in the Gatehouse at Westminster. He remained in captivity for seven months before the intervention of French

Ambassador De La Broderie secured his release on the condition he was deported. He stayed away from Britain for over a year and much of this time was spent at Douai where he founded a house for the English Benedictine monks who had entered various Spanish monasteries. In October, 1607, Father Roberts again returned to England but was only a free man again for two months before he was again seized and thrown gaol. After only a few months in incarceration he managed to escape by filing through the bars of his cell window and continued his good work in London for a further twelve months. Inevitably perhaps, he was recaptured in the spring of 1609 and imprisoned for a fifth time. The authorities had lost patience with the priest and his certain fate appeared to be execution. In the event, although this was scheduled for the month of May, De La Broderie again intervened and the sentence was changed to banishment. He took the opportunity of visiting Douai again but within a year, on hearing that the plague was again ravaging London, he decided on a return to help the sick. He was captured shortly after his arrival but remarkably managed to escape gaol for a second time. However, on 2 December, 1610, Father Roberts’ luck finally ran out when he was apprehended just as he was concluding Mass. Still in his vestments, when questioned, he declared he was indeed a priest and monk and explained that he had come to England to work for the salvation of the people. “Were I to live longer, I would continue to do what I have been doing,” he defiantly declared. He was immediately arrested and dragged off to Newgate. Three days later he was tried and found guilty under the Act forbidding priests to minister in Britain. On the night before his execution, a wealthy Spanish Catholic woman bribed guards and arranged for him to be brought into the

“Though I have been condemned to die, I am, nevertheless, not saddened nor affrighted with the thought, for this death is desired and expected by all those who come, as I have come, to this kingdom to employ themselves in saving souls…” company of twenty other Catholic prisoners. Whilst sharing a meal with his new companions Father Roberts laughed and joked with them. After a while he began to reproach himself for his show of happiness. He asked of the woman: “Do you think I may be giving bad example by my joy?” But she reassured him saying: “No, certainly not, you could not do anything better than to let everyone see the cheerful courage you have as you are about to die for Christ.” On the 10 December, 1610 John Roberts kept his appointment with the gallows at Tyburn in London along with secular priest Venerable Thomas Somers. Before his death Father Roberts showed no fear and said: “Though I have been condemned to die, I am, nevertheless, not saddened nor affrighted with the thought, for this death is desired and expected by all those who come, as I have come, to this kingdom to employ themselves in saving souls…” Such was the reputation of the thirty-three year old Welsh priest that the crowd that gathered pleaded with the executioner to minimise his suffering and ensure he was dead before being cut down. With the grisly ritual of hanging, drawing and quartering done, the body of the poor priest was recovered and secretly taken to Douai. During the French Revolution the remains disappeared and only two fingers of the good man are preserved at Downside and Erdington abbeys. Fearless Welsh Martyr and indomitable man of God, John Roberts was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886 and canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1970 as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. In 2009, a year-long celebration was launched at the small church of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows in Dolgellau to mark the 400th anniversary of the martyrdom of John Roberts. Last month, as part of the celebrations, a special open-air Mass was held in the ruins of Cymer Abbey

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near Dolgellau Abbey, and attracted around a thousand people from all over Wales and beyond. At the historic event, Lord Dafydd Elis Thomas, Presiding Officer of the Welsh Assembly, said: “Cymer Abbey is such a perfect location to commemorate the martyrdom of St John Roberts. This was one of the many institutions of the Order of the Cistercians which received so much support during the days of the Welsh princes. They helped develop fishing and sheep farming in Meirionydd and their eventual downfall was a major blow, both in spiritual and social terms. It was St John Robert’s conversion to Catholicism which led to his being created the first prior of the Benedictine college St Gregory and the order’s first martyr in Britain four centuries ago.”

Sue Roberts, Vice-Chairman of the ‘Y Cylch Catholig’ the Welsh Language ‘Catholic Circle’ - who has organised the year-long celebrations, said: “John Roberts was only 33 years old when he was executed. His courage and dedication is still a beacon for everyone here in Wales.” In July, a landmark event was held in Westminster Cathedral, London, when the Welsh language was spoken there for the first time. At the multi-faith service, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams and the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, united with Wales’s religious leaders to celebrate the life of one of the Wales’s greatest saints. Both addressing the congregation, Archbishop Rowan in Welsh and Archbishop Nichols in English.

St John Roberts Celebrations, Abaty Cymer. Dolgellau, 6th June 2010 PHOTOGRAPHY BY CARL RYAN AND MARI STERLING

- CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: MONSIGNOR Brian Udaigwe, Papal Nuncio’s representative, the Right Reverend Tom Burns, Bishop of Menevia, Right Reverend Edwin Regan, Bishop of Wrexham and assistant priest; BEFORE the Mass, priests and altar ministers assemble in the chancel of the abbey church; THE CONGREGATION and altar in the former cloister of the abbey; A VIEW of the congregation. THIS PAGE

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OPPOSITE PAGE - CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: PROCESSION before the Mass led by the commemorative banner; TWO altar servers; A RELIC of St John Roberts is displayed; A BLESSING during Communion; SUE ROBERTS, celebration organiser and Vice-Chair of Y Cylch Catholig; PROCESSION after Mass; MONSIGNOR Udaigwe greets Brigittine nuns from India; DURING the Consecration; THE THURIFER: “Let my prayer arise in Thy sight as incense, and let the lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice.”

ABOVE:

Bishop Edwin elevates the Host at the Consecration.

OPPOSITE: [LEFT] Dr Harri Pritchard-Jones, Lord Elis Thomas and Elfyn Llwyd MP; [RIGHT] Yr Athro Deri Tomos, Prifysgol Bangor and Elfyn Llwyd MP BELOW:

For the first time in nearly five centuries, a Cistercian monk - in characteristic white cowl - stands in the ruins of the chancel of Cymerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s abbey church. Brother Teilo Rees of Caldey represented the Cistercian Order at the celebration.

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Henry Jones-Davies writes

was already planning to attend the Mass on 6th June to commemorate the Martyrdom of St John Roberts organised by the Cylch Catholig at Abaty Cymer near Dolgellau, and so was delighted to receive a call from my dear friend Brother Teilo Rees, monk of Caldey Abbey, who had been asked by his Abbot to represent the Cistercian Order at the Mass. We made plans to drive up together. Tradition holds that St John Roberts was instructed in the Catholic faith by a former monk of Cymer, one of the thirteen great Cistercian houses of Wales; the Order is intimately linked with our history and proved a close and loyal friend to our medieval princes, and thus of Welsh freedom and independence. One of our greatest monarchs, Llywelyn Fawr, ended his days as a simple monk in choir at the Cistercian abbey of Aberconwy. Hence, the request for a Cistercian representative. After a week of showery low pressure, Sunday 6th June dawned overcast, but with the occasional cloud-break allowing fleeting shafts of sunlight to shine through. Mercifully the weather held. The ruins of Cymer lie shadowed by ancient oaks just off the A470 a kilometre or so north east of Dolgellau, in a lonely and lovely fold of hills through which the river Gain flows down to the Mawddach estuary. Smaller than most of the great Cistercian houses of medieval Wales, Cymer proffers its own intimate charm. That Sunday witnessed what must have been the largest gathering the abbey had seen for centuries as more than 800 pilgrims, accompanied by choirs from Pwllheli, Wrexham and Castell Newydd Emlyn, watched a procession consisting of a Papal Nuncio, two bishops and two dozen or so priests and monks, attended by a small army of servers and altar ministers. All were here to honour the Welsh saint from Trawsfynydd martyred 400 years ago. Little is know of John Roberts outside Catholic circles and yet the great Tom Ellis described him as ‘The glory of Wales’. Archbishop Peter Smith, until recently Archbishop of Cardiff commented “It’s a sad but undeniable truism that a genuine prophet is hardly ever hon-

oured in his own country but I’m hoping that this magnificent Mass will help make St John Roberts as famous in his native Wales as he is in countries like France and Spain”. The chief celebrant at the trilingual Mass (Welsh, English and Latin) was the Right Reverend Edwin Regan, Bishop of Wrexham, assisted by Bishop Tom Burns of Menevia. Monsignor Brian Udaigwe Counsellor to the Apostolic Nuncio, represented both His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI and the Papal Nuncio to Great Britain Archbishop Faustino Sainz Munoz since the latter was not able to attend owing to a sudden illness. This was a truly international event with representatives from Valladolid in Spain, Benedictine monks from the Abbeys of Belmont and Downside (founded by St John Roberts in 1605), and Brother Teilo representing both the Cistercian Order and the Abbot of Caldey, the Right Reverend Dom Daniel van Santvoort OSCO. Lord Elis-Thomas, Presiding Officer of the National Assembly, Elfyn Llwyd, MP for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy and several local civic dignitaries were also present as were a number of prominent Welsh Catholics including Dr Harri Pritchard Jones and Sue Roberts of the Cylch Catholig, who was justly and publicly praised for her formidable skills in organising the ambitious celebrations in Cymer and in London. The celebrations in London from 15th and 18th of July consisted of a pilgrimage from Wales to the English capital which culminated in a special service at Westminster Cathedral on Saturday 17th. The event was attended by four archbishops including The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, The Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, eight bishops, some 20 priests, with archbishops and bishops from the Orthodox Church. All the Archbishops and Bishops of Wales, Catholic and Anglican, and the leaders of other religious denominations and groups were there as were Lord Elis-Thomas, the Archdruid of Wales T. James Jones, his wife Manon Rhys, Dafydd Iwan, Elfyn Llwyd MP, Huw Edwards, Guto Harri, the poet Dafydd Pritchard, the Reverend Aled Edwards together with representatives from Douai in France, where St John Roberts founded the monastery of St Gregory.

Welsh Lavender BETHAN JOHN meets lavender lady Nancy Durham,

whose business is thriving with the eager demand for Welsh produce.

estling in the desolate moorland of the Epynt mountain range, stretching above Brecon, is a patchwork of fields among the ancient hedgerows of Maesmynis Valley. Here, preparing for the July to August harvest, is Nancy Durham, who set-up her lavender farm seven years ago on a whim. “I mentioned to a farmer friend that I’d like to plant some lavender here,” says Nancy, “I had in mind a modest hedge or border.” Yet her friend encouraged her to contact Glasu, who offer grants to help farmers diversify. After researching and writing a business proposal, her application was almost immediately accepted. An initial planting of 2000 bushes became a thriving business and in July Nancy decided to expand; ploughing another

MARI STERLING

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An initial planting of 2000 bushes became a thriving business and in July Nancy decided to expand; ploughing another field she planted a further 9,000 bushes

field she planted a further 9,000 bushes. Yet her plans for developing the business don’t stop there. Last summer, Nancy experimented with lavender oil distillation; making a small amount of oil, just enough to go into a sample line of lavender face and body creams. Since, she has invested in proper distillation equipment and plans to launch her own line of bodycare products this autumn, called Ruby Lafant, which will be made in Wales from start to finish. The name Ruby Lafant was inspired by the line of rich red earth where the farm in Maesmynis Valley rests, while lafant is Welsh for lavender. Sipping coffee in the dining room of her Welsh longhouse that overlooks the valley, with the scent of lavender rising from bundles on the table, Nancy enthuses over her ideas for developing the business. “We’re experimenting all the time,” she says excitedly. “Lavender is one of the ingredients in Herbes de Provence, so I’ve got a little idea of using it in that way here in Wales.” When cooking with lavender, Nancy’s tip is to focus on getting the amount of flavouring just right. “You’ve got to be careful to use it in very small amounts, as it can totally ruin a dish if it’s too powerful a flavour,” she says. “The trick is to get the people tasting your dish to think ‘now what is that?’. If they can tell it is lavender then it’s probably too perfumy. If you get just the right amount, it really is quite exciting.” Originally from Canada, Nancy first visited Wales in 1981 with her now husband, the philosopher Bill Newton-Smith, and felt instantly at home. “I just love Wales”, she says, “I love travelling all around it; when my family visit we explore everywhere, from up north to Snowdon and across the Llyn Peninsula to right down south through the valleys.” Nancy moved to Britain 26 years ago; due to work her time was split between

CARL RYAN MARI STERLING

Nancy Durham harvesting lavender at her Powys farm.

Oxford and Wales, or London and Wales, but now the majority is spent in Wales, living in the once derelict longhouse restored by Bill. Although Maesmynis Valley is an extremely rural area, Nancy says she never feels isolated as there is a great sense of community. Since starting her lavender business, Nancy has noticed an eagerness from shopkeepers to stock 100 per cent Welsh products. “What is happening here in Wales”, she says, “which really is quite exciting, is that there seems to be a growing number of people wanting to produce things from start to finish, and importantly they’re promoting their products really well.” Most of the requests Nancy gets are from people looking specifically for Welsh lavender. “They could pick it up from Norfolk or import it from France,” says Nancy, “but they want it because it’s from Wales. It’s fantastic to have this growing local industry.” One of the only lavender producers in Wales, Nancy has found a niche in the market with a rising demand, allowing her business to thrive. But in the early days she was far from being on a steady footing. “I’m a journalist not a farmer,” says Nancy,

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MARI STERLING

“so I had no idea if it was going to work.” Peoples’ reaction to her plan far from instilled her with confidence, as many said to her, “Lavender? In Wales?” with the unspoken, “are you crazy?” Within weeks of planting their scepticism seemed to have been justified. Her notes from inspecting her crop read: “drooping”, “weak”, “very weak”, and “dead”. Yet her farmer friends, who were the only ones never to doubt that lavender would grow in such fertile land, encouraged her to persevere. Now every harvest her barn heaves and groans under the weight of drying lavender as it hangs from the rafters. The three varieties of lavender that Nancy grows, the English Royal Purple and the French Maillette and Grosso, are hardy enough to grow on high ground and don’t mind the frost as long as it’s not prolonged. Having said this, the crop not only survived this winter’s severe weather, it is looking perkier than ever. Nancy adds lime to

the soil to make conditions more alkaline, while the sloping hillside means the field is well drained; a real boon as lavender hates to have its roots sitting in water. Nancy talks of the up-coming harvest with anticipation. “It’s a big process but a wonderful one. I love getting out there. But at times I do think ‘why have I done this!?’”. She explains, “It is expensive and labour intensive to grow a field, so the trick is to find out what I can do with the lavender in small amounts to ensure the business is a success.” Nancy runs the lavender farm with her husband and various helpers she employs during the summer, while at the same time she juggles her career as a journalist. Having only recently finished working fulltime as a correspondent for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Nancy now works freelance. In her 30-year career she has covered some of the most momentous events in recent times for news networks worldwide, including the BBC and Channel 4. A principal reporter of the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia (1989), Nancy covered stories extensively within the Soviet bloc as it collapsed and documented the huge human migration across Europe as borders broke down. “I found it a really fascinating MARI STERLING

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There can’t be anything more otherworldly than this - and the harvest time is wonderful MARI STERLING

thing to cover,” she says, “the people struggling for change and the forces that were trying to prevent it.” Nancy’s reports don’t focus on the frontline of conflict, rather they capture human stories; those human stories that tell the bigger picture of what is happening to a nation. More recently in 2004, almost a year after she planted her lavender field, Nancy went on an assignment to Iraq for the American network CBS. “I was asked to go and interview US marines”, she explains. “I stayed with them in Fallujah where there was incoming rocket and mortar fire day and night - the place was utterly out of control.” Nancy has had vast experience covering conflict and war, yet what she experienced in Iraq was horrifying. “I think our involvement in Iraq has been a disaster, and I’m very concerned about Afghanistan”, she says. “I must have been in Iraq wishing like hell I could be back in my

lavender field, because it was terrifying.” For Nancy her lavender farm is a place of sanctuary. “I didn’t plan it that way, but that’s exactly what it is”, she says. “There can’t be anything more otherworldly than this, and the harvest time is wonderful.” As the farm prepares for harvest and Nancy works on plans to expand her business, the origins and future of Maesmynis Valley lavender illuminate the importance of buying local produce. The continuing success of the business relies on peoples’ commitment to supporting small businesses and sourcing local produce. While without the grant from Glasu, whose key objective is to support a sustainable future for people in Powys, Nancy may only have ever had a modest lavender hedge. Keep an eye on Nancy’s website: www.welshlavender.com for the upcoming launch of the Ruby Lafant bodycare range. All photographs © Mari Sterling and Carl Ryan

CARL RYAN

Where to buy Nancy’s lavender:

• •

DAMSON AND SLATE, NARBERTH, PEMBROKESHIRE

www.damsonandslate.co.uk

THE BAY TREE, COWBRIDGE, VALE OF GLAMORGAN

www.the-bay-tree.co.uk

• •

MEDI, DOLGELLAU, SNOWDONIA

www.medi-gifts.com

SAGE FEMME, Y GELLI/HAY ON WYE

www.tinto-house.co.uk

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E T I F E D D I A E T H - H E R I TA G E

A bridge so fair

The French visitor considered

EDMUND BUCK

that Edwards had ‘vanquished

was, like George Borrow, ‘taking a bit of a walk in Wales’. On reaching Llandovery and having lodged at my inn, I sallied out again as there were two things I wanted to do before nightfall…one was to see a bridge, the other to visit a grave. I assumed that they were unconnected: but the next day in Talgarth I found a link. The bridge, Pont Dolauhirion, spans the Tywi about a mile north of the town and as I made my way there recalled what I could about the Edwards family that built it. William Edwards was born on a farm in Groeswen near Pontypridd in 1719. Despite a poor background he established such a reputation as a stone mason that when a new bridge over the Taff was required he won the commission even though still in his twenties. His first attempt was swept away when storm debris caused its arches to collapse. To overcome this problem his second design was an audacious single span of 140 feet but such was the weight on its haunches that its key stones were

ELEGANT AND IMMENSELY STRONG

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greater difficulties than Xerxes with his whole army when he joined Europe and Asia by a bridge of boats’

forced out and twice his efforts failed. With his reputation on the line he tried again…this time he had the ingenious idea of inserting three cylindrical holes in each of the bridge’s haunches thus reducing their weight and in turn the pressure on its key stones. It worked, and the bridge, completed in 1755, has stood proudly, since. It is hard to overstate the contemporary wonder with

- Edwards’s Dolauhirion Bridge over the Tywi at Llanymddyfri

JOHN KEATES

which Edwards’s bridge was regarded, but the poet William Sotheby made a determined effort, comparing it to ‘some stupendous work the pilgrim views sublime o’er Balbeck’s waste, or desert soil of Palmyrene’. Not to be outdone the French visitor Maudet De Penhouet considered that Edwards had ‘vanquished greater difficulties than Xerxes with his whole army when he joined Europe and Asia by a bridge of boats’. It fascinated the tourists, however, not just because of its technical brilliance but also because of its then dramatic and unspoilt setting. Benjamin Malkin considered the sight of the bridge afforded ‘an instance scarcely to be paralleled of art happily introduced among the wildest scenes of nature’. Prior to the new bridge at Pontypridd being completed the Rialto Bridge over Venice’s Grand Canal was deemed to have the greatest span in the world; that it should be eclipsed by one over the Taff (albeit because of its steepness never practical in design) ensured that Edwards’s fame spread and he became much in demand. Three of his children, Thomas David and Edward, followed in their father’s trade. Malkin lists eight further bridges that they built. Elsewhere Edward is credited with Pont Dolauhirion. On approaching Dolauhirion there is nothing to suggest anything out of the ordinary. Once this was the main coach road to Lampeter and it was the scene of one of those dramatic nights of destruction during the Rebecca Riots, but now it is a backwater. The only sign is an ‘apology’, a ‘PONT WAN’ warning. However when I scrambled down the side of the bridge I found the whole scene quite remarkable. The single span of 84 feet is strikingly beautiful both in itself and in the way it frames the Tywi tumbling over its rocky bed. The holes in the haunches of the bridge give it individuality and identify this as an Edwards’ bridge. It is elegant yes, but immensely strong. A weight restriction is needed, of course, to protect this Grade 1 ‘listed’ structure but to call it weak is calumny. It repays close examination, and touch, because the stone work is so fine. An unseen car passed over, its driver oblivious of me and, I suspect, the bridge in any true sense. Yet it was some years ago described in a respected country journal as the ‘prettiest’ bridge in Britain and E Jervoise in his authoritative work, The Ancient Bridges of Wales and Western England regards it as the Edwards family’s ‘most pleasing’ bridge and gives it pride of place as his frontispiece picture. This is, indeed, a very special bridge and a wonderful place to visit. Time was slipping by so I had to press on. My destination was Llanfair ar y Bryn church which is a mile or so to the east of the town on a wooded knoll above the Afon Bran. What first drew it to my attention was Borrow’s rather moving account of an evening service he

attended there. It was only later I found out that it is where William Williams Pantycelyn is buried and it was to him my thoughts now turned. Williams, Howel Harris and Daniel Rowland, were the leading figures in the eighteenth century Methodist Revival in Wales. He was the great hymn writer of the movement, composing a thousand or so hymns both in English and Welsh. One of these stands out and moves people in a quite extraordinary way wherever Christ is worshipped or rugby played. It is, of course, Arglwydd, arwain trwy’r anialwch / Guide Me Oh Thou Great Redeemer. The words were published in 1745 and translated into English by Peter Williams in 1771. John Hughes composed ‘its tune’ Cwm Rhondda in 1907. Llanfair ar y Bryn church is encircled by an ancient stone wall and is hidden from the main road by a shading stand of trees. This is the site of a Roman camp. As I approached I was concerned that I might not be able to find the grave in the twilight but I needn’t have worried. It is marked by a tall granite obelisk. To call it ugly is, of course, stating an opinion. Aesthetics change. To the Victorians who erected it no doubt it seemed fitting. Fitting in the sense of worthy of its subject, but never fitting in terms of its surroundings. Presumably they wanted it to shout, but would the man whose sobriquet was Y Per Ganiedydd (The Sweet Singer) have approved? I stood there for a few moments, as one does. I was glad that I had come. The next morning as I climbed the mountain road to Trecastle I stopped and looked north to the south facing slopes of the hills that descend to the Afon Gwydderig. I couldn’t be sure that I could pick out Pantycelyn in the shafting sunlight but at least I could put the Williams family home in its Carmarthenshire context. Given my inability with Arglwydd arwain etc., I was amused the see from the map that the farm adjoining Pantycelyn is called Babel. I spent that night at the splendid Griffin in Felin Fach and the following day made my way via Talgarth and the Rhiw Cwnstab to my home in the Black Mountains. As at Llanfair I found Talgarth church locked but again my main interest was outside for I had read that it was here in about 1740 that William Williams heard Howel Harris preach and was converted. Two years later Harris inspired the Welsh Calvinist Methodists to build their first independent chapel: it was in William Edwards’s home village of Groeswen and Edwards became its (joint) first minister and remained in office until his death in 1789. A tablet that commemorates him there reads: ‘A builder for both worlds…Adeiladydd i’r Ddeufydd’. A fine tribute to a remarkable man. Photography by John Keates

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The Cry of the Sea VICKY MOLLER

nvironmentalists constantly point out that our oceans are being drained of life, yet this mass depletion only flickers in and out of public awareness. Moreover, the EU quota system fails to tackle the problem: quota may restrict the quantity of fish that can be sold, but dead, undersized fish are being thrown back into the sea in large quantities. I have spoken to fishermen so disgusted with the waste they defend the black market. Perversely, modern fishing uses technology (Sonar, satellite navigation, depth sensors, even helicopter trackers) developed by the military to comb the deepest recesses of the oceans, yet this gargantuan effort catches 14 - 18 times less fish than at the peak of production, according to new research from York University. Even the sailing ships of 1889 brought home four times as much fish as today. Nothing could be a starker reminder of the emptiness of our oceans. Even in areas where cod fishing stopped eighteen years ago, stocks have still not recovered: shoal fish need sheer numbers to avoid a species collapse. Today, a seismic shift in marine politics is taking place, with increasing numbers of EU members seeking a return to more national control of the seas: A review is under way. In April 2010, in the wake of the 2009 Marine Access Bill, England, Wales and Scotland took control of their coastal seas. England delegated the task to their conservation organisations, but Welsh sea fishing is regulated by the Welsh Assembly up to the mid point with Ireland and the Isle of Man - a much larger area than before. Some argue that only international agreements can ensure the survival of fish stocks, but we had them and they didn’t. With national control we could follow in the wake of nations like Iceland and Norway, which have kept their marine fisheries healthy - how? Iceland, a land of drama, has its own dramatic lessons for the world on the importance of intelligent sea fishery management. The cod wars - skirmishes which lasted nearly 100 years and crescendoed with the deployment of the British navy, saboteur skiffs and military geopolitics - resulted in Iceland winning control over a 200 mile ‘band’ of sea to save its fish and economic future. Then the hard work started. Fishermen had to learn to work together, and together with government so that fish stocks could last forever. They found a mix of measures work, but central to them all is the lubrication of com-

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Wales has an advantage: our fisheries are now nearly all centred on shellfish munication. Unlike the EU’s ‘what you catch you keep’ approach, in Iceland line catching has replaced some nets to reduce ‘by-catch’, while, as soon as the average fish size drops below a certain level, the grounds are closed to allow juveniles to grow and breed. There are no-take zones for breeding, with rich fishing around their perimeter. It works, and just as well. After Iceland’s banking bubble burst, income from fishing resumed its past importance. Wales has an advantage: our fisheries are now nearly all centred on shellfish. This is due to the depletion of fin fish and the increasing nutrients for detrivores, plus the high market price for what is left living in the sea. And shellfish don’t move fast, so area management regimes can be more effectively imposed. There are the beginnings of a sea change in our fishermen’s awareness of the need for improved conservation measures, although when I phoned around I still found dissonant voices. Some were furious at the recent closure of seas to cockle trawling in Cardigan Bay, while others welcomed the insistence on sustainable sourcing by supermarkets like M&S and Waitrose. A sea fisheries inspector summed it up: “Wherever you have two fishermen you will have three points of view”, while a conservationist added: “getting them to work together is like herding cats”. However, I found recognition of the need to stop over-fishing. When I first wrote about this ten years ago I found blanket denial. There are regular glimmers of light in the gloom. Wales’s Department of Rural Affairs has invested generously in sustainable fishing, in localising the market and getting fishermen to work together. It funds the Fishermen’s Associations such as that in Cardigan Bay, which fishermen in West Wales praised: most in its area are members. The Association seeks to reduce trawling, with its wasteful by-catch and ‘churning’, and supplies ropes tied between anchors and buoys for the discerning rope-grown mussel market. It organised bulk buys of large mesh prawn nets to replace the smaller gauges, so that more juveniles could escape to grow and breed. Welsh Government investment has had an effect throughout Wales. In Milford Docks I visited the shiny new fish processing centre at Welsh Seafoods. It processes for over 30 fishing businesses, and was opened this June by government minister Elin Jones. I asked at the

counter for the most sustainable fish and was persuaded to buy ray wings cut from the bone with a special processor, because this reduced waste and saved rarer fish. (Sustainability awareness at the counter end is a good indicator that it stretches up the line). But the hunger for fish, and to earn from it, is not the only threat to healthy seas. In North Wales a planning battle rumbled on for 10 years between the Beaumaris Marina developers and the Bangor Mussel Producers Association. It cost half a million pounds and went to the House of Lords, to be won by the mussel men. The strength of their conviction and case did not come from selfish need but from the collaboration that had achieved a sustainable fishery. They collect seed mussels from the deep mud that is in part their detritus, and transfer them to a fast flowing part of the Menai straits where they are ‘planted’ to grow on before harvesting. The prestigious Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is accrediting the mussel fishers of Bangor, the long process is due for completion this year. It is the first MSC certificate for an ‘enhanced fishery’. Spokesperson James Wilson is a third generation fisherman seeking a future for his descendants. “I am optimistic, but we have to reach co-management”, he says. “Fishermen and sea fishery managers sitting round a table with an equal voice”. I asked if the Welsh fishermen were ready for this. “Fishermen can be their own worst enemies”, he admitted. “People with no security, no tenure are forced to act short-term. We are lucky here to have sole tenure for our licensed businesses.” This influenced the high court to rule in favour of a business that brings seven to ten thousand tonnes of sea-food to shore annually rather than for the well-touted tourism advantages of another marina. In the Burry Inlet next to Gower and Llanelli the story is more troubled. The cockle fishery there was the first to achieve shell-fish MSC accreditation when there were only four MSC businesses in the world. For 20 years, around 40 cocklers had hand-picked the shellfish, supporting their families in a time-honoured manner. The two to three thousand tonnes a year they harvested were a popular high-protein sea-side food. But disaster struck, with a five- year run of mysterious mass die-offs. The cause of deaths is unproven but excess nutrient richness is indicated by the location of the deaths. Combined sewer overflows are implicated (CSOs discharge dilute raw sewage at times of heavy rain). The local fishermen are confident this is the cause, but as Dwˆr Cymru states, “the cause is not proven”. Nonetheless Dwˆr Cymru are investing heavily in cleaning up and have reduced the amount of ground-water entering sewers in the area by 30 litres a second, albeit a

small percentage of the whole according to their spokesman. The Environment Agency has taken over management of the beds to encourage recovery, and is allowing an early harvest of juveniles in densely packed areas to prevent later deaths from overcrowding. Meanwhile, in the Dee cockle fishery the story is a happier one. A cleanup in 2000 of industry and sewers saw the cockle numbers grow rapidly. This led to overfishing as fishermen tend to act like a shoal chasing the food. The Environment Agency completed an agreement with fishermen to ensure restraint and sustainable practices. Cockle numbers responded well so that this year the cockle harvesting season has been extended to avoid over population. This might sound a minor achievement, but it isn’t. Fishermen are a wild species, with an ethos of freedom and opportunism. The net of regulations is something they have evolved to avoid. That has to change, especially as environmentalists and local fishermen need to make common cause to save our seas. A young, second generation fisherman from Pembrokeshire describes a common experience: “We obey the rules strictly, as our business believes in that, but we have to stay on shore at night and watch the lights of boats breaking the regulations by fishing the areas closed for recovery. Yes we report them, but nothing is done. Only storms limit fishing.” There is a strong market for sustainable fish and Welsh government has some powers to save our seas, but I think one minister and a few inspectors can’t do it alone. Ahead lie the vicious winds of political opposition, the cross currents of the wild fishing sector, the reefs of conservationists protecting the rights of marine predators, and dwarfing these the tidal wave of economic demand as food depletion hits. Loosing the life that kept seas healthy, climate balanced and coastal nations in protein is arguably the most serious depletion facing the world. What forces can help to save Welsh seas?

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The Virgil of Provence GWYN GRIFFITHS

new edition of Frédéric Mistral’s Mirèio has been published to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the poem’s first publication. Literary aficionados of Provence and the administrators of the Nobel Prize insist that Mistral is the only recipient of that Prize for Literature writing in a “minority” language. Provençal was not a language spoken by a tiny minority when Mistral picked up his prize in 1904. What it was - and remains - is a language without official status. In Mistral’s time it would have been spoken by 12 million people. Recent estimates suggest Occitan - to use the correct term - is still used regularly by three million people. And it can be heard in markets and farmyards across a wide swathe of southern France. “I can use and make myself understood in it from ClermontFerrand all the way down to Barcelona,” an old man from one of the villages of the Luberon assured me. Underlining its similarity to Catalan. It also extends across the borders into Italy. Colette Usseglio, in Bonnieux now in her 70s was born in the neighbouring village of Roussillon - where Samuel Beckett spent the war and was inspired to write Waiting for Godot-. “My mother had only one language, and I never spoke anything but Provençal to her,” she said. “So,” I pursued, “you can speak three languages Provençal, French and Italian?” Her late husband was Italian and she still holidays with her in-laws. “Oh, no, I don’t speak Italian but my husband was from near Turin, and we spoke

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the same patois.” Normally she does not use that despicable term. Usually she speaks of Provençal, or Occitan. So what of Mirèio, Frédéric Mistral’s most famous poem and the one that brought him to the attention of the Paris literary élite? Mistral, born in 1830 was the only son of the second marriage of a wellto-do farmer in Maillane (Maiano in Provençal) in the centre of the wide plain of the lower Rhône, halfway between Avignon and Arles. The Lou Mas dóu Juge (The Judge’s Farm) was a substantial holding requiring maids and servants and seasonal workers from the mountains of the Luberon, the arid Crau and the wetlands of the Camargue. Their tales and songs, and others told by his young mother who shared his passion, inspired his poems, including Mirèio. The fertile land around Maillane raised the crops which provided Mistral with an income allowing him to devote his life to literature and the folk history of Provence. The seasonal workers from the Luberon, the Crau and Camargue provided the literary raw material. As the youngest child he would not inherit the farm - his inheritance was a an excellent education, a house in the village and a steady income for life. A brilliant pupil and student he was influenced by Joseph The landscape of Provence in Autumn

Mistral weaves a glorious tapestry of the rural life of Provence, its landscape, its people, tales, myths and traditions. It portrays a way of life that was vanishing even at that time Roumanille, a young teacher and poet in the Provençal language, also the son of a farmer from nearby Saint Rémy famous for its Roman remains built over an older Celtic site. In 1853, Roumanille, Mistral and five others established the Felibrige to revive and restore the literary traditions of Provence. The success of Mirèio was a huge boost to the cause and the fame of the Felibres. The story of Mirèio is a simple one. Mirèio (Mireille in French), the daughter of a wealthy farmer, falls in love with Vincèn, the handsome son of a poor basket-maker. Her parents

forbid that they should meet. She runs away, across the stony Crau, crosses the Rhône, and the Camargue to the Church of the three Marys of the Sea (Lei Santei Marias de la Mar) where Vincèn will meet her. She arrives at the church, exhausted. Vincèn arrives and she is taken to the loft of the church where the relics of the Three Marys are kept. But she dies. But the poem is much more than those bare facts. Through the twelve cantos - each of the length of a chapter of a novel - Mistral weaves a glorious tapestry of the rural life of Provence, its landscape, its people, tales, myths and traditions. It portrays a way of life that was vanishing even at that time - a museum in a poem. All in sensually descriptive verse - an epic to his own people. His aim was to do for Provence what Homer did for Greece, but not through the character of a heroic warrior but that of a young girl, typical of her land. He sang to the shepherds and the workers of the farms, of a world where children are young and innocent and old men are wise. Mistral is at his best describing the landscape, the seasons

and the characters. Other men are attracted to Mirèio, giving Mistral scope to describe the lives and work of others in the Rhône basin. The shepherd Alàri with Frédéric Mistral in, left, 1864 and, right, in the early 1900s his dogs guiding his flock to the mountains in sumwriter popular and influential in mer and wintering back on the Crau; Paris who was in Provence collecting Véran with his hundred white horses, folk tales and songs. Dumas was a mane flowing in the wind like marsh man of Provence and he and Mistral grass as they gallop to the salty became friends. Mirèio was not even breezes of the Camargue - and the complete when they first met, but muscular Ourrias, breeder of bulls Mistral read some cantos to him and for the arena. Ourrias is a villain and that was enough. With all the southwhen Mirèio spurns his advances he ern exaggeration for which the peoattacks Vincèn, stealthily, bludgeonple of Provence are renowned Dumas ing him and leaving him for dead. A returned to Paris and penned a piece swine-herd takes Vincèn to Taven, la for the Gazette de France informing masco (the witch), who lives in a the world that Mistral, the “Virgil of cave below Les Baux (Li Baus) in the Provence”, was on his way to Paris. hills of the Alpilles who cures him. Two years later Mistral did arrive in Mistral uses every tale and tradition Paris and Dumas presented him to he can lay hands on sometimes to the French poet Alphonse de the detriment of the reality of his Lamartine. Lamartine was a native of poems. When Mirèio arrives at Lei Macon a part of France where occiSantei Marias de la Mar, Mistral tan is no longer spoken but he tells the full story of the early understood and appreciated Mistral’s Christians who arrived on the Provençal. Camargue after the Crucifixion, Lamartine was down on his luck at among them Mary Magdalen, the time and supported himself by Mary Salomé, mother of James writing and publishing a Cours famiand John, and Mary Jacobé, lier de Littérature, a series of essays on cousin of the Virgin Mary. And literary subjects. Mistral was a good Sarah, a black slave-girl, adopted subject and Lamartine devoted a as patron saint of Gypsies. whole pamphlet, Littérature villageois: Gypsies from all over Europe apparition d’un poème épique en come every May to pay homage Provence, to Mistral and Mirèio. He to her. was lavish in his praise. “… a poet Mistral was fortunate to meet who created a language from a Adolphe Dumas, a poet and dialect, as Petrarch created Italian, one who created from a patois a language rich in music and imagery to please the imagination and the ear …” “His aim was to do for Provence what Homer did for Greece, but not through Mistral also met for the first time, the character of a heroic warrior but that Alphonse Daudet, a young journalist of a young girl, typical of her land.” from Nîmes scratching a living but

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soon to become one of France’s bestknown novelists. He, too, had influential contacts and Mistral was introduced to his circle of friends. It may have been a strained friendship because Daudet loved satirising the garrulous southerners with their galéjades (tall stories), notably in his tales of Tartarin de Tarascon. Mistral wisely suffered Daudet’s barbs with indulgent good humour and patience. Mistral realised that Paris with its fickle literary tastes was no place for him and he returned to Maillane. His next long poem, Calendau, was about a poor fisherman from the village of Cassis, between Marseilles and Toulon. Calendau is in love with Esterello, the last in the line of the aristocratic inhabitants of Les Baux

ebrated Mistral. Daudet wrote articles which he described as musings from a mill in which he claimed to live in Provence. Mistral, in expansive mood, reads extracts of Calendau to the admiring Daudet. Daudet is overwhelmed. A poet sweating over every word, every phrase, every nuance in a language once heard in the royal courts of Europe and now understood only by shepherds (this in 1866!). Le poète Mistral was later included in his volume of stories and essays, Lettres de mon Moulin. In 1863 Mistral received a letter from Charles Gounod. The composer of Faust (1859) wanted to compose an opera based on the story of Mirèio. The two spent an agreeable three months walking the plains and

about the boat trade up and down the Rhône in the days before steam. His Lou Tresor dóu Felibrige - an encyclopaedia of all the words of the Occitan language ensured respect and status for Provençal studies in the universities of southern France and beyond - even if the language continues to be excluded from the schools. In 1896 Mistral began collecting objects for a folk museum in Arles. Every penny he received directly and indirectly from the Nobel Prize in 1904 went to buy a building to house his collection of rural objects, kitchen utensils and costumes - his Museon Arlaten. Mistral’s work was widely translated even before he won the Nobel Prize. “Mirèio was translated into Irish, Nerto into Breton. And into Welsh - nothing!” I was reminded by the curator of Mistral’s museum in Maillane. Mistral was a countryman to the core, but unlike his friends Lamartine and Daudet, he had a comfortable life. He was cared for by a young mother who shared his passion for folk traditions and when he married in his fifties he received the same care and devotion from his wife. He never stopped being a student of the life, the literature and the ancient monuments of Provence. He remained a man of his people - about whom, and for whom, he wrote. The response when the name of Saunders Lewis was submitted for a Nobel Prize back in the 1970s, suggests that never again will that prize be awarded to someone who dedicated his entire life to the cause of a minority language. A sad, sobering thought.

The response when the name of Saunders Lewis was submitted for a Nobel Prize back in the 1970s, suggests that never again will that prize be awarded to someone who dedicated his entire life to the cause of a ‘minority’ language. A sad, sobering thought. (Li Baus), once one of the “love courts” of the Troubadours. Mistral waxes descriptively about fishing in Cassis, and tells the story of how Gyptis, daughter of the local Celtic chief, married the handsome Greek trader, Protis, giving rise to the great port of Marseilles. He introduces us to the names of the great Troubadours - Jaufre Rudel, Jausbert de Puycibot, Foulquet de Marseille, Guilhem de Balaün ... His friendship with the increasingly influential Daudet ensured excellent pre-publicity to Calendau. In an article in Evènement Daudet described a Sunday morning walk from his “mill” in Fontvieille (Fontvieio) following the shepherds’ tracks to Maillane and the home of the cel-

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the blazing white hills of the Alpilles, admiring the women in their traditional costumes as they sipped their afternoon coffees and brandy in the Café dóu Soulèu in Maillane. A café where today you will find one wall covered by a large mural featuring Mistral, Daudet, the celebrated Provençal peasant-poet Charloun Rieu, and a girl representing Mirèio. Gounod’s Mireille did not enjoy the success of Faust but it is still performed - there were performances in Marseilles and in Santiago de Chile in 2009. Mistral’s achievements were vast and varied. His autobiography is a classic, he wrote short poems and more longer poems, such as Pouèmo dóu Rose (Poem of the Rhône),

adfall y Dwˆr N ewt

Chris Kinsey

Nature Diary

ood Friday and a gang of us were headed for Plas Power climbing wall. On the Wrexham bypass I glimpsed a brindled greyhound in a fallow field and followed the sharp arc of its gaze - up to a male sparrowhawk and suddenly down as the bird dropped to a drainage ditch. How rapidly it erased its crossbow shape and impression of its dried-blood breast feathers. Confined by the car, my hounds missed it. They were too intent on getting somewhere new and the rehabilitating spoil heaps of the former colliery didn’t disappoint. There were screens of young willow, alder and birches and a couple of moist moss and grass enclosures where the hounds could run. Combings of snow still highlighted the heath on Esclusham Mountain. After such a long winter I was delighted to see coltsfoot emerging. Some were out like yellow tassels; others looked like alien eyes on stalks. I soon broke my groundbound observations as a lark flung itself high on song. The spark soared to a speck. I was tingling - jubilant that it should have found sanctuary on a muck-stack, mournful of its general decline. Its liquid song, along with the calls of curlews, cuckoos and peewits was part of the backing track of my childhood. Two hawks gliding out from the mature woods towards Tanyfron cricked me back to the present. This time, I think the lark got away with it. The dogs and I avoided its territory. I went in to learn the rudiments of climbing. Back at home, the bi-annual migration of amphibians

EVA KADEWSKA

began. I’d seen two toads dead in the gutter and had begun evicting common newts and frogs from the kitchen. Our house just happens to be in their way, or, maybe they’re seeking out the well which our deeds say we must grant our neighbours access to, but with the caveat, "the exact position is unknown." Smooth newts usually come quietly, providing I notice them in time. Newts are nocturnal, easily dazed by light; their instinct is to burrow under logs or vegetation, so I like to catch them before they form a Celtic knot under the skirting boards. I hide them under plant cover near a neighbour’s pond. Sometimes they flip over onto their olive-brown backs to reveal orange bellies and pale, spotted throats. Some, alas, are too dry to squirm. Frogs make more forceful entries and generally have the sense to head for the dogs’ water bowl. I’ve often wondered how they get in. This year I spotted one on the back doorstep, started to close the door very gently so that I could grab a jam-jar and card, but when the door was only open a tiny crack the frog ballooned in like a kid blowing the supreme bubble. Rather than a pop, it made a sound like a surgeon shedding a latex glove. I botched my first catch, waited and jarred it by the dog’s bowl – a handsome yellow-brown one with a dark mask over its eyes and ear-drums. Frogs breathe through their skins so I try never to touch them with polluting hands. The kick of the common frog, coming out of hibernation, shouldn’t be underestimated. I once caught a frog between two dog bowls, but it burst them apart like someone preparing to clang cymbals in a march, and sprang closer and closer to the sizzling Rayburn, before re-capture. The mechanical power of its elongated limb-bones and extra joint in the sacrum means that some frogs can leap over fifty body lengths. PHOTOGRAPHS:

eva kadewska@btinternet.com

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THE CAMBRIA EISTEDDFOD QUIZ QUESTIONS SET BY HERCALITUS

Folklore 1

What is the corn hirlas?

Who was Rhita Gawr?

With which lake were the Physicians of Myddfai associated?

What was the real name of the Maid of Cefn Ydfa?

What river is also known as Sabrina?

Where is Guto Nyth-bran buried?

17 With which religious group is The Black Spot associated? 18 Why was Wales once known as the Land of the White Gloves? 19 Who was known as The Mother of Wales? 20 Which ironmaster is buried under a stone inscribed ‘God forgive me’?

Literature 21 Where was the poet Idris Davies born?

Topography

22 By what name was Albert Evans-Jones better known?

By what name is Ynys Enlli known in English?

23 Who wrote My People (1915)?

What is the highest peak in south Wales?

24 Where was the novelist Daniel Owen born?

By what name is Mountain Ash known in Welsh?

25 For what is the Tir na n-Og Prize awarded?

10 Which of the old counties is made up of Elfael and Maelienydd?

26 Who was born at a) Coed-y-pry b) Dolwar-fach c) Cynwal Fawr?

11 Is Ferndale in the Rhondda Fach or the Rhondda Fawr?

27 Of which long poem is the Reverend Elias Morgan the main character?

12 Where was the Old North?

28 Who wrote the first play to be broadcast on radio?

History

Music

13 Who is commemorated at Cilmeri?

29 Who said, ‘Praise the Lord! We are a musical nation’?

14 For what was Jemeima Nicolas famous?

30 With what town is the song ‘Sosban Fach’ associated?

15 Who was the chieftain taken in chains to Rome? 31 What is a gazooka? 16 For what was Henry Morton Stanley famous?

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32 What was the name of the Blind Harpist?

46 Which painter with an Italian surname was inspired by the Rhondda?

33 On which radio programme did the Lyrian Singers often perform?

47 Which painter was by trade an optician?

34 Which song did Ivor Emmanuel sing in the film Zulu?

48 What is the name of Gwilym Pritchard’s wife who, like him, is a painter?

35 What is the second line of the song that begins We’ll keep a welcome in the hillsides?

49 In which town was Kyffin Williams born?

36 When was the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod established: 1927, 1937, 1947, 1957?

Politics 37 Which MP was once booed by steelworkers in Ebbw Vale? 38 Who defeated Saunders Lewis at a bye-election in 1943? 39 In which constituency did a) Harri Webb stand for Plaid Cymru in 1970 and b) Meic Stephens stand for Plaid Cymru in 1966?

50 Where in Wales did the painter/writer David Jones live with Eric Gill and others during the 1920s?

How well do you know your nation’s culture?

40 Who wrote ‘We gave our masterpiece to history in our country’s MPs’ (trans.)? 41 Who coined the slogan ‘Not a penny off the pay, not a second on the day’? 42 Which MP’s death caused the bye-election in Carmarthenshire which was won by Gwynfor Evans in July 1966? 43 Which MP committed suicide in 1974? 44 Which town in the Rhondda was known as Little Moscow?

THE CAMBRIA EISTEDDFOD QUIZ

prepares you for our annual national festival of culture. Heraclitus has come up with a clever range of questions to tax even the most cultured patriot. Answer all of our quizmaster’s questions correctly on a sheet of paper and send to: THE CAMBRIA EISTEDDFOD QUIZ blwch post 22, caerfyrddin sa32 7yh

Art 45 Which artists lived together in Rachub, near Bethesda, in the 1940s?

The first correct entry will be selected at random on August 25th, and the winner will receive a subscription to cambria magazine for himself/herself or a friend. Mwynhewch !

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Literature Sense of Place Grindell Mathews used his laboratory on Mynydd y Gwair in the 1930s to work on the ‘death ray’ which he hoped would stop aeroplanes in flight.

Washing down the dust RUSSELL THOMAS

saw my first funerals almost sixty years ago from the vertiginous slopes of Mynydd y Gwair. Standing among the ferns, my grandmother and I had an eagle’s eye view of the long black corteges inching their way up through the village of Craig Cefn Parc to the chapels at Pantycrwys or Elim. The funerals were ‘Men Only’, so Mamgu was barred. Pantycrwys is the resting place of two Arch-druids - Crwys and Dafydd Rowlands - and of the Prosser family, seven of whom perished in a fire at their remote farmhouse. And of William Jones who walked from Bethesda to South Wales to search for work. Keen on forward planning, he lies under a gravestone which he had quarried with his own hands. He was my great-great-grandfather. Much of Craig Cefn Parc balances on a narrow ledge above the Lower Clydach valley about eight miles north of Swansea. It is

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hemmed in by the stunning mountain scenery of Mynydd y Gwair, Gellionnen, Baran and Gelliwastad. Mynydd y Gwair reaches 1,200 feet at Penlle’r castell on the road to Ammanford. It is the highest point in the Swansea district and the site of stone defences which date back to Norman times. Grindell Mathews used his laboratory on this mountain in the 1930s to work on the ‘death ray’ which he hoped would stop aeroplanes in flight. The Second Infantry Division of the US Army undertook its combat training here before leaving for Normandy in June 1944. And local people carried away its clay to mix with small coal and water to produce ‘pele’ for their fires. The mountainscape has always limited farmers to sheep and beef farming, with a little arable and dairying on those fields which are tucked in between the mountains and the steep valley sides. The

farms may have been scattered and distant from each other, but they had ways of keeping in touch. When Miss Howells delivered the mail to our farm, my parents shared the news from their letters with her. She returned the compliment by giving us news of our neighbours. Sheep shearing, corn threshing and harvesting brought farmers together © CARL RYAN

in mutual assistance and companionship. We children helped, or hindered, on those occasions - our teachers were very understanding about seasonal absenteeism among farmers’ sons and daughters. The sense of community in the village of Craig Cefn Parc itself was as intense as it was among the local farmers, fostered by generations of shared pleasures and common hardships. Ninety-two of the 108 pupils who attended the Graig’s Primary School in 1958 walked there in each other’s company, and virtually every one spoke Welsh. Seventy per cent of the workforce were employed within two miles of the village. Where there is one

shop today, the villagers of my childhood were served by six grocery shops, a butcher, a baker, a cobbler, two milkmen, a carpenter and a post office. Opening hours were flexible - Deborah Lloyd made sure her shop was open when the colliers went on shift, a sensible policy considering they relied on her for flints for their lamps, and for twist to chew underground. Mr. Hopkins, our teacher, lived outside the village, and twice a week he’d choose one of his pupils to take his wife’s shopping list to Ifan Cyril’s shop. We viewed this as a highly prized responsibility because Ifan was also a barber, and if we were lucky enough to arrive while he was cutting someone’s hair, we could be out of class for ages. Being able to listen in on the colliers’ cultured conversations while they waited their turn for a haircut was an even bigger bonus.

Craig Cefn Parc grew out of coalmining. Coal was mined originally from shallow seams which surfaced at the side of the valley. More substantial drift mines were developed from the 1850s at Moody’s Colliery, Glyn Coch, Graig Cwm, Hendy Merthyr and Nixon. Nixon was the last to close, in 1961. The closure brought an end to the spectacle of a hundred colliery horses galloping deliriously across the fields above the Graig during the miners’ holiday. It brought an end to the arguments between colliers and their wives about their detour to the Rock and Fountain for a pint ‘to wash down the dust’ at the end of a shift. And it leaves me with the memory of my grandfather handing his paypacket to my grandmother on a Friday night before settling down to smoke his pipe contentedly in front of the coal fire, his week’s work done.

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Wales’s Publishers: MALCOLM BALLIN

talks to Dalen’s Alun Ceri Jones

alen’s rationale, according to Alun Ceri Jones, is to publish graphic novels in Welsh - and to reach all segments of the readership. The comic strip is not always thought of as literature but Dalen’s products over the years have covered a wide range - from Tintin to Arthurian legend. They have been used in schools and have encouraged Welsh readers in Welsh and in English to take ownership of a series of exciting productions. Alun Ceri Jones’s career in publishing graphic novels started in the mid-1970s when he translated the Asterix series into Welsh. This followed a degree in Welsh and work on an MA in Arthurian studies, which took him to Reims in France. Since then he has done work in Public Relations, Radio and TV presentation, including stints with HTV, BBC Wales and S4C. In 2005 Dalen was established as a joint venture with his wife, Linda. Dalen literally means ‘leaf ’ or ‘page’ but also (appropriately in this instance) has the connotation of ‘a good read’. The very first title, translated from a book by Ralph König, proclaimed the graphic novel in a new guise in Wales - as potentially adult entertainment. Penbleth Dynol Ryw (rough translation: ‘Dilemma of the Male Sex’) was aimed at mature readers and was sexually provocative, once characterised as ‘the most brazen book in Welsh ever’. Alun soon returned to an earlier love and worked on the translation from French into Welsh of Arthurian legends, based on Welsh

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sources such as Mabinogion or Annales Cambriae. Alun has taken care to design the books for a new, critical audience that would resent any ‘dumbing down’ of the material. The resulting productions gave birth to a new series of graphic books that departed from those stereotypical blood and thunder stories that are often thought typical of the comic book. Dalen’s products appeal to readers within Wales but also to ‘Cymru fans’ globally, gaining readerships across wide age ranges in the United States, Canada and New Zealand. Picking up Druids: The Ogham Sacrifice (published in 2009 and on this occasion rendered into English) You are met by a colourful cover, showing a sexy young woman, standing partly immersed in a bath, her translucent dress open to the waist, clutching a blood-stained knife. Over the page are formal acknowledgements of the original French authors, Luc Istin and Thierry Jugourel, of the artwork of Jacques Lamartine and of the English adaptation by Lannig Trezeizh. A scholarly one-page introduction explains the fifth century origins of the Druids and ‘whilst not striving to be a historical novel’ claims that the book is ‘inspired by individuals and events documented in historical records and folk memory.’ The text plunges into action scenes with floating corpses staked through the heart, mingling comic book conventions thunder sounding ‘Kraaaakkkk’ with references to Pelagian heresies, Latin chants and the occasional

footnote translating Druidic language. When the Goddess Morrigan appears she is provocatively naked and tattooed. There are duels and battles, corpses and bloodshed, Roman legions and Pictish warriors, no end of action and excitement. More sexy scenes appear with a red-haired giant in bed with two naked ‘willing maidens’. The anti-heroine, Princess Dahud, is greeted by the ‘Bodom Bodobom’ of drummers, as she introduces ravishing eastern dancing girls. Later, having shed her clothes, she seduces the young Taran, planning to murder him as they share the luxurious bath that features on the cover. At the back of the book is a page about ‘People and Places’ which provides information about the Gods, religious orders and Druidic practices in the story. So the fantasies of a strong and sometimes raunchy tale are underpinned by educational material, providing a mix calculated to hook the attention of today’s sophisticated teenagers. One of the most successful Dalen initiatives has been the translation of ‘Tintin’ books into Welsh. Recent issues include Tintin: Llywbr i’r Lleuad [‘Destination Moon’] and Tintin: Ar Leuad Lawr [‘Explorers on the Moon’]. Alun Ceri Jones believes that the market for high quality children’s books is based in a sense of ownership among a Welsh audience, appreciating materials that are designed for them, avoiding the dominant English language. Thus, in the Tintin books, Dalen adapts the French names for key characters, by-passing the English versions and rendering them in unique Welsh alternatives. So, the French twins ‘Dupont and Dupont’ do not become ‘Thompson and Thompson’ - but speak as ‘ParryWilliams and Williams- Parry’, not

only clearly Welsh but also recalling Welsh historical personalities. Tintin’s dog ‘Milou’ avoids being ‘Snowy’ and instead translates as ‘Milyn’. This reflection of Welsh culture appeals not only to youngsters who have a sense of their Welsh nationality but also to parents and grandparents in presentbuying mode. These publications combine familiar materials with piquant Welsh variations, making them highly appropriate for today’s 8-13 age group. Regional variations in the translations are important: While Tintin himself will speak in standard Welsh, Captain Haddock has a Swansea Valley accent and the ‘Parry-Williams’ twins come from North Wales. While avoiding literary Welsh usage the books still get the language right, accents in place, grammatical rules observed. However, not all booksellers are confident with this kind of material. A £6.99 book of 64 pages does not fit easily into standard categories: they elude the Beano and Dandy stereotypes without fitting into the comic book image familiar to importers of some Americanised equivalents. Some independent book-shops in Wales are quite small and cannot easily display the larger formats of the graphic novel. They finish up sometimes on the top shelf, out of reach of the kids they are aimed at. Some shops are unable to stock full series and concentrate on the best sellers. Dalen has created some floor displays suitable for the products and will promote their use: but selling new ideas costs money! Care has been taken to authenticate historical material to give Dalen’s books their educational potential. Welsh learners can be helped by comparing the texts with English or French equivalents. Vocabulary lists are available online. Alun works with schools, for example in Gwynedd, helping 13-

year olds to create their own comic books. ‘Reluctant readers’ are often turned on by this material; care is taken to encourage youngsters to use the Welsh they speak themselves, deploying demotic or regional variations. They can fill the balloons coming out of the characters’ mouths with whatever language they want to imagine. Alun is always excited by the reactions of youngsters who obviously love the materials they are working with. He is disappointed, however, by the reluctance of some teachers to import such experiences into normal classroom teaching. The ‘comic books’ unliterary image takes some time to be dispersed. Similarly efforts are made to get Librarians on board - with highly positive responses, some 200 copies being taken immediately in some cases. The process of production is computerised. Alun attends events like the Frankfurt Book Fair, regularly searching the net for new texts. He has developed a web of contacts familiar with Dalen’s products. Once he expresses interest he needs to establish Welsh regional rights usually available without too much problem. Grant support typically comes from the Welsh Books Council. Dalen makes minimal changes to existing art-work and works closely with the printer, Gomer. There are substantial ‘out of house’ costs: CD production; rights payments; some proportion of print costs up-front. Indeed, the economics of the business are such that the small team (Alun, his wife Linda and his brother, Dafydd) think of it in some respects as ‘an expensive

hobby.’ However the appeal of graphic novels is very wide: accounted a ‘good laugh’ by their target audience. Despite help from the Welsh Books Council it is difficult to mount adequate marketing and public relations. The profile of the comic book in Britain, contrasts with continental experience, where as many as 100 new titles are regularly produced in France in a fourweek period, selling across borders. However, Dalen is steadily finding its market, advertising in Sci-Fi magazines, on-line in Facebook and via the Dalen Fan Club page on Youtube. The web site has details of current publications, and presents easy opportunities to buy. Testimonials have been received from readers in India, Australia and New Zealand and Dalen intends to visit the South African market soon. Based in Tresaith in Ceredigion, Dalen is deeply Welsh in character, sustained by the enthusiasm of its founders and followers and by the unusual nature of its products. It has something of the pleasures of the cult about it, creating a new private world and inviting people to share a different kind of Welsh cultural experience. A sense of revolt against the conventional is nevertheless vested with a respect for tradition and history. Solemnity is scorned but seriousness is not. Alun Ceri Jones means business, commercially, creatively and culturally. A different literary medium is breaking cover in these pages.

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Profile Catherine Fisher POET

& NOVELIST

PAUL GROVES

spiring writers could hardly do better than acquaint themselves with the rise and rise of Catherine Fisher. She was born in Newport, a city which, since its inception, has thrived on a diet of hard work. Let those who think writing an easy option remember Thomas Edison’s definition of genius: ‘1% inspiration, 99% perspiration’. Ms Fisher demonstrates more than that single percentage in her minor masterpieces. Dedication and single-mindedness are also resoundingly in evidence. Many of us hanker after fame and fortune. We do without the former, and trust the National Lottery to provide the latter. Ms Fisher’s thirty or so fiction works, written over the past twenty years, show convincingly that graft rather than luck is the key which unlocks the door to renown and accomplishment. Her grandfather had a paint and wallpaper shop in the unglamorous district of Pill. She and her parents lived over it. Ms Fisher has never married or had children, nor does she drive a car. She saves the time and money the rest of us spend on such lifestyle choices. She is unassuming yet steadfast in her vision of becoming one of Britain’s most notable writers of teenage fiction. Fantasy is her forte, and the works of Caerleon-born Arthur Machen have been influential. He and children’s author Alan Garner have done the most to energise her. Currently she is penning an introduction to Machen’s seminal 1907 opus The Hill of Dreams. The only son of a clergyman, he flirted with the occult and researched the Holy Grail legend. Despite sharing exploratory territory with the diabolist Aleister Crowley (both were members of the

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esoteric Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn), he espoused Roman Catholicism in later life - a creed to which Ms Fisher is committed. She attended St Joseph’s R.C. High School, based at the time in Tredegar House, formerly the ancestral home of the Morgan family (Evan Morgan, who inherited the estate in 1934, had once, interestingly enough, invited Crowley around for a weekend house party). From 1976 to 1980 she read English and Education at Caerleon College, graduating with a B.Ed (Hons). Her first job was as part of a team of archaeologists, a role she fulfilled for eighteen months. The next decade was spent teaching top juniors at St Michael’s RC Primary, which she herself had attended. Poetry Wales initially published her verse in 1984 (she had been writing since the age of eleven). Such was her ability that within five years she had won the Cardiff International Poetry Competition. Soon her first book - The Conjuror’s Game appeared from The Bodley Head. Not until she had three titles in the shops did she feel confident to quit teaching and devote herself to fiction. A Welsh Arts Council bursary paved the way, rather like a father giving his bicycling child that last friendly push in the park before the youngster precariously goes unaided. Once she was on the move there was no stopping her. She was shortlisted for both the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize and the WH Smith Children’s Book of the Year Prize. The Oracle (Hodder, 2003) was shortlisted for the Whitbread Children’s Book Award; and a resulting trilogy has become an international bestseller, appearing in over twenty languages. Corbenic (2007) won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature, and Incarceron was selected by The Times as its Children’s Book of the Year. On its U.S. release it sold 23,000 hardback

copies in its first week. Bearing in mind the global success of Chepstow’s own J.K. Rowling, one might imagine a Hollywood adaptation to be the next step; indeed, a major studio (I have promised not to say which, there being a publicity embargo in place) is considering it for a big-bucks production. Not resting on her laurels, Ms Fisher has been busy with her latest contribution, Crown of Acorns. This ambitious work deftly interweaves three narrative strands: that of Bladud, the fabled founder of Bath; John Wood the Elder, who designed the Circus, the first stone of which was laid in 1754; and a present-day girl who lives in the city and is uncannily connected with her illustrious antecedents. Darkness and unease are encountered aplenty in Ms Fisher’s oeuvre, though not ‘blood, guts, and gratuitous violence’ as she puts it. For her, threat and apprehension sustain a text more forcefully than any amount of gore. As Alfred Hitchcock memorably said, “There is no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it”. And she is not afraid to explore deeper layers and higher trajectories; philosophy, theology, myth and magic are easy bedfellows among her pages, treated with a beguiling lightness of touch. While Catherine Fisher is Wales’s best-kept secret, do not expect this to continue. At her current rate of creation, she could be a household name within a dozen years; though you suspect that if her reputation does go into orbit, her feet will remain firmly on the ground.

Mân Esgyrn by Siân Owen GOMER, £7.99

RHODRI Ll. EVANS

iân Owen’s debut novel came close to scooping one of the main prizes for fiction at last year’s Eisteddfod and was only narrowly beaten by Fflur Dafydd’s Y Llyfrgell. The contrast between winner and runner-up couldn’t be greater. Y Llyfrgell is a wild satire that is completely at ease with the hubbub of attention heaped on it as a result of it being declared the winner: it craves it, for it is not programmed to be anything other than grandiose. Mân Esgyrn on the other hand, is a quiet novel centred on the complex relationships of its characters and as a result, is chockfull of slow-burring intensity. If Y Llyfrgell is the extrovert, then Mân Esgyrn is most definitely the introvert and in a different time, with different judges, who knows…? Carol is on the cusp of turning 40 and for years has been living away from the Ynys Môn of her youth. Helen has stayed at home; battling against all manner of prejudices at the local chemical works where she works and trying to maintain a strained relationship with her elderly parents. Luc and Bryn are the pieces that make up the strange fourangled relationship that is rooted firmly in the dark and

heady days of young adulthood. Secrets, betrayals and the sinister games that people play are slowly revealed against the bustling and contrasting backdrop of a Viking festival that takes place over a period of three days, thus giving the novel a compact present that’s full to bursting with an expansive and moody past. Ynys Môn has been captured in the same other-worldly light seen in Mân Esgyrn in the English-language works of Tristan Hughes and, like Hughes, Siân Owen seems to be writing an extended love letter to the island. Some descriptions are truly inspired, others feel (and read) as if they’ve been dragged in kicking and screaming. And including lines of cynghanedd (or at the least, heavily alliterated ones) hampers the flow at times, too. Make no mistake about it, this is a novel that requires patience and a fair reading. Get past the slightly dull first section, and you should find the momentum gathering a steadier pace until the very end. Mân Esgyrn is an interesting and intense read, written with a measuredness that keeps in line with the author’s scientific background – she is a former editor of educational science textbooks – and makes for an accomplished debut.

Stuart Cable: from Cwmaman to the Stereophonics and Beyond by Jeff Collins (UWP, £14.99) BARRIE LLEWELYN

eff Collins’ biography of the late Stuart Cable is so visual it should

be called a biopic, though that word refers to film. Like the the best rock and roll literature the book flows with images, both in the photographs (mostly taken by Andrew Prichard) and in the awestruck enthusiam of Collins’ interviewing style and reportage. The photographic evidence begins with a picture of the community centre in Cwmaman where drummer Cable and singer/guitarist Kelly Jones formed the core of the band that would become Stereophonics. The last picture is of Cable’s new band, Killing for Company, trying to look cool maybe, but only managing a kind of eyes-upward hopefulness. Collins’ words are easy going. They document Cable’s journey from one band to the other with fluid movement which adds to the pictorial quality of the biopic. Highlights include the phone call in which Cable was unceremoniously sacked by Jones and Cable’s reinvention of himself as media star and local hero. To tell the story, Collins makes a lot of use of Cable’s own words. Because of this the book reads as though it’s a collaboration, and sometimes that makes it feel like a PR exercise. Yet, the best of the stories are conveyed in Cable’s voice. Describing the early days, he says: We’d do all the really hard work... Kelly and I were so focused and determined back then. Pretty scarily so. We knew exactly what we wanted.We’d be in each other’s

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houses every night sitting there thinking about what we could do next. And we’d send tapes away in Chinese food cartons. Then we’d send the next tapes away in old shoes…The poor woman in the post office used to look at us if we were stupid...

The rise of Stereophonics from a couple of kids jamming in a small mining village near Aberdare to become a group who have enjoyed such success that five out of their nine albums have topped the UK charts is enough of a story to make interesting rock and roll biography. To be fair to Collins though, he lives up to the promise given by the book’s sub-title and the last third of the book documents the relaunch of Cable’s musical career. The future looks as hopeful as the picture of Killing for Company projects.

Dreaming a City: From Wales to Ukraine by Colin Thomas with free DVD (Y LOLFA, £9.95) GARETH MILES

hat it says on the back cover is what you get:

...a history of one Ukraine town, a microcosm of Russia. Hughesovka (later Stalino and Donetsk) was a mining and steel town founded in the 1870s by Welsh entrepreneur John Hughes and seventy Welsh workers. This book traces the town’s shifts from patriarchal beginning through the Russian Revolutions, Bolshevism, Stalinism, Nazi occupation and the

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collapse of Communism and the 1990s rising Ukraine nationalism, to Ukraine post-independence.

You get a lot more, including illuminating insights into the social and industrial history of Wales in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a gallery of wonderful black and white photos and reproductions of posters and other cultural artefacts, and a DVD of Colin Thomas and Gwyn A. Williams’ three-programme, prize-winning series, Hughesovka & the new Russia.They don’t make TV programmes like that any more! After watching Our People’s Remembrancer strutting his stuff in exotic locations like Moscow’s Red Square, the Russian steppes and Dowlais Top I found myself paraphrasing the opening lines of The Ballad of Joe Hill: I dreamt I saw Gwyn Alf last night As live as you or me...

Livelier than most of us, physically, intellectually and verbally. Underlying an account of the Ukranian city’s sometimes heroic, sometimes tragic, mostly tumultuous history is a tale of fifteen years of creative collaboration and warm friendship between the historian and the film director.Their relationship was inevitably fractious at times.The author tells us that Gwyn ‘could get very angry with me, with Wales, with the

world.The tensions between my wish to make accessible television programmes and his determination not to over-simplify complex history made for sometimes bitter arguments...’ I imagine that there were political disagreements as well as technical ones as our Marxist Dr Johnson’s Soviet sojourns are chronicled here in print by a priggishly liberal Boswell. As the world enters its latest capitalist crisis, socialists, communists and leftists in general must redouble their efforts to understand what went wrong in the USSR, honestly facing up to the crimes, mistakes and blunders committed without the reluctance of professional anti-communists Applebaum, Montefiore, Ignatieff, Ukranian Nazis and the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church - whose opinions and statistics are accepted uncritically by Thomas, to admit that anything ever went right. ‘I have always dreaded the thought that I would eventually follow the well-worn path from youthful optimism to aged pessimism,’ the author tells us in the penultimate chapter, prompting me to respond uncharitably: ‘That’s what happens to wellmeaning, fair-minded liberals, Colin,’ and to contrast that remorseful epitaph with words Gwyn Alf spoke to me at the end of a long telephone conversation, a few weeks before he died: ‘I am now what I was in 1949 - a Titoist!’ Gwyn would have been appalled by what the imperialist powers (aka ‘The Free World’, ‘The West’ and ‘the International community’) did to his beloved Yugoslavia but he would not have given up the struggle for a better world and a reconciliation between patriotism and socialism.

This fascinating book must be a strong contender for Academi’s 2010 English-language Book of the Year Award.

Rhys Davies by Huw Edwin Osborne, [WRITERS OF WALES] (UWP, £16.99) DAVID LLOYD

his most recent contribution to the Writers of Wales series explores the work of prolific fiction writer Rhys Davies, who between 1926 and his death in 1978 published, according to Huw Edwin Osborne, “over twenty novels, two plays, a biography, two books on Wales and over a hundred short stories in periodicals and collections, in addition to various essays, reviews and broadcasts”. Given this extensive corpus, Osborne necessarily narrowed the scope of his study, concentrating on Davies’s “identity as a gay Welsh London artist from working-class south Wales” and his transformation from a “highbrow writer in the leftist coteries … into a postmodern writer of crime and deviance on the borders of policed identities”. In replacing David Rees’s original 1975 Writers of Wales profile of Davies, Osborne’s analysis draws upon Queer Theory in general and modern theorists of culture and literature, such as Michel Foucault, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Homi Bhabha. This reviewer would have appreciated fewer jargon-clogged sentences such as: “As contemporary queer theory has demonstrated, maintaining heteronormative patriarchal hegemony requires this simultaneous knowing and

unknowing of homosexual practice”. But despite some infelicities of style, Osborne succeeds in conveying the complexity of Davies’s relationship to Wales as a closeted gay writer tightly bound to – and profoundly alienated from – his Valleys upbringing (he was born and raised in Blaenclydach). Osborne itemises Davies’s flaws and weaknesses as a writer, in particular the “essentially racist underpinnings of his Welsh past” and his willingness to act out the role of “professional Welshman” for Heinemann, his London publisher, and his English readership - often presenting exoticised, romanticised, and brutalised accounts of Valleys or rural Welsh culture and characters. But Osborne balances this critique with praise for Davies’s farreaching explorations of how a dominant culture can straight-jacket and silence those who threaten the status quo. And he demonstrates how, in the later novels and stories, Davies sought to disengage from the role of being Heinemann’s Welsh writer. Towards the end of his study, Osborne makes an excellent case for reading Davies’s gothic crime fiction as the culmination of a lifelong fascination with outcasts, criminals, and misfits exiled to society’s borderlands.

While Davies’s subjects and themes are intrinsically interesting, a primary reason readers seek out Davies’s fiction must be simply for the energy of the prose, on display in these fierce and beautifully modulated sentences dealing with the bombing of London (from his 1945 story “Spectre de la Rose”) – justly singled out for praise by Osborne: But the din outside had risen, crash upon crash, the hot soar of the shells, the intolerant explosions in air, cleansing the sky of its scudding monstrous beetles, god-images of man’s last masochism. They were above, above. Up there concise little men garbed in neutral grey looked down with remote curiosity at a breaking world. In their fire-garlanded cars they were young gods alien to the sentimental womb of the earth. They looked down without gloating, precisely fulfilling a sick creed.

‘EMERGENCE’ an exhibition by new ceramic graduates from the West Wales School of arts 30 JUNE - 4 SEPTEMBER Mon - Sat 10.30am - 5.00pm 01646 695699

Favela Shanty by Frances Brosnan

THE OLD SAIL LOFT, DISCOVERY QUAY, MILFORD HAVEN DOCKS, PEMBS, SA73 7AF

www.thewaterfrontgallery.co.uk

POETRY ˆ DIHW GW My name is gwˆdihw and my home is Wales, I have never flown to England though I hear gwˆdihws there saying Come over the silver stream to our woods where the catching is excellent; they use such hungry words like ladders to the Moon; why would I leave Wales, its loneliness; we have silver streams too where the English draw up covered waggons; but again I fly away, a feather shadow; gwˆdihw, gwˆdihw. JOHN BARNIE from THE FOREST UNDER THE SEA (Cinnamon Press)

BARDDONIAETH The publishers are most grateful to the trustees of the HARRI WEBB FUND who have generously sponsored this page. A fee will be paid for every poem published. Poems for consideration should be sent to: DR MEIC STEPHENS, 10 HEOL DON, WHITCHURCH, CARDIFF, CF14 2AU. Please send a stamped address envelope if you want your poems to be returned.

MEIC STEPHENS ALSO RECOMMENDS • Roger Turvey, Twenty-one Welsh Princes (CARREG GWALCH, £5.95) • Matthew Frank Stevens, Urban Assimilation in Post-Conquest Wales (UWP, £48) • T.T.M. Hale, The Rhosneigr Romanticist: W.D.Owen and the stories of Elin Cadwaladr & Madam Wen (RHOSNEIGR PUBLISHING, £16.99) • Bryan Davies, Yogi: mewn deg eiliad: hunangofiant (LOLFA, £9.95) • William Vaughan, Gold Hunter (LOLFA, £4.95) • Sonia Edwards, Mynd dan Groen (GOMER, £7.99) • Tony Bianchi, Bumping (ALCEMI, £.99) • Alan Llwyd, Crefft y Gynghanedd (BARDDAS, £10.95) • Richard Lewis, Out of the Valley : the autobiography of a media man (LOLFA, £8.95) • Charles Arch & Lyn Ebenezer, Ymlaen â’r Sioe / On with the Show (GOMER, £12.99) • Phil Jones, Llwybr Arfordir Ceredigion Coastal Path (GOMER, £19.99) • Meinir Pierce Jones, Y Cwestiwn Mawr (LOLFA, £5.95)

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Books Macabre, jolly, authoritative, moving, provocative, academic, zany - some of the books MEIC STEPHENS has been reading this summer

mong the books on the shelf above my desk are several that have given me extraordinary pleasure and I’d like to tell you about them. Everyone who has been moved by Joseph Parry’s song ‘Myfanwy’, or sung his hymn-tune ‘Aberystwyth’, will enjoy To Philadelphia and Back (Carreg Gwalch, £9) by Dulais Rhys and Frank Bott. This is a study of the composer’s life and music, the title taken from Jack Jones’s famous novel, Off to Philadelphia in the Morning (1947), even though that novel gave a wholly fictitious account of how he came to write his most famous hit. Joseph Parry was born in Merthyr Tydfil in 1841 (the house is now a small museum) but emigrated to America while still a lad, working in the steelworks in Dannville, Pennsylvania. After winning prizes at the National Eisteddfod he was sent with the aid of a public fund to study at the Royal Academy of Music in London. In 1874 he became the first Professor of Music at the UCW, Aberystwyth, and later taught at Swansea and Cardiff. This new book follows Dulais Rhys’s earlier study, Joseph Parry: Bachgen Bach o Ferthyr (1998), and is likely to remain the last word on its subject. Arthur Machen, born plain Arthur Jones at Caerleon in 1863, enjoyed huge success as a writer of the macabre and gained notoriety in 1914 with his story ‘The Bowmen’, describing the spectral

appearance of Welsh archers above the British trenches at the battle of Mons. Within a week of the story’s appearance in a London newspaper Machen’s bowmen had been transformed in the popular imagination into ‘The Angels of Mons’ and, much to his chagrin, what he had written as palpable fiction had been credited as fact, especially by jingoists who declared it was unpatriotic to disbelieve the tale. Machen’s novel The Great God Pan has now been republished, together with The Shining Pyramid and The White People, in the Library of Wales (Parthian, £8.99). An altogether jollier read is to be had from Terry Breverton’s Nautical Curiosities: a Book of the Sea (Quercus, £9.99), a useful A-Z miscellany that takes in naval slang, famous sea-battles, heroes and villains of the high seas, details about a ship’s rigging, and a bestiary of creatures real and imaginary that are the very stuff of sailors’ yarns. This book is essential reading for anyone who likes messing about in boats or has felt the call of the sea. Of all the English poetry I’ve read this summer I shall return most often to Dannie Abse’s moving collection, Two for Joy: Scenes from Married Life (Hutchinson, £15), which contains poems about Joan, his wife of more than fifty years, some written while she was still alive and others since she was taken from him in a road accident in 2005. For those who share my academic interests, a gallant band, Daniel G. Williams has put together Slanderous Tongues: Essays on Welsh Poetry in English 1970-2005 (Seren, £14.99). Among the poets whose work is treated in this authoritative symposium are Harri Webb and Peter Finch but the most valuable essays are those touching more generally on nationalism, tradition,

What Machen had written as palpable fiction had been credited as fact, especially by jingoists who declared it was unpatriotic to disbelieve the tale. translation, the avant-garde, gender, nationhood and social class. Similar preoccupations are to be found in the new number of Almanac, the excellent yearbook of the Association for Welsh Writing in English (Parthian). Lastly, a chance for readers who have no Welsh to sample the flavour of one of our most provocative young writers, Llwyd Owen, whose Faith, Hope & Love (Alcemi, £9.99) has a lot to say about contemporary Cardiff and the social structures of its Welsh and English speaking citizens. The original Welsh version of this important novel, Ffydd, Gobaith, Cariad, was Welsh Book of the Year in 2007. Those who prefer a zanier take on the pleasures of Cardiff life should read Peter Finch’s Real Cardiff Three : the Changing City (Seren, £9.99). If they do they will see on page 171 the small text; Cardiviae Cardiffe Kerdif Kairdif Keyrdif Cardyffe Kerdyf Caerdyf Cayrdif Caerdydd Kerdif Cardiff

They will also be charmed by Peter Finch’s encyclopaedic knowledge of his native city and fascinated by his perambulations through the byways of its history.

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POETRY

CARREG HOLLT** (i’r anwylyn, Carwyn, er cof)

THE CLEFT STONE (in memory of Carwyn James)

un a oedd yn ddau o’r dechrau’n deg y Carwyn cudd a’r un cyhoeddus ei nef iddo’n gynefin yn unig yn annwn ein hodyn hyder yn or-bryderus yn un ohonom yn wahanol athrylith o reolwr mor ddidoreth enaid rhwystredig ar ben ei ddigon y corff holliach yn grach ar groen yn dwlu ar ganu Gwenallt cyn disgyn yn ysbail dost i’w dre-din yn Amsterdam a’i gario’n glwyf agored lan tyle Carreg Hollt

one who was two from the very start the hidden Carwyn and the one we saw at home in his heaven a loner in hell our kiln of assurance afire with unease one of us always always apart master of order feckless at core soul of frustration wholly fulfilled a vigorous body riven with scabs doting on Gwenallt’s song then falling stricken prey to emptiness in Amsterdam an open wound borne finally uphill through Carreg Hollt

T. JAMES JONES MEHEFIN 2009

T. JAMES JONES JUNE 2009 (TRANSLATION BY JON DRESSEL)

BARDDONIAETH T. James Jones (/|\ Jim Parc Nest ) is the Archdruid of Wales *(Carreg Hollt is a hamlet named after a nearby standing stone, near Carwyn James’s home village of Cefneithin, Sir Gaerfyrddin.)

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PENSAERNÏAETH - ARCHITECTURE

New School sets New Standards JOHN IDRIS JONES

ewport High School, located in the Bettws area of the City, is a newly-opened secondary school which sets new standards in Wales for design excellence and energy conservation. It is the first secondary school in Wales to be awarded a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating for energy conservation. A collaboration between Newport City Council, HLM Architects, Leadbitter Group, Davis Langdon, Arup and Clarkebond, within the local area, ensured efficiency of communication and clarity of execution at all levels of design and building. Jonathan Jones, HLM Architects Director for Wales, said: “We were particularly pleased to design a building which is attractive to look at, a pleasure to be in, and which incorporates the newest in technological advances in the field of energy conservation. The old school building was very wasteful of energy but this new building keeps the heat in and energy costs will be considerably less.” When Steve Burgess, Director of the Leadbitter group, handed the keys to Newport High School and Active Living Centre to the leader of Newport City Council, Matthew Evans, Councillor Evans said “We are committed to providing high quality, modern education facilities for Newport and I believe this school will offer many generations of children the best education environment.” Haydn Ames, who led the process of commissioning for Newport City Council, said, “From a client perspec-

REAR VIEW:

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Newport High School -

BREEAM

‘Exellent’ award

tive, creating a strong collaborative working relationship amongst the design and contractor teams ensured a successful project, which has received very positive feedback from students, staff and community organisations.” The building is of three storeys at the front, where a long Internal stairway curved structure presents an attractive welcoming aspect. Behind that are two-storey ‘fingers’ containing classrooms, with views on both sides. There are 34 classrooms in all, eight science labs, eight ICT suites, a fully equipped Design Technology wing, an Inclusion Centre and a Vocational Training and Resource Centre. There is a full-equipped kitchen and dining room. For community use as well there is a 25m swimming pool, a four-court sports hall, a fitness suite, a full-size artificial turf pitch, sports pitches and multi-use games areas. Matthew Chambers of ARUP Cardiff explained the technology behind energy conservation. “This is a new development for a public building in Wales. The engineers and architects worked together from the outset to create a design which maximises natural daylight whilst minimising solar gain and providing good air quality through natural ventilation where possible. It incorporates a CHP energy plant which takes in gas and turns it into power, heat and light, for use in the school. The

LANDSCAPE VIEW:

Newport City Centre in the background

classrooms have underfloor heating, with the natural ventilation controlled by computer, although some of the lower windows can be opened manually. The heat conservation value in the building fabric is well above that required by regulations. Solar energy comes from panels in the roof, supplying hot water for hand-washing and kitchens. The open plan toilets are supplied by rainwater which is harvested off the roof and kept in a tank. The building’s walls have thermal mass which takes in heat during the day and releases it at night. Our job was made easier by clear direction from Newport City Council with regard to energy conservation. The passive design and technology put in to this building will set the standard; this is the cutting edge of development. It’s an exciting building.” Headteacher Gary Schlick said there was a real buzz from students and staff when they came to occupy the building for the first time. “They were keen to use the phenomenal facilities. In our opinion this school is second to none and incorporates all the features we requested during the consultation process.” An interesting plus has come from the demolition of the nearby old Bettws School. Its site is being re-allocated for housing. Aeron Thomas, Senior Project Manager for Leadbitter, said that a team of 16 people were allocated to crush and sort the building materials. “The majority of the building materials will be recycled, with the crushed concrete used for foundations. Some of the old school’s white goods were sent to Uganda. We sent

cupboards, desks and chairs to Kings Primary School in Bunanburye, Eastern Uganda.”

Opera WELSH NATIONAL OPERA

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg Rigoletto NORMA LORD

t has become fashionable of late to apologise for liking the music of Richard Wagner, and WNO’s splendid new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg shows worrying signs of this trend, director Richard Jones deeming it beneficial to have his cast hold aloft photographs of multifarious German arts-worthies during Hans Sachs’ final oration, having teasingly displayed a montage of these pictures on the front curtain between the Acts. This is intended to underline to the audience that Sachs refers solely to German art, rather than socio-political culture, which might have been indicated by the twentieth century elements of the set and costume designs. I have too little German to argue the precise meaning of the word Kunst, the crux of this question, but a thorough study of two translations of Wagner’s text reveals little or no unpleasantly nationalistic elements anywhere

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: Walther (Raymond Very), Pogner Meirion) and WNO cast.

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Hitler admired Wagner therefore Wagner was a xenophobic fascist? OK he was, but Hans Sachs was a medieval shoemaker - without an MA in PPE - but with a simple peasant pride in his own hilltop.

else, and I can only conclude that such squeamishness is a tad syllogistic: Hitler admired Wagner, therefore Wagner was a xenophobic fascist? OK, he was, but Hans Sachs was a medieval shoemaker, without an MA in PPE, but with a simple peasant pride in his own hilltop. Fortunately, top-class singing and ultra-convincing acting from a superb cast made the photographs and one or two other directorial peccadilloes pretty much irrelevant, although I still feel that this is a deeply human work based on real traditions and events, which needs to be presented in realistic human terms, and preferably firmly in period. (Brindley Sherratt), Hans Sachs (Bryn Terfel), Zorn (Rhys Even for me, howevCATHERINE ASHMORE er, it was a very satisfying evening. Bryn Terfel’s Sachs has all the warm humanity and touches of humour one could wish, while his vocal performance seemed to ski-lift the rest of the cast to hitherto unheard heights. Christopher Purves is a

CLIVE BARDA

wickedly humorous Beckmesser who, although contemptible, never entirely loses the audience sympathy, nor his fluent mastery of the music. As the lovers, Amanda Roocroft and house debutant Raymond Very draw a convincing contrast of youth with the aging Meistersingers, Rigoletto: Gilda (Sarah Coburn), Rigoletto although it is Eva (Simon Keenlyside). who exudes patrician confidence and musical prowess, rather than her knightly suitor. Even the smaller roles were notably well sung, with each Meistersinger making a distinct vocal character, and perfect cameos in Anna Burford’s wistful Magdalena and David Soar’s Nightwatchman - in full mediaeval fig, to match, in this context, his somewhat anachronistic music. Eccentric costumes and cardboard cut-out Alpine architecture came and went, the chaotic clutter of Sachs’

workshop charmed and irritated in seemingly equal measure, but the music and the cast conquered all. Lothar Koenigs drew a rainbow of colours and tempi from the WNO’s orchestra, which remained finely polished throughout the first performance. No apology needed here! Another feast of spectacularly good singing graced the revival of James Macdonald’s 2002 Rigoletto. WNO’s own Gwyn Hughes-Jones being indisposed, we had a surprise Duke on the opening night in the shape of New Zealander Shaun Dixon who proved more than up to the task, both vocally and theatrically. The first time his glossy, well-upholstered tenor has been heard in WMC, Mr. Dixon can, I am confident, look forward to further invitations. His path must have been eased by the flawless performance of Simon Keenlyside in the title role, and excellently strong support from the Gilda of Sarah Coburn, another auspicious house debut. Conducted, for the first time here, by the young Spaniard Pablo Heras-Casado, the score fairly sparkled until the dark drama of Verdian tragedy eclipsed the celebratory lyricism. The production, though rather seedily dated now in it’s specific references to the White House, maintains its dramatic conviction in terms of the character relationships and, with this cast at least, provides a solid evening’s opera. The sets are stunning, and David Siar and Leah-Marian Jones are a most attractive pair of villains.

NATIONAL THEATRE WALES

iced cherry bun. Then we took off like a flock of birds in our neon waistcoats and red parasols, from nightclub to beach to mountain-side to maze to harbour to plane-crash site, ending strung out along the railway bridge as an impromptu Abermaw Orchestra. And through all this were woven: soldiers, sweethearts, acrobats, sailors, émigrés, apes, singers, airmen, a dying elephant; and other doubtful characters who may or may not have been in the cast. There was also a curiosity in being an audience watching a performance and in turn being watched by a busy seaside crowd, in town for the kites and the motorbikes. Reality suspended, imagination stimulated, participation invited, that sunny Sunday in Barmouth! I will never forget it. Llongyfarchiadau, plentyn bach y tywod!

‘Story Shop’ MARY UZZELL EDWARDS

t was like being a child again. It was an afternoon of sheer surprise and delight, playing with all the senses. This was the National Theatre Wales’ midsummer offering, a multi-sensory walk/climb/explore through a distillation and reinterpretation of tales, true and tall, from the North Wales seaside town of Barmouth. Marc Rees, as artistic director and creative interpreter, had invited the local residents to a ‘Story Shop’ and then delved into the resulting oral history awakened from archive photographs exhibited there. He then choreographed these memories into three hours of superbly produced ambient theatre. Tea in the Church Hall with the Women’s Institute was the first venue, with a vast projection of old photographs and a life-size wooden boat-kit. A calming start, although the drunken sailor on the table did have me bolting my

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Music Wales’s Summer Music Festivals NORMA LORD

f there’s one thing (and there are, of course, many more than one) Wales does well, it’s a music festival. It would be delightfully easy to spend the entire Summer listening to every kind of music in a thousand different sylvan settings. It is sad that one has to make difficult decisions involving the interruption of such lotus-eating by chunks of Real Life. One of the first major festivals in the calendar is the ST. DAVID’S CATHEDRAL FESTIVAL, this year offering a wide range of vocal ensembles, four orchestras and a dozen or more world-class soloists, as well as four very

young talents in the “young musicians platform” slot. We revelled in the closing concert by the Festival Choir and Orchestra of Mozart’s C minor Mass and Dominican Vespers. What a pleasure to hear a perfectly balanced choir and orchestra with resonant solo singing in pure, acoustic form not a microphone or an amplifier in sight, But there were many other programmes I was sorry to miss, including the BBC NOW playing Beethoven’s 1st Symphony, James Gilchrist and Anna Tilbrook giving Britten’s “Winter Words” and the 15year-old violinist Lily Whitehurst, whom I have yet to hear. I applaud St. David’s inclusion of emerging talent, and wish other Festival organisers would be so bold. Just two weeks after St. David’s, Cambria was invited to GREGYNOG FESTIVAL which this year featured music from “Pleasure Gardens”, including a fascinating lecture by Rhian Davies concerned with the music of Parri Ddall and his namesake Bardd Alaw. From a varied and innovative programme which visited five centuries and culminated in a day of Japanese and Japanese-inspired music, Cambria won a recital by the London Handel Players, a trio of baroque instrumentalists who evocatively demo’d the music of the Georgian Pleasure Gardens, and were sad at having to leave Gregynog before Rhian Davies’ and harpist Angharad Evans’ exposition of Parri Ddall’s solo compositions. A notable “Pleasure Garden” itself, Gregynog earns special commendation for two features of this year’s Festival: its outreach programme for both imaginative content and geographical spread - Smithsonian Institute to Wrexham General Station, and the stunning design of the Festival brochure, incorporating a border from the original Vauxhall Garden poster, which should hang around on many a coffee table for a long time.

THE JEN JONES QUILT CENTRE/CANOLFAN CWILT CYMRAEG

Cafodd hyd i gartref addas MARY UZZELL EDWARDS

his article should be entitled ‘Jen Jones: the Sequel’, because it follows my piece in Cambria (Aug/Sept 2006) on what I called the ‘Cottage of Delights’, Jen’s home and shop in Pontbrendu, near Llanybydder, where quilts and blankets spilled out in a riotous rainbow, and where I became completely hooked on the Welsh Quilt story. Jen has made Wales her home for many years now, and is a serious and knowledgeable collector and conservator of Welsh quilts and blankets. One of her richly coloured patchwork quilts hangs in the huge and important current show ‘Quilts 1700 - 2010’ in the V&A in London. So I decided to drive due north and see what she has been up to since then. It was the last day of winter. In April. One thing I now know: do not ignore a red sign with white lettering saying: ‘Road Closed’. Especially when the snow is horizontal, the wind fierce, and I haven’t brought a thermos. But I do ignore it, and at the top of the Mynydd Du, above Brynaman, lo and behold, a lorry is tip-tilting its way off the ribbon road, and not one of the policemen in the three vans is coming out to help me turn around. But I am determined. A century ago I could have been crossing that mountain from farm to farm with a ten-foot quilting frame, at best in the back of a farmcart. Eventually I pull up in front of the Town Hall in Lampeter, mid-

Wales. In 1871-72 the then derelict Town Hall had been rebuilt, to house the Court of Quarter Sessions and the County Assize. By 1974, when the new County Council took over, it had been radically altered to house the Magistrate’s Court, and all the original courtroom fittings had disappeared. But the outside retains its original attractive sturdy symmetry, with a coach way, matching arched windows either side, three chunky windows above, a central balcony, resplendent today with Jen’s banners and the landmark clock tower. Only three years ago, Jen and her husband the architect Roger ClivePowell, had the idea to take on the challenge of this once ‘symbol of Victorian municipal pride’. Happily their interest in establishing a Welsh Quilt Centre coincided with the Town’s feasibility study for the future of the Town hall. ‘So we decided to be insane and buy the building, an architectural nightmare’ says Jen. And here they established their definitive Quilt Centre, linking a vast gallery upstairs to a shop and popular Café-Deli (run deliciously by Jen’s daughter and son-in-law, Mal and Arif,) below. So in July 2009, with seconds to spare, the Jen Jones Welsh Quilt Centre opened, bringing new interest and life to the centre of the University and market town of Lampeter. All I can say is - what a challenge! And what a result! Who helped? (Always an interesting question in Wales!) CADW were ‘wonderful’ and continue to be so, the National Assembly gave ‘modest’ help, VisitWales and Mid Wales

In Jen’s home and shop in Pontprendu near Llanybydder, quilts and blankets spilled out in a riotous rainbow

Tourism were ‘fine, and very helpful’. Jen is applying for Museum status, and is setting up a Friends programme. Courses and workshops run frequently in the Centre. I have the impression that Jen feels she is slightly anchored to the shop and the exhibition, and maybe should be ‘out there’, searching, collecting, conserving, lecturing, demonstrating, enthusing about the quilts which are her life. I mention Tenby museum which is run successfully day-to-day by a faithful army of volunteers, so anyone out there near Lampeter….. The inaugural exhibition ‘Quilts from the Heartland’ was a joyful celebration of this achievement, and the adaptation of the huge old courtroom on the first floor presented the Welsh Flannel geometric patchworks as never before. Breathtaking. The opening evening was packed, and Sue Prichard from the V&A was bubbling with enthusiasm and praise for Jen and Roger. Local people were very much celebrating their heritage - it was their life up on the walls, and I caught snips of ‘Well now, do you remember up in …and in the end the cat had kittens on it?’

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But I did want to be left alone with all that softness and stitching. Today - I am. I am up in the big gallery with Jen, the phone goes, and so does she, and I put my pen away and you can almost touch the quietness and the calm. It’s something to do with all that sleeping, the warmth of the Turkey red down skirt, the hours of choosing and stitching, the conversations in Llanboidy ‘Shall we stitch a spiral or a spider’s web on this one?’ And again, like now, the social gather-

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ings to celebrate the finished quilt, whether it be for a baby’s cradle, a marriage bed or to warm old bones. Or to keep snug in the next world, wearing that unworn quilted black skirt. (Jen does admit to burying two of her dogs in non-precious quilts!) This current exhibition, until Dec 31st, the second for the Centre, is ‘Unsung Heritage: The Quilts of Wales’ and it features the fiery reds including red paisleys and paisley shawl quilts. Alongside these

hang contrasting cotton patchworks and wholecloths that represent the output during the 19th and early 20th century. The Paisley pattern, like a fir cone with a twist in its tail, had its origins in India and Persia. In America quilters knew them as ‘Persian Pickles’, in Wales as ‘Welsh Pears’, but one suspects it had a more spiritual significance in the East. Men who worked for the East India Company brought home shawls for their womenfolk, two years to weave, and up to sixty colours. These wool and silk shawls were given their name from the Renfrewshire town of Paisley, where looms had been adapted. They were handed down through generations the scrap from my great-grandmothers’ paisley is now a tiny needle book; and this is how they became incorporated into quilts - too precious for the feline birth-blanket! There was no Paisley woven in Wales - I suggested that the Welsh weren’t into industrial espionage, but Jen thought there was enough to do with the indigenous blanket and shawl weaving already under way. However they were certainly worn here ‘for best’: you see one in that well-worn icon of Welsh folk art, ‘Salem’ where the devil…well, you know the story. So why not pay a visit to this first centre dedicated to Welsh Quilts? Nearby is the Welsh Wool Museum at Drefach Felindre, the Ceredigion Museum in Aberystwyth (more quilts), the gardens of Aberglasney and the National Botanic, and the seaside town of Aberaeron. And the countryside between does the soul good. As I leave, I see an entry in the visitor’s book: ‘Cafodd hyd i gartref addas - It has come to the right home’, I nod, agreeing, and head back over the mountain.

Art JONAH JONES

The making of an artist PETER JONES

onah Jones had to be tough - and lucky - to survive his first 35 years. In the Durham coalfield where he was born in 1919, the conditions were so hard in the aftermath of the First World War that his younger brother John died in infancy, possibly of malnutrition, and his sister developed rickets. During the miners’ strike of 1926, the Jones family had to resort to soup kitchens for sustenance. Then came the Great Depression. The deprivation of his upbringing left a mark on Jonah that stayed with him for the rest of his life. During the Second World War Jonah was a conscientious objector, later enlisting as a non-combatant. He joined 224 Parachute Field Ambulance in the 6th Airborne Division, with which he served in the Ardennes and took part in the drop near Wesel (a successful but

Jonah Jones with his family in 2001

bloody engagement) for the crossing of the Rhine in March 1945. While traversing Germany he helped to deal with the horror at Belsen concentration camp. It was probably here that he contracted tuberculosis, which almost killed him five years later. After this hard beginning, Jonah was determined to make the most of life when he was finally able to dedicate himself to his chosen vocation of art. Yet despite the many grim experiences of these early decades, he took much that was invaluable from them. From his parents he got a firm moral foundation and an appreciation of the value of education, the route to escape from his confining Tyneside background. Grandfather John Jones, a Congregationalist lay preacher, also had a powerful influence on the boy. It was from him that Jonah acquired a love of Bible stories that would later have such a deep impact on his work. Above all, he was fascinated by John’s connections with Wales, and after the war Jonah’s identification with the country brought him to Gwynedd. His vocation began to emerge when he was only five, a teacher encouraging his talent for drawing. Always something of a loner, as he grew up he found escape in art and reading. He attended night classes

S. BRAYNE

MORFA NEFYN: Dalle de verre window Church of the Resurrection of Our Saviour

at the King Edward School of Art in Newcastle, where he learnt about classic Roman lettering under Leonard Evetts, the great specialist on the subject. At the age of 17, Jonah was most fortunate to be appointed as an assistant at Felling public library, which opened up the world of literature to him. The PORTHMADOG:

Detail of sculpture of Madonna and Child, Church of the Most Holy Redeemer

Jonah Jones at his workshop near Portmeirion circa 1989

COLEG HARLECH:

NEWPORT:

Wall sculpture ‘Avo Penn Bid Pont’

Dalle de verre window, Church of St. Patrick

ROBERT GREETHAM

librarian, Mona Lovell, introduced him to Quakerism, a faith that influenced him deeply. As with so many other young working class men, the war transformed the prospects of self-fulfilment for Jonah. Working in forestry as a conscientious objector he was based in Wensleydale. He was befriended by the Yorkshire watercolour painter Fred Lawson, who lived locally. Lawson’s home was the centre of a small circle of artists, from whom Jonah learned much. During this period he carried out his first surviving works of art small watercolour landscapes. When Jonah joined 224 Parachute Field Ambulance he found a remarkable band of men, half of them pacifists like himself. There were artists, writers, teachers, kindred spirits with whom he could discuss the arts, writing or philosophy. Among them was John Petts, the wood engraver and fine printer who had set up the Caseg Press in North Wales before the war. Jonah’s learning was completed at the Army Education Corps’ Carmel College in Haifa during the 6th Airborne Division’s posting to Palestine after the war; he both attended a course in English literature and gave lectures himself. This was proof of how remarkably well-read and learned in the visual and literary arts Jonah, taking the fullest advantage of all the opportunities presented to him, had become. Early in 1948 he fulfilled his dream of making a new life in Wales with his Israeli wife Judith Grossman. Jonah joined John Petts at the revived Caseg Press in Llanystumdwy, learning much from Petts’ single-minded focus on his craft within the community and the bond he had formed with his adopted country. Wishing to establish his own practice, Jonah secured a grant to study stonecarving and lettering at Eric Gill’s old workshop at Pigotts in Buckinghamshire. Here he was taught by Gill’s old assistant Laurie Cribb, who thus equipped Jonah to embark on his career as a full-time artist. Later, as Jonah’s output expanded, Cribb came to work with him and was invaluable as a colleague. Central to Jonah’s working philosophy was the idea of the workshop, not the studio. He was from the start determined that his practice should be part of the community, like the

blacksmith or the carpenter, rather than isolated in an ivory tower as artists are often perceived to be. This meant that he made himself available for commissions for lettering and sculpture or stone carving in any form. He enjoyed the discipline this imparted, being required to deliver what the client wanted while making something of creative integrity. The fact that he had no choice but to follow this course if he was to make a living was a fortunate coincidence, not a distraction. The result is that many of Jonah’s most important, and biggest, works were the fruit of public commissions. In the early years of his career, Clough WilliamsEllis was a regular patron of Jonah’s, ordering a succession of ornamental carvings and inscriptions to adorn Portmeirion and other places. Jonah’s conversion to Catholicism in 1956 proved to be a crucial step in his career, for the church kept him occupied for much of the Sixties and led to some of his most beautiful work. He began at Ratcliffe College in Leicestershire, where he provided all the artwork for a new chapel, including a spectacular stained glass window and much concrete glass - to do this he had to learn new skills and techniques, something Jonah was always glad to do. He went on to embellish several more churches in the Midlands, the North of England and Wales, where Jonah installed glass, mosaics and carvings in Newport, Morfa Nefyn, Porthmadog and Denbigh. This body of work, hidden away as it is within churches, deserves to be better known . In between the many commissions Jonah worked on his own sculpture, which accounts for so much of his lasting reputation. Early on his small carvings were influenced diversely by classic and mediaeval sculpture and by the German Expressionist Ernst Barlach. As Jonah’s work became more abstract he drew from Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, but above all his exemplars were Constantin Brancusi and the Japanese-American Isamu Noguchi. By the end of the Sixties, he was moving away from religious imagery towards Welsh themes, inspired by the Mabinogi and the landscape he loved so well. Another abiding fascination was the Word; when he had to give up sculpture and carved inscriptions in old age, he filled his paintings with texts in fine lettering, in the spirit of the great London-Welsh master David Jones and graffiti from the Roman catacombs. Jonah also wrote five books; one of his most notable hallmarks was his versatility. See the Image galleries at www.sceneandword.org/jonah_jones.html Peter Jones’s biography of Jonah Jones will be published later this year by Seren Books.

Art

E X T R A

Aneurin and Meirion Jones: Celebrating Aberteifi’s past

his year the town of Aberteifi/Cardigan is celebrating 900 years of existence. To commemorate this great milestone, the Aberteifi 2010 Committee commissioned artists Aneurin and Meirion Jones to create a visual depiction of some of the ‘colourful, violent and dramatic’ events in the town’s history. Cambria asked Aneurin what it had been like working with his son on such a project. “We are used to working together and have worked on similar commissions before, and we have a good understanding of each other.” Aneurin said. “But it is a big piece, over six feet by four, and it was physically hard - an Arthurian effort, at times - standing in the same position for hours on end every day!” Aneurin muses that “the painting evolved over a six month period until finally the composition became strong and meaningful. It then becomes a simplification process, and as we simplify, we mystify”. Meirion adds that he and his father “spent as much time discussing and visualising the scene, as we did working on the painting itself. For the history of the period, we relied heavily on the work of Father Seamus Cunnane. The clarity and thoroughness of his research gave us a solid foundation.” The eye is immediately drawn to the centre of the painting which portrays the first National Eisteddfod held at Cardigan Castle under the patronage of The Lord Rhys ap Gruffydd in 1176. The first chaired bard is congratulated in the great feasting hall in the presence of guests from Britain and the Celtic countries. The chronicler describes the scene thus:

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‘At Christmas of that year [1176] the Lord Rhys held court in splendour at Cardigan castle, and set two kinds of contest there: one between bards and poets, another between harpists and crowders and pipers and various classes of music-craft. And he had two chairs set for the victors. Of the harpists, a young man from Rhys’s court won the victory. As between the bards, those of Gwynedd prevailed.’

The battle of Crug Mawr (1136) takes up the left side of the work. The first exchanges of the skirmish occurred on the conical hill just north of Cardigan, referred to locally as Banc y Warin, but in the Medieval period was known as Y Crug Mawr. The Normans and Flemings were decisively defeated, and were driven southwards to the banks of the Teifi by the castle. In the ensuing mayhem, the wooden bridge gave way under the weight of the fleeing Normans, according to an eye witness account: “it was a wretched spectacle to see crowds passing to and fro across a bridge formed by the horrible mass of human corpses.” The other side of the composition shows the scene in 1171 when the king of England demanded from Rhys eighty-six of his ‘choiciest’ horses. In return, Rhys’s son Hywel, was returned to Cardigan after being held hostage by the Normans. “There are areas of silence in the painting, but for the most part it is a riot/swirl of activity befitting the turbulent and colourful history of medieval Cardigan.” Aneurin adds. The painting was unveiled by Elin Jones AM on the 15th July and will be housed permanently in Cardigan’s Guild Hall. A limited edition of 200 A3 prints is available. Contact Sue Lewis at: sue.lewis@tivysideadvertiser.co.uk

or Catrin Miles at: miles_c@hotmail.co.uk

The proceeds are being donated to the Castle’s restoration appeal.

EDUCATION

An early vision of the University of Wales JOHN HEYWOOD THOMAS

n the opening to his The University of Wales: An Illustrated History Geraint Jenkins says that although Queen Victoria ‘had spent only seven nights in Wales and usually referred to her Welsh subjects with illconcealed contempt’ Welsh applause for her ‘was never more enthusiastic than when the Great Seal was affixed to the Royal Charter which constituted the University of Wales on 30 November 1893’. That, in itself, demonstrates how ardent and long-standing had been the ambition of Wales to have its own University. The tradition and love of learning had been evident centuries before through William Morgan’s great achievement in the production of the Welsh Bible, he himself being a notable example of the way in which Wales was not cut off from European culture and learning. An embryonic University of Wales in Neath Abbey in the fifteenth century is probably the stuff of dreams even more than of legend. What we know is that according to Iolo Morganwg Henry VII had granted to Lleision the Abbot of Neath a charter for the establishment of a University there; but

of hard historical evidence we have none. However, there is clear historical evidence of an early vision forty years prior to the University’s constitution. The hero of our story is Benjamin Thomas Williams (1832-96). At the time of the plan’s publication Williams was an expatriate Welsh student in Glasgow. He was the son of The Rev. T.R. Williams, minister of the Independent Church in Templeton, Pembrokeshire. Doubtless his earliest education had been at the day and boarding school which his father established for ‘farmers’ sons’, a school which in fact is mentioned not unfavourably in the Blue Books. At the remarkably early age of fourteen Benjamin was admitted to the Presbyterian College, Carmarthen. The college had been founded by Samuel Jones, a former Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, who had been ejected from his living at Llangynwyd church in 1662 and then established a school in his house, Brynllywarch Farm. It was an Academy for Dissenters who at that time could enter neither the Welsh Grammar Schools nor the English Universities. Such was its early renown that it was widely supported as an educational establishment. Like other such academies its curriculum was wide and in no way concerned simply with the preparation of candidates for the ministry of nonconformist churches. The Academy opened in Carmarthen in 1704 and after some moves in the neighbouring area it finally settled there in 1743. One of the earliest Academies and, by the opening of the nineteenth century, the only non-sectarian centre of higher education in Wales, the College was often called ‘The Welsh Academy’. Its non-sectarian character was established and maintained by the fact that it was controlled by the Presbyterian Board, which links it more with the Unitarian trend of eighteenth century English Presbyterianism than the narrower range of Welsh Nonconformity. The Curriculum had remained very wide throughout the nineteenth century; and evidence of this was visible when I myself was a student there in the late nineteen forties. What I clearly remember is not only the few incunabula such as a manuscript letter from Joseph Priestley but the odd scientific textbook in the library and particularly the skeleton of the human body which for some reason had been preserved. To resume Williams’s story, he had clearly valued the education he

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received at Carmarthen since he describes the College as ‘upon the whole an institution highly creditable to the Principality’. Foremost among the benefits of such education for him was the emphasis on toleration, an anti-sectarianism that remained the ethos of the Bishop Connop Thirlwall College throughout its existence (I well remember one of the Professors, himself a Baptist, saying in reference to denominational division ‘Here there is neither Greek nor Jew, neither bond nor free’). Matriculating in the University of London in 1849 Williams gained a Dr. Williams Scholarship (The Dr. Williams Trust having been active in enabling Dissenters to proceed to University education). In 1850 he began his brilliant career at the University of Glasgow where he won the Senior Logic Prize and the Silver Medal for Metaphysics, graduating B.A. in 1853 and M.A. in 1854. After some hesitant steps towards an ecclesiastical career he entered Gray’s Inn in 1856 and was called to the Bar in 1859. He crowned a successful career at the Bar by being appointed Recorder of Carmarthen in 1872 and County Court Judge for Glamorgan in 1881, having been for the previous six years Carmarthen’s first Nonconformist MP. Our interest in Williams has less to do with his distinguished career than what he later described as a ‘boyish pamphlet’. It is in this pamphlet that we have the early vision to which my title refers. Remarkably visionary the proposal was, raising a fundamental problem of our national life and in many ways illustrating the continuing problems of higher education in Wales, The pamphlet was entitled The Desirableness of a University for Wales, inscribed ‘To the Rt. Rev. Connop Thirlwall, D.D., Lord Bishop of St. Davids’ ‘with every feeling of admiration and respect by His Lordship’s most faithful servant’. If the language seems to us obsequious one must remember not only what was then a customary formality of address but also Thirlwall’s personal distinction - and possibly the diocese’s traditional support for education. Thirlwall had been appointed to St. Davids in 1840 with the reputation of being ‘the foremost scholar of his day in Europe’. Certainly he was a character of rare spirit: whilst a tutor at Trinity College Cambridge he had become involved in a controversy which cost him his Tutorship. He had signed a petition supporting the Bill in favour of the admission of dissenters to academic degrees, which had been introduced in Parliament. The

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Whilst a tutor at Trinity College Cambridge Thirlwall had become involved in a controversy which cost him his Tutorship. He had signed a petition supporting the Bill in favour of the admission of dissenters to academic degrees

Regius Professor of Divinity opposed the proposal and Thirlwall wrote a reply in which he made some contemptuous remarks about College services and Theology lectures. Williams must have thought that here, then, was a person who would be likely to support his plan, the crucial feature of which was the creation of opportunity for dissenters. There was perhaps too the feeling that under Thirlwall’s predecessor, Burgess, St. Davids had given encouragement to the wide development of learning by the founding of literary Cambrian Societies. Whatever the reason, the Bishop of St. Davids seemed to Williams a probable strong and weighty supporter of the proposal that Welsh Dissenters would in future be able to enjoy a university education in their own land (Wales’s only opportunity for university education, St. David’s College, Lampeter, founded by Bishop Burgess in 1827, being confined to Anglicans). Though Williams spoke with gratitude and respect for the education he had received at Carmarthen he noted that the small number of tutors in such colleges meant that ‘those subjects which professedly are taught in our present Colleges are passed over but superficially both by Professors and Students’. The contrast between what he had left in Wales and what he now knew in Glasgow impressed him deeply. His proposal, then, was that all the colleges be merged into one liberal University College which would be strictly non-sectarian. I cannot avoid a personal aside because in the 1950s I was asked to give a talk on BBC Wales and I proposed to argue that all Wales’s theological colleges be merged into one nonsectarian college sited in Lampeter which was then facing an uncertain future as a university. I was told that the talk could not go ahead because the denominational authorities did not deem the time to be right for such a

plan. It is interesting that Williams did not want the non-sectarian college to be a secular institution like University College, London. He showed - whether diplomatically or not - a marked deference to the Established Church. The Professors of Theology should not be restricted in their teaching but their appointment would be subject to the religious test of approval by the Established Church. As if to anticipate and meet any suggestion of a contradiction here he envisaged that each denomination would have its own Divinity Hall, supervised by one of its ministers. Even so, the Established Church would have a special privilege because only its Divinity Hall would be an actual part of the University. He envisaged colleges located at Carmarthen, Swansea and either Cardigan or Lampeter. Williams’s pamphlet did not go unnoticed: ironically it was opposed by one of the staff of the very Academy he venerated. Dr. Thomas Nicholas, then a professor at the Presbyterian College, Carmarthen, wrote a series of articles in Cambria Daily Leader, later published as the pamphlet, Middle and Higher Schools and a University of Wales, in which he rejected Williams’ suggestion that the University be an amalgam of the existing colleges. This clearly illustrates what was not only the mood of the time but an abiding religious attitude in Wales. Nicholas argued that the very non-sectarian principles Williams advocated would have damaging consequences. The freedom to expound conflicting opinions would engender not toleration but ‘compromise and subjection, reserve and suppression’. Also he took the opposite view from Williams - the model for the constitution and function of the University would be the ‘Somerset House’ University of London, to which the various colleges would be affiliated. Nicholas gained much support, especially after his address to the Swansea Eisteddfod of 1863. The supporters set up a Committee and Nicholas left his post in Carmarthen to go to London as its secretary. The aim of the Committee was to seek the estab-

lishment of new unsectarian colleges as units of the new University. It was hoped that St. David’s College, Lampeter, would join; but that hope was dashed by Lampeter’s gaining powers of conferring degrees in 1865. In fact this was in many ways a relief to the warring Anglicans and Nonconformists. Fifteen years later Gladstone established the Departmental Committee ‘to inquire into the present condition of Intermediate and Higher Education in Wales, and to recommend the measures which they think advisable for improving and supplementing the provision that is now, or might be made, available for such education in the Principality’. It was required to consider again ‘the desirableness of a University for Wales’. The Committee reported in 1881, recommending the support of provincial colleges. Aberystwyth had already been in existence for nine years and in 1883 Cardiff gained its College with Bangor a year later. In evidence to the Departmental Committee Williams had said that his preference now was for ‘one large and successful national institution’...‘say at Cardiff ’. This later vision like his early vision of the University of Wales was to be disappointed: a federal university would be the reality. Ironically that too has suffered a seachange.

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MOTORING

Batteries included JOHN A EDWARDS

fter decades of neglect the electric car is at last coming into its own. In fact electricity was arguably the first source of power for an automobile when a Mr Davidson unveiled a crude vehicle powered by jar batteries in Edinburgh in 1842 but it was the invention of the accumulator in 1880 that made the electric car a viable proposition. Further development was done chiefly by the French and incredibly between 1898 and 1902 the World Land Speed Record was held by electric cars the most famous of which was the torpedo-shaped ‘jamais contente’ driven by Camille Jenatzy at a speed of 65.79mph the first car to reach 100 kph. Its name (never satisfied) was entirely appropriate as no one could be happy with the electric car’s Achilles heel - its abysmal range which over the years has condemned it to the fringes of motoring. But times change and technology has moved on. Due to the high cost and shortage of fossil fuels together with the availability of more efficient batteries, the electric car and its hybrid derivative are at last making dramatic inroads into mainstream motoring. Virtually every

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manufacturer (even Ferrari!) now has an electric or hybrid model either in production or at the development stage. Electric cars can be divided into two main categories - the pure electric with lithium-ion batteries which have to be charged from a mains supply, and the hybrid powered by a combination of battery and engine. Both are free of road tax and London congestion charges. It is a question of horses-forcourses: the pure electric car is

THE SUCCESS OF THE HYBRID TOYOTA PRIUS

cheaper to buy and although the range is now improved (generally to around 100 - 120 miles) it inevitably limits the car’s appeal. Typical use would be as a second car for mothers on the school run or as a runabout for elderly drivers who never undertake long journeys. In this context, it promises to offer trouble-free motoring without high service costs and the inconvenience of visiting filling stations. Obviously the electricity used for charging has to be paid for (a figure of 3p per mile is usually quoted) and at present this will work out considerably cheaper than running a conventional car.

But the electric car cannot gain general acceptance until a national charging infrastructure has been established. However entrepreneurial UK hotel owners could easily pre-empt this now by offering rooms with dedicated parking spots incorporating charging facilities so making a touring holiday feasible in an electric car. A full charge from the normal mains supply usually takes around 10 hours but special charging points with higher power outputs

hatchback has been boosted by attractive styling. Prices range from £19,505 to £22,610.

can halve this time. In contrast, the hybrid is a ‘proper’ car where long distances can be covered without relying on charging points so avoiding ‘range anxiety’ which is the main deterrent to electric car ownership. Up to speeds of around 30mph hybrids can be powered by the battery alone so reducing noise and eliminating emissions, ideal for city centre use. At higher speeds a petrol or diesel engine takes over and when maximum acceleration is required both battery and engine power cut in together. In addition, with both pure electric and hybrid cars, there’s the ben-

efit of electricity being regenerated during coasting and braking when the electric motor recharges rather than depletes the battery, a rare ‘something for nothing’ scenario in motoring. Pioneers of the hybrid have been Toyota with the Prius and Honda with the Insight and its hard to believe that both have been around for some ten years now. They are more costly than similar-sized ‘normal’ cars but have the benefit of lower fuel costs (a combined consumption of 70.6mpg for the Prius for example) while allowing owners to flaunt their green credentials, a fact not lost on many show business celebrities. The Renault-Nissan Alliance is also now seriously entering the electric car market and is building a factory in Sunderland to make lithi-

um-ion batteries. It predicts that by 2020, electric cars will take around 10% of the market. In future motoring - batteries will definitely be included!

Not exactly electrifying

n 1989 I went on a Peugeot press launch to the magnificent L’Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud near Tours in western France (well worth a visit) where Alienor, who in 1154 became queen of England as well as France, is buried together with her son Richard the Lionheart. This is a location of beauty and charm, memorable to me for my first drive in an electric car. This was a standard production Peugeot 106 in which the internal combustion engine had been removed and replaced by nickelL’ABBAYE ROYALE DE FONTEVRAUD

cadmium batteries which powered an electric motor driving the front axle. It had normal passenger and luggage capacity and was indistinguishable from the standard model except for the absence of engine noise. It felt lively as all electric vehicles do on initial acceleration but the top speed was only 62mph and the range a disappointing 62 miles between charges. At the time Peugeot said that they hoped to launch the car in the UK the following year but of course that never happened probably due to the price – not determined but possibly 50% higher than the equivalent petrol-engined model and there was the handicap of that meagre range. But twenty years on, the electric car is being re-born.

provides a dramatic backdrop to the Peugeot 106 Electrique.

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+44 (0)1834 860 915 +44 (0)7881 673 592 EMAIL: info@thegrove-narberth.co.uk

www.thegrove-narberth.co.uk

SIR GAERFYRDDIN THE ANGEL, Salem, Llandeilo,Tel (01558) 823394 Former Welsh Chef of the Year Rod Peterson has built up a well deserved reputation for top quality produce and cooking at this highly acclaimed restaurant cum pub which features in The Good Food Guide. Swansea bay mussels with Thai green curry sauce, roast saddle of venison served with prune boudin, all done to perfection. Breads and ice creams are also freshly made on site. Two AA rosettes. From £20. From £22

FAIRYHILL BAR AND BRASSERIE @ MACHYNYS, Machynys Peninsula, Llanelli, Carmarthenshire. Tel: (01554) 744994 (for Brasserie bookings) Looking onto the Loughor Estuary and the Gower, the ethos is consistent with that of Fairyhill at Reynoldston and the ambience is assisted by contemporary wood and slate. The Bar offers hot griddled paninis, and local pork sausages, mash & onion gravy, while the Brasserie serves dishes like real prawn cocktail & spicy sauce, and Machynys fishcakes, warm tartare sauce and steamed greens. Starters from £3.25, Main courses from £10.00.

Y FFIGYSBREN - THE FIG TREE, Dryslwyn Fawr, Llanarthne, Tel (01558) 668187. Converted from a thresh-

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ing barn this stunning contemporary restaurant is Routier Listed with menus which include delicious slow roasted lamb shank in a port and black cherry sauce and pan fried chicken supreme with chorizo and sunblushed tomatoes. Wonderful home made puddings and ice creams also feature on the Sunday lunch set menu - £16.95. Accommodation available in 51cottages from £60.00 per day .

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CEREDIGION THE FALCONDALE MANSION HOTEL, Llanbedr-pont-steffan / Lampeter, West Wales. Tel (01570) 422910. This Victorian mansion is situated at

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the head of a forested valley, overlooking the university and market town of Llanbedr-pontsteffan/Lampeter, in fourteen acres of parkland with a ten-acre lake. Signature dishes on the Brasserie menu include Pantysgawn goats’ cheese croute, braised lamb ‘Henrietta’ with a honey and mustard sauce, and banana fritters in cinnamon sugar as a dessert. From £18

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GWYNEDD BODYSGALLEN HALL, Llandudno, Tel (01492) 584466 www.bodysgallen.com A magnificent seventeenth cen-

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tury country house surrounded by wonderful gardens, with traditional country house style cooking. Sample the baked Welsh goat’s cheese soufflé, baked turbot with noodles and a Provençale dressing and chocolate fondant to finish. From £22

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PLAS BODEGROES, Pwllheli, Tel (01758) 612363 www.bodegroes.co.uk Elegant, romantic and unpretentious. A very pretty Georgian house set in beautiful grounds with something for every season. A classic menu with style: seared breast of pigeon on bubble and squeak, smoked chicken and celeriac soup, kebab of mountain lamb on a bed of cous cous, apricot and ginger parfait. Michelin Star Sunday lunch £17.50 Appetiser and three courses £40

Crug-Glas Country House 22222 Situated near St Davids, 1 mile inland from the coast, offering accommodation of the highest standard, rooms with copper baths to double spa baths and four poster beds. In the dining room we offer outstanding food using the finest local produce. ABEREIDDY, SOLVA, HAVERFORDWEST, PEMBROKESHIRE, SA62 6XX TEL: 01348 831302 EMAIL: janet@crugglas.plus.com

www.crug-glas.co.uk

MORGANNWG FAIRYHILL, Reynoldston, Gower, Nr Swansea, Tel (01792) 390139 www.fairyhill.net This charming hotel has ample grounds to explore, including woodland and a trout stream. A wide variety of choices on the menu include chicken and laverbread sausage, Welsh Black fillet of beef with a crispy won ton and chilli sauce, followed by seasonal poached pears in red wine. From £18.95

CASNEWYDD / NEWPORT THE CHANDLERY RESTAURANT, Newport, NP20 EHTel (01633) 256622 www.thechandleryrestaurant.com Beautifully restored Grade 2 listed building – a relaxing place to dine. Former National Chef of Wales, Simon Newcombe and wife Jane have achieved accolades in all major food guides, including 2AA rosettes and a Michelin Bib Gourmand. Seasonal à la carte and business lunch menus updated regularly on website. Enjoy Trio of Duck (potted duck, Lady Llanover salt duck, foie gras), Roast Loin of Brecon Venison with balsamic braised red cabbage, pommes cocotte, Hot Chocolate Fondant with white chocolate mousse, milk chocolate sorbet. 3 course a la carte approx. £27.00. 3 course business lunch £12.95.

PENFRO LLYS MEDDYG, Trefdraeth / Newport. Tel (01239) 820008 A cosy bar, walls hung with paintings by Peter Daniels, an open fire and candlelight, provide an intimate atmosphere. To start, try the DoubleSmoked Salmon Surprise, followed by Supreme of Organic Chicken with Ginger, Lime and Green Onion, and the Chocolate Orange Truffle Cake for dessert. From £19.

POWYS BARN AT BRYNICH, Brynich, Aberhonddu/Brecon, Tel (01874) 623480 www.barn-restaurant.co.uk Converted 17th Century barn restaurant in a beautiful courtyard setting with panoramic views of the Brecon Beacons. Also self catering accommodation adjoining. Superb seasonal menus featuring home grown and local produce including Welsh Black Beef and Breconshire lamb. Main courses from £9 to £18.

CARLTON RIVERSIDE (formerly Carlton House) Llanwrtyd Wells, Tel (01591) 610 248 www.carltonrestaurant.co.uk This restaurant with rooms has changed location but maintained its strong culinary identity in Britain’s smallest town. With an impressive backdrop, the menu is as breathtaking as the scenery that surrounds it, inside and out! The menu embraces the ingredients of Wales but unleashes them in a European style that shows itself in such dishes as the Warm Salad of Seared Scallops, which incorporates Carmarthen ham and the Roast Fillet of Local Beef with a morel and Madeira sauce. Daily Menu £35 for four courses. Room rates from £40

FELIN FACH GRIFFIN, Felin Fach, Nr Aberhonddu/Brecon, Tel (01874) 620111 www.felinfach.com This is a traditional, farmhouse style inn, with a very relaxed atmosphere. It has a good variety of seasonal soups, gazpacho being one of them, divine Wye salmon, accompanied by new potatoes with chive butter, and home made chocolate mousse, making it simple yet still managing to get the taste buds going! From £18

LAKE VYRNWY HOTEL & SPA, Llanwddyn, Powys, SY10 0LY Tel: 01691 870 692 www.lakevyrnwyhotel.co.uk Our menus reflect a genuine enthusiasm for food, using the very best local ingredients and classical bases and reductions to produce modern British cuisine. Our restaurant overlooks the stunning Vyrnwy reservoir and dishes include: Seared tuna loin, glazed with Welsh rarebit on a tomato and red onion salad, followed by Roast shoulder and cutlet of lamb, smoked bacon, pea and leek compote with braised shallots and garlic. For dessert Rhubarb clafoutis tart with vanilla ice cream, served in a tuille basket. 3 course lunch £19.50, 5 course dinner £39.95

MYNWY THE BELL AT SKENFRITH, Monmouthshire, Tel (01600 750235) www.skenfrith.co.uk (OS 457200)

THE DRAGON INN, Crughywel /Crickhowell, Powys NP8 1BE. Tel (01873) 810362 www.dragoncrickhow-

More a restaurant with eight extremely comfortable rooms, The Bell is perched on the banks of the River Monnow, surrounded by beautiful Welsh countryside. The regularly changing menu offers fresh, seasonal food from mainly local suppliers with vegetables, herbs and fruit from The Bell’s own kitchen garden. Scallops, Fillet of Welsh Beef and Steamed Sponge Pudding, Earl Grey Syrup and Jam-on-Toast Ice Cream are some of the hot favourites. The wine list is extensive and very good value. After eating, try one of The Bell’s very popular walks.

ell.co.uk This Grade II2, Visit Wales 32, historic Inn on Crickhowell High Street has been providing hospitality for over 400 years. Under head chef Robert Duggan the restaurant offers a combination of traditional British and modern European dishes, sourcing local meat and vegetables. Fish is brought in daily from Plymouth and Swansea. Dishes include Monkfish & Prawns in a creamy, garlic sauce; pheasant with Stilton and bacon on braised red cabbage and port wine sauce; breast of duck on wilted Pakchoy with egg noodles and honey & soy dressing.

If it’s not here, how can we recommend it?!

THE HAND at LLANARMON

A centuries-old inn set in the heart of the beautiful Ceiriog Valley - “The Valley of the Poets” - some of the most breathtaking countryside in Wales. Superb cuisine, freshly prepared from locally sourced produce with a minimum of fuss and formality and, of course, drinks for every taste. Comfortable accommodation in ‘Character’ and ‘Country’ rooms, maintained to the highest standards.

THE HAND AT LLANARMON, LLANARMON DC, CEIRIOG VALLEY, LLANGOLLEN LL20 7LD T:

01691 60 06 66 E: reception@thehandhotel.co.uk www.thehandhotel.co.uk

TYDDYN LLAN

Llangoed Hall

RESTAURANT WITH ROOMS

Voted Wales' Good Food Guide Restaurant of the Year 2010

LLANGOED HALL HOTEL LLYSWEN, BRECON, POWYS, LD3 0YP EMAIL: enquiries@llangoedhall.com TEL:

01874 754525

FAX:

01874 754545

The Dragon Inn

Some of the finest food in Wales Please contact us for up to date special offers or visit www.tyddynllan.co.uk LLANDRILLO, NR. CORWEN, DENBIGHSHIRE, NORTH WALES LL21 0ST 01490 440264 FAX 01490 440414 EMAIL tyddynllan@compuserve.com

TEL

PENTRE-MAWR COUNTRY HOUSE

The hotel is open all year for lunch and dinner except Sunday evenings. The Dragon is a superb base for exploring Powys, Gwent and the South Eastern Valleys.

5 star country house hotel. AA finalist 2009/10, Landlady of the Year. Restaurant open to non-residents Friday to Saturday.

THE DRAGON INN, CRICKHOWELL TEL: 01873 810362 www.dragoncrickhowell.co.uk

Lake Vyrnwy Hotel & Spa

LLANDYRNOG, NR. DENBIGH, LL16 4LA Tel: 01824 790732 Email: info@pentremawrcountryhouse.co.uk www.pentremawrcountryhouse.co.uk

Sychnant Pass House OPEN ALL WEEK TO NON-RESIDENTS LICENSED FOR CIVIL CEREMONIES HEATED POOL, SUITES WITH HOT TUBS

Lake Vyrnwy Hotel & Spa, Llanwddyn, Powys, SY10 OLY

Telephone 01691 870 692 to make a booking EMAIL: info@lakevyrnwyhotel.co.uk

www.lakevyrnwyhotel.co.uk

TEL: 01492 585486 info@sychnant-pass-house.co.uk www.sychnant-pass-house.co.uk

EMAIL:

TheWelsh Kitchen

DOROTHY DAVIES

Salad days

eople often say to me that they don’t like salad, I can only think that the word had conjured up a picture of a few floppy lettuce leaves, some slices of cucumber and quartered tomatoes. It can be dull and it can be deliciously perfect: crisp, clean and fresh but the quality of the ingredients is crucial. Once you have tasted a good tomato ripened by the sun you can never return to the rather tasteless, slightly sour and neatly uniform so called ‘salad’ variety. My first introduction to good tomatoes was picnicking in France, large, knobbly, sweet marmande, and later in Turkey huge tomatoes, more pink than red when you cut them open, delicious raw, and when you cooked with them one could give flavour, colour and substance to a dish, unlike the tomatoes so widely available here which produce a huge amount of liquid and if used for cooking are required by the kilo. The word salad comes from the French salade derived from the Latin salata for salty, it can apply to any vegetables tossed with salt, and sometimes with vinegar and oil as well. I wasn’t very fond of salad as a child, I wasn’t keen on vegetables full stop, however, over the years a love of them has grown and grown. I couldn’t quite forsake meat altogether but a small amount does me fine, generally speaking most of us eat far too much of it. One of my oldest friends is Armenian, a fantastic cook and the best salad maker I know, she taught me that a good salad can give anything a lift. In my early twenties I worked not far from where she lived and would sometimes go around to her flat for lunch, maybe a bought quiche or bread and cold meats but always a salad. One of my favourites was made with warm broccoli, sliced red onion and chopped tomatoes, the broccoli was cooked until just al dente, meanwhile cut the onion (the amount is down to your liking for it, I am not a fan of raw onion and I did try leaving it out, but the flavour was wrong, flat, a bit is necessary, I recommend a small amount very finely chopped and then some larger bits which can be

C a mbr i a THE NATIONAL MAGAZINE OF WALES CYLCHGRAWN CENEDLAETHOL CYMRU

easily avoided) and tomatoes, put them in a bowl, as soon as the broccoli has been drained add it, pour over the juice of a lemon, a sprinkle of salt and douse with good olive oil, toss well, the balance of oil and lemon is a question of taste. The warm broccoli drinks up the dressing. Apparently, in Armenia, many vegetables are treated in this fashion, cabbage is very popular done like this. French beans are delicious done in this style too and you only need the addition of some tuna fish (Morrisons finest Albacore is good) and new potatoes for a very good summer meal. Runner beans were probably my children’s first introduction to how delicious vegetables can be. Dice an onion finely and fry gently in a generous amount of olive oil in a large saucepan which has a tight lid, peel and dice 1lb tomatoes (plum tomatoes are probably the best fresh cooking variety available here, otherwise tinned are better for cooking) when the onion has been softened add these, cook for a few minutes, meanwhile slice at least 1lb beans (a bean slicer is an invaluable piece of kit, firstly doing the job in a fraction of the time and secondly slicing uniformly), add these to the saucepan with half a cup of water, a teaspoon of sugar and a bit of salt, mix well, then cover and cook very gently for at least an hour. These can be eaten either hot or cold, I would recommend making them when you have a glut and doing a huge amount, having some hot and then keeping the rest, after a day or two it tastes even better, and if any are left over they freeze well. A good accompaniment, great picnic food, but all they really need is some crusty bread for mopping up the rich, oily juices. MWYNHEWCH!

Achub y Plant - Save the Children Women in Wales Luncheon, City Hall, Caerdydd, 2010 ALL PHOTOGRAPHS

O N L O O K E R

RYAN

- SAVE and the great work the organisation does for children in around the world - and especially in Wales which has one of the worst rates of child poverty in the industrialised world. Please support this excellent charity by visiting www.savethechildren.org.uk or by contacting Sharon Donald on 029 2034 5224 cambria IS PROUD TO SUPPORT ACHUB Y PLANT

Organisers Jenni Ogwen and Hon. Shân Legge-Bourke

THE CHILDREN

Welsh History in the making!

SUBSCRIBE TODAY! Call 0845 166 2147 www.cambriamagazine.com

Neath Steam & Vintage Show Cefn Coed Colliery Museum Site

O N L O O K E R

ALL PHOTOGRAPHS

RYAN

MARI STERLING

he solemn stillness of the rusting pit head wheel at the Cefn Coed Colliery near Crynant in the Neath Valley as long since reverberated to the rattle and hum of mechanical activity and the buzz of humankind. Once the deepest coal mine in the world at 2,500 feet, in recent times it has been transformed into a small self-contained Coal Museum, the rigoured and corroding cables of the Pit Wheel drum cemented into a

long-since capped shaft. On two spring-like days in early May 2010, Cefn Coed’s rather ugly carpet of flattened colliery spoil and concrete surroundings sprang into life with the opening of the first Neath Steam & Vintage Show. Organised by members of the Neath Old Tractor & Commercial Club with the kind permission of Neath & Port Talbot County Borough Council, the event saw a mini invasion of sightseers, curious locals and tourists who flocked to the site under uncertain skies - it was, after all, a bank holiday and this is Wales! Oily boffins and assorted ‘Fred Dibnah’ lookalikes buffed and pampered gleaming traction engines, which hissed and fretted steam like petulant wives and girlfriends. A brightly painted assortment of vintage lorries, ancient farm tractors, classic retro automotives, as well as old No 29 red buses formed a wagon-train circle at the site. More at home as Dinky Toys, or in a ‘Matchbox’ series in a bygone age, they were there in ‘Hands On’ real life to be investigated. Small kids scurried about pointing excitedly as they became captivated by things not remotely related to X-Boxes. Mums queued patiently at snack vans for the regulation burgers and ice creams, whilst dads made for the welcome of the beer tent, which not only served as a haven of rest, but also a makeshift evacuation shelter from the odd unexpected downpour. Under the shadow of the landmark Colliery Winding Gear Tower

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in the main arena, were ancient tractor and steam engine parades which drew in the crowds. There were also many side shows, stalls and other diverse curiosities to explore and keep the normally computer-hungry population amused with more conventional fayre. Members on of the Ystradgynlais 4 x 4 Overlanders Club supplied high-octane thrills and spills with some extreme driving action, as they showed those of us who have difficulty reversing out of our driveways what it takes to really handle a 4 x 4 vehicle in some alarming situations and at eye-popping angles. The aim of the Neath Steam & Vintage Show was to raise much-needed money for cash-starved local charities, and in that it most certainly seems to have succeeded. There is now talk of another even more exciting event next year.

Y Gelli/Hay Festival 2010 O N L O O K E R

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ALL PHOTOGRAPHS

RYAN

MARI STERLING

BAFTA Cymru 2010 ALL PHOTOGRAPHS

RYAN

O N L O O K E R

MARI STERLING

SOME OF THE FACES AT THE 19TH BAFTA CYMRU AWARDS CEREMONY AT THE WALES MILLENNIUM CENTRE 2010 CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT:

Alex Jones; Bryn

Terfel; Betsan Powys; Margaret John; Connie Fisher and Jeremy Reed; Shân Cothi; Lucie Jones; Emma Walford and Dudley Newbury; Rob Brydon

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THE NATIONAL MAGAZINE OF WALES CYLCHGRAWN CENEDLAETHOL CYMRU

DEFNYDDIWCH eich Cymraeg ! MIRANDA MORTON

Rygbi

ae Pencampwriaeth y Chwe Gwlad drosodd am flwyddyn arall. Mae hi’n well peidio â siarad am berfformiad Cymru. Ond os yw Cymru wedi ennill neu golli, mae pob cefnogwr rygbi yn cael hwyl ac mae awyrgylch arbennig yng nghanol y ddinas. Pan mae gêm rygbi rhyngwladol yn y stadiwm, mae popeth yn newid. Yn wahanol i’r rhan fwyaf o drefi a dinasoedd sydd â stadiwm fawr, mae Stadiwm y Mileniwm yng nghanol dinas Caerdydd, yn agos iawn at yr orsaf bysiau a’r orsaf trenau. Mae ugeiniau o rwystrau dur o flaen yr orsaf trenau ac mae arwyddion mawr sy’n dweud “Gogledd,” “Dwyrain,” a “Gorllewin.” Mae pobl yn gallu dod i mewn i’r orsaf trwy’r brif fynedfa, ond mae’n rhaid i bawb adael trwy’r fynedfa yn y cefn. Unwaith, ro’n i wedi trefnu gweld ffrindiau yn y Fenni ar ddiwrnod gêm. Dim problem, meddyliais i, rydw i’n gadael Caerdydd ac mae’r cefnogwyr rygbi yn dod i Gaerdydd. Camgymeriad mawr! Pan es i i’r orsaf, roedd llond trên o gefnogwyr wedi cyraedd. Roedd cymaint o gefnogwyr yn dod allan o’r orsaf, doedd dim modd i fi gyrraedd y platfform. Ro’n i’n aros am o leiaf ddeg munud. Wedyn, daeth trên arall, o Gaerfyrddin, oedd yn llawn o gefnogwyr rygbi. Ro’n i’n aros am ddeg munud arall wrth i ugeiniau ac ugeiniau o gefnogwyr adael y trên a’r orsaf. Mae digon o le yn y stadiwm i 72,000 o bobl. Dychmygwch 72,000 o bobl yn dod i Gaerdydd. Ers i’r stadiwm agor ym 1999, pan mae gêm rygbi rhyngwladol yn y stadiwm, mae’r heddlu a’r cyngor yn cau’r strydoedd o gwmpas y stadiwm i geir a bysiau. Mae gormod o bobl yn crwydro o gwmpas - rhai o’r bobl yn feddw gaib felly mae hi’n rhy beryglus i gael ceir a bysiau ar y stryd. Ar ddiwrnod gêm am ddegawd felly, roedd pob bws yng Nghaerdydd yn dilyn llwybr gwahanol i’r llwybr arferol. Ar ddiwrnod gêm felly, roedd ugeiniau o bobl ddryslyd yn crwydro o gwmpas y dinas a gofyn “Ble mae’r bws?”. Ym mis Hydref y llynedd, penderfynodd Cyngor Dinas Caerdydd newid llwybrau’r bysiau i lwybrau’r diwrnod gêm yn barhaol, felly nawr mae llai o bobl ddryslyd ar ddiwrnod gêm. Ond does dim llai o bobl feddw gaib!

C a mbr i a THE NATIONAL MAGAZINE OF WALES CYLCHGRAWN CENEDLAETHOL CYMRU

Er bod canol y ddinas mor brysur ar ddiwrnod gêm rhyngwladol, mae pawb yn mwynhau’r awyrgylch. Mae’r cefnogwyr yn gwisgo crysau rygbi eu tîm, wrth gwrs, ac mae rhai yn peintio’u hwynebau â lliwiau’r tîm hefyd. Ond does dim ots pa dîm mae’r cefnogwyr yn ei gefnogi, mae pawb yn cael hwyl. Mae llawer o dynnu coes rhwng cefnogwyr y ddau dîm ond dydy’r cefngowyr rygbi dim yn troi’n gas, nac yn dechrau cwffio. Mae pawb mewn hwyliau da. Dros y gaeaf mae Cymru yn chwarae yn erbyn gwledydd Hemisffêr y De ac ym mis Chwefror 2011 mae Pencampwriaeth y Chwe Gwlad yn dechrau eto, gyda Chymru yn chwarae yn erbyn Lloegr yng Nghaerdydd. Mae un gêm arall yng Nghaerdydd y flwyddyn nesaf Cymru yn erbyn Iwerddon. Unwaith eto, bydd miloedd o gefnogwyr rygbi yng nghanol y ddinas ac unwaith eto bydd awyrgylch cyfeillgar, unigryw gêm rygbi rhyngwladol yng Nghaerdydd. GEIRFA Cefnogwr, cefnogwyr Cenhinen, cennin Cenhinen Pedr, cennin Pedr Cwffio doedd dim modd drosodd dryslyd llond trên o Mae hi’n well peidio â Meddw Meddw gaib Mynedfa, mynedfeydd Pencampwriaeth y Chwe Gwlad Rhan fwyaf Rhwystr, rhwystrau Tynnu coes Ugeiniau

supporter leek daffodil to fight there was no way over confused a train-ful of It’s best not to drunk legless entrance Six Nations Championship most barrier, obstacle to tease scores

Y Fenni

Abergavenny

Days

What to do in Wales this Summer

ANDREW THOMAS

Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland Railway

O N L O O K E R

rain enthusiasts will love to ride on the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland Railways! Enjoy these unique narrow-gauge steam railways as you pass through some of the most beautiful countryside in Wales. The historic trains of the Ffestiniog Railway - the oldest independent railway company in the world - will carry you through 13.5 miles of breathtaking landscapes of forests, pastures, lakes, and waterfalls, spiralling 700 feet above sea level, high into the mountains (and sometimes tunnelling through them!). The Welsh Highland Railway, meanwhile, is the newest in Wales, with a 22-mile-long scenic journey from just beside Caernarfon Castle, crossing Mount Snowdon, and zigzagging down the dramatic hillside through Aberglaslyn Pass before reaching Pont Croesor. It’s an exciting journey full of hairpin turns and hard gradients that can be enjoyed from a high-quality saloon carriage or even an open coach! Start your journey at www.festrail.co.uk or call 01766 516000. continues on page 49

Days Out

Caldey Island - Ynys Byˆr

day out to Caldey Island is unlike any other. The island is run by the Reformed Order of Cistercian monks, who live a simple life alongside a small village community. The peaceful atmosphere is reflected in the beautiful and serene wooded surroundings. You can explore the Old Priory and the medieval churches or join the free guided walk. Visitors can attend a chanted service in the Abbey Church, walk up to the lighthouse, or enjoy a picnic at the Tea Gardens. You may prefer simply to relax on the sandy beach at Priory Bay. You can buy chocolate, shortbread, and perfume made on the island. The village Post Office is also a museum displaying Caldey's history. Boats run to and from the island every 15 minutes from 9.30 am until 5.00 pm Monday-Friday and on Saturdays, from mid-May until mid-September. Tickets are available from the Caldey Island kiosk at Tenby harbour entrance (01834 843545). Information: www.caldey-island.co.uk or call 01834 844453.

Clyne Farm

CHALLENGE VALLEY

- the muddiest assault course in the world!

lyne Farm Centre, overlooking Swansea Bay and the Gower Peninsula, is the perfect place for a day of fun and excitement! Here you’re sure to find adventure, whether it’s canoeing, archery, surfing, climbing, or mountain biking. Located in Swansea, the Centre has 80 acres of wood land and pasture and offers activities for everyone. Experienced riders will enjoy the beach ride, and the less experienced can take their very first lesson. For the ultimate adventure, take on on Challenge Valley - the muddiest assault course in the world!! - as a group, everyone from 8 to 80 will have fun and wind up filthy! Clyne Farm even offers bushcraft weekends where you can learn to survive in the wild. Come for an afternoon or stay for days in our campsite or four star self catering cottages! Alternatively, B&B at nearby 5 Cwmdonkin Drive - the recently restored birthplace and home of Dylan Thomas. Information visit: www.clynefarm.com contact: cambria@clynefarm.com or call: 01792 403333

Monnow Valley Arts Centre

he Monnow Valley Arts Centre is located in a stunning situation overlooking the Hatterall ridge in the Black Mountains and features art exhibitions by artists from around the world. In the gallery 14 August to 26

September is Tom Perkins & Gaynor Goffe: Earth and Stone, with carved lettering by Tom and calligraphy by Gaynor. The husband and wife team are at the top of their profession, each with their own mature style. This new display complements the existing sculpture garden where there is the installation HOPE by Bangladeshi artist Abu Jafar (to 26 September). Visitors can also see prints made from the hand-painted calligraphy for the St. John’s Bible, the first hand-written bible on vellum in over 500 years. Visitors are welcome to picnic in our gardens and enjoy the many attractions and scenery. Contact us for details of other educational events and to join our mailing list. www.monnowvalleyarts.org

info@monnowvalleyarts.org

01873 860529

What’s

hot in Wales

HONORARY DOCTORATE FOR ARTIST DAVID GRIFFITHS. In recognition of his talent as a portrait painter, David Griffiths has been awarded an honorary Doctorate from the University of Wales. Together with the physicist Dr. Lyndon Evans, he was presented with the award by The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wales, Professor Marc Clement, at a ceremony in St David's Hall in May. The Most Revd Barry Morgan, Archbishop of Wales and Pro-Chancellor of The University of Wales commented: “David Griffiths's portraits have their own intrinsic value, but as a body of work representing the most important Welsh people of their time, they will surely contribute to defining the way that Welsh society will be viewed by future generations.” Receiving the award David Griffiths said: “It is both an honour and privilege to receive this award

Dr David Griffiths

which, I would like to think, recognises the long and distinguished tradition of portrait painting in Wales. If it is also supportive of one's efforts to maintain the highest standards of figurative art, then I hope it will be an encouragement to students to develop their own observational skills through portraiture.”

SOME OF WALES’S

FINEST ARTISTS STAR IN THE LATEST EXHIBITION AT PURE ART fine art gallery in Milford Haven Marina. The exhibition includes works by John Cleal, known for his sculptures and paintings of Fishguard; Arthur Giardelli, whose watercolours have earned him international recognition as one of Wales’ finest artists; Maurice Sheppard, the first Welsh president of the Royal Watercolour Society; and Donald McIntyre, whose paintings of the West Wales coastline made him one of Wales’ leading painters of the last few decades. Not only is this gallery a major destination for serious art Pembrokeshire by Arthur Giardelli

collectors in West Wales, but it’s also an opportunity to introduce several new artists. Many of the gallery’s regular exhibitors including

Jenny Jones, David Barnes, and Mike Jones are also showing. For more information, call Leslie Crascall at 01646 694591, email: gallery@artpure.co.uk, or visit www.artpure.co.uk.

THE NATIONAL BOTANIC

GARDEN HAS A WEALTH OF EVENTS OVER THE SUMMER. On Sunday August 15 at 2.30pm touring theatre company Quantum will present the Charles Dickens classic Great Expectations. You are encouraged to bring rugs or low-backed seating and a picnic. Over the August bank holiday there is a full programme of entertainment, on the 29th and 30th the visitors will be serenaded by the beautiful lilting sound of the harp. There will be two days of harp themed workshops, lectures, master classes, demonstrations and concert recitals. These events are open to all Garden visitors at no extra charge. SAVE THE CHILDREN Fund will also be in attendance adding a bit of their own mystery! For more information call: 01558 668768 or go to www.gardenofwales.org.uk

C a mbr i a THE NATIONAL MAGAZINE OF WALES CYLCHGRAWN CENEDLAETHOL CYMRU