WALES’S MAGAZINE
cambria The National Magazine of Wales VOLUME/CYFROL 12 NUMBER/RHIF 3
Cylchgrawn Cenedlaethol Cymru £3.50 € 3.50
A WARNING FROM HISTORY: Nationalism, militancy and the Investiture
GENERAL HENRY LLOYD one of Wales’s ‘Wild Geese’ Wales’s top secret military installation The Wild West Coast in colour
CONTENTS VOLUME 12 NUMBER 1
8 8 8
EDITOR’S LETTER
5
LETTERS
6
POLITICS& OPINION
9
11
Denis G. Campbell
COVER STORY: A WARNING FROM HISTORY The 1969 Investiture was seen by many as an expression of arrogance and subjection. It provoked strong feelings and acts of violence in Wales. WYN THOMAS examines why this was so.
WHERE ARE ALL THE KIDS? SIÔN JOBBINS looks at the ancient Welsh tradition of calennig and asks why today’s generation of children don’t seem to be doing it any more.
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THE WELSH GENERAL SYD MORGAN on the astonishing life, death and afterlife of General Henry Lloyd one of our very own ‘Wild Geese’.
WALES AT WAR PETER N. WILLIAMS
visits Rhydymwyn, the top secret and hugely influential World War II military installation in north-east Wales and finds a forgotten ruin.
8 8 8 8 8 8 8
PATRICK THOMAS BOYD CLACK
TRAVEL GARDENS CHRISTMAS GIFTS NATURE LITERATURE POETRY BOOKS
8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8
22 28 30 32 34 35 36 56 57
Memoirs of a Dreamer The other Cambria! - Cambria, California CAROLINE PALMER cambria’S
on The Gardens of High Glanau
suggestions for gifts this Christmas
CHRIS KINSEY
on Herons, wagtails and the Y moth
PHIL CARRADICE LESLIE NORRIS
on Sir Benfro; Profile - Raymond Garlick; Reviews
- Question and Answer
MEIC STEPHENS
on the publishing scene in Wales
OPERA ART
65
DAVID PETERSEN
ENVIRONMENT
68
VICKY MOLLER:
FOOD
70
DOROTHY DAVIES
HOTEL REVIEW
72
THE GROVE, NARBERTH, SIR BENFRO
ONLOOKER
73
The University of Wales Dylan Thomas Prize 2010
WHAT’S HOT
74
cambria’s
Y CLAWR / THE COVER:
20
Rhys Prichard of Llanymddyfri - ‘Yr hen Ficer’
58 60
CHRISTMAS QUIZ
15
A
‘Potpourri’ to keep you amused over Christmas
NORMA LORD:
Fidelio; The Magic Flute; Ariadne auf Naxos on Sir William Goscombe John
are EVs are the answer to transport problems? - Something to welcome The Three Kings
guide to events and exhibitions around Wales
St Govan’s, Sir Benfro © John Keates67 2010
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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 Canon Librarian of St Davids Cathedral and a cambria veteran.
PATRICK THOMAS
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
is a regular and valued contributor to Welsh periodicals. SIÔN JOBBINS
DENIS G. CAMPBELL
is the CEO and Editor of UK Progressive magazine
is a historian with a special interest in modern Welsh politics. WYN THOMAS
EDITOR
Frances Jones-Davies POLITICAL EDITOR
Clive Betts FEATURES EDITOR
Frances Davies LITERARY EDITOR
Meic Stephens EDITOR-AT-LARGE
Siôn T. Jobbins is a lifelong opera lover and music journalist. NORMA LORD
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
is a professional photographer specialising in extreme sports photography. CARL RYAN
is a poet who won the 2008 Wildlife Poet of the Year Competition.
CHRIS KINSEY BBC
RESEARCH EDITOR
Rhobert ap Steffan MOTORING EDITOR
John A Edwards ART DIRECTION
Simon Wigley PHOTOGRAPHY
David Williams, Carl Ryan, Mari Sterling, John Keates
is a professional photographer specialising in the landscape of Wales.
MARI STERLING
WEBMASTER
Chris Jones is an award-winning photographer and a regular contributor to cambria. JOHN KEATES
- 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 Cambria 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 Cambria 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. cambria
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FROM THE EDITOR
cambria IS NEVER VERY ‘CHRISTMASSY ’,
not least because after all, it has to last several weeks into the New Year, but we do like it to have a certain seasonal flavour. Patrick Thomas has written of the tradition of Calennigs in a past issue and now Siôn Jobbins ponders on why so few children are carrying it on. I do know that my children who have kept the tradition alive in our village, have been on the receiving end of admonishment a few times when it is revealed that they are not collecting for charity but for themselves - almost as though they were trying to extort under false pretences. Many people have forgotten the old customs. Perhaps this year I shall send them armed with cambria. Wales has many superb hotels and restaurants; we have been lucky enough, fortunate indeed, not only to have tried some of them out but to have got to know them well over the years, so, I am also extremely pleased to announce that we have entered into an association with Welsh Rarebits and Great Little Places. The reputation of Welsh Rarebits and the excellence of the establishments it represents is well and very widely known. Their ethos of care, the beauty of their brochure and the wonderful hospitality to be found reflect, we feel, our own values. Therefore it is a great pleasure to know that Wales’s national magazine will, from now on, be found at all these hotels and restaurants. Friends of cambria will be pleased to hear that special offers are being arranged for them. I very much hope that you will all be shopping with us for your Christmas gifts! A subscription to cambria is, I think (in a completely unbiased way), a very wise use of money; our magnificent contributors (and let’s not forget the photographers) provide food for thought, entertainment, knowledge, and all within an attractive setting, delivered to the door for the rest of the year - a frequent warm reminder of your thoughtful generosity. Once in a blue moon we have ‘Highly Indignant’ on the telephone, and I am rather sad that HI doesn’t put pen to paper so that other readers can hear the particular viewpoint; much as I hate to upset any of our readers I do like the idea that the magazine provokes thought and sometimes gives very different and diverse points of view. I know full well that the Ryder Cup was a boon to many hotels in the South-east but Denis Campbell’s article offers another angle, and a viewpoint also widely held. Do let us know what you think. It has been, as always, an interesting year, and it remains a privilege to work here. Next year will prove, in so many ways, a year of destiny for our wonderful country. Our heartfelt thanks to every single one of you for your support over the last year, may you all have a very merry Christmas and happiness in the year to come. Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd dda i chi i gyd. MARI STERLING
FRANCES JONES-DAVIES
MYFYRDOD
Struggle is a never ending process. Freedom is never really won you earn it and win it in every generation. CORETTA SCOTT KING
(1927–2006) American civil rights leader and widow of Martin Luther King.
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letters defending academia EDITOR
It was gratifying to read (Cambria, VOL. 12, NO. 2) the account by Geraint Talfan Davies of the latest steps taken towards the establishment of a Welsh-medium Federal College, now termed ‘Y Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol’ (The National Welsh-medium College). It will not be too long, I hope, before members of the college formally adopt the historically resonant name, ‘Coleg William Salesbury’, favoured by a strong consensus of the project’s supporters since 1998. Having been involved with this issue almost daily for thirteen years, and approaching it from what might be a different perspective, I was rather pleasantly surprised to find that, though I might have preferred to see some things done differently, I would not want to take serious issue with the strategy and the procedure outlined by Mr. Davies. The two successive Boards, so far as I can gather, have done what was possible in the circumstances. Only in one context would I offer a qualification. Mr. Davies writes of ‘two problems’ which impeded the earlier realisation of this dream: ‘cost, and the withdrawal of several higher education institutions ... from the quasi-federal University of Wales’. At all stages of the discussion since January 1998 the issue of cost - and I am sure my memory serves me right - was raised only in a wider ideological context. The infamous ‘Arad Report’ of 2006, taking its cue from a submission by Cardiff University, concluded that the Federal College would divert substantial resources from the core activities of Wales’s universities. A ‘perception’ would arise that it
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would be ‘an insular and parochial model’. All higher education institutions rejected it unambiguously. It was never really a case of ‘no money’, but always a case of ‘not wanting to’. It was when government told her to want it that Academia turned round and began wanting it, a process accompanied by several astounding personal apostasies. Chiefly responsible for blocking all initiatives over a period of nearly twelve years was the University of Wales under a succession of ProChancellors, through its (now reconstructed) Council, its officials and its Board for Welsh-medium Teaching - which brings us to the second factor listed by Mr. Davies. Had the University Council, from the late 1990s, taken up the challenge of creating a Federal Welshmedium College, it would have saved itself as a teaching institution. Instead, casting around for a raison d’être, having refused to consider what should have been its chief responsibility in the Welsh context, it amused itself with the farcical exercise of validating the degrees of a crackpot Danish Bible College and a Malaysian ‘university’ set up by an international con-man. The Minister for Education was right in remarking that there should be an inquiry into this farce and its consequences. We need now to ensure that there is a secure future for the remaining University of Wales institutions: the Press, the Dictionary and the Centre for Welsh and Celtic Studies. Whether this is at all possible under the present University management is questionable. Wholesale resignations, from the Pro-Chancellor down, would be a sign at least of contrition. From this censure I would exempt Councillor Penri Jones, the one member of the University Council who, as I understand, con-
demned this tomfoolery, at its inception, in the plainest of terms. Dafydd Glyn Jones, Bangor.
welsh dance EDITOR
I was a little bemused at reading Alice Day’s article on the National Dance Company Wales in the recent edition of Cambria. She writes that it was previously known as ‘Diversions’ and was created by Roy Campbell-Moore and Ann Sholem. Could this be the same Roy Campbell-Moore who, when asked why he did not promote Welsh dance, replied “there is no such thing as Welsh dance”. Now this is clearly not the case. Ask any of the thousands of dancers, musicians and supporters of Welsh dance and they will point to the annual festivals such as Gwˆyl Ifan, held in Cardiff, and the huge gathering at the National Botanic Garden, as events that firmly celebrate our national dance in addition to our dance music. Reading the article on the National Dance Company Wales, it is clear that high standards are being achieved by the company, inviting guest choreographers to work with the dancers. They are even looking at Welsh writers, such as Dylan Thomas for inspiration, and incorporating Welsh choral music and Mansel Thomas’s arrangements of Welsh folk music, “is evocative of Wales, but in a thoroughly modern way”. It puzzles me that large amounts of funding can be found for this National Company to ‘explore’ a certain ‘politically correct’ side of Welsh culture, whilst actual Welsh
Canolfan Rhiannon Centre Tregaron SY25 6JL 01974 298415 post@rhiannon.co.uk
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letters dance receives nothing at all. Bizarrely, even Dance India Wales receives an annual grant to promote Indian dance in our country but the Welsh Dance Society gets nothing. Surely a company bearing the title ‘The National Dance Company Wales’ should owe some responsibility to Welsh dance and most certainly to recognise its value. One has only to look at the example of some of our celtic cousins: the Bretons, Galicians, Asturians, Irish and Scottish, to see with what enthusiasm they embrace their own national dance traditions and also the enormous benefits accruing therefrom for their nations. The article goes on to say that the company is “doing us proud”. Well I don’t feel at all proud that our vibrant and traditional culture of national dance is being completely ignored by those who ought to know better and that those who keep it alive are virtually starved of support and essential funding solely for the sake of some absurd form of political correctness. David Petersen Sanclêr Sir Gaerfyrddin
JONAH JONEs EDITOR
I must write in to say how much I enjoyed the article on Jonah Jones by Peter Jones in Vol.12, Number 1 of your magazine. It was in 1973 that Jonah Jones was a regular companion at our lunchtime staff table in Ysgol y Gader in Dolgellau where I was one of the English teachers. He was using his skills and expertise as well as his outward-looking sociological inclinations to construct a sculpture
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in the School grounds, done by the pupils under his expert guidance. It had the effect of (i) giving the pupils a purpose and a sense of worth, (ii) showing a visible and tangible result for their efforts, (iii) achieving a sense of satisfaction. He was also a very interesting person with whom to share lunch. Catryn Rowlands, Whitchurch, Cardiff.
er serchus cof am MAIR DAVIES
Missionary in Patagonia MARGARET GLENYS ELLIS
Astrologer (Madam Sera) ANGHARAD JONES
Television executive and writer DAVE BERRY
Film and television historian ROBIN JONES
Radio and television presenter
‘YES’ FOR WALES! TOM ELLIS
Labour MP for Wrexham and MEP
EDITOR
PETER ELIAS JONES
The YES campaign for a stronger Wales through increased powers for our National Assembly has hit the ground running, spreading alarm and despondency among the ranks of the miserable Jeremiahs and Jeremimas, the nay-sayers, the ‘Wets’ and the whiners who seek to deny the Welsh people our democratic rights. That this ragtag crew has named itself ‘True Wales’ is the sickest joke in town! All true Welsh people - indeed all who live in Wales and look to a strong future for themselves and their children - must do their utmost to ensure a resounding victory for the forces of good on 3rd March next year. Contact the campaign (info@yesforwales.com) and see how you can help. Dafydd Tomos Caernarfon
Broadcaster ERIC SUNDERLAND
Vice-Chancellor of Bangor University HYWEL HEULYN ROBERTS
Plaid Cymru veteran and County Councillor STUART CABLE
Drummer with the Stereophonics IWAN LLWYD
Poet IRIS GOWER
Novelist LOWRI GWILYM
Editor with S4C OWEN EDWARDS
Broadcaster and first Chief Executive of S4C ENID PIERCE ROBERTS
Lecturer in Welsh at Bangor LOUIS THOMAS
Guitarist and heavy rock singer 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.
RICHARD LIVSEY
Liberal-Democrat MP and Peer
OPINION
Denis G.Campbell
seriously misses Ryder Cup plot
WAG
A
s a newly naturalised citizen, the recent display of rain-soaked arrogance and sloth masquerading as the business and economic development disaster for Wales also known as The Ryder Cup was an unmitigated PR and financial disaster. Even without the rain, the government built this up to a level of expectation only the 2012 Olympics could surpass. We should have had a few hints of our true standing when BBC network covering Pope Benedict’s arrival in Edinburgh. His Holiness was greeted by Scottish First Minster Alex Salmond. The BBC commentator then asked who the white haired gentleman standing next to Alex was, then greeting the Pope. It was Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones. Oops. While there was a gripping Monday finish, few in the target US and Canada markets saw it. Sadly, most will only again see it as a highlights show in two years because of the foolhardy decision to play the tournament on a hilly, poorly draining Parklands course in October. That the officials then tried to lamely blame the US PGA Tour’s FedEx playoff calendar for the late start (only two weeks later than past contests) was a last gasp effort to save their backsides. Ironically, Royal Porthcawl, a tough jewel of a links course that could have truly tested the Ryder Cup players, remained open Friday and Sunday all day. Even branding will not save team Wales. All references to the location of the previous Ryder Cup European contest are to the K-Club just as they will be to Celtic Manor. Ireland like Wales will be soon forgotten. Wales stands a slightly better chance to be remembered for the poor weather. So the irony is Wales will be remembered for the one thing it was hoping not to have as a legacy… rain. While an admitted source of national pride to see Wales favourably displayed on SKY, the Monday live audience from 01:00-09:00 am in the USA and around the world was missing and presumed dead. Also missing from the coalition’s recently released list of quangos headed for the dustbin was the Welsh Assembly Government itself who spent some £50 million pounds to bring the Ryder Cup to Wales. That same WAG boasted 2 billion homes would watch the cup, which was curious since only 6.6 million watched it globally in 2008.
Aaah - it’s good to be king in a land of no accountability!
And that same WAG boasted tourism benefits and indeed touted a figure saying that some 700 rounds of golf were played on courses around Celtic Manor. First Minster, for half the amount you spent, all 700 players could have been flown here and home by private jet and stayed in 5-star hotels. Indeed if you owned a golf course west of Swansea by now (if ever at all) all golfers and fans have returned home. Too, the much touted website www.businessgolfwales.com has not been updated since before the event and will, like the £1.1 million pound advert buy and glossy brochures for Wales to sell golf in Wales across the UK on SKY is also likely to be swept into the dustbin of failed campaigns. Why Wales were not advertising on the PGA Channel, ESPN (Friday coverage) and NBC Saturday and Sunday coverage to reach an audience outside the UK is perplexing. The circus has left town, tents are folded away, Wales has been dry since the infamous washout weekend and questions persist about Return on Investment (ROI) and our woefully inadequate business attraction record. Not a word appeared in twelve days on the government’s Twitter feed. Not one figure has appeared talking about projected economic development benefits. Even the opposition is silent on the waste in advance of the coming budget cuts. Having been dismissed as a curmudgeon over my comments, the questions remain. Who, beyond Sir Terry, his resort, hotels, bars and restaurants benefitted from £115 per day tickets and a complete no-golf Friday washout? The course on Monday could have handled another 10-12K visitors yet the Friday contingent was out of luck and could not come Monday. Looking for a £150-£200 million (A standard 3 or 4:1) return on investment in the form of new jobs for the Valleys and across Wales? Don’t hold your breath. But hey, Team Wales did well in the Commonwealth Games and there will be enough magician’s misdirection to go around for months. Remember we have a 5-day cricket test match next year with Sri Lanka, European Cup football qualifiers, Six Nations rugby and Olympics 2012. By then we will all say Sir Samuel who? The Ryder what? Aaah - it’s good to be king in a land of no accountability.
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C O V E R S T O RY
A Warning from History WYN THOMAS
T
o close the Empire Games in Cardiff, in July 1958, the Queen - by way of recorded message due to illness - announced that her eldest son Charles would henceforth be Prince of Wales; and that he would be invested as such ‘at some point in the future’. The declaration came twelve months after Wales’s political nakedness was exemplified, by parliamentary endorsement of Liverpool Corporation’s Tryweryn Reservoir Bill, when all but one of the nation’s 36 MPs either opposed the measure or abstained. It was wholly apparent to Welsh nationalists, that without adequate parliamentary protection, the cultural and political interests of Wales were extremely vulnerable. Out of this anger emerged two groups: the publicity orientated Free Wales Army and the clandestine, audacious and militant Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru: the Movement to Defend Wales. Crucially, however, it is the belief that Cwm Tryweryn was sacrificed on the altar of Plaid Cymru’s electoral advance which gave rise to militancy. It is argued that in attempting to attract broader electoral support, the party refused to take a more sharpened approach. Such as, a mass ‘sit down’ at the doomed village of Capel Celyn. This perceived ‘betrayal’ of Tryweryn, precipitated the notion - particularly among younger members of the party - that only militant action could prevent such episodes from happening again. Watching ‘horrified’ from the wings at this juncture was John Jenkins. An Army Dental Corps sergeant and until April 1965 - stationed in Germany, Jenkins decided to return to Wales and orchestrate a covert campaign of militant action against the British State. This Jenkins decided, following what he and others regarded as the failure of Plaid Cymru to prevent - through constitutional means - the flooding of another Welsh valley: Cwm Clywedog in Montgomeryshire. Posted to Saighton Barracks near Chester and living with his family in Wrexham, Jenkins soon determined one crucial component was needed for this campaign to succeed: that activists should operate in groups of only two or three and that only the cell leader would be
The perceived ‘betrayal’ of Tryweryn, precipitated the notion - particularly among younger members of the party that only militant action could prevent such episodes from happening again. known to him. More importantly, even the cell leader would know nothing of Jenkins’ background: including his name. Jenkins has since revealed that information would filter back to him of a person in a particular area who was espousing support and sympathy for a militant response. Jenkins would then meet this individual and in an attempt to determine their suitability, ‘try to argue him under the table’. Finally, after weeks of what Jenkins has called ‘careful consideration and deliberation’, he would make contact with this individual again and reveal his involvement in the militant campaign. This person would then be informed that what awaited him through his active participation was either death or imprisonment. ‘There are not’, Jenkins has said, ‘many who subscribe to that brochure. But there are some; there are always some, and in those people lay the future’. Another criterion Jenkins also recognised as paramount was that a campaign of militant action must graduate in accordance with public opinion. It must always be an organisation’s primary objective ‘to reflect the concerns of those it seeks to represent’. Mindful of this, Jenkins soon realised he could only ‘move so far, so fast’. In September 1967, John Jenkins and Frederick Alders - a colleague in the Territorial Army brass band undertook their first action in the name of MAC. They successfully targeted the pipeline carrying water from Llyn Vyrnwy to Liverpool at Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochant. Over the next two years, with devices assembled by Jenkins using gelignite stolen during a raid at a quarry, the two men carried out a number of explosions. It is believed they did not act alone. The explosions occurred both across Wales and just over the border in England. While only men planted the devices, Jenkins says the role played by women sympathetic to the cause (in providing meals, safe houses and ‘local’ information) proved invaluable.
The former Welsh militant community (within which the Free Wales Army fits to some degree) is an interesting phenomenon. It comprised a disparate group of men and women, of different ages, from various educational and socio-economic backgrounds, who against their natural instincts as parents and (in many cases) as respected members of Welsh community life, collectively regarded themselves to be in conflict with the British state; and a central government which they considered ambivalent, if not hostile, to Welsh cultural interests. In May 1967, it was announced that the Royal Investiture would be held in Caernarfon on 1 July 1969. Responding to the news, Gwynfor Evans stated he was ‘unenthusiastic’ about it. It is likely he felt much the same when it was announced that Charles would spend the
Cymru and the nationalist agenda. In autumn 1967, Jenkins, by now Operational Director of MAC, had formulated a policy policy: every time a member of the Royal family or those involved in the planning of the investiture stepped into Wales, there would be an explosion. This would lead to an inevitable overreaction from the authorities, which, consequently, would lead to increased support for the militant struggle. Jenkins did not have long to test his theory. In November 1967, a 15lb device exploded at the entrance to the Temple of Peace in Cardiff - the venue for the inaugural conference of the Investiture Organising Committee. To coincide with this meeting, Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg held a demonstration to protest the investiture. As a result of the explosion hours before, the police - protestors allege - were very heavy-handed. Jenkins had Plaid Cymru announced that it was ‘up to the conscience of correctly anticipated what would transpire. individual party members if they chose to oppose the Later asked what ‘disruptive measures’ the anticeremony’. In other words, there would be no official, collective, investiture movement planned for the occasion, party response. To John Jenkins this was ‘merely a cop out’. Gethin ap Iestyn, at the vanguard of the anti-investi1969 summer term at University College of Wales ture movement, disclosed a veritable stratagem. As a Aberystwyth, learning about the nation’s history and culmeans to convince the authorities fires were raging tural identity. Not for the first, nor indeed the last time, throughout Caernarfon, a significant number of industrithe president of Plaid Cymru and MP for Carmarthen, al smoke bombs (drain testers) had been amassed and found himself between a political ‘rock and a hard place’. stored on ‘Forestry Commission land in mid Wales and To be seen to support the entire investiture process went among a slate slag heap in north Wales’. Once activated, against his own political instincts. But so too did he these would be placed in public toilets, drains - from realise it would undermine his standing in nationalist cirwhere smoke would surge from outlets - and in empty cles. Yet, to appear openly hostile, would, he believe, cost buildings with their windows ajar. As a means of disruptthe party electoral support. Perhaps uppermost in Evans’ ing the procession, marbles were to be discarded beneath mind - with the campaign of militant activism continuthe hooves of horses to ‘bring them and the rider down’. ing apace - was that someone might try to physically Barricades were to be established: petrol bombs, stones harm the prince. Possibly with this in mind, in and even potatoes embedded with razors were to be September 1968, Plaid Cymru announced that it was ‘up thrown. Recognising that to truly affect the proceedings to the conscience of individual party members if they and ensure world reaction - some measure of assault chose to oppose the ceremony’. In other words, there upon the ceremony was required, model airplanes replete would be no official, collective, party response. To John with smoke canisters and/or horse excrement were conJenkins this was ‘merely a cop out’, and a decision which templated. But all to no avail: with his arrest and imprisresulted in ‘a lot of ill-feeling at the time’. onment, Gethin ap Iestyn instructed all units to ‘stand Contrary to the perceived nebulous opposition of Plaid down’. It can only be imagined how history might have Cymru, to those on the militant periphery of Welsh polirecorded Investiture Day had these proposals been impletics, the investiture was regarded an ‘open sore’ and an act mented. Interestingly, ap Iestyn also revealed that plans of English imperialism. Dubbed ‘Croeso 69’ (Welcome were established for leading anti-investiture figures to go ’69) by organising bodies, it was dismissed as ‘Insult 69’ to Scotland, where they were to be housed by sympathetby those who opposed it. It was further felt that the ic Scottish nationalists. It was then the intention, having investiture was being undertaken by a failing Labour laid low until shortly before the investiture, to return to Party government to stymie the political advance of Plaid Wales and implement the above listed course of protest
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Norman force in 1282, then Charles would not today be action. It should also be noted that many activists invested Prince of Wales. This, they maintained, was not opposed undertaking any action which endangered life. an extreme view, but rather an historical fact. For all the What however of the Free Wales Army? There were cerprince’s charm and his PR successes prior to the ceremony, tainly those who regarded the antics of the FWA as both an his unawareness of Llywelyn - as revealed in June 1968 embarrassment and a hindrance to the advance of Welsh did demonstrate a certain lack of sensitivity. nationalism. Derided as a ‘Dad’s Army farce’ it should Yet, remarkably, the biggest problem facing the security nonetheless be remembered that the FWA was essentially services in apprehending the bombers, appears to have involved in a ‘campaign of propaganda’. Moreover, there is been a reluctance within Welsh police forces - as was an increasingly warmer view - in certain nationalist circles probably typical of forces across the UK - to share infor- that the FWA did have its role to play within the militant arena: it was visual, vocal, and did succeed in diverting attention and resources away from the real bombers. Led by Jenkins, three incognito members of MAC held a meeting in May 1968 with three journalists. Its aim was to send a signal to the authorities - via the journalists - that the threat to Prince Charles was real. Jenkins may have The Annual Reference Book secretly lacked the intention of Public Affairs in Wales to harm the prince, but he wanted it understood that Wales in Westminster: MAC had the ‘means’ and was Select Committee on Welsh Affairs ‘willing and able’ to do so. Secretary of State, the Wales Office Again it was hoped this inforRegister of MPs’ Interests, etc mation would lead to an overreaction from the authorGuide to the 2011 Assembly Election: ities, turning Wales into what Electoral facts, History and Analysis Jenkins hoped would resemMembers and Candidates ble ‘an armed camp’. Prospects and Predictions Why was Prince Charles The National Assembly for Wales: not seen as the rightful Prince Membership of Committees of Wales by the nationalist Questions & Contributions to Debate community? However much Register of AMs’ Interests, etc Buckingham Palace legitimised his credentials historiWelsh Assembly Government: cally; and however much The Cabinet, Policy Portfolios, Charles himself was the vicPartnership Councils tim of political opportunism, The Welsh Civil Service the fact remained - nationalWelsh Local Government: ists declared - that Charles Principal Officers Windsor was not, nor indeed Executive Members and Cabinets would he ever be, the rightful Details for all elected County Councillors Prince of Wales. Their argument was simple: had Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the last native Prince of Wales, Order online at not been killed – and Wales www.walesyearbook.co.uk conquered – by an Anglo-
fba
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TheWales Yearbook
mation. This appears to have been borne of a certain degree of professional jealousy, and the belief that officers within other Welsh Constabularies may well be sympathetic to the nationalist cause; and therefore, providing the militants with ‘inside’ information. This was not without foundation, as Jenkins has admitted the movement was receiving information from sympathetic junior officers. With the investiture impending, this situation could not continue; and as a result of the on-going upsurge in extremist activity, the Shrewsbury Unit - headed by Jock Wilson of the Metropolitan Police - was established as an information centre. Its ‘terms of reference’, was to act as a centrally-established base where information and intelligence regarding known militant sympathisers could be collated, considered and cross-referenced. More specifically, the Shrewsbury unit was established, to ensure the success of both the investiture and the protection of the Royal Party. To this end - and to the chagrined embarrassment of Buckingham Palace - days before the ceremony it was revealed that Prince Charles would wear a bullet-proof vest. The revelation suggests the threat to his safety was not taken lightly. The security and police operation to apprehend the bombers considered an embarrassing failure, questions began to be asked as to who might be responsible. While Gwynfor Evans dismissed as ‘fantastic’ the belief the security forces might themselves be behind the explosions (in order to discredit Welsh nationalism) he added that it should ‘not be ruled out’. Unsurprisingly, such allegations were easily countered in Parliament by the Secretary of State for Wales, George Thomas. Nevertheless, there are former militant campaigners who believe the authorities were prepared to use fair means or foul to ensure the success of the investiture; and more succinctly, to ensure the safety of the prince. If that involved discrediting the nationalists of Wales, then so be it. If the authorities were having no luck in arresting the saboteurs, one group easily dealt with in the build up to the investiture was the Free Wales Army. At the end of February, senior figures within the group - and others involved in the anti-investiture campaign were arrested. Charged under various Public Order and explosives legislation, there followed a surprisingly lengthy 53 day trial. Suspiciously, as far as the nationalist community was concerned, the trial culminated on Investiture Day. For not only did the trial ensure that the nine men were safely under lock and key during the final preparations for the ceremony, it also ensured that calculated images appeared on the day’s evening news. First, the jubilant scenes from Caernarfon and then prison vans taking those con-
victed to begin their sentences. Was this intended to send a resounding signal of what awaits those prepared to challenge the might of the British State? Whatever the truth, Cayo Evans and Denis Coslett received fifteen months and Gethin ap Iestyn nine months imprisonment. The others on trial were either dismissed, or they were given suspended sentences. Yet, what was the degree of support in Wales for the investiture, and how important was this to the thinking of John Jenkins? An August 1968 poll claimed 44% of the Welsh public considered it ‘a waste of money’. In the 18-34 age group, the figure was 53%. Another poll four months before the ceremony, declared that 76% of those approached supported it. On closer inspection however, the figure dropped to 60% for those surveyed under the age of 45. Jenkins maintains the entire concept of disrupting the investiture was to give to those disenchanted ‘a voice’. As a result of his army duties - whereby he travelled throughout Wales recording supplies of dental equipment - Jenkins was aware that many people regarded the event as, what he describes: ‘the stamp of the conqueror’. And so, amid this atmosphere of increasing uncertainty, the scene was set for potentially one of the most tumultuous days in recent Welsh history.
NEW
from the
Library of Wales
Hilda Vaughan’s The Battle to the Weak &
Margiad Evans’ Turf or Stone Two of Wales’ best writers from the early years of the twentieth century with novels of passion and intrigue. Parthian will be hosting a discussion on the importance of Welsh women’s writing, with Fflur Dafydd and Deborah Kay Davies at Chapter Arts Centre, 7.30pm, December 16th. www.libraryofwales.org.uk
OPINION
Siôn Jobbins
Where did all the Snotty-nosed Kids Go? THE STORY OF THE STRANGE DEATH OF CALENNIG.
C
alennig is the ancient Welsh tradition of singing short verses of song usually to two or three known ‘calennig’ tunes on New Year’s Day. It’s usually sung by children who are then given sweets or money in return for their effort. Calennig is the diminutive of ‘calan’ a word whose root is in the Latin Kalendae “the called”, corresponding to the first days of each month of the Roman calendar. The concept of the ‘first day’ was adopted into Welsh to mean the first day of the year and also it survives in ‘Calan Gaeaf ’ (the first day of winter - Halloween in English). It is the same root as the word ‘calendar’. It’s a New Year version of carol singing if you like … but without the Christianity or the morality or the variation in songs and tunes or the harmonies or the adults. OK, so it’s not like carol singing at all but it is hundreds of years old and an accepted and much-loved tradition across Wales. So, how may you ask, is an accepted tradition where, and this is the crucial bit, kids get sweets and money for not much work at all, dying out? What child doesn’t like a face-full of chocolate? I’m intrigued by the case of the strange death of this tradition. Now, I can understand that traditions die. But calennig? This is just baffling? More pagan than Christian, a totally financially, Mammon-driven tradition, which, with the exception of confirming if the occupant was alive (even if only to feign momentarily deafness at the sound of the door-bell) had absolutely no boring worthy nor communal benefit at all. What better tradition for the Pompeian blingocracy of late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries? That a minority of miserable grown-ups may not like calennig is one thing, but kids? It thrived through the Methodist Revivial, wars and TB. So why do old people in villages and towns up and
It seems we’re becoming a poor man’s Guernsey with our own state and assembly but little of our own culture woven into the fabric of our society.
down Wales now complain that no kids have been around to ask them for treats on New Year’s Day? Goronwy Edwards is a well-known and much-loved councillor in Aberystwyth. Born in 1934 he remembers singing calennig verses on New Year’s Day in Penparcau which is a large council estate a mile from the centre of Aber. Despite his Welsh name and his mother being a Welsh-speaker, Gron (or Grocsy as he’s known to all) has lost his Welsh. It’s partly a result of his mother remarrying an Englishman, and Gron’s new step father ‘didn’t like Welsh being spoken at home’, and partly the anglicised community which existed in Aberystwyth even before the War, unlike the villages merely two miles out of town. But Gron joyfully reels out a couple of verses of calennig remembered from his youth: Calennig yn gyfan mae heddiw’n ddydd calan; unwaith, dwywaith, tairgwaith. Mi godws yn fore rhedeg yn ffyrnig i dyˆ Mrs Jones i ofyn calennig. Os gwelwch yn dda ga’ i swllt a chwech cheiniog. Blwyddyn newydd dda i’r dime a’r geiniog. So, even in Aberystwyth, which was quite anglicised and even despite the fact that Gron spoke mostly English with his peers, calennig, sung with Welsh verses, was still strong in the mid 20th century. Keith Morris, the well-known photographer, and pho-
tographic author of an Aber - Essays on Aberystwyth (GOMER, 2008), is also an Aber boy. Keith is a generation younger than Gron, born in 1958. Raised in the centre of Aberystwyth in terraced Cambria Street, his father, Jack, was London-Welsh and ran a milk-round in the town and his mother, Mona, from Aber and also a well-known councillor. Keith also remembers singing calennig and like Gron, stopped when he went to high school. ‘You’d have a patch, and our patch (my brother and friends) was Cambrian Street up to Northgate and Dany-Coed - essentially, my father’s milk round and the people we knew. We’d expect six pence but would sometimes be given shilling which was excellent.’ Despite being fluent in Welsh, the verses he sang where much simpler than Grocsy’s. It may be a fluke or it may show that by the 1960s and early 70s that only the well-known ‘standard’ ubiquitous verse was known; ‘blwyddyn newydd dda i chi ac i bawb sydd yn y t_, dyna yw’n dymuniad ni, blwyddyn newydd dda i chi!’ It seems that Keith and his peers were the last generation of unbroken, ‘organic’ singers in Aberystwyth town. Keith’s daughters, Ffion Jac (16) and Sam Medeni (12) have never sung calennig. So, although calennig is still sung in different parts of Wales, it seems to have died out in Aberystwyth at least, in the early 1970s. Why? Certainly, Aber itself has its own peculiar reasons. The Veniceisation of the town the depopulation of established families to be substituted by a transient population of students is one reason, making Aber a terra firma, rainier version of the Italian city. Without the network and know-how of established families, kids wouldn’t know, or feel comfortable, about knocking on a door and singing calennig. And as both Goronwy and Keith noted, they would usually only sing to Welsh-speaking households. So, a more transient population is probably a reason. And what was once peculiar to a university town like Aberystwyth has since become commonplace across Wales as more and more English people move into rural Wales. People who were ignorant of the tradition, possibly not part of the extended network of family, work and chapel which was once the hot water bottle which warmed the bed of Welsh folk traditions. To the changing nature of communities could be added the changing affluence of those societies. It sounds odd, but is calennig singing the only tradition on earth ever to be killed off by pocket money? Singing calennig was the past time of a materially poorer society. Parents would be glad to see their kids run around the houses collecting calennig as it eased the burden on their possibly tight budgets (especially after
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Christmas). Wealthier families would give then as we may give to African kids today. But if the average child today is given £3 a week pocket money and has all creature comforts why sing calennig? With one in five Welsh kids overweight and the Welsh Government giving £1.4m in 2009 towards a pilot programme to tackle the problem, then it hardly seems necessary that a nation of fatties need any more sweets and chocolate - even if they could manage to run around the houses without pausing for breath. The beauty of calennig was that, if nothing else, it was the tradition of the caridyms, the rapscaliwns, the plant gefn stryd and all the other words of the mild Methodist snobbery which pervaded Welsh life like the smell of mothballs until so recently. It wasn’t self-conscious, it wasn’t poetry, it wasn’t ‘culture’, it was just a more elaborate form of begging. The kids weren’t bad, they weren’t always poor, but in Wales (like everywhere in Western Europe) until the 1960s, any kid was glad of a few more pennies and sweets. Calennig was on the cusp of what’s called in Welsh, ‘y pethe’ - literally, ‘the things’, the Welsh things people take interest in; eisteddfodau, cymanfa ganu, poetry, local history but was a non-institutional, non-structured culture - beautifully adult and teacher-free. But then, there are still poor kids in Wales today. A 2008 survey by Save the Children calculated that 96,000 children in Wales lived in ‘extreme poverty’ (though, no doubt, materially at least much better off than the average family before the 1950s). These kids may not get pocket money, so why aren’t they singing calennig? After all, they may very well ‘play’ (threaten may be a better word) the horrible American import of ‘trick or treat’ during Hallowe’en. If asking or begging for money during Calan Gaeaf is OK, why not during Dydd Calan? Is it that the kids who are most materially in need today, or indeed any kids, are less likely to be Welshspeaking than in the past? Has the Welsh language community lost a whole swathe of society, people who felt the pull of Hollywood and Disneyland, ‘pobol y carnifal’, more appealing than anything Welsh culture could offer? And even children of Welsh-speaking nationalist families don’t seem to sing calennig either. Are parents today over-protective? Is society too suspicious or afraid of anything outside its own four walls? Whatever the reason, there’s a whole swathe of kids and their parents who are ignorant of calennig not to mention the old ditties which kids would sing - couplets of insults which sound so harmless and quaint today. I always felt uneasy when someone would say ‘it’s important to keep traditions alive’. It always felt to me
16 October 2010 – 2 April 2011
Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru Aberystwyth
The National Library of Wales Aberystwyth
Dydd Llun – Dydd Sadwrn 9.30 am – 4.30 pm Mynediad am ddim
Monday – Saturday 9.30 am – 4.30 pm Free admission
www.llgc.org.uk/bydbach | www.llgc.org.uk/smallworld
16 Hydref 2010 – 2 Ebrill 2011
The Welsh language culture can lose some traditions and create a few in their place. But when the Welsh language dies in a locality then bit by bit, it seems a whole swathe of our traditions die out too and there seems there’s very little to take their place. Or rather, there are new cultures and past-times in their place - but they’re mostly things like Wii, Ninendo DX, the Internet, TV football or recipient past-times. Cultures which are global, not Welsh nor local. The Welsh language is medium to communicate but also a medium to transfer stories and songs, history and sense of place. It seems we’re becoming a poor man’s Guernsey with our own state and assembly but little of our own culture woven into the fabric of our society. It’s a route other nations like the Basques and Bretons have not taken when they celebrate the unique and the ‘peasant’ in music, food, sports and aesthetic as they create the new and the modern. The effort to keep and promote the Welsh language has, in many respects been hugely successful. So, if it’s not too contrived an idea, should we not be part of a new campaign now, this time to keep and promote Welsh culture, and especially the little everyday culture too? That would be something worth singing about.
A R D D A N G O S F A • E X H I B I T I O N
like, ‘hey Taff, conform to your stereotype’ or the Saint Faganising of Welsh culture. After all, traditions, like people, change. And I wasn’t the only one who felt like this. Despite lazy stereotypes, the contemporary Welsh language movement has a modernist philosophy rather than a conservative one. Partly because it expresses the evolving Welsh society and partly to prove to its adversaries that Welsh is a contemporary language, traditions and ‘keeping traditions alive’ hasn’t played as prominent a part in the movement as in other cultures. It’s been a case of choosing Helvetica script rather than Celtic calligraphy; Welsh pop music rather than Welsh folk. But I can’t help thinking a part of us has died, that we’ve somehow neglected to nurture the little things, as Saint David would say; the things which made us a people. Who sings hymns in pubs or at international matches or on coach journeys any more? Do people still place flowers on graves on Sul y Blodau (Palm Sunday)? How long will it be before the names of the new groom and bride are not sprayed on the road leading to the chapel or mothers stop lovingly making homemade Welsh cakes for their kids to take on a trip? Will people stop naming their houses with Welsh names proudly etched on elegant blue-grey slate because it’s too old fashioned?
AN EMINENT WELSHMAN
Invisible Giant: The Astonishing Life, Death & Afterlife of General Henry Lloyd SYD MORGAN
F
ew individuals could claim to have inspired both Gilbert and Sullivan and two of the greatest American generals of their time, but Henry Humphrey Evans Lloyd went further, being well known to the three great Enlightenment despots of eighteenth century Europe and countless other European sovereigns. From a curiously vague educational background, Lloyd’s erratic career saw him ultimately became a favourite of Empress Catherine the Great of Russia, who not only commissioned him into her army as a Major General, but asked him to plan an invasion of China! Emperor Joseph II of Austria and Friedrich der Große of Prussia were also on speaking terms. Yet, on his death, reactionary Catholics at Huy, near Liege, desecrated his body because of his radical political views. They were not alone: Napoleon Bonaparte furiously scribbled denunciations of Lloyd’s military theories, while the renowned military intellectual, von Clausewitz, was equally critical of his ideas. Yet he was later read by the likes of Generals George Washington and George Patton. Lloyd is even alluded to as the inspiration for Gilbert & Sullivan’s wonderful patter song, I Am the Very Model of the Modern Major General. Whether true or false, the lyrics certainly describe General Lloyd ‘to a T’, while (led by Patrick Speelman) new books and articles about him are being published increasingly across the world. Yet this giant remains mostly invisible in his own country. However, unearthing Lloyd’s roots is still proving a bit of a problem: even his published birth dates vary by eight years! Supposedly, he descended from the Llwyd family of Cwm-bychan, Meirionydd, they of Ffarwel Dai Llwyd fame. Yet his own son, Hannibal, (what else?) says he was born in Wrecsam, a son of the Reverend John Lloyd. But then, in his own handwriting, he signed-on at Jesus College, Oxford, as the son of Ambrose Lloyd of Rhuthun, first classing himself as a ‘servitor’ (the lowest class of student), before crossing that out in favour of being a plebeian. Although Lloyd could afford his board and lodging, his college attendance was not the best, and he failed to graduate. However, he made a valuable contact who was
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The renowned military intellectual von Clausewitz was critical of Lloyd’s ideas. Yet he was later read by the likes of Generals George Washington and George Patton.
to prove a major influence on his thinking. The Jesus College principal at the time was the eminent Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, 3rd Baronet, known as the ‘Prince of Wales’ due to his political power both in Wales and Westminster. Sir Watkin was a leading Jacobite, and whatever the wellspring of his political views, Henry Lloyd too opposed the Hannoverian succession. In the wake of his Jesus College sojourn, Lloyd’s career remains equally vague: after a bit of ‘lawyering’ somewhere near home (and an affair with a ballerina in Berlin) we know our hero ended up fighting with Louis XV at Pontenoy, after spells in Venice, Barcelona, Madrid and (possibly in the guise of a lay Jesuit teacher) Sint-Omaars in Flanders. It was under Louis XV that Lloyd gained his first military commission as a sub-ensign, after which he sailed for Scotland with Prince Charles Edward Stuart (‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’) in 1745 - a move which was to add yet another dimension to his increasingly colourful life. Unlike his fellow officers who perished in the massacre of Culloden, Captain Lloyd of the Régiment Royal-Ecossais was heading for Wales on a secret (but as yet un-chronicled) mission to foment Jacobite rebellion in his homeland - only to be captured by the King’s police. Placed under house arrest in Jermyn St, London, Lloyd was lucky to escape punishment under the severe sedition and exclusion laws in force at the time, and on release (almost certainly through Jacobite influence) scarpered back to Louis XV’s army. Now a major, Lloyd, literally, helped engineer the bloody siege of Bergen op Zoom. Lloyd lived at a hinge-point in the history of Europe. The Enlightenment - science, rationality and efficiency opened up civilian and military offices to the better qualified. Heredity, money and court connections mattered less, provided a strong monarchy remained in place. But it needed driven individuals like Lloyd to seize
FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM, CAMBRIDGE
the day, and character Lloyd’s UK government mattered. Lloyd became associates were military multi-lingual, adding and political progressives, Latin, French, German, often with old Jacobite Italian and Spanish to connections. His wife, his Welsh and English. Mary, did not hide her His manuscripts exist in Stuart-supporting family English, French, German roots. Lloyd strongly and Italian, although favoured John Wilkes nothing in Welsh has yet MP, the “Father of Civil to emerge. He was a Liberty”. His Essay on polymath, yet substanthe English Constitution tially self-educated as far (1770) argued against the as we know. He wrote abuse of power against and published on miliWilkes, whose nemesis, tary theory and practice, Nathan Carrington, had much aided by his cartobeen Lloyd’s personal jailgraphical skills and poser back in 1746. sibly even a Napoleonic There is emerging evicoup d’oeil. He seems to dence that Lloyd’s worldhave been personally view and means of perfearless, and never afraid sonal advancement was of a scrap. From sufferaided by pan-European ing a shoulder injury in a Masonic connections. GENERAL HENRY LLOYD (1720-1783) from a painting by sea battle while sailing to His Milanese collaborathe Irish artist Nathaniel Hone in 1773. Scotland, to commandtor, Pietro Verri, was ing a Russian division in the successful siege of Silistia reputedly a leading freemason, while London’s Jerusalem on the Danube during the 2nd Russo-Turkish war, lodge had a ‘Henry Lloyd’ listed as a member in 1769, Lloyd was never an armchair general. along with the philosopher Edmund Burke and (possibly) Yet in Milan, Lloyd was recognised as a leading figure John Wilkes. Lloyd’s first biographer, the Marquis de in the city’s particular form of enlightenment: it was his Romance de Mesmon (who published in 1784, only one theory of money (unknown in Wales until the work of year after Lloyd’s death) was a member of the Parisian H D Matthews) which proved an essential driver in lodge, Saint-Jean-d’Ecosse Contrat social. making that city a “republic of money”. When you see However, Lloyd’s enlightened attitudes in public affairs Armani, Campari, Ferrari and Pirelli, pause briefly to were counter-balanced by his personality. Throughout think of our Henry. his life, friend and foe alike remarked on his hot temper. Paradoxically the greater part of Lloyd’s life was spent In Milan, he insulted an Abbot. On his way to observe as a paid British agent. His ambition was to make a the Russo-Ottoman war in 1774, Lloyd had a public career as a professional soldier, but when peace broke out row with a Brugge coachman. Perhaps the greatest mani- as it so often did - Lloyd (like Spike Milligan’s festation of his ‘y gwir yn erbyn y byd’ attitude was his Bluebottle) must have said, “You gotta make a living commentary on the Empress of All the Russias, “She is somehow”. It seems he first took Hannoverian coin in under great obligations to me; I am under none to her”. 1767, his benefactor being the famous Marquis of Little wonder Catherine felt disinclined to award him Granby, now of public houses fame. There is evidence of her Order of St George, or its substantial pension. Lloyd’s work for British Intelligence wherever he went The whole world knows the incredible but fictitious and regardless of the Army in which he served: as a tales of Baron von Münchhausen, a near contemporary Captain in Austria, Colonel in Braunschweig, honorary of Lloyd who also fought the Ottomans. As Henry Lloyd Major General in Köln. Unfortunately, he failed to get a re-emerges from the historical murk, perhaps his almost military appointment with King José I of Portugal, and unbelievable life adventure will command more attenlost his Milanese friends because of it. tion by his fellow-countrymen and modern mythmakers But perhaps this leap from Jacobite rebel to across the world. Even if it’s only half-true, what a story Hannoverian ‘snitch’ is not as great as it seems. Many of waiting to be fully discovered and re-told.
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WALES AT WAR:
The Secret of Rhydymwyn PETER N. WILLIAMS
I
n his 1968 book We All Fall Down, Arthur R. Clark wrote “War has shaped the modern world, from the physical scars of - and the preparations for - battles, to states of mind, political and ideological positions and to the language we use.” The eminent historian continued: “People want to visit the remaining structures; they have an interest and that interest is burgeoning. The surviving sites are therefore important to satisfy that growing interest and demand, and for reasons of memory, commemoration, and sense of place.” With this sound advice in mind, I decided to visit one of Britain’s surviving structures from the War, where alas, there is no “growing interest and demand” and where the remaining buildings are being left to decay in ignominious silence. My visit took me to the quiet, peaceful Alyn valley in Flintshire, North Wales. During the early, dark days of World War Two, I spent my formative years only a few scant miles from Rhydymwyn, where, unknown to me (and to many of those of my generation) a highly controversial and yet vital component of the British wartime strategy was being pursued: the production of chemical weapons, which were seen as a crucial part of Britain’s deterrent arsenal. Much of that involved the production of mustard gas at a top-secret site well hidden from enemy aircraft near Mold. The gas was, at the very least, considered a necessary deterrent to an enemy boasting a more advanced chemical weapons capability. Moreover, as the author Arthur R Clark, in his book We All Fall Down reminds us...“if the Battle of Britain had been lost and a German invasion looked capable of success, [the] pre-emptive use [of chemical weapons] may even have been contemplated in a ‘backs to the wall’ scenario. Later, following D-Day, it was considered that there was a significant threat of the use of ‘dirty’ uranium warheads in Hitler’s V or vengeance rockets, for which the only Allied deterrent (in addition to its existing program of heavy bombing) was perceived to be the use of chemical weapons. For
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For a short time, one building in particular - named P6 stood at the very forefront of the practical, as opposed to the theoretical, attempts to make the atomic bomb in a global context.
these reasons it was felt necessary to build and maintain a site for the production of these weapons at Rhydymwyn, in a little sheltered valley near Mold, North Wales.” My pilgrimage to the long-forgotten and long-ignored site was to see what remains of this historic landmark. What I found was totally unexpected. Instead of a world-class site, maintained by the National Trust or Cadw, I came across a scene that was a national disgrace, and an insult to all those who worked there in the most dangerous conditions during the latter day of the war in Europe. To look upon the derelict buildings, and the overgrown footpaths, is depressing to say the least; it seems that the importance of the valley to Britain’s war effort has been forgotten or ignored by those who should know better, especially since research has shown that one of the surviving buildings at Rhydymwyn is of international significance because of its early links with the race to create the atomic bomb. In 1942, as part of Britain’s secret ‘Tube Alloys’ project, work began in Birmingham into the production of weapons-grade uranium with atomic potential. This was later spread among other sites, the main one of which was Rhydymwyn, far removed from the large industrial cities which were the obvious targets for the German Luftwaffe. Today, it is difficult to imagine the valley’s rôle in the early development of the British atomic weapons programme - a project that brought together expertise from all around the world with the exception of the Axis powers, although several of the key players were Germans who had fled to Britain. For example, Professor Klaus Fuchs was involved in the experimental and groundbreaking work at the valley after he had worked on the “Tube Alloys” programme at Birmingham University
with noted professor, Rudolph Peieris. Fuchs (who was selling atomic secrets to Russia at the time and was later convicted of spying) left Rhydymwyn to become part of the team working on the “Manhattan Project” in New York City and then later moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico, where the final experiments were completed and the first atomic bomb was put into production, being assembled by hand by Peieris. Fuchs involvement at Rhydmwyn in 1943 has been glossed over for too many years and needs to be further investigated. According to Clark, “The practical lessons learnt from the experiments carried out at Rhydymwyn helped Britain to maintain a stake in the Manhattan Project in the difficult year of 1943, which was when the US might have chosen to go entirely its own way. So, in 1942 work carried out in North Wales stood at the very forefront of the practical, as opposed to theoretical, attempts to make the atomic bomb in a global context.” For a short time, one building in particular named P6 - stood at the very forefront of the practical, as opposed to the theoretical, attempts to make the atomic bomb in a global context. Sadly, very few buildings or structures associated with these initial experimental stages of atomic research in this country are known to have survived. So, in terms of its historical associations and survival in its current form, P6 is probably unique in Wales, and certainly extremely rare in the country as a whole. We cannot and must not, therefore, neglect this part of Britain’s heroic struggle in the early days of World War Two. Let us heed the words of Arthur R Clark once more: “Historic buildings and their landscapes are significant for many cultural reasons: for their architecture, for their archaeological significance, for their aesthetic qualities, for their association with people and memories, beliefs and events or simply because they are old. They can tell us about technology, innovation, conflicts and triumphs. Their interest may lie in the materials used or in the decorative finishes, in the grouping of landscape, building and place. That significance may be personal, local, regional, national or international; it may be academic, economic or social. “No part of this heritage should be forgotten or ignored. It has the potency to evoke periods of national unity and achievement, at times - notably in 1940 -
against seemingly impossible odds. It also has the capacity to open wounds.” The valley site at Rydymwyn is therefore a place of national significance of particular rarity and importance. Its industrial heritage has to be preserved for future generations; surviving buildings need to be restored; a heritage centre and museum need to be erected. But there are other problems that need addressing, as Arthur R Clark details: “First, there are several medium- to long-term management issues to consider, given the contamination of the site. Foremost amongst these are the questions of desirability and choice, the cost of preservation of the industrial landscape features, and the WWII buildings, caverns and ancillary structures. There are difficult issues to be addressed here, particularly in terms of the potential for finding viable uses for many structures. Here consideration may be given to a programme of managed
“Historic buildings and their landscapes are significant for many cultural reasons: for their architecture, for their archaeological significance, for their aesthetic qualities, for their association with people and memories.” decay and ruination of certain structures, for instance. There is also a potential for conflict of interest between the needs of ecology and heritage, although through the implementation of a clearly and mutually worked out holistic management plan for the site, and realistic negotiation and compromise this should not be insurmountable.” During my visit to Rhydymwyn, I learned something of this conflict of interest. However, surely a way can be found to satisfy the needs of the Wildlife Trust and those of the need to preserve at least some of the present buildings. I firmly believe that a carefully managed site would be an asset to both sides; there is no reason why a reasonable compromise between the two opposing sides cannot be reached. A small museum and heritage centre on the site will in no way damage its ecology nor interfere with the wildlife, mostly birds and small mammals. An educational centre will both inform and instruct visitors of both the valley’s industrial and ecological significance. If we fail to preserve building P6 and its supporting structures, a great deal of our heritage will indeed fall by the wayside and left to decay in ignominious silence.
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‘Dancing to Bethlehem’ from Jacobean Llanymddyfri PATRICK THOMAS
“W
hat exactly does a Chancellor do?” someone asked me after Bishop Wyn had somewhat improbably promoted me to the post of Canon Chancellor of St Davids Cathedral. “Not a lot,” I replied with commendable honesty. “It’s really just an honorary post. But it does sound terribly grand, which has given my aged mother something to impress the neighbours with. It also means that in the Cathedral Chapter I’m senior to the Archdeacons, and that gets up their noses a bit - which can be quite satisfying sometimes.” I was too shy to mention the reason why becoming Chancellor had really excited me. In the early seventeenth century one of my greatest heroes had sat in the Chancellor’s stall in the Cathedral. He was the poet and pastor Rhys Prichard, Vicar of Llandovery - a man who became so well established in the affections of the people of Wales that for centuries he would simply be known as ‘Yr Hen Ficer’ (‘The Old Vicar’). When I was a curate, a non-Welsh speaking colleague gave me a book that he’d found at the back of his garage. “It’s got Vicar’s Poems on the cover,” he said, “and it’s all in Welsh. I thought you might find some use for it. ‘The ‘Vicar’ was, of course, Rhys Prichard, and, to my delight, the volume turned out to be the edition of his poems published by Rhys Tomas in 1770 in Llandovery. I had first come across Vicar Prichard the Christmas before, when, I had had to direct my first Pasiant Nadolig in Eglwys y Santes Fair, the Welsh-language church in Aberystwyth, which the rector had entrusted to my care. It was quite a challenge. My Welsh was still at a stage when the children in the cast were far more fluent than I was. Things were even more complicated because two of the Three Kings were small songsters who regularly competed against each other in local eisteddfodau. The father of one and the mother of the
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The poet and pastor Rhys Prichard, Vicar of Llandovery was a man who became so well established in the affections of the people of Wales that for centuries he would simply be known as ‘Yr Hen Ficer’ (‘The Old Vicar’). other demanded special treatment for their respective offspring. This upset the church organist. There was another crisis when one of the two was kitted out with a turban instead of a crown, and his indignant parent complained to the rector. My fledging Welsh vocabulary and distinctly erratic grammar were stretched almost to breaking point. There was however one glimmer of light amidst the chaos. I had never experienced Christmas through the medium of Welsh before and so I had no idea which carols to choose for the Pasiant. Fortunately I could turn to Miss Molly Jenkins, the wonderfully patient and goodhumoured athrawes Ysgol Sul and Mrs Florrie Bevan, the amazing organyddes. Between them they introduced me to a wonderful repertoire of Welsh carols. They included some cheerful verses by a certain Rhys Prichard, which began: Awn i Fethlem bawb dan ganu Neidio, dawnsio a difyrru, I gael gweld y Mab caredig, Aned heddiw, ddydd Nadolig. (Let’s all go to Bethlehem, singing Jumping, dancing and having fun, To see the kindly Son, Born today, on Christmas Day.)
It was a glorious introduction both to Y Nadolig Cymraeg and to the poet whom I would eventually follow as Canon Chancellor of St Davids Cathedral. Some years before, I had sat quietly in the corner of a pub in Aberystwyth, listening to a local sage unveiling the mysteries of the Welsh language to an English visitor. “There are two sorts of Welsh,” he explained. “There is ‘proper Welsh’, which is spoken by the scholars up at the University and the National Library, and then there is
‘hopo, scipo, jwmpo Welsh’, which is what we speak in the town.” As I began to immerse myself in Vicar Prichard’s Welsh I became aware that it tended towards the latter variety. Indeed modern linguistic purists would (and sometimes do) condemn it as siprys (gibberish), bratiaith or even ‘Cymraeg crap’. Many editions of his work (though, interestingly, not those published in Llandovery in 1770 or Carmarthen in 1807) contain extensive glosses giving the standard Welsh versions of words to help those who might find the Vicar’s Wenglish expressions incomprehensible. Prichard himself would not have been interested in such criticism. He had been born in the Llandovery area in 1579. His potential had been spotted by Bishop Anthony Rudd (best-known now for his connection with the beautiful garden of Aberglasney), who sent him to Jesus College, Oxford. After Prichard’s graduation, his patron brought back to be Vicar of Llandovery, where he remained until his death in 1644 (acquiring the Canon Chancellorship of the Cathedral along the way). Prophets have a hard time in their own country, and Rhys Prichard was no exception. The Reformation had taken much of the colour and joy out of Welsh worship. At a time when probably only one in ten Welsh people could read, a religion based primarily on the study of Scripture was bound to have an uphill struggle. Painfully aware of the indifference of the people of his town to his carefully-wrought sermons and prayer book services Rhys Prichard came up with a very Carmarthenshire solution. He saw that there were three ways in which he could break through to the people of his parish. Firstly he had to express his beliefs and teaching in language that was accessible to them - using the somewhat rough-andready dialect with its sprinkling of Anglicisms that was the everyday means of communication of the people of his area. This should be done in verses which could be sung to simple tunes and so would easily stick in the memory. The starting-point would be Christmas: the festival which had been traditionally celebrated in song. Rhys Prichard was not interested in producing great literature. He had a message to get across and doggerel rhymes were the best way to convey it. He was not interested in beautiful language either. He simply wanted to be understood. The result was that he succeeded in expressing
often very complex ideas in a simple and memorable way. It was a technique which would later inspire the eighteenth-century Carmarthenshire Methodist hymnwriters, including William Williams, Pantycelyn, the greatest Welsh hymn-writer of all. The Incarnation - God being born as a particular human being in a particular place at a particular time was an especially appropriate theme for Prichard’s style of poetry. His language was the language of the stable and the ‘ostri’ (‘hostelry’), his versifying was cartrefol (‘homely’) in a way that reflected the imagery of the Christmas story. Awn i Fethlem i gael gweled Mair a Mab Duw ar ei harffed, Mair yn dala rhwng ei dwylo Y Mab sy’n cadw’r byd rhag cwympo! Awn i weld congcwerwr angau Gwedi rwymo mewn cadachau, A’r Mab a rwyga deyrnas Satan, Yn y craits, heb allu cripian. (Let’s go to Bethlehem to see Mary with God’s Son on her lap, Mary holding between her hands The Son who keeps the world from falling! Let’s go to see death’s conqueror Wrapped up in nappies, And the Son who rips Satan’s kingdom apart, In the manger unable to crawl.)
Rhys Prichard makes no attempt to delve into the mechanics of the mystery: how it is possible for a child to be both God and man at one and the same time. He simply accepts the reality of the paradox, piling up contrasting images and ending the carol with an exclamation of wonder and joy: Dyma, gwelwch e’n ddi-stwr, Y gorau i gyd yn wanna’ gwr, Duw yn ddyn, a dyn yn Dduw, A’i gwelo’n llyn, tra dedwydd yw. (Here, you see him peacefully, The best of all as the weakest person, God as man, and man as God, Who sees him as such is very happy.)
Cheerfulness is a significant element in Prichard’s carols - and yet he can also be, as Professor Thomas Parry described him, ‘yr Hen Ficer difrif ’ (‘the serious Old
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Vicar’). He strongly believed that the people of Llandovery should celebrate Christmas wholeheartedly as a generous response to God’s generosity in Christ, as he remarks in another carol: Mae’r Arglwydd yn peri in’ bawb fod yn firi, Yn llawen, a llonni mewn llan ac mewn llys, Yn Awdwr ein heddwch, a Thad ein diddanwch Trwy fod ein difyrwch yn weddus. Gan hynny’n enwedig yn awr y Nadolig, A’r galon yn ffrolig a’r wyneb yn ffres, Gwir orfoleddwch yn Awdwr ein heddwch, Rhowch ymaith bob tristwch anghynnes. Trwsiwch eich teiau, arlwywch eich byrddau, A phob sir o’r gorau o gariad at Grist, Gwahoddwch eich gilydd i gynnal lawenydd, Na chedwch ei wyl-ddydd yn athrist. (The Lord makes us all merry, Joyful and happy in the church and the court, As Author of our peace and Father of our entertainment So that our amusement is worthy. Therefore especially now at Christmas, With a frolicsome heart and a cheerful face, Truly rejoice in the Author of our peace Put away all miserable sadness. Decorate your houses, lay your tables With all the best cheer out of love for Christ, Invite each other to share in the joy, Don’t keep his feast day dismally.)
Yet the Old Vicar’s seriousness emerges when he has to decide the limits to Christmas celebration: the borderline between amusement that was gweddus and that which was anweddus. As the vicar of a small market town Rhys Prichard knew the vices and temptations of his parishioners only too well, and saw it as his duty to warn them about succumbing to such activities in a season that was meant to be sacred. Nac ewch i’r tafarnau, a’r aflan stywdeiau, I lolian y gwyliau, mae’n g’wilydd y gwaith; Ammherchi Duw ’n Prynwr, boddloni’r gwrth’nebwr, Mae’r cyfryw a’u dwndwr cas diffaith. Ymaith a’r cardiau, a’r dwndran, a’r disiau, A’r gloddest, a’r gwleddau bair Gristion yn glaf, A’r meddwdod a’r tyngu, sy’n ’nurddo a ’nafu Nadolig Duw Iesu anwylaf.
(Don’t go to taverns or filthy brothels, To shamefully waste the Holy Days in idle talk; Such places with their nasty useless noise Disrespect God our Saviour and satisfy the enemy. Get rid of the cards and the squabbling and the dice, And the gluttony and the feasts that make a Christian sick, And the drunkenness and the swearing that defiles and harms The Birthday of our dearest God Jesus.)
One suspects that the Old Vicar’s disapproval had as much (or as little) impact on the seamier side of Llandovery’s Christmas carousals as have present-day clerical polemics against the excesses of our highly commercialised modern Christmas. Yet Rhys Prichard was certainly not a kill-joy. The message of Christmas filled him with happiness. It made him want to sing and to persuade others to sing. As his poetry shows, his belief in the Incarnation gave him a concern for his fellow human-beings that embraced the whole of human society. He addresses labourers and husbandmen, travellers, drovers, soldiers, lovers, those who are ill and, in one very sensitive poem, he counsels a heart-broken mother who has lost her child. He examines the duties of children to their parents, church ministers, judges, parents and heads of families. If he comes down heavily on drunks, he condemns misers equally severely. His pastoral concerns are shaped by the astonishing message of God’s love expressed through the newborn child in the wretched stable in Bethlehem. The idea that the natural world somehow participates in the celebration of Christmas is echoed in one of the loveliest of Rhys Prichard’s carols. He says that the kindly song of joy should last throughout Christmas, beginning as we join with the cockerel before dawn, continuing with the lark at daybreak and the blackbird at midday... A chwedi’n, o’r dechreu-nos, Yn ddyfal fel yr eos, Cenwch, cenwch, na orphwyswch, Nes gorpheno’r hir nos. And then, from nightfall, Diligently like the nightingale, Sing, sing, don’t rest, Until the long night ends. Looking at my schedule of services over Christmas I can see that I shall certainly have to do a great deal of carol singing. I’m sure that my poetic predecessor would have wholeheartedly approved.
2010/2011 Great pe rformance s of great operas
Spring 2011
NEW PRODUCTION
Die Fledermaus J o h a n n
S t r a u s s
I I
Supported by the WNO Partnership
Il trovatore V e r d i Supported by the WNO Idloes Owen Society
12 February – 5 March Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff 029 2063 6464 | wmc.org.uk
Registered Charity No 221538. Image by David Massey for WNO///3
17 – 19 March Venue Cymru, Llandudno 01492 872000 | venuecymru.co.uk wno.org.uk
P E R F O R M I N G R I G H T S I N WA L E S
He who pays the piper… DAFYDD ROBERTS
F
or three years now the Welsh Music Publishers and Composers Alliance (Y Gynghrair) has been campaigning for a fair deal for composers and musicians in Wales. Following some minor concessions from the Performing Rights Society (PRS), the body that licenses the public use of music and songs, the campaign has now focused on the setting up of an independent licensing and collection society for Wales But why? What is wrong with the service provided by PRS to composers from Wales? The crux of the matter is the fundamental failure of PRS to understand the huge differences that exist between the indigenous cultures of Britain, and therefore, the need for specialised systems, processes and human resources to be able to deal effectively with the licensing of musical works from Wales. Cerdd Dant - the ancient art of setting given poetry on an improvised (originally) melody line to a given harp tune - is a good example, where there are three elements to the song, namely the air, the poetry and the melodic setting. PRS finds it difficult to understand this, as there are only two elements to an Anglo-American song, the words and the tune. This is only one example. Add the complexities of some of the intricate use of music, prose, lyrics and poetry in some of the Eisteddfod competitions and maybe one begins to realise why PRS is confused. As with any un-devolved body, there’s a difficulty to comprehend anything that lies outside the comfortable mainstream. But its not just PRS that’s at fault here. MCPS (The Mechanical Copyright Protection Society), the body that licenses the right to copy music, be it on disc or paper, is also neglecting its duties to the minority cultures. At the moment a backlog of around £1m is due to composers and labels from Wales, as MCPS has, year on year, failed to keep up with the processing of broadcast licences from Wales, some of which date back to 2005! Again, the problem is the failure to recognise the need for specialised staff, with the necessary linguistic expertise, to process the licences within MCPS. If you add the Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) to the pot (the society that licenses the public performance of recordings), who don’t even recognise Wales as a territory, but rather lump south Wales with the south west of England, and north Wales with the north west of
England, then it starts to become clear why Wales needs an independent body to license all of these rights. At the end of 2009 The Department for Economy & Transport and the Department for Heritage jointly commissioned a report by Professor Ian Hargreaves on the Creative Industries in Wales called The Heart of Digital Wales, and one of the recommendations of this report was to look at the feasibility of an independent Welsh music licensing and collection agency. Following this report and the publication of the University of Bangor report into the music industry in Wales, that was instigated and commissioned in part by Y Gynghrair, the Welsh Assembly Government, realising the importance and potential of the music industry to the economy, released almost £30,000 to Y Gynghrair for a detailed feasibility study into the setting up of an independent licensing body for Wales. Following a tender process, Cambrensis Communications carried out the feasibility study earlier this year, under the leadership of Arwel Elis Owen, now the interim Chief Executive of S4C. The recommendations clearly called for the setting up of such a body for Wales, and believed that it could be selfsufficient in five years, and contributing substantially to the economy of Wales within ten years. When a similar situation arose in Ireland some years ago the new independent body IMRO (Irish Music Rights Organisation) increased the income to composers from £1m (under PRS) to £40m today. In Croatia, which has a population similar to that of Wales, the new licensing body formed to serve the composers of the new state now employs over sixty members of staff, and has raised the profile of Croatian music to the international platform. At the moment the three London based bodies retain, on average, a 15% administrative commission on the licensing process. However, in post-devolution Wales, it makes perfect sense that any Intellectual Property created in Wales, is retained and exploited by a body in Wales, that can then re-invest in, and promote its own music industry. At the annual general meeting of Y Gynghrair, for composers, musicians, labels and publishers earlier this month at Aberystwyth, it was passed unanimously that Y Gynghrair should press ahead to establish an independent licensing and collection society for Wales. There was an urgency to the call, as royalties from PRS have now dropped by an average of 85% to Welsh composers, and the music industry in Wales is finding it difficult to invest in future talent, which will undoubtedly result in a substantial drop in new material. Earlier this year I took part in a seminar at the Celtic Media Festival in Newry, Northern Ireland, to discuss these difficulties with composers and musicians from the other Celtic countries, who are also suffering similar
problems under the London or Paris based societies. Publishing companies in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Brittany have already promised to withdraw their musical works from PRS’s catalogue and join a new independent society in Wales if it was established, as they realise that a licensing body has to be aware of the specialised and diverse needs of the minority culture markets. Something, I’m afraid, that’s beyond the PRS, MCPS and PPL.
CDs The Christmas Rose Swansea Bach Choir John Hugh Thomas (conductor) No recording number ALICE DAY
A
collection of Christmas music and readings, this disc make a great “de-stresser”. The music ranges from Clemens non Papa to Benjamin Britten.
The Swansea Bach Choir makes a beautiful, homogenous sound throughout, although a little more variation in volume and tempo might make the CD less soporific. The acoustic in All Saints Church, Oystermouth is gloriously soft, and probably contributes to the tranquillising effect. Unfortunately the mellifluousness comes at the
Dafydd M Roberts is the Chief Executive, of Sain Records and Chair, Welsh Music Publishers and Composers Alliance (Y Gynghrair) To download copies of the University of Bangor Report and the Cambrensis Report visit www.ygynghrair.com To download a copy of Prof. Ian Hargreaves’ report ‘The Heart of Digital Wales’ visit: http://wales.gov.uk/topics/businessandeconomy/ publications/heartofdigitalwales/?lang=en
expense of the Welsh, English and Latin texts, and it is difficult to distinguish the languages, let alone the actual words, which only emerge clearly in John Rutter‚s lovely arrangement of the Sans Day Carol. Recommended highly for anyone who gets anxious whilst wrapping presents or peeling sprouts, and the varied Christmas readings are exquisite. Available by post: Swansea Bach Choir, 38 Park Avenue Porthcawl CF36 3EP. £11 inc. postage and packing or email: johnhugh.thomas@btinternet.com
HUNANGOFIANT / AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Memoirs of a dreamer BOYD CLACK
I
started in Tonyrefail Grammar School in 1962. It was what was known at the time as a ‘good’ school. Its record of academic achievement was high and it had produced some notable sportsmen, specifically the Welsh rugby legend Cliff Morgan. The building itself was red brick and strangely impressive. It had been built in the early part of the century with the idea that it could double as a hospital for soldiers in time of war, the First World War. The basic vibe of the place was smugness. This was the place to be if you were a teacher, a ‘good’ grammar school. The students, at least when I was there, were taught in a dead, almost threatening way. It was the prevailing culture. The total emphasis on examination results and getting to university created a battery-hen system of education. It’s a shame. My Night Terrors had all but stopped and my life entered a soporific stage. I didn’t feel happy exactly but time passed in a summery sort of way. I played cricket in the field opposite the school in the evenings or soccer up the old school field. I hung about with boys from the housing estate. They were a nice bunch of lads in the main and just as daft as I was. I watched television fanatically, whenever I could. It was an empty, unreal time, the early sixties. The Beatles hadn’t appeared and it was as though everyone was waiting for them. I hated school. The truth is that I was a dreamer. I wasn’t prepared to waste my time studying. I did try, in fact, but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to know what they wanted me to learn. I had other interests. My reports were good in year one, where my natural intelligence pulled me through, but when it came to having to revise and do homework in year two and beyond I fell dramatically by the wayside. I was tall and thin and unworldly. Life is not easy for a boy when he’s tall, thin and unworldly. People seemed to think I was unusual. Even my friends scorned my company. I was gauche, I think, I didn’t reflect well on them. Ool used to tell me you can always judge a man by his friends and he was right. The teachers couldn’t deal with me at all. I was regarded as an empty-headed chatterbox. I was always being chastised no matter what I did. When I tried not to do anything at all I was still chastised. In the end I gave up trying. I wasn’t like them; it was as simple as that. They had no idea what went on in my life. I was a sort of lesser form of Holy Fool. That said, I had some friends, Mel Payne was there and Gary
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Newman, Mugso Morgan, Des Bevan and others. There was a wonderful boy named Raymond Kember who was very tall and very strange. He too was scorned by the Normals but he was no pussy and often got into fistfights defending himself. Good on him. Another thing he did was to pick his nose and put the boogies into holes in the wooden desktops till they were filled right up and then flatten them out. Sometimes people would sit at one of his desks and be sickened. Girls would squeal in horror. We used to play football with a tennis ball in the schoolyard every lunchtime and Raymond was a keen and committed participant. One day he came out from dinner a bit late and rushed to join in the match, which was already in full swing. As it happened some boys were playing cricket down on the field at the same time and one of them hit a towering six which was coming down on the yard near to where we were playing. Raymond, obviously thinking that it was the tennis ball being used to play the football with, leapt majestically into the air and headed it towards goal. He was knocked out cold. There was a lump on his forehead the size of a pomegranate. That was just the sort of stupid thing I’d do. Good old Kember! There were other loser types too of course, a whole subculture of us, but we had no sense of solidarity. The main boys, the alpha males, were Geoffrey Holtham, David Bonner, Mudge Jones, Anthony Scarrett and Dennis Ward; they were young, smart, personable and good looking. Being an emotional cripple I desperately wanted to be one of them and took to being a de facto jester as a means of entry into their circle. I was tolerated but never accepted. They’d plan to go places and not tell me. Don’t get me wrong, they were good lads, I regard most of them as friends to this day. They were just young and full of themselves. Anyway, they’d sussed me out correctly; I wasn’t an impressive chap. An excerpt from KISSES SWEETER THAN WINE by Boyd Clack, published by PARTHIAN, price £14.99. Available from all good bookshops or www.parthianbooks.com
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CAMBRIA, CALIFORNIA
From The West to The Very Far West CAMBRIA
- A LITTLE BIT OF
CYMRU IN CALIFORNIA RACHEL SHARPTON
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alifornia: land of perpetual sun and sand, while this stereotype is not untrue, it makes up only a small part of what can be experienced within the State. My favourite corner, four hours northwest of Los Angeles, is a small town called… Cambria. It’s a quiet, sleepy, seaside destination, with steep cliffs overlooking the beach, vibrant flora and fauna, trickling streams and green, sprawling hills nestling back towards the east. Does this sound familiar? If it weren’t for the coastal pines and the New England-style architecture, Cambria could be well, in Cambria. When I was growing up, my family would always try to take an annual trip to this beautiful town on California’s central coast. It was as if we had discovered a bit of heaven, and since it was less popular than other nearby beach towns, we felt as though it was our little secret. Moonstone Beach
But seemingly quiet and unassuming Cambria has been a popular holiday destination for a while. Back in the mid-1800s, the mansion of real estate heir and Europhile William Randolph Hearst officially became a state landmark. Tourists soon flocked to San Simeon - where the ‘castle’ is located - in order to gawk at his lavish living conditions. Cambria, just eight miles to the South, was an ideal place to find accommodation, possibly at The Davis House, Cambria’s first hotel. The community made a distinct impression on the travellers who passed through, mainly because of its New England-style architecture - the result of an abundant supply of pine wood so typical of the area. This architecture was in stark contrast to the much more common Spanish adobe-style buildings seen elsewhere in California. By the time Hearst’s mansion had opened to the public, Cambria was a thriving community, but still with no official name. It was called various things throughout the years - ‘Slab Town’ being one of the more uninspired options. Little wonder according to one source - the need for a decent, official name became so dire that a town meeting was held to discuss ideas. Supposedly an engineer named Peter A. Forrester suggested the name ‘Cambria’, after the county in Pennsylvania, where many Welsh immigrants settled in the beginning of the nineteenth century. It’s an interesting story, but one that is not historically verified, according to the Cambria Chamber of Commerce. While there are Welsh immigrant communities in
The need for a decent, official name became so dire that a town meeting was held to discuss ideas.
the United States that also go by the name of Cambria, the Cambria in California was not known for being a Welsh community. And although George Davis, one of Cambria’s founders and the owner of The Davis House, certainly bore the Americanised spelling of the popular Welsh name, it is not known whether he was actually of Welsh descent. What is clear, however, is how similar the landscape of Cambria is to many parts of Wales: the rolling, lush green hills peppered with twisting trees; scores of sea gulls hovering on the sea breeze; the rocky and somewhat treacherous coastline. I always thought it very European looking, but until I visited Wales myself, I never realised how similar it actually is to that particular corner of the continent. Yet while Cambria has obvious Welsh inspirations, it still has a distinct, laid-back California attitude, and with that, of course, comes the abundant sunshine. Expect a wealth of fresh fruits and vegetables from local farmers, diverse wildlife and excellent weather for long, luxurious walks. The ideal time to visit is mid-to late January through to midFebruary. As odd as it sounds, this region of California (which stretches a good 6-8 hour drive from Santa Barbara in the South towards Los Angeles up past San Francisco in the North), is actually at its sunniest dur-
Berries for sale at the farmers’ market
ing this period. In the early summer months, the sky is mostly overcast. Also, the late winter is off-season, so you can find cheaper accommodation and fewer tourists. Obviously, the main tourist draw is Hearst Castle, and it’s not hard to see why. Built on top of a lush hill overlooking his family’s ranch in San Simeon, and designed by architect Julia Morgan (the first female graduate of the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris) it is truly a masterpiece of construction, with the most luxurious views of the Pacific Ocean imaginable. Several tours are available which cover different sections of the ‘castle’ grounds. All the décor and art is original, kept in the way Hearst would have wanted for his many guests over the years. I highly recommend taking the main tour, which leads past the gigantic, Roman-style pool. But then linger for a time in the late afternoon so that when you head up into the house and look out towards the sea, you can watch a spectacular sunset. If gawking at opulence is not your idea of a vacation, there’s no need to worry. Cambria is one of those places that you can just ‘experience’, even if you don’t end up doing very much. But a nice contrast to the extravaNitt Witt Ridge
gance of Hearst Castle is a little place overlooking Cambria’s charming downtown. Built by a rather eccentric Arthur Harold Beal in the early half of the 20th century, Nitt Witt Ridge is one of the finest examples around of ‘outsider’ (or folk) art. The construction of the house, which covers an area of roughly two acres and took around fifty years to finally complete, is made up of entirely recycled materials. Beal was not considered an artist when he was alive, which is why the ‘poor man’s Hearst Castle’ (as it has been dubbed by some) is considered ‘outsider’ art. It’s definitely worth a visit: today it’s owned and maintained by Michael and Stacy O’Malley, who offer tours at a donation price of $10 (call in advance). All of the materials on the house were considered ‘trash’ at one point beer bottles stuck in concrete make up a lot of the exterior walls. Even the mailbox is made out of metal which looks as though it was once a trash can. As well as being original and well made, Nitt Witt Ridge is also a powerful demonstration of how much garbage we, as a society, generated even a century or so ago. While the human presence in the area is inescapable, there is quite a lot of wildlife to see in Cambria. If you travel in the late January to mid February time frame, you can see the migration of grey whales off the shore. In the spring, elephant seals give birth near San Simeon. Yearround, you can study a particular colony on a San Simeon beach (right near the Hearst Castle turn off) from a special viewing area: it’s one of the most close-up wild life encounters I’ve ever experienced. You can also see sea otters, California sea lions, a wide variety of birds, as well as other
sea life in the tide pools on Moonstone Beach, Cambria’s main beach. For places to stay, check out the historic Cambria Pines Lodge, which affords some fantastic views. I generally look for smaller accommodation, since it’s cheaper and more homeyfeeling. There are many bed & breakfast providers to choose from, as well as a nice little hostel in the East section of downtown, but one of my favourite places to stay is Blue Bird Inn on Main St. It looks basic from the outside, but the rooms are cosy and comfortable, and many of them open onto the garden, which mean-
View from Hearst Castle
ders down towards the Santa Rosa Creek. There’s no shortage of things to enjoy and experience in Cambria, but to get the most out of it you should just take leisurely walks, wake up to the sound of gulls, run your hand through the sand on Moonstone Beach, taste a little local wine and just simply soak in the overwhelming beauty of what was undoubtedly somebody’s own vision of Wales once upon a time. RACHEL SHARPTON is a writer, rambler and sometime poet who hails from the armpit of California known as the Central Valley but has lived happily in south Wales near beautiful Gower.
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Gardens The Gardens of High Glanau CAROLINE PALMER
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t takes a woman of high principles to buy a house, rip out a perfectly good outdoor heated swimming pool, and re-instate a lawned terrace. But this is symptomatic of the focus and determination with which Helena Gerrish has approached the restoration of High Glanau in Monmouthshire. ‘Arts and Crafts’ gardens and their associated houses are most commonly associated with Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens, but there were other equally dedicated exponents of the style. Their houses tend to be comfortable overgrown cottages with steeply descending roofs and oak panelled interiors with carved wood detailing and secular stained glass. The gardens are of generous size, linear rather than curvaceous with long borders, paved terraces, pergolas and repeating architectural details like stone balls and urns. They evoke cocktails on the terrace, croquet, lavish vases of High Glanau and the octagonal pool
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fresh cut garden flowers, neat posy vases and a carafe of fresh water daily replenished at every bedside. H. Avray Tipping was one such architect and designer, and scholarly contributor to Country Life for 30 years, describing the glories of the English, and Welsh and Scottish country house and garden. He attracted important commissions such as the sunken garden at Chequers, and at Wyndecliffe Hall. For his own use he successively restored and rebuilt Mathern Palace, built Mounton House, and then in 1922 bought a 1500acre estate in order to build High Glanau, at a site of his choosing perched on a steep escarpment facing over the hills of the Vale of Usk. It is in many ways a
Japanese anemones
distillation of all the ideas he had found pleasing in his previous houses, with his signature oak panelled drawing room, a ribbon parterre flanked by double borders, a pergola, and steep broad steps descending
Grapes in the glasshouse
to an octagonal pool centred on the front of the house. Helena and her husband came to High Glanau in 2002 and have industriously restored the house and gardens to its period style. Hence the swimming pool had to go. In its place the end of the house looks out along a broad level terrace of close cut grass, flanked on either side by generous borders. The whole concept is informed by the Country Life archive of high quality glass plate photographs – so clear that plant identifications are no challenge. The borders are once again fronted by alchemilla mollis, hostas, (formerly called Corfu lily or Plantain lily) and
geraniums, rising towards the back with sculptural masses of tall daisies, dahlias, rudbeckias and achillea in yellows and whites, and contrasting blues of cardoon, salvia, and agapanthus. At the end the pergola is clothed in white rambler roses and clematis. It is “English Country Garden” personified. Below, steps lead through clipped hedges of Lonicera nitida to a second lawned terrace, with a lavender bordered axial path and stunning views out through the oaks and yews of the woodland garden below. By today’s standards the house it pretty large with three gables on the frontage and slate-hung upper walls. Notwithstanding its size and Tipping’s bachelor status he built a second much smaller adjoining house for his guests. Henry Avray Tipping was born in 1855 and was an Oxford aesthete at the same time as Oscar Wilde. A lifelong bachelor, he was a close friend of Harold Peto and it was on one of their cycling expeditions together that they found Iford Manor near Bath where Peto went on to create his own exquisite garden. We cannot claim Tipping as a Welshman - he was born in France, at Ville Avray, and it is thus that he acquired his given name. His parents were Quakers of north country origin, but resided in Kent. However he was obviously drawn to the beauty of Wales and has left here some of his best work. With a champion like Helena Gerrish, whose book on the work of H. Avray Tipping will be published by Frances Lincoln next year, his relative obscurity of recent times will soon be a thing of the past.
A gift of membership is a Christmas present that lasts all year and is different every time you visit! INDIVIDUAL: £35 JOINT (for 2): £50 FAMILY*: £65
* 2 adults + up to 4 children
The National Botanic Garden of Wales Llanarthne, Carmarthenshire, SA32 8HG. TEL : 01558 668 768
www.gardenofwales.org.uk
PHOTOGRAPHS BY CAROLINE PALMER
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Helena Gerrish welcomes organised group visits to High Glanau and can serve delicious refreshments in the main house. T: 01600 860005
01267 290188
• Domestic & Commercial Lawn and Grounds Care Equipment. • Walk-behind mowers, ride-ons, lawn, garden and compact & highway tractors. • Main dealers in South Wales for Jacuzzi hot tubs and hydrotherapy spas. Oaklands Mansion, Cwmffrwd, Carmarthen, SA31 2ND TEL:
01267 235625
FAX:
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www.powercut.co.uk
Cambria’s
Christmas Gift Ideas...
‘Recipes and Ramblings’, by Elizabeth Luard. (The Oldie Publications, London. £14.99)
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eautifully and amusingly illustrated by the author herself, Recipes and Ramblings is a wonderfully evocative and eclectic collection of recipes from around the world, each accompanied by Elizabeth Luard’s own (sometimes quirky, often factual) insights into the dishes themselves. Ethiopian chicken curry, Melton Mowbray pie, Afghan seshtaranga and Dottie Davies lemon drizzle cake (from the kitchen of Cambria’s own culinary expert, Dorothy Davies) all nestle comfortably within a 140-recipe collection which - as might be expected from the pen of The Oldie’s food columnist - brings us into delightful contact with the sort of ‘good honest grub’ that is enjoyed around the world by those who prefer their food to be more fulfilling than fancy. A must for the kitchen cookbook shelf.
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IVEPOINT GLOVES KEEP YOU WARM in style while using your iPhone, iPad, iPod and other touch-screen devices, apparently you can even touchtype in them! Thanks to their specially-designed conductive fingertips. Made in the UK from lamb’s wool, the gloves are available in three sizes – small, medium and large – although now) in Oxford Blue with Grey fingertips. Other colour combinations will be available in the New Year. Available from www.fivepointgloves.com at £24.99. www.fivepointgloves.com
T
HESE WONDERFULLY COLOURFUL SOCKS MADE BY CORGI OF AMMANFORD in natural yarns, make a cheerful present, colourful and warm as toast, from fun cotton stripes to classic styles in softest cashmere. Prices start at £13.75 for a pair. Look out for them in gentlemen’s outfitters and department stores. Via their website they are offering a new service: Factory specials, made from surplus yarn when the factory is less busy. For your local stockiest call 01269 590 920 or mail order www.corgihosiery.co.uk
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ND, THINKING AHEAD TO ST DAVID’S DAY! Made in Swansea, these traditional national costume outfits represent great value: Boys £12, Girls £15 and Ladies £35, prices include post and packing. Order from 01792 655281. Or send a cheque payable to Image to 10/11 High Street Arcade, Swansea SA1 1LE
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Chris Kinsey
Nature Diary
I
Crychydd
Heron
find it hardest of all to be indoors in autumn - I just want to be out, making the most of the light, witnessing the shifts of colour in the security of knowing it won’t get too hot. On the 19th October, after many misty mornings, the sky was glacier blue. A thin rainbow hooped the horse chestnuts, limes and blazing beeches. My eyes strayed with the streaming leaves and then chased the rise, fall and flicker of grey wagtails over flat water on the Severn. For a minute, I thought the martins were back, rising and falling, toing and froing, but the lemony bellies were like the spilling leaves. When they landed they earned half their name - wagtails. - but grey? They are roofed in slate but this just accentuates their colour. I guess this resident bird lost out to the even yellower summer visitor, when it came to naming. The yellow wagtail comes to breed on upland streams. Pied wagtails are the ones which appear grey to me. As I watched this lively flock chase flies, I realised they were weaving round the head of a heron; tall, beak un-scabbarded, and deadly still. I lined myself up with a Scots pine, but the heron played statue for longer than my hounds were prepared to and I was distracted by a
EWA KADEWSKA
tree creeper foraging the scaly trunk. The dogs and I walked on. The shower came, erasing the rainbow. Two mute swans flew, creaking out of the rain. When they landed just upstream their feint splish ignited a kingfisher and settled a raucous dispute between mallards and crows. Something broke the heron’s concentration. On the way back, he was flying so slow and low I was almost knighted by his beak. Thanks to the thinning willow leaves, I saw the kingfisher full-frontal on a bare twig. Still and rust-coloured, I wasn’t sure it was the bird until it flicked off for cover with the wow of turquoise. Twice since, I’ve been duped, waiting for dead leaves to fly or dive. Our biggest and brightest butterflies: red admirals, tortoiseshells, and peacocks make the most of Indian summer too. Not so many peacocks have made false eyes at me this year, but I’ve delighted in the flutterings of the other two species, especially the tattered survivors of predators like blue tits. Unlike the grey wagtail, the silver Y moth is aptly named. Whilst sitting on the front step to eat my lunch, I watched a female ram-rod the pansies for nectar. She probed more deeply into the purples than the yellows or whites. The moth is a strong fast flyer; many migrate north on southerly winds. Later that night, I saw a more tufted male vibrating and whirring under a street-lamp. It was the first night frost was forecast and, despite all the body hair, I thought it was nonplussed by the drop in temperature, but vibrating constantly, keeping the flight muscles prepared, is one of its characteristics. It can’t survive winter in Britain. PHOTOGRAPHY:
Ewa Kadewska - kadewska@btinternet.com ILLUSTRATIONS: Emrys Bowen
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Literature
Sense of Place
The remote and rugged shore
One story states that St Govan was actually Sir Gawain, who became a
PHIL CARRADICE
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eave the tourist-heavy streets of Tenby behind and you quickly realise that the area between Manorbier and Angle is one of the most remote and rugged stretches on the whole Pembrokeshire coast. There are no towns, few villages of note, nothing to disturb its tranquillity and grandeur. Angle
Manorbier remains a community out of time. Despite years of war Manorbier Castle still looks much as it did in the twelfth-century. In 1146 this was the birthplace of one of the world’s first travel writers, Giraldus Cambrensis. In Journey Through Wales he called Manorbier ‘the pleasantest spot in Wales’ - with the sun setting over the hills to the west and a calm sea running onto the beach below the castle, I wouldn’t disagree with him.
hermit after the death of Arthur. As a boy I spent many summers camping on the dunes of Freshwater East. Apart from a proliferation of adders it was a wonderful place to grow up. But Freshwater was once a smugglers’
St Govan’s Chapel
Stack Rocks
Thorn Island, Angle
paradise, its sheltered beach being ideal for landing illicit treasures. Lord Cawdor from Stackpole tackled a smuggling band here in 1801 when, unarmed and single-handed, he charged onto the beach and routed over twenty of them. The Cawdor family were major
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landowners in the area for years. At the end of the eighteenth century they dammed a limestone valley to create Bosheston lily ponds - even though local legend makes the ponds much older, declaring them the place where the Lady of the Lake presented King Arthur with
Excalibur. There are more Arthurian connections at nearby St Govan’s Chapel. One story states that St Govan was actually Sir Gawain, who became a hermit after the death of Arthur. It’s a good tale but St Govan was probably the priest Gobhan who built his Chapel
halfway down the cliff - ideal for a holy man seeking sanctuary. There is a quality of light on this coast, a brightness and a lightness that have made it a favourite location for painters. J M Turner and Graham Sutherland both visited while Bim and Arthur Giardelli
came during the Second World War, converting an old school house outside Castlemartin into The Golden Plover Art Gallery. Bob Reeves is another artist who spends much of his time capturing the scenery. ‘I paint light,’ he says. ‘There’s nowhere better.’
Freshwater West is one of Bob Reeves’ regular locations. The view, when you first crest the hill and glimpse these wide, golden sands, is stunning. And when the wind howls off the sea the beach is a fury of swirling foam. Ships died here, pinioned against the shore by westerly gales - at low tide you can still see the keel of one of those victims. Roland Mathias caught the mood of the place when he wrote ‘Here the brute combers build the watershed’. Two of the most atmospheric Pembrokeshire islands - Rat and Sheep Islands - wait at the north-west margin of the beach. Deserted, windswept, to my mind they are the essence of this coastline, the antithesis of tourist-ridden places like Tenby. Angle sits at the tip of the peninsula, a village of workmen’s cottages, a fourteenth century tower and The Point House, a smugglers’ pub that was once the base of the notorious John Callice. Off West Angle Beach lies Thorne Island fort, a Palmerston folly built to protect Pembroke Dockyard, nine miles inland. Here in 1894, on the rocks below the fort, the ‘Loch Shiel’ ran aground, her cargo - 100% proof whisky - floating ashore as the ship broke up. Local women spirited it
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Star Rock and Church Rock Colomendy/Dovecot, Angle
away, concealed down the legs of their bloomers. The language of the peninsula is predominantly English, the area being called, sometimes derisively, ‘Little England Beyond Wales.’ The term was first used in the twelfth-century when William Camden dubbed it ‘Anglia Transwallina.’ Yet its origin is older, both Giraldus Cambrensis and the medieval chronicle Brut y Tywysogion
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recording the settlement of Fleming wool merchants in southern Pembrokeshire in the wake of the Norman invasion. That settlement and the power of the invading Normans - resulted in significant differences between the people of the south and those of the north, not just in their language but also in their forms of agriculture, their architecture and their settlements. It’s unclear whether or not the creation of such a difference was deliberate. There may well have been ‘clearances’ in the south of the county but at this distance it is hard to make judgements. One thing is sure. The people of South Pembrokeshire remain proud of their heritage - Welsh, yes, but also Pembrokeshire, through and through. ALL PHOTOGRAPHS © JOHN KEATES
Profile RAYMOND GARLICK
“Mr. to most, a formal man..” DON DALE-JONES
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y first encounter with Raymond occurred in 1967 when he was appointed to Wyn Binding’ s outstanding English Department at what was then Trinity College, Carmarthen. This meeting of an Englishman who had wholeheartedly embraced Wales with a Welshman accidentally embraced by England was initially an uneasy one: I had much to learn from my courteous, downright colleague about Wales and Welsh and AngloWelsh poetry. Born in Rhuthun, Denbighshire, I had lived, while my father was on active service in the Second World War, with my grandfather and grandmother in the beautiful, scattered parish of Llanbedr Dyffryn Clwyd beneath tower-crowned Moel Fama. Although my few friends were Welsh-speaking farmers’ or agricultural workers’ sons, and kindly attempts were made by them and less kindly ones by the formidable Mrs Roberts, headmistress of Llanbedr primary school, to teach me the language, I did not learn it. In 1945 my father returned from the army and we moved to Kettering, a large boot-and-shoe town in Northamptonshire. Raymond’ s life-journey went in an opposite direction: born in Harlesden, north-west London, he fell early in love with Wales, initially through holidays at Degannwy, for him “the August Country”, and later through university studies at Bangor. Marriage to the fiercely nationalist Elin Hughes and teaching at Pembroke Dock County
School under the inspiring headship of Roland Mathias confirmed this still – and insistently always – Englishman in his devotion to Wales and to Anglo-Welsh writing in particular. True internationality is not to be achieved unless one is firmly rooted in a particular nation. Raymond has always seen Wales in the context of Europe and a wider world beyond, a logical position considering the “spharagmos” of Welsh people to places as distant as Patagonia; only in relatively recent times has Wales been able to offer its people opportunities comparable with those so many were obliged to seek in England. He has taught at Eerde in the Netherlands and in the United States and maintains close contact with the “Welsh American”, John Dressel and the Webster College student exchange scheme. His close relationship with R.S.Thomas was formative for both men, as their recently published correspondence clearly demonstrates. It is said poets are born rather than made, and it must be true that if the ability to write poetry is not somewhere in the genes, then the person concerned will not write it. But Raymond might never have written at all had he not, while a student at Bangor, become friendly with “Louis Soeterboek, who under the name of Louis Olav Leroi published two very slim but hardback volumes of poetry in English . . . and a short novel in Welsh”. Soeterboek asked him for poems for the College magazine and “The request was so expressed as to imply that all literate persons wrote poetry as a matter of course . . . Out of sheer pique I went back to my lodgings and wrote something.'' It was a challenge, and as Raymond’ s subsequent life and art make very clear, to be faced down and triumphantly overcome. There followed thirteen volumes
and pamphlets of poetry including Collected Poems 1946-86, three anthologies, twenty-two prose items and fifteen critical essays including the important An Introduction to Anglo-Welsh Literature (1972). I am not sure whether Raymond will appreciate my calling him, now that R.S.Thomas is no longer with us, “The Grand Old Man of Welsh Literature”, but the title has been earned not only through his writing in poetry and in prose, but also by his distinguished part in the politico-cultural struggle that gave us the Assembly. John Milton defined poetry as “that one talent which is death to hide”, and I cannot do better to conclude than with Raymond’ s own equivalent: As earth desires the rain, the womb the seed, pain Rest, conception birth, the burning lover His beloved’ s breast: just so, to pin A syntax on existence and to voice The vowels of being is the hot desire Locked in my knotted limbs and body’s vice.
And Leslie Norris’ s appreciation which coincides so happily with my own: ''We owe Raymond Garlick a debt of gratitude, not only for his devoted service to poetry in general, to Anglo-Welsh poetry in particular, or to Wales. An Englishman (his poems about his English childhood are delightful), he has served us well. His scholarship . . . has been unsparingly used in the cause of his adopted country. Yet he remains, as he says himself, “an Englishman / Ever more English by the year / It seems . . .” Garlick does not deny his history or his humanity. A serious, honest, concerned and civilised man, he brings those virtues to his poetry.
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Yr Enfys THE MAGAZINE OF WALES INTERNATIONAL MALCOLM BALLIN
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interviews T. Elwyn Griffiths
met T. Elwyn Griffiths at his home in Caeathro near Caernarfon earlier this year and had a thoroughly relaxed chat - over thoughtfully provided tea and cakes - about his sixty years of association with the unusual magazine Yr Enfys [The Rainbow] - the journal of Undeb y Cymry ar Wasgar [now known as Undeb y Cymru a’r Byd]. As suggested in Elwyn’s editorial in the very first issue, October 1948, Yr Enfys is primarily, a bond linking together two worlds - the mother country on the one hand, and on the other, the numerous Welsh men and women living in foreign lands and in England, Scotland, and Ireland. This first issue was priced sixpence, quarterly and had a newspaper layout. Yr Enfys was bilingual from the start, about a third of the content being in Welsh. It struck a positive note with a ‘rousing welcome to Welsh overseas visitors’ at the Bridgend Eisteddfod. A cautionary theme appears, however, from an American correspondent who expresses concern about how few American Welshmen display a real interest in Welsh culture. These contradictions are repeated throughout the magazine’s life right up to the present time. The Spring 2010 issue has an article about the Ebbw Vale Eisteddfod, urging Welshmen across the world to plan their visits but it also carries a contribution about tracing Welsh roots which remarks that ‘the Welsh make good Americans because they are good assimilators.’ This is a valuable asset but, as a result, later generations may have looser ties to the mother country. Elwyn tells me that the original idea of a journal of this kind stemmed from his Second World
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War experience as a young officer in the RAF in Cairo, when, he helped to form an organisation to keep Welsh servicemen in touch with one another. This led to the creation of a magazine, Seren y Dwyrain [Star of the East], which had a free circulation among Welshmen throughout the Middle Eastern sectors. Seren was bilingual, then mostly written in Welsh. Eventually in 1948 an entirely new organisation, Undeb y Cymru ar Wasgar, was created, with Elwyn as the first Secretary. He was also appointed as the founder editor of Yr Enfys. The 60th anniversary issue in 2008 has a cover displaying a photograph of a beaming Elwyn, together with copies of the first issues of Seren and Yr Enfys. It features tributes from Rhodri Morgan and Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas. Elwyn emphasises the importance of the magazine being the house journal of the Undeb; this has contributed to its remarkable longevity. A web of Welsh organisations throughout the world creates a market for Yr Enfys and subscriptions are collected through the parent organisation. It keeps Welsh people abroad informed about contemporary Wales and vice-versa. It has always avoided any set political stance and it celebrates cultural events, especially the National Eisteddfod. For many years the Undeb (in conjunction with the Eisteddfod authorities) organised welcoming ceremonies for those coming from abroad and the magazine published regular reports from Welsh societies all around the world. Elwyn thought that these were important elements in the appeal of the magazine though he observed that they became rather less conspicuous in later issues. Following forty years as editor,
Elwyn handed over to Bet Davies in 1988 but, as will become evident, he retained a lively interest. All the editors were given untrammelled freedom by the board of the Undeb - perhaps, he felt, sometimes too much so - and over the years the magazine had reflected their individual styles. Elwyn himself presided over several radical changes of format in the 1970s, experimenting with a more journal-like presence in 1977 and then appearing as a broadsheet for a while, around 1979. The original quarterly was reduced to a biennial production at one stage. Currently Yr Enfys appears three times a year. Elwyn pointed out that the Tourist Board had been a regular supporter, generous with grants and advertisements, but never seeking to influence editorial policy. His successor, Bet Davies, had come from this background and had placed more emphasis on tourism - but this was fully in line with the magazine’s objectives. Her first editorial - ‘Best Welcome Ever’ - reminded readers that ‘Now is the time to consider booking your 1989 holiday in Wales.’ She stressed the recent improvements in road, rail and air communications and the availability of new tourist packages. Other articles described ‘New Hotels with a History’, and recommended the Ebbw Vale Garden Festival and
the new Rhondda Heritage Park. Later issues promoted the Cardiff Bay development and the Welsh National Opera. Elwyn Griffiths is reported as giving a ‘hard hitting speech’ about migration into Wales and its dangers for the Welsh language. Under Sian Williams’s editorship in 1992 the editorials are bi-lingual and Yr Enfys becomes glossier and more colourful. There is less obvious promotional material and, as Elwyn Griffiths points out in a letter to the editor, the Welsh Tourist Agency becomes less directly involved. Welsh societies are asked to protest about the absence of Welsh language materials on the BBC’s World Service. Gerwyn Morgan and Marion Rees see the magazine through to the Millennium and Glyn Evans, the current editor (previously editor of Y Cymro) takes over in 2004. More recent issues maintain the character of the magazine. In Spring 2009, Undeb’s Chairman, Edward Morus Jones, asks for more contributions from members around the world, along the lines of the article by Garnet E. Roth that describes the Welsh Nationality Room at the University of Pittsburgh. Perhaps inevitably, there are increasing numbers of obituaries, including Elwyn Griffiths’s tribute to Nest Ogwena Parry, former President of the Paris Welsh Society, that appears in Welsh and English in the Autumn 2009 issue. Elwyn, who is now in his nineties, tells me that he has some concerns about the future of the magazine, especially about the difficulty of recruiting younger people into membership. The reduction of Welsh speakers among the membership overseas is a critical development. Elwyn is pleased that Yr Enfys has, through the efforts of Iolo F. Roberts, one of the Vice-Presidents, been able to
ensure that the next National census will make provision for people in England to signify that they are Welsh and also to indicate whether they are Welsh-speaking. It is clear that Elwyn still regards Yr Enfys as very much ‘his baby’ and that he is still actively thinking about the threats to its future. He possesses a full set of issues of the magazine and he has lodged his comprehensive papers in the National Library. The durability of
Yr Enfys (and, indeed, of its founding editor) are remarkable phenomena, especially given the history of bilingual magazines in Wales, most of which have struggled to last more than a year or so. In his first editorial in 1948, T. Elwyn Griffiths described his editorial task as ‘a privilege which will be doubly compensated if this little journal will succeed to any substantial degree.’ That ‘double compensation’ has undoubtedly been richly earned.
Prichard’s Nose by Sam Adams (Y LOLFA, £9.95) GERALD MORGAN
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homas Jeffrey Llewelyn Prichard was born and christened plain Thomas Prichard in 1790, assuming his middle names during his long, stumbling literary career. He died poor and wretched in a burning hovel in Swansea in 1862. When I wrote in the 1960s about his remarkable novel, The Life and Vagaries of Twm Shon Catti, neither the date of his birth nor of his death were known to the editor of the Dictionary of Welsh Biography, W.Ll. Davies, who compiled Prichard’s entry. They were uncovered thanks to the diligence of Sam Adams, author of a monograph on Prichard. Despite other valuable discoveries, Adams was frustrated by the lack of material enough to flesh out a biography, and so decided to create the autobiography which Prichard so annoyingly never wrote. In particular he wanted to know what mishap had cost Prichard his nose. The result is a novel of considerable artifice; since Prichard’s fictional manuscript has to be ‘discovered’ by a modern scholar, Martin Jenkins, whose story is interleaved with the chapters of the autobiography. Any idea that Jenkins is an
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alias for Sam Adams himself should be still-born; he is a miserable, inadequate creature in a failing marriage, who dies young. Prichard’s Nose therefore begins with Martin and his find in the library of Swansea’s Royal Institution, but soon moves to the autobiography. Adams gives Prichard as autobiographer a good plain English, with no anachronisms that I noticed, mercifully lacking the kind of rhetorical flourishes I suspect Prichard would himself have used. The autobiography’s chapters are distinguished from the Martin Jenkins material by their use of initial summaries like those employed by novelists of the period. Prichard’s account ends with his return to Wales in the early 1820s, determined to become a professional writer on Welsh themes. The novel itself concludes with Jenkins’s final discoveries about Prichard and his own death, and speculation about the missing nose. I found the plan interesting, but could have done without the Jenkins material which occasionally interrupts the Prichard narrative. Prichard’s Nose is a good read not just for enthusiasts for AngloWelsh literature, but for anyone who may enjoy Adams’s knowledgeable account of Welsh rural life in a past as remote to us as the Chinese empire, and the picaresque account of Prichard’s time in London. Poor Prichard! He is an awful warning for any writer; ambition so easily outruns performance, especially in a literary world where dog fiercely ate dog, and where no Arts Council safety net was dreamed of. His poems are deservedly forgotten, his Heroines of Welsh History made no waves, his guidebooks to Aberystwyth and Llandrindod are valued by local historians alone. Only his oft-
reprinted Twm Shon Catti has kept both his name and that of his hero alive. Sam Adams has done him proud.
The Prince and the Patriot by John D Rogers (Y LOLFA, £6.95) TOM ANDERSON
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istorical fiction, historical fact or maybe a bit of both. The Prince and the Patriot is a fast-paced tale of a late teen coming of age, set in Ceredigion during 1969 - the year of Charles’s investiture as Prince of Wales. As this controversial event approaches the novel’s protagonist, Geraint Rees, is just beginning to fall for a young English girl, Melanie. Melanie tests his principles with a nonchalant attitude to the issues Geraint holds dearest and is subsequently distressed to see him get more and more attached to militant nationalism. That said, Melanie and Geraint - who are both sixth formers - first meet when she helps stand up for his right to talk Welsh in school. Incidents like this make both characters rounded, and credible, allowing John D Rogers to explore the spirit of the age without falling in
to the simplistic portrayal of the issue as merely a case of good versus bad, or right against wrong. Besides these two main characters, the individuals Geraint meets in the ‘Liberation Army of Wales’ are immediately funny, thoughtprovoking and engaging. The Prince and the Patriot has pulled together elements of thriller, highschool romance and historical fiction to take a look back at an episode in Wales’s past that we are still yet to fully understand. Although clearly the product of thorough research, perhaps a little personal experience (beyond just the classroom, where Rogers worked for years) and plenty of author passion, the story is easy to read. One is eager to learn what decisions Geraint will make next, what consequences this may lead to - and, of course, whether or not he will be able to balance his love for a country struggling to preserve its identity with his lust for a girl who is trying to provide him with another perspective. By the novel’s end you’ve learned a good deal more about the mood of the nation during these turbulent years - but crucially, this has been achieved through reading a flowing and entertaining piece of neatly constructed prose. Well worth a go.
Atgofion Hen Wanc by David R Edwards (Y LOLFA £6.95) HUW STEPHENS
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avid R Edwards is a poet, a musician, a writer and a thinker. The songs and albums he recorded, entirely in Welsh, with his band Datblygu in
the late ’80s to mid ’90s are considered dark, humorous, literate, anti-establishment works of genius and his music and thought-provoking lyricism inspired many Welsh bands and labels, including Super Furry Animals and the Ankst recording label. This, David R. Edwards memoirs, is a short and enlightening insight into Edwards’s life and times. While many happy times are recalled, from recording sessions for their most prominent fan, the late John Peel at the BBC’s Maida Vales studios to playing gigs and enjoying life to the full, there is also a darker and sad side to Edwards’s life. His drug and alcohol abuse raises its head several times and its effects have implications for his artistic and personal life. At times, Edwards’s almost child-like tale-telling seems too simplistic, but it is the sad and brutally honest nature of his writing that has always given Datblygu their edge, along with their unapologetic experimental and startling instrumentation. Love and jobs, both gained and lost equally, are common themes throughout, with the Welsh language alternative music scene the backdrop for David’s life in music. While critically acclaimed (especially by Peel), his music was mostly ignored in Wales by the mainstream but given a chance to gain a bigger audience by the more leftfield radio and television programmes, which he writes about in detail. Although a tortured artist, he emerges as a sweet and vulnerable man, striving to make the most of his situation but unable to play the games he was expected to play because of his uncompromising nature. A lengthy and beautifully written introduction to the memoir by his friend Emyr Glyn Williams adds a huge amount of wealth to this vol-
ume, as does a detailed discography compiled by Gari Melville, the most avid and knowledgeable Welsh music collector living in Wales. He describes David R.Edwards as the ‘most sensible Welsh genius since Gwyn Alf Williams’. The collection is a must for Datblygu fans and is another essential eye-opener for one of the most intriguing and under-valued Welsh poets.
White Ravens by Owen Sheers (SEREN, £7.99) DAVID LLOYD
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his novella is one of a series commissioned by Seren Books, in which Welsh writers are asked to “reinvent and retell” the classic medieval tales of the Mabinogion “for their own reasons and in their own way” (according to the unsigned Introduction). White Ravens retells the Second Branch of the Mabinogi, the story of Branwen – sister to Bendigeidfran, king of Britain – whose marriage to the Irish king Matholwch leads to catastrophic personal and political trauma. Sheers retains the “architecture” of the Second Branch (as he puts it in his Afterword) while providing a contemporary setting
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for the original themes, including “the cyclical nature of atrocity”, mismanaged familial and community relationships, and the significance of storytelling itself. Sheers’ novella interweaves two stories. One is the first-person narrative of Rhian, a young woman complicit in a sheep-rustling enterprise involving her brothers, Dewi and Sion. The second story - told to Rhian by a mysterious stranger relates how Mathew, an Irishman on a mission to replenish the raven population of the Tower of London during World War II, meets and falls in love with Branwen, a twenty-two-year- old Welsh woman living with her brothers on a farm. Branwen and Mathew’s story parallels the story of Branwen and Matholwch in the Second Branch. There is much fine writing in White Ravens, as with this carefully modulated passage, spoken by Rhian, linking the long-term decline of traditional Welsh sheep farming to the story’s plot involving the butchery of sheep stolen from Wales for London restaurants: “That all our generations of farmers, of men and women who’d reared animals on that high hill had trickled down to the sorry sight of the three of us counting out bad money in a blood-soaked lorry in a back alley in London before dawn”. Sheers, also a poet, has a good eye for visual imagery. Here he evokes horses when depicting the anger within
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Branwen’s brother Evan (cognate to Efnisien, Branwen’s half brother in the Second Branch, who maims horses): “Evan didn’t take Matthew’s offered hand but just looked him hard in the face, the muscles around his jaw and eye sockets twitching like the flank of a pony under the touch of summer flies”. There are, however, clichéd moments. Mathew’s falling in love with Branwen, for example, is straight out of romance fiction. Characters do fall magically in love in the medieval tales of the Mabinogion, but the magic of love must be reinvented for contemporary readers. Sheers can do such reinvention effectively, as with his transformation of Matholwch’s weakness as an Irish king in the Second Branch into Mathew’s weakness as a member of a tightknit Irish family within a traditional mid- twentieth-century farming community. The novella’s most serious flaws are evident in the climactic scene when Sheers packs in too much, too quickly: a gun is awkwardly introduced, and the ensuing action becomes rushed and confused. At the conclusion Sheers makes explicit what has already been communicated through the fabric of the story - that forgiveness and sympathy should triumph over revenge and fear: “Mathew should have reached out to Evan, even after what he’d done. And, God knows, he should have reached out to Branwen too”. The Second Branch of the Mabinogi is a literary masterwork in part because it allows readers to experience the tale’s complex moral compass rather than instructing readers in right behaviour. Eliminating summaries meant to communicate an explicit “message” or tie up loose plot threads along with clari-
fying the action of the climax would make White Ravens an exceptional, not just a very good, novella.
The Rhosneigr Romanticist Compiled and edited by T.T.M.Hale, Vol.2 RHOSNEIGR PUBLISHING,
£16.99
EMRYS BOWEN
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.D.Owen (1874-1925), an Anglesey barrister, is remembered as the author of two early adventure novels, Elin Cadwaladr (1914) and Madam Wen (1925). The second of
these, published in book form barely a fortnight before he died, is by far the better. It’s a popular romance about a female Robin Hood who was perhaps based on Margaret Wynne, wife of the squire of Chwaen Wen in the mideighteenth century. The story was made into a television film in 1982. This nicely illustrated book brings together all we need to know about the author and includes an abridged English-language version of his tales. It will revive interest in Owen, who deserves his niche in the history of the novel in Welsh.
The Terry Hetherington Young Writers Award 2011
£1,000 Prize. A wonderful opportunity for Wales’s up-and-coming young writers, as the £1,000 bursary award, in memory of Terry Hetherington, the widely published essay writer and poet, once again welcomes submissions. Applicants should be resident or studying in Wales, aged between 18 and 30 on 31st January 2011 and submit 1–3 poems and/or a piece of prose not exceeding 3,000 words on any subject of their choice. A supporter and avid reader of Cambria, Terry Hetherington, who died in 2007, was inspired to write by the people and events which surrounded him. The ex-miner and steel and construction worker, was forced to retire prematurely, owing to a spate of serious injuries. During a period of convalescence, with cruel irony, Terry developed Rheumatoid Arthritis. Determined not be defeated by the crippling condition, Terry spent his time during these periods of physical inactivity, studying and learning. It was this thirst for knowledge and Terry’s inherent ability to capture the character of his many and wide-ranging interests, which included: politics, literature, Welsh history, sport and nature, which subsequently provided the inspiration for his ardent writing. A passionate Welshman and fiercely proud of the Neath community in which he lived, Terry derived much enjoyment from the creative writing class he helped to establish. His support for would-be writers - most notably young, enthusiastic devotees - proved instrumental in establishing the Terry Hetherington Young Persons Award, in memory of his name. The competition, now in its third year, has attracted many notable entries. Past winners have included promising writers Rose Widlake and Jonathon Edwards, each of whom have since laid the foundation stones for a career as a writer. As have, runners up Anna Lewis and Tyler Keevil, each with the ambition of becoming a published author.
CLOSING DATE: 31 JANUARY 2011 Entries (and all queries) with a £3 entry fee (cheque payable to Cheval) to either: Jo Furber, c/o The Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea, SA1 1RR jo.furber@swansea.gov.uk OR Aida Birch, 59 Dan y Graig Road, Neath, SA11 1UA. aida@aidatoscabirch59.plus.com
Always the Love of Someone by Huw Lawrence A book of short stories ISBN: 9780955527296
Published by Y Lolfa £9.99
01970 832 304
www.ylolfa.com “Crisp, clear and illuminating.” EMYR HUMPHREYS
ETIFEDDIAETH / HERITAGE
Introducing Houses Of The Welsh Countryside: Cyflwyno Cartrefi Cefn Gwlad Cymru. by Richard Suggett & Greg Stevenson Y LOLFA & RCAHMW
Price: £14.95 RICHARD SUGGETT
T
his new book celebrates the achievement of Peter Smith’s Houses of the Welsh Countryside, which has had a profound influence on our understanding and appreciation of traditional architecture in Wales since publication in 1975. It is both an updated introduction to the themes developed in Houses of the Welsh Countryside and a companion to the television series, Cartrefi Cefn Gwlad Cymru, which has presented these themes to a wider audience in six visually ravishing programmes on S4C. The widespread appreciation of traditional buildings belongs very much to the twentieth century. For much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries traditional buildings were valued for their historic interest by antiquarians and local historians, and admired for their picturesque qualities by artists and photographers. They contributed to the sense of place in a community, but significant buildings were often barely known outside their immediate localities. They were under-appreciBryn yr Odyn
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The floor at Plasauduon
ated, and there were many losses before protection of historic buildings through listing was established. HWC was - and is - like a voyage of discovery. It became possible to write because of the rapid accumulation of survey information catalogued in the National Monuments Record for Wales, the Royal Commission’s public archive. It now seems astonishing that such outstanding sites as Tyˆmawr (Castle Caereinion, Montgomeryshire) or Bryndraenog (Bugeildy, Radnorshire), and numerous other significant buildings, were identified and put into an architectural context for the first time by Peter Smith and his colleagues. These were by and large
houses without an available documented history. Smith showed that buildings were primary sources in their own right, expressing differences in status and phases of prosperity from which historical comparisons and generalisations could be made. More generally, HWC enriched and broadened appreciation of the historic architecture of Wales, leading to the protection and conservation of many houses that would otherwise have disappeared. At the end of this book (in an extract taken from an unpublished memoir) Peter describes his own role in saving several key houses. Peter’s single-minded determination to establish the architectural facts sticks in the memory of colleagues who assisted him, whether it entailed a roof crawl in semi-darkness or the exploration of the recesses of a latrine shute. Houses of the Welsh Countryside
Dolwerdd Wastod
presented for the first time an overview of historic architecture in Wales. The ‘where’ and the ‘what’ of vernacular architecture are HWC’s enduring achievements. The ‘when’ and the ‘why’, that is the dating and context of different types of houses and architectural features, continue to be matters of discussion. Dating in particular has been transformed by the science of tree-ring dating (dendrochronology). Some fifty buildings of all types have now been dated by the Royal Commission’s rolling programme of tree-ring dating, which began in 1996. We now know that surviving late-medieval houses in Wales date from after 1400, that is after the rising of Owain Glyndwˆr. If any pre-1400 houses have survived as standing structures they have yet to be identified. Tree-ring dating has established that there was a great late-medieval rebuilding, but it was socially and Rhiwson uchaf
chronologically staggered. Highstatus houses are generally earlier and larger than low-status houses. As smallfarmers built their own diminutive versions of great hall-houses in the earlier sixteenth century, the gentry began building houses of a new type with upper storeys, fireplaces and chimneys, and more often in stone rather than timber. Before 1550 there was a uniform house plan based on the open hall; after 1550 numerous different types of vernacular house emerged. Introducing Houses of the Welsh Countryside describes the Longhouse of South Wales, the timberframed bobby-entry houses of Powys, and the Snowdonian house, which combines the best of the stone and timber building traditions. There are categories of vernacular buildings that are still very much at risk. Since World War II many vernacular cottages, especially when claybuilt, have become derelict or thoroughly
modernised. The extraordinary interest of these ‘home-made’ homes is explained by Eurwyn Wiliam in The Welsh Cottage (2010), also recently published by the Commission. Eurwyn Wiliam shows that the majority of these ‘home-made homes’ date from the nineteenth century, some originating as squatters’ houses on the inhospitable commons. Wiliam describes the building techniques using clay, straw, and gorse, which
Tyˆ Draw
may have lessons for the twenty-first century’s interest in sustainable lowimpact homes. The Royal Commission’s work has always been collaborative. Readers of this book are invited to send us house histories and details of historic buildings that are not listed in Houses of the Welsh Countryside or noted on Coflein. We are particularly keen to learn about date inscriptions, the discovery of crucks, painted decoration, and so on. These features often come to light during the alteration or restoration of old buildings. The work of exploring and recording the buildings of the Welsh countryside continues.
An island of supernature Caldey Island History of a Holy Island by Christopher Howells Photographed by Ross Grieve (GRAFFEG £14.99) HENRY JONES-DAVIES
I
n Christopher Howells’s Caldey Island - History of a Holy Island, Father Daniel van Santvoort, Abbot of the island’s Cistercian monastic community, talks about the first service of a monk’s day. This is the office of Vigils for which the brothers rise soon after 3am every day of the year. It is an ancient tradition born in the earliest years of the Christian Church, the term coming from the Latin ‘Vigiliae’, the night watch of the Roman army. “You sense when you get up at that time that the day is pure,” the Abbot says, “that it’s something untouched.” It is a period Howells adds, “when the human body is at Caldey Abbey: Easter Vigil in the Cloister
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its lowest ebb and people are at their most vulnerable. The Abbot continues “Many people can be in distress in the night, people who are harassed by their partner, people who are mugged or just lonely or the incurably sick who can’t sleep so we pray for them. That’s one of the many reasons why we pray at that time of the day.” Those visitors to Caldey who have struggled from their slumbers at such an hour to attend Vigils will doubtless have experienced a sense that the power of prayer rising from congregations of religious communities throughout the world has a hugely positive and sustaining influence. It is perhaps not too much of an exaggeration to say that one is privileged to participate in possibly the only tangible remnant of medieval life which has lived on, pretty much intact, into the modern era. Far from being - as so many believe - strange, unwelcoming places of retreat and escape, monasteries have exerted a powerful influence on civilisation both in the West and the East, since the earliest times of the Christian era. Even in this secular ‘rationalist’ age they
Few if any, I believe, will have been untouched, or not moved in some way by the island’s unique, even transcendent, atmosphere. remain, some as beacons of spirituality and contemplative prayer, others as institutions of teaching, preaching, nursing or palliative care. Despite the contemplative nature of the Cistercian Order with its emphasis on silence, the receipt and care of guests is a solemn duty of the community. The Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance to which the monks of Caldey belong follows a rule of life laid down by St Benedict of Nursia generally accepted as the father of Western monasticism - in the sixth century. Guests welcomed at St Philomena’s guesthouse on the island include not only members of the clergy, students and those seeking the soliROSS GRIEVE/GRAFFEG tude and inspiration which island life offers, but the sick, the stressed, those with family problems and those generally in need of healing, solace and spiritual comfort. The Cistercian Order was once vastly influential in Wales, operat-
ROSS GRIEVE/GRAFFEG
Office in the medieval Priory Church
ing no less that thirteen great houses throughout the country by the later Middle Ages. ROSS GRIEVE/GRAFFEG The Order laid many of the foundations of modern Welsh agriculture - of which sheep farming is perhaps the most conspicuous - and in contrast to other religious orders too closely associated with Norman invaders, was wellloved by the people of Wales and resolutely defended Welsh independence, having formed a close relationship with our
native princes. One of the greatest of these, Llywelyn Fawr, for instance, ended his days as a simple monk in the Cistercian abbey of Aberconwy. Caldey, in Welsh, Ynys Byˆr (after Pyro, an early abbot), has been a focus for pilgrimage and the religious life since the early centuries of the first millennium, when Christianity arrived on the shores of Wales and heralded an age of Celtic saints. The island’s beauty and natural charm have always lent towards an atmosphere of contemplation and prayer. Howells’s splendid book, supported by photographs of the highest standard is packed with detail about the islands history and prehistory, its flora and fauna, its contemporary population, and
A rooftop view of the Abbey looking across to Tenby
ROSS GRIEVE/GRAFFEG
in very great detail, its monastic community. He book asks why the members of the community chose the life they lead and telling the story of how Caldey Abbey has grown, from obscure and precarious Anglican roots, into the successful, autonomous daughter-house of a Belgian foundation she is today. Many in Wales have crossed the choppy strait to Caldey on a daytrip from Tenby; some have been blessed by a closer relationship with the island and its monastic community. Few if any, I believe, will have been untouched, or moved in some way by the island’s unique, even transcendent, atmosphere. One islander, Simon Curnin, a mainstay of the team supporting Caldey’s economy says “You’ve got supernature, the peace, the sea obviously and, as Brother Dominic* used to say, you’ve got Jesus Christ too!” You will find it all in this beautiful book, another outstanding production from Peter Gill’s Graffeg imprint, and, if you’ve never made the journey to one of the most delightful and holy spots in Wales, the book will certainly make you want to go. *The
late Brother Dominic Maria Morgan former Second World War American bomber pilot and one of the island’s most colourful and well-loved characters.
(1922-2008),
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NEW NOVEL
A Bard For Highgrove An excerpt from the new novel by MEIC STEPHENS
I THE WRITING ON THE WALL
‘N
OW THAT ONE has one’s own little place in Wales,’ said Charles to Camilla over a game of Scrabble in the small drawing-room at Highgrove, ‘one rather thinks one ought to brush up a little on the language. It would make such an orf ’lly good impression, don’t y’think?’ Camilla lit another Balkan Sobranie, waited for the flunkies to finish bringing in the afternoon tea-trolley (a gift from the good folk of the Western Sahara) and then, when they were quite alone again and she was handing him a plate of cucumber and watercress sandwiches cut just the way he liked them, in dainty triangles and without the crusts, she said, ‘But darling, I’d always thought you spoke fluent Welsh.’ ‘You may very well think that, my dear, but one couldn’t possibly comment. By the way, there’s no such word as “yrneh”.’ ‘Oh knock it orf, sweetie, everyone knows jolly well you picked up the lingo at that college in west Wales just before your Investiture.’ ‘You mean Aberystwyth.’ ‘Oh I can’t pronounce those outlandish names they go in for down there, but yes, Aberistwatch, or whatever. Dreadful place, full of beastly Welsh Nationalists, so I’ve heard.’ ‘One rather looks back on the term one spent there with a certain fondness, brief though it was. Autres pays, autres mœurs, and all that. D’y’ know, one was taken into several public houses and once into a branch of F.W. Woolworth, and from time to time one was allowed
to pop one’s own letters into a real postbox. What an experience! One met quite a number of interesting folk down there, especially among one’s fellow students at the College by the Sea . . . and yet, for some unfathomable reason, they would insist on calling one Carlo . . . not to one’s face, you understand . . . One was so sorry to read the other day that the Principal was in the habit of reporting students to our people at MI5 on account of their extreme views about one’s presence among them. One had been given to understand he too was a Welsh Nat, so one never can tell . . . ’ ‘I’ve watched the ceremony so many times, you were such a nice boy in those days. You carried it orf so well. It totally freaked me out. I was like “Wow!”’, and she fluttered the fingers of both hands above her head. ‘But the noise, my dear, and the people!’ ‘I did so love the horses and the gun-carriages. They were real cool. Do have another buttered scone, ducky.’ ‘That was Caernarfon, not Aberystwyth.’ ‘Oh, yes, Carnarffon, how silly of me, where that big thingummy is, the castle I mean. But surely you spoke Welsh then, didn’t you, poppet? You used to say you read Daffid ap Whatsisname in bed every night. Oh, how those rustics cheered!’ ‘One had to make a good impression. Actually, one was quoting a scurrilous song the Nats used to sing about one. The chorus went something like “Carlo, Carlo, Carlo’s playing polo with Daddy,” . . . in Welsh, of course . . . frightf ’lly amusing, really. It occurred to one that the song’s author, a rum cove called Daffid Youwan, if memory serves, merited an MBE for adding to the gaiety of nations. One shall have to have a word with Number 10,’ he said in that droll manner and with the lopsided grin which made him so attractive to the Duchess. ‘Oh, you are so gallant, lover boy.’ ‘But the whole thing was such a damned pantomime from start to finish. Cooked up by that dreadful man George Thomas to keep the Welsh Nats in check. He was Secretary of State for Wales at the time, you see. Everyone in the Firm thought him the most frightful brown noser. And d’y’know, it later transpired he was a ....’ ‘But you behaved so beautifully, as you always do, and that’s what matters.’
But the whole thing was such a damned pantomime from start to finish. Cooked up by that dreadful man George Thomas to keep the Welsh Nats in check. He was Secretary of State for Wales at the time, you see. Everyone in the Firm thought him the most frightful brown noser.
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‘Let’s share a State Secret, shall we, my dear?’ ‘Oh goody-goody, do tell. I lurv State Secrets. Come on, buster, hit me with it.’ She gave him that gaptoothed smile he found so appealing. ‘Well, one’s lines were written out more or less phonetically by someone at the Welsh Office so that one could get one’s tongue round the trickier bits, and it was a great help, one must say. The London papers and lots of old ladies in Wales were convinced one was fluent. One can still remember a few phrases of what one had to say, as a matter of fact. Ur roov vee, Charles, Tu-wuss-oc Kum-ree, un toung-ee ee chee (ch as in loch) . . . ee vode un futh-lon ee chee (ch as in loch) . . . un err-bin (roll the r) pobe marth o bow-bol . . . ‘It was all one could do to keep a straight face. For some curious reason one kept thinking of sausage rolls. And then one had to say it all again in English. I, Charles, Prince of Wales, do become your liege man of life and limb . . . to live and die against all manner of folk. One doesn’t know which version was the more preposterous. But if one had giggled it would have spoilt the show and Mummy wouldn’t have been at all pleased, poor dear. She’s such a brick.’ ‘“Jnana”? That’s not a proper word, sonny boy.’ ‘Oh yes it is. It means “knowledge acquired through meditation”. It’s what one does when one has a moment to oneself, my dear.’ ‘Really? Then you’re going to have to accept “yrneh”. It means “a unit of reciprocal inductance”, or so it says in my Scrabble dictionary. So there, poo-bah!’ ‘Mmm . . . this foie gras is tasty. Do we make this at Highgrove, too?’ Three clocks deep in the House’s west wing struck four, or thereabouts. Some while later......
T
HE TROUBLE with which this narrative is chiefly concerned began with a poet, as trouble so often does when the Muse gets mixed up in affairs of State, especially in England. ‘One is of a mind to appoint a Household Bard,’ said the Prince as he went through his correspondence box in the Library of Highgrove during one of his fortnightly sessions with Sir Perry. ‘Your Royal Highness?’ There was not a flicker on the Principal Private Secretary’s face, but he quickly fingered the lapel of his Savile Row suit, a sure sign he was agitated, embarrassed or just plain gobsmacked, and coughed diplomatically. The tic was the counterpart of the Prince’s fidgeting with his cuff-links upon which not a few royal observers had
commented over the years. ‘A Household Bard, Sir Perry. The better sort of families had them in Wales during the Middle Ages. One first heard of it in the tutorials one attended at Aberystwyth. One of one’s tutors, now what was his name? Ah yes, Dr Rhisiart Bonner. He went into some detail on the point, more than once, if memory serves. It has since struck me as rather odd that the fellow didn’t get an MBE for his trouble. One will have to have a word with the Prime Minister . . . but a capital idea nevertheless, what?’ ‘I see. Splendid, splendid. If I may be so bold, Sir, may I ask what such a person would do?’ The Prince had anticipated the question and was ready with an answer. He had read in The Oxford Companion to the Literature of Wales - a copy of this standard work of reference had been bound in full calf at the Gregynog Press and sent to Highgrove as a gift from the Welsh Academy - that according to the Laws of Hywel Dda, the Bardd Teulu, or Household Bard, was one of the Twenty-four Officers of the King’s Court, and that this tradition had persisted for many centuries. He now put Sir Perry in the picture. ‘Howel was the only Welsh King to be called “the Good”, y’know . . . Anyway, one hopes the Household Bard might be induced to trace one’s ancestry rather more pleasingly than the Heralds have hitherto done and show how one is related to the tenth-century king, for whom one has a lot of respect. ‘After all, that was what the bards did in days gone by: the blighters told fibs and wrapped them up in flattery so shameless and language so grandiloquent that they were eventually believed. Like PR people, they were professional liars who would say anything as long as they were paid - in mead and horses, apparently. ‘They were also good at vaticination - ’ ‘Your Royal Highness?’ ‘The foretelling of events not yet come to pass, Sir Perry. One would have thought you would have heard of
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it at Clare.’ ‘I didn’t have much time for reading, Sir. I had to learn Anglo-Saxon and Norse as well as Celtic, and - ’ ‘One of the reasons why my predecessor Edward I was supposed to have ordered the Massacre of the Bards after his conquest of Wales in 1282 - something else one picked up on at Aberystwyth, but from students who of course had been handpicked to meet one over coffee - was that the bards usually told the truth about their rulers, especially if they were dissolute or unjust. The rulers, I mean. One should like to make up for that monstrous act.’ ‘But, Sir, it was such a long time ago - ’ The Prince, like many royals and aristocrats, was good at ignoring those who served him. ‘One has also looked up the tale of the Massacre in the Library and, of course, one has read Thomas Gray’s famous poem on the subject. D’y’ know it, Sir Perry? “Ruin seize thee, ruthless King, confusion on thy banners wait”. No? Oh dear . . . There’s even a poem on the subject in Magyar, or so one is reliably informed, though one hasn’t gone into that. One always found the Habsburgs a bit of a bore . . . ’
Clearly, all this talk of PR and massacres and telling the truth seemed dashed exciting to the Prince, even dangerously so, and he thought he might inject a little excitement into the dull routine to which he had become inured but with which he felt increasingly uncomfortable. His mind was quite made up and there was no gainsaying the royal prerogative: there would be a Household Bard at Highgrove, and that should have been an end to the matter. But in a manner of speaking, and in ways it was impossible to foresee even with the benefit of vaticination, it would prove to be only the beginning.
2 THE IDEAL CHRISTMAS GIFT! A Bard for Highgrove by Meic Stephens (LLYFRAU CAMBRIA, £7.50) available from all good bookshops or from
www.cambriamagazine.com or call 01267 290188 and order by credit card or send a cheque to cambria for £7.50 plus £1.50 P&P
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POETRY QUESTION AND ANSWER I listen to the Christmas wind Bring the bright bells to humankind And I hear on the carolling air The great question and answer. Mother, why is that star so bright? It shines with all heaven’s light. And what do the sweet bells say? Today is Christ’s birthday. Mother, why the holly’s thorn? To show how his flesh was torn. And what is this bitter frost? Our cold hearts when Christ was lost. O Mother, the pain, the sharp pain! Hush, he will rise again. I hear this in the Christmas air. God’s peace, go everywhere. LESLIE NORRIS
from The Complete Poems (Seren)
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 • Chris S. Stephens, Castles of South Wales (GOMER, £4.99) Limits: you CAN speak Welsh (CARREG £9.95)
£8.50)
• Eirwyn George, Fel Hyn y Bu: Hunangofiant (Y LOLFA,
• Orig Williams, El Bandito: The Autobiography (Y
Wedding (SEREN, £9.99) £9.99)
GWALCH,
THE NATIONAL MAGAZINE OF WALES CYLCHGRAWN CENEDLAETHOL CYMRU
£9.95)
• Penny Simpson, The Deer
• Jane Aaron, Henrice Altink and Chris Weedon (eds.), Gendering Border Studies (UWP, £24.99)
Manor: A History of Golf in Wales (CARREG
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LOLFA,
• Daniel G. Williams (gol.), Canu Caeth: Y Cymry a’r Affro-Americaniaid (GOMER,
• Peter Hughes Griffiths, O Lwyfan i Lwyfan: Hunangofiant (Y
56
• Lynda Pritchard Newcombe, Think without
GWALCH,
£5.75)
LOLFA,
£9.95)
• Byron Kalies, Tenby to Celtic
• John Glyn Jones, Trwm ac Ysgafn (BARDDAS, £5.95)
Books A brief selection from a plethora of Christmas books MEIC STEPHENS
T
here are so many books published for the Christmas market that all I can do is provide the briefest of notes on some which have given me most pleasure in recent weeks in the hope you too will be encouraged to buy them. The current spate of autobiographies from Welsh presses reflects the popularity of this genre and the readiness of some of our eminent people to give an account of their careers. The most frank and most intriguing is far and away Meic Povey’s Nesa Peth i Ddim (Carreg Gwalch, £7.50), an unusually honest, stimulating and moving autobiography by one of our most talented actors and playwrights. It is a model for anyone contemplating writing about their own life. The barrister R.Gwynedd Parry has done an excellent job in David Hughes Parry: A Jurist in Society (UWP, £48). If this man is remembered at all nowadays it is for the Report that recommended a limited degree of legal status to the Welsh language in 1965. His energies were divided between his legal-academic interests in London, where he was Professor of English Law, and his devotion to causes in his native Wales, notably the University. Those with a keen interest in Welsh history will find much to
enjoy in Thomas Matthews’s Welsh Records in Paris (UWP, £48) by Dylan Rees and J. Gwynfor Jones, which not only remembers a pioneer historian but presents a number of documents relating to Owain Glyndwˆr that are kept in the National Archives in Paris. The series New Stories from the Mabinogion (Seren, £7.99) continues with Gwyneth Lewis’s retelling of the tale of Blodeuwedd in The Meat Tree and Niall Griffiths’s The Dreams of Max and Ronnie, which (you guessed it) is based on the Dreams of Macsen Wledig and Rhonabwy. Neither has the pristine charm of the medieval stories but, in a modern setting, they recreate something of the originals. The two poets who have given me most pleasure are Paul Henry and Gwyn Thomas, two of the finest now writing in Wales. Paul Henry’s The Brittle Sea (Seren, £9.99) is a volume of his Selected Poems together with about two dozen new ones. The title of Gwyn Thomas’s new collection, Murmuron Tragwyddoldeb a Chwningod Tjioclet (Barddas, £6.95), translates as ‘Murmurs of eternity and chocolate rabbits’. Both are charming, playful, akin to music and passionate in their response to life’s vagaries and triumphs. If you don’t read any other poetry this Christmas, read at at least one of these books. Simon Thirsk is the better kind of incomer who has learned Welsh and made attempts to integrate himself into the community. He was chairman of the Antur Penllyn town development group in Bala, where he also helps to run Bloodaxe Books, one of the three best poetry publishers in Britain today. His novel Not Quite White (Gomer, £9.99) is set in a dystopic
future in which the young John Bull is sent by Westminster to the last Welsh-speaking town to find out why all attempts to bring it into the twenty-first century have failed. The bureaucrats have not reckoned on Gwalia, with whom John Bull locks horns in a bitter clash between English colonialism and Welsh nationalism. A plea for tolerance, the tale exposes many of the subtleties and ambiguities at play in Wales today and is essential reading for incomers and patriots alike. For those who enjoyed 60 Samuel’s television series Cartrefi Cefn Gwlad Cymru (Fflic), or who treasure their copy of Peter Smith’s magisterial book Houses of the Welsh Countryside, on which it was based, Richard Suggett and Greg Stevenson’s Introducing Houses of the Welsh Countryside /Cyflwyno Cartrefi Cefn Gwlad Cymru (Y Lolfa, £14.95) will make an ideal stocking-filler. Lastly, a most unusual book by Ewan McVicar, The Eskimo Republic: Scots Political Song in Action 1951-1999 (Gallus, £12). This lively work looks at songs inspired by the Stone of Destiny, the growth of the SNP, the peace campaigns and Polaris protests, and the reopening of the Scottish Parliament. The book’s title comes from the song ‘The Eskimo Republic’: ‘Where there is nae class and there is nae boss nae kings nor queens an dam the loss and ye’ll find nae trace o a Polaris base in the Eskimo Republic!’ This is a book Harri Webb would have loved. Copies of the book, which comes with a CD of the songs, are available from Ewan McVicar, 84 High Street, Linlithgow EH49 7AQ, Scotland, price £12. Nadolig llawen i un ac oll!
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the cambria christmas quiz questions set by gwrhyr
Potpourri 1
How many universities are there in Wales?
17
What is the Welsh name for the Grey Mare?
2
What is the largest island off the coast of Wales?
18
Why are the fields known as Weun Parc y Blawd and Parc y Blawd famous?
3
Who wrote the book Up to Mametz?
19
4
Which famous Welsh politician was named after a poet?
Name the character who warns her husband, ‘And before you let the sun in, mind it wipes its shoes.’
20
Which village in Carmarthenshire was once the home of a renowned family of physi cians?
21
In which year was the all-Welsh Rule brought in by the National Eisteddfod: 1922, 1932, 1942, 1952, 1962?
22
Which Welsh writer wrote a screen-play that featured the Beatles?
5
With which cultural event is the Ivy Bush in Carmarthen associated?
6
Name the cleric who toured Wales in 1188
7
Who was the drunken gatekeeper in Cantre’r Gwaelod?
8
Where was David Lloyd George born?
9
By what name were Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby better known?
23
What was the name of the boat in which Welsh settlers sailed to Patagonia in 1865?
10
What was the name of the Curate of Clyro?
24
Who was the first Curator of the Welsh Folk Museum at St Fagans?
11
Who was Matholwch’s wife in the Second Branch of the Mabinogion?
25
Who translated The Penguin Book of Welsh Verse (1967)?
26
Name the three men gaoled for their action at Penyberth in 1936
27
Who was the wife of a wealthy brewer and friend of Dr Johnson?
28
Name the AM who missed his flight to Delhi.
29
Who was the Cornishman who pioneered a steam locomotive at Penydarren in 1804?
12
What is the foodstuff known as Welsh caviare?
13
What Welsh writer was educated at the Liscard High School for Boys?
14
Which town in the Rhondda was known as Little Moscow? Who was known as the Bard of Snowdon?
15 16
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Name the novelist who is managing director of Portmeirion
real importance to say he must say it in English’?
30
With what family is Penmynydd in Anglesey associated?
31
Who wrote a famous hymn-tune in a wait ing-room on Shrewsbury railway station?
47
Name the policeman who keeps his helmet under the bed
32
By what name was the Brythonic king Gwrtheyrn also known?
48
What is ‘bando’?
49
What was the ‘Arandora Star’?
50
Where did the birds refuse to sing for a Norman lord?
33
What was the name of the Welsh Fasting Girl?
34
Name the composer who wrote Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Rhymes
35
Name the historian who saw himself as a people’s remembrancer.
36
Who was Abram Wood?
37
Who was known as the Red Doctor?
38
Who ruled over Dyfed in the Mabinogion?
39
Who was suspected of murdering Judge Lewis Owen in 1555?
40
Who was Silver John?
41
Name the Welsh poet who died in Burma in 1944
42
What were the Gelli Toreadors, the Cwmparc Gondoliers and the Treharris Indians?
Well, here’s a quiz to keep you occupied over the Christmas holiday set by the wise old polylinguist and warrior Gwrhyr. Answer all his questions correctly on paper to Cambria Christmas Quiz, PO Box 22, Caerfyrddin, SA32 7YH or by email to admin@cambriamagazine.com and the first correct entry will be selected at random on January 26th Dydd Santes Dwynwen, the winner receiving a free 6-issue subscription plus a copy of Graffeg’s stunning new limitededition hardback book about our Senedd by Trevor Fishlock. The runner-up will receive a copy of Senedd. Dal ati!
43 44
What were Venta Silurum, Maridunum, Isca and Segontium? What was Annwn?
The winner of the Eisteddfod Quiz - out of more than 80 entries - was JEREMY WOOD of Esquel, Y Wladfa, Patagonia. Llongyfarchiadau!
45
Who wroteThe Literature of the Kymry (1849)?
46
Who wrote:‘If a Welshman has anything of
So you think you know all about your country?
Please note: we will not be printing the answers in the magazine but we will send them on receipt of an S.A.E. or an email enquiry
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Opera WELSH NATIONAL OPERA
Fidelio The Magic Flute Ariadne auf Naxos NORMA LORD
I
t is tempting to regard Fidelio as orchestral music “in fancy dress”, such are Beethoven’s demands of the human voice. OK, I admit to less than 100 percent passion for either the composer or his one opera, but WNO’s latest offering, the new(to Wales) production which opened at WMC in September, does little to inspire more emotion. Even the combined talents of Robert Hayward and Clive Bayley, two of my firmest favourites, failed to kindle any fervour, despite extremely fine singing from both, and it appeared little short of miraculous that poor old Dennis O’Neill hadn’t died of sheer boredom during the seemingly endless politicking of Act 1 over his fate. Set in a cage of infinitely tall steel bars, the cold, stark stage design and lighting well-nigh forced us to share the deprivations of the excellent chorus of prisoners, and we might have welcomed a spillover of their somewhat fee-
Set in a cage of infinitely tall steel bars, the cold, stark stage design and lighting well-nigh forced us to share the deprivations of the excellent chorus of prisoners
ble sunbeams during their brief respite, but Director Giuseppe Frigeni clearly wanted us to wallow in their misery for the duration. Even an exquisitely sung Mir ist so wunderbar displaying the charming pathos of Marzelline’s crush on “Fidelio” with Jacquino’s resulting angst failed to relieve the gloom, in spite of admirable performances by Elizabeth Donovan, Lisa Milne and Robin Tritschler respectively. Admittedly, when we finally arrived in Florestan’s dungeon, the redemptive power of Leonora’s love seemed suitably monumental after all these privations, and
CLIVE BARDA
BILL COOPER
Milne and the evergreen Mr. O’Neill did grant us substantial compensation in their beautiful O namenlose Freude. Somehow, in spite of the venue and the “home team”, a chillingly European evening, with little local hwyl! How different from Harry Kupfer’s stirring riot of 1981! The two other operas performed this season were more to my taste. The ever-delightful Dominic Cooke production of The Magic Flute, under the witty, if capricious baton of Gareth Jones, had Elizabeth Watts making an impressive role-debut (as far as I know) as Pamina. Always a treat for ears and eyes, this production and others like it should help WNO weather the oncoming winter of funding cuts and financial uncertainty, which is not to say that we would wish an exclusive diet of relative frivolity. I was charmed by a family of quite young children sitting in front of me at this performance. They obviously loved it, so maybe the future is actually orange. (See the show to find out!) I was enraptured by Ariadne auf Naxos, which I have somehow never seen before, and considered myself lucky to have had master-Straussian Lothar Koenigs conduct so immaculately my first hearing of this wonderful “collage” of music and theatre. In this very clearly staged, 2004 production by Australian Neil Armfield, expertly
revived here by choreographer Denni Sayers, the collected comedians of WNO looked at times in danger of ousting the music, but this never quite happened, and Koenigs had such respectful concentration from his orchestra that, in spite of truly great comedy, the music won out every time. Fabulous performances from every single one of the large cast, from the greatest to the least. Sarah Connolly, as the Composer, flattened the comics with meltingly glorious singing, as did Orla Boylan’s Ariadne. Gillian Keith was a spectacular Zerbinetta in all disciplines, and the four clodhopping commedia clowns sang as good as they clod hopped, and with as little grammar! The effect of this incredible, inedible confection is rather as looking at a mirror in another mirror, in another mirror and so on, and, since the plot of the work hinges on the competing, simultaneous forces of high art and low comedy, one gets giddy after a while. The comparative duality of the plot’s hypothesis is brilliantly encapsulated in the big duet between Ariadne and Bacchus, each thinking the other to be someone else - as my companion so neatly put it: “seduction by misunderstanding”, neatly squaring the circle, or completing the triangle if you prefer. Either way, an evening to treasure; with as much to see as to hear; catch it on tour if you can.
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ARTS FUNDING
A Footnote to Llangollen’s International Musical Eisteddfod NORMA LORD
W
hen Cambria arrived there earlier this year, LIME was still in shock as, with unfortunate timing, the Welsh Arts Council had announced changes to the funding arrangements for this and other festivals barely a week before the opening. It is, perhaps, very fortunate that Harold Tudor conceived the notion of this international festival of music dedicated to peace at the time he did, as it sometimes seems that today’s initiatives are designed to tick the boxes on fund-raising forms, rather than to fulfil genuine, and in this case inspiring, purpose. I fear Llangollen falls between today’s very rigid “categories” of financial appeal. In the good old days each funding request was examined holistically as a complete project, and, fairly obviously, LIME appeared as a beacon of prestige for the town and Wales as a whole, goodwill to and from the rest of the world, and a celebration of Welsh culture within the international arena, as well as bringing substantial revenue to a large chunk of North Wales. Nowadays, it seems that each of these benefits are assessed by different bodies and funded accordingly, so, theoretically, funding could come from multiple sources each concerned with one aspect of the event: local heritage, tourism, International relations, music and dance, rural regeneration etc etc etc, WAC has not actually withdrawn funding, but rather asked the Eisteddfod to apply to a new “funding arena” for support in the region of £60k from 2011 onwards. So far the only clue as to the nature and purpose of this “arena” is that it will also be targeted by the Hay Book Festival, which may suggest a relabeling of these events as tourism-related, but it is not hard to guess that another WAC whetstone could be at work here: The Council has already announced its intention of
“markedly” reducing funding of amateur music al activity through Ty Cerdd, which may suggest that it seeks to conserve shrinking resources on behalf of Wales’ perceived centres of excellence. Since Wales’ cultural identity is essentially an amateur one, in the very highest sense, this is seriously bad news for all Welsh music and dance. Yes, we want our splendid international opera company and our wonderful contemporary dance group, but not at the expense of our grassroots culture. I suspect that Wales is the only country, in Europe at any rate, which does not have any kind of professionally taught and/or government-backed Folk Academy, but this is not because our Folk culture is not important, but almost the opposite, it has survived without professional intervention on its own merits. It has also been suggested in some quarters that the Welsh Assembly Government is actually embarrassed by our Celtic heritage, and wants to encourage, instead, cultural activity of a more “forward-looking”, global kind, and that funding may be realigned to this end, but this is surely self-defeating, as the ultimate result of such homogenisation would eradicate the particular qualities of our heritage in much the same way as we now realise has happened to the shops and buildings in our town centres.
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Art SIR WILLIAM GOSCOMBE JOHN RA
A Monument of Genius GRIEF, ST BRYNACH’S CHURCH, LLANBOIDY
- MEMORIAL TO W.R.H. POWELL, M.P.
DAVID PETERSEN
S
tanding almost forgotten in the village of Llanboidy, Carmarthenshire, is one of Wales greatest pieces of sculpture which tells a fascinating story from a wonderfully creative period of our history. The Powell Monument or Grief honouring the life of MP W.R.H. Powell - was the first major commis-
sion undertaken by William Goscombe John. John conceived and modelled the figure in Paris between 1890 and 91 - possibly in Auguste Rodin’s studio, thus making the need for work’s protection and restoration (the statue has already lost a finger) all the more urgent. The commission effectively marked the recognition of William
John conceived and modelled the figure in Paris between 1890 and 91 - possibly in Auguste Rodin’s studio John as an artist of major importance following a 15-year apprenticeship which began in 1874 under the keen eye of his father, Thomas John, then in charge of marquetry and woodcarving at the Bute workshops in Tyndall Street, in Cardiff Docks. The seeds of a much broader approach to art and life in general had already been well-sown in the young John, who had been attending drawing and modelling classes at the Cardiff School of Art since the age of ten. These were held in the cellars of the Old Free Library in St Mary Street. The more exciting artistic discoveries of these boyhood years came through John’s contact with artists working on the restoration of Llandaff Cathedral, where John served as a chorister. Among those employed by the architect J.P. Seddon were the great artists Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, all of whom were instrumental in encouraging the promotion of craftsmanship in all art forms. Not unsurprisingly, the idea of reviving the technical skills of the medieval period was of prime importance in John’s early life: his training in the Bute workshops and his interest in the Gothic and Pre-Raphaelite work at
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Llandaff combined to give him a solid grounding in technical skills and an awareness of the place of crafts in the art of his day. John was to spend nearly seven years at the Bute workshops, where his father was carving shutters for the small dining room in the Bute Tower at the Castle. The little conventional rosettes on these shutters were the young sculptor’s first attempts at woodcarving. In December 1881 he left Cardiff to join the studio of sculptor Thomas Nicholls in Lambeth. Here Nicholls made the models for all his sculptures and his men were sent to Cardiff to carve them. It was through his father’s friendship with the architect Burges, and Nicholls, that John he was accepted as a pupil assistant at the studio. The young Welshman worked with Nicholls for five years while attending W.S. Frith’s evening classes in modelling at the Lambeth City and Guilds School of Art in Kennington. He then entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1884 and for the next three years pursued a dual role of craftsman by day and artist by night. In 1886 John left Nicholls to work with another sculptor, C.B. Birch, and in 1887 won the Landseer Scholarship, which gave him a grant of £40 per annum for two years, enabling him to set up his own studio in Elizabeth Street. It was while lodging with his uncle and cousin in London - both confusingly called William John that he added Goscombe, his maternal grandmother’s surname, to his own. Though based in London, John received considerable encouragement and support from Welsh friends and patrons. Dr. William Taylor (Chairman of the Cardiff School of Art committee) paid the first year’s rent for the new studio,
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“We may never know, but how tantalising is the prospect that a Tenby girl had modelled for a sculpture by a Cardiff boy in Paris for a churchyard in Llanboidy?”
An exciting exhibition with lots of new work from resident gallery artists, and Welsh and Irish friends. Paintings, print work, crafts, photography, ceramics and jewellery. Exhibition opens on 24 November to 4 January, excluding 25/26 December. 10.30am to 5.00pm Monday to Saturday. Cold hands, warm heart by Sarah Jane Brown
www.thewaterfrontgallery.co.uk
WWW.ARTWALES.COM WALES’ PREMIER GALLERIES which enabled him to enter for the biennial Royal Academy Gold Medal Travel Scholarship. This was won by his friend and fellow student, George Frampton, but John did manage to reach to Italy by tramp steamer from Cardiff to Naples. This tour lasted three months and took him to various Italian cities before he eventually headed north to Paris. Another friend, John Ballinger, Librarian and Secretary of the Cardiff School of Art, set up a travel fund for the young sculptor through the Free Libraries Committee, with a generous donation from the Third Marquess of Bute. Supported financially and armed with a letter of introduction from the Mayor of Cardiff, in 1899 John left for Athens, first to study sculpture in Greece and then Constantinople and Cairo, before returning home via Italy. John’s major breakthrough came when he won the 1888 Royal Academy Gold Medal for the sculpture Parting, a piece clearly influenced by Auguste Rodin, whose work had been exhibited in England during the 1880s. His Gold Medal travelling scholarship was planned with the help of Frederic, Lord Leighton and Sir Edward Burne-Jones and took him to France, Italy, Sicily, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Spain. The tour ended in Paris, where he took a studio for a year and studied independently the working methods of his French contemporaries, most notably Rodin. He became a frequent visitor to Rodin’s studio and the sculptor’s influence is apparent in many of John’s figures of this period. Interestingly, three years later Rodin met and employed the 28-year-old Welsh artist, Gwen John (no relation) to model for him whilst creating the Whistler monument on Chelsea Embankment. Rodin decided that she had “un corps admirable” for his purpose. Gwen, Augustus John’s sister, was to be regarded as one of the great British painters of the century and her drawings more avidly collected than those of Rodin. We may never know, but how tantalising is the prospect that a Tenby girl had modelled for a sculpture by a Cardiff boy in Paris for a churchyard in Llanboidy? Suffice to say that Goscombe John’s first major commission features a life-size girl. It was almost certainly awarded as a result of his connection with the Lord Bute, who charged him with designing and creating a memorial to W.R.H. Powell, a notable local figure and MP who had recently died. The resulting sculpture from 1890-91, Grief, features a young girl partially draped with a loose, shroud-like garment falling to the waist. She leans with her face against a flat wall. The whole work is beautifully designed and executed and encapsulates terrible sadness and grief. Clearly John thought highly of this work for he included a slightly modified version of the figure on
Evelyn Williams b.1929 ‘Portrait of the Artist as a Child I’ oil on canvas 2010 120 x 120cm
MARTIN TINNEY GALLERY 18 ST. ANDREW’S CRESCENT CARDIFF CF10 3DD Tel: 029 20641411 mtg@artwales.com
ORIEL TEGFRYN CADNANT ROAD MENAI BRIDGE ANGLESEY LL59 5EW Tel: 01248 715128 art@orieltegfryn.com
his monument to Sir Arthur Sullivan on London’s Thames Embankment. Cast in bronze, the ‘Sullivan’ figure is a more fluid adaptation of its Llanboidy counterpart calling to mind the work of the French sculptor Antonin Mercié, and indeed of Rodin. Clues to John’s close association with Rodin during his work on Grief lie in his use of white carrara marble, which would have been very expensive and difficult to find, unless one had access to a famous and well-placed sculptor such as Rodin, who presumably had several blocks in his studio. Moving large blocks of marble around Paris would have been as costly and difficult then as is the case today, so it is by no means implausible to believe that Grief was carved by John in Rodin’s studio, the older man being famously supportive of young talent. So far CADW have offered a grant towards the conservation of the Powell memorial and its transfer to the south transept of Llanboidy church to prevent its further decay, but this is nowhere near sufficient for the project and more funds are urgently needed. Grief remains one of the most beautiful and important works of art by one of our greatest Welsh sculptors and must be saved for our nation. Wales cannot afford to lose it.
ENVIRONMENT
The Road AheadWill EVs get us there? VICKY MOLLER
W
hen petroleum products are the fuel of the few again, what will our roads look like? Emptier or busy with slower vehicles? Will the private car be rare, or simply running on another fuel? Will populations be more dispersed, living closer to the resources that sustain them, or more concentrated to achieve service efficiency? Will we maintain all our roads or abandon some to revert to tracks? Skate-boarding on motorways has been visioned by rational people! With the untidy storm of variables bearing down on us, there is no way of predicting anything with certainty except change itself, so let’s celebrate all those trialling new travel modes, whatever their chances of arrival. It is interesting that it is in hilly Wales you find the EV enthusiasts In Wales we are rich in transport innovators. Their material resources are small, their motivation and ingenuity high, their solutions therefore recession hardy. John Lilly became chair of the UK Electric Vehicle (EV) Society after 15 years in the oil and gas industry as safety researcher and inspector. He left after privatisation changed values - fuel storage, conservation and safety priorities were jettisoned. He moved to mid-Wales where as a sideline to consultancy he makes EVs and acts as agent for other manufacturers. It was during the first oil shock in the 70’s that he saw what was ahead with blinding clarity and has been experimenting with alternatives to fossil fuels ever since. The EV society flourished under his chairmanship, there is an excellent magazine ‘A to B’, and an annual regatta of electric vehicles in Presteigne. My family went, we met a convocation of the inventive. The conversation sparkled with nicad vs nickel metal hydride, tensile strength and regenerative braking. The mood of the self-reliant when they get together is buoyant, upbeat. I tried out a selection of the futuristic and innocent looking silent vehicles of tomorrow. My absolute favourite experience was the recumbent three-wheeler pedal bike, but we bought a bargain lead acid mountain-bike for local hills and bumpy tracks. The problem is that the industry and government want
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the same travel, just a different fuel It is interesting that it is in hilly Wales that you find some of the best EV enthusiasts. John Lilly has built and run electric vehicles in Powys for 20 years and is realistic about their future. Electricity at point of use is very clean and efficient. It travels in wires beautifully, it is a fine tool, you can use just the amount you need, you can make it from the energy of nature. EVs are nothing like as complex and heavy on materials as combustion engines and should be much cheaper. He sees them as the future, but not of travel as we know it. he problem is that the industry and government want the same travel, same speed, same distances, same acceleration, same refuelling times, just a different fuel to the fossil hydrocarbons. All efforts are bent in this direction. £43 million is offered in grants of £5,000 to anyone buying an electric car in 2011. But only for electric cars that behave just like petrol ones, and these are rare indeed, and cost £20,000! Inventors are urgently seeking and proclaiming battery breakthroughs which attain the light-weight long distance super accelerator speedy EV. Like the car body made of a new battery material: carbon compound laminated with polymer resin. Imperial College London is trying to grow carbon polyps on it to hold more power. And the cars with photovoltaic bodies which recharge their own batteries whether working or resting. In Pembrokeshire this Autumn a conference on our transport future was organised, not by the usual NGOs or GOs but by one of the great eccentrics of the county. Buzz Knappfisher failed at school but succeeded in making a series of cars in his garden shed. Many worked and have graced our roads for the last 20 years. They are covered in flowers and words of wisdom, cost next to nothing to construct and run on a fraction the fuel of their conventional clone cousins. The conference attracted local authority staff, transition towners, vehicle CEOs, a wealth of engineers – people who rarely go to meetings and others who rarely meet outside their sector. It was packed and productive. For every problem the conference suggested solutions: The slow (half hour) charging time was matched with another problem: We are about to be invaded by supermarkets, why not require them to install charge points at parking bays to recharge while you shop. The power could be free as it costs pence rather than pounds, but sourced from renewables. Or why not at town centre carparks not to further disadvantage local shops? Churches were suggested, though the ruse to get drivers to recharge their spiritual batteries while they waited was less persuasive. China watching is giddy, like watching a movie on fast forward. We are more like a movie stuck in nightmarish
slow motion! Solving the recharging problem has become a priority. Lighter long life types of battery face shortages of the materials that go into making them. Lithium comes from few countries, and REE – Rare Earth Elements now come from China (see US Geographical survey graph). Lead, of which old style batteries are made is easy to re-use, and plentiful. But heavy! Frequent battery swops or recharges are unavoidable. Eye-witness experience of China was shared at the conference. An EV manager witnessed the change from cities teeming with cyclists to swarms of silent EVs, often causing deaths. Hot charge stations sprang up everywhere offering rapid battery charging. Not long after a mass dying of batteries began, due to the damage of fast charging, in reaction the government outlawed fast-charge stations. China watching is giddy, like watching a movie on fast forward. We are more like a movie stuck in nightmarish slow motion! Welsh government however are putting the money at their disposal into green and public transport. ‘It is the first time’ says Ieuan Wyn Jones, minister of Transport. ‘That the Welsh government has spent more on green and public transport than on infrastructure for the private car.’ A hydrogen super highway is planned for South Wales, with regular hydrogen and electric charge points. Cardiff is being developed as a low carbon travel zone with bike hire close to public transport nodes, and train improvements are underway including high speed between cities. ‘It is the first time’ says Ieuan Wyn Jones, minister of Transport. ‘That the Welsh government has spent more on green and public transport than on infrastructure for the private car.’ High speed and prioritising cities, while in the by-lanes of Wales inventors and pioneers are forging their road ahead at a different pace without fanfare or finance. David Jenkins, farming near Rhyader was off-grid for 25 years. He let times pass him by and installed small wind turbines and a seasonal hydro generator with a 12 volt system. He fell so far behind he found he was ahead! In 2000 he connected to the mains and added a 6 kW Proven wind turbine. To match it his wife insisted on an electric vehicle. He researched and found a £5,000 second-hand electric van by Citroen, and someone in Scotland who supplied parts and expertise. The van has taken them the 6 miles to Rhyader twice a week for 3 years with negligible fuel or any other costs. ‘For us its been great’ says David, This despite living at the top of a steep hill - the van has to cool down before being recharged. ‘But’, he adds ‘It is a differ-
ent sort of driving, the opposite to Macho.’ The message from the pioneers, and the main message from the Pembrokeshire conference is that we need a cultural revolution more than, but as well as a technological one. The combination work. David can produce the power he needs to shop 6 steep miles away because he isn’t using it to go to supermarkets in cities. Buzz can make and mend his own vehicles on the income of a school toilet cleaner and lollypop man because he travels at a leisurely open-air speed. All the Welsh electric vehicle drivers and recumbent cyclists I know drive slow and stay local. To aid occasional long distance journeys they have an informal network of charge homes, places people can stay for hours or overnight even, while their vehicles refuel. We need a cultural revolution more than, but as well as a technological one. The combination work Fascinating statistics show that despite all our improvements to vehicles the amount of time that people spend travelling has not really changed. Not between pre-car days and private car days, not between 1976 and 2007. All that has changed is the frequency, distance and speed of trips. The average family makes three car trips a day, so technically all these improvements to speed of travel have not got us where we are going any sooner. Families and the economy have simply moved further away. Now the world is travelled instead of the garden, the village or the county to get granny to see the grandchildren or to get lunch on the table. Two years ago I gave up my car, I get the high of having a powerful vehicle, the rush of speed from my humble lead acid electric bike, and go as far as the village, my grandchildren or the bus, all within 3 miles. There are social advantages, and a big money bonus, and there are disadvantages. But I am ahead with the pioneers, and it feels good.
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TheWelsh Kitchen
DOROTHY DAVIES
Something to welcome the Three Kings
T
radition, tradition, tradition - over the past few years you have probably become almost as familiar with our family Christmas traditions and recipes as we are, it is rather nice to weave in something new amongst those every now and then. Perhaps something for New Year’s Eve, or to mollify the family when they get to that pitiful stage of begging for no more turkey (I have a litany of leftover recipes which I am tirelessly in love with, but not so the men of my family. Very tiresome!). As far as I am concerned, at Christmas it’s the more the merrier, which does mean prior preparation and making use of the freezer. A good rich beef or venison stew, braised red cabbage suit the weather and the desire for something different very well. I have a passion for celeriac at the moment: thinly sliced, interspersed with a hint of finely sliced onions which have been gently sautéed in butter, doused with cream and scattered with parmesan, then baked for an hour, it is quite sublime. A fine accompaniment to a stew, it also suits cold sliced ham and turkey. When the house is full lunch is usually a picnic: nice bread is essential, good cheese, cold meats, paté, pickles, and, depending upon what lengths you want to go to, a salad; maybe just some grated carrot, sliced cucumber, or green beans tossed in vinaigrette with some toasted pine nuts or almonds and quartered cherry tomatoes. It galls me to say it but supermarkets have some quite nice breads and Aldi’s ciabatta is delicious and very good value; I buy it by the armful. One of our lovely subscribers, Bruce Odlum, persuaded me to try doubling up when baking and freezing half at the knocking back stage. I was rather sceptical, quite convinced it would kill the yeast but it works brilliantly; do be aware though that the dough is best used within a month or it won’t rise as well. The French are very good at simplicity, shopping well and dishing up lovely meals that are not too much trouble. A Welsh cheese that lends itself beautifully to a French idea is Perl Wen, and Pont Gar too, and, if you can find a small baking dish that it will fit into without too much spare room, so much the better. Cut a disc out of the top, scoop out a bit of the cheese and pour in a little sweet dessert wine; this is not a necessity but traditional in France and rather nice. Put it in a moderate
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oven for twenty minutes. Meanwhile boil some potatoes, then treat the cheese like a fondue just dipping in, or scoop some out and pour it over your potatoes. A salad is all you need with this. Golden Cenarth, which has just won the Supreme Champion Award at the British Cheese Awards and most recently a gold at Wales The True Taste, lends itself very well to this treatment and even better so does the packaging! Stud it with some slivers of garlic for extra oomph. Despite making your fridge smell like something has died in it, the taste is very gentle, creamy with a slight bitter after hint. Alison from our office recently made a delicious rustic, chunky, vegetable soup with bacon, and Caws Cenarth and hunk of crusty bread turned it into a real luxury. There is always something about the look of a pie that is extremely satisfying. Try your local butcher, he might even bake to order for you. Eynon’s of St. Clears (who have widened their delivery area considerably) do a very good chicken and pork pie with cranberry, the simple savoury flavour of the meat and the contrast of the sweet jelly unclut-
Bwydydd Castell Howell Foods - Supporting Welsh Producers tered by artificial flavourings. Christmas pudding and mince pies, trifle, sweets and cheese etc., don’t leave one much room for experimentation but at New Year one has the chance. A few years ago in France we discovered Galette des Rois. This is traditionally made for Epiphany, a feast no longer commonly observed in this part of Europe, but which celebrates the arrival of the Three Kings on Twelfth Night, 6th January. This year I shall make a simplified version for New Year. By this I mean that I will probably be using bought puff pastry rather than making my own. It works very well. Galette des Rois INGREDIENTS
1 4 4 2 4 3 4 1
packet of puff pastry oz unsalted butter oz caster sugar egg yolks drops almond essence tablespoons brandy (traditionally kirsch but brandy is fine) ounces freshly ground almonds dried bean or gold ring
METHOD
Divide the pastry in half and roll each half into a round roughly 9-inches across. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Whisk in 2 of the yolks, almond essence, alcohol and the ground almonds. Work together until you have a smooth paste. Run a baking sheet under cold water. Place one of the pastry rounds on the tray and spoon over the paste, leaving a 2-inch margin all around. Hide the bean or the other object in the paste. Beat the remaining egg with a little water and paint the pastry margin. Place the second round of pastry on top and gently press edges together. Chill for 45 minutes. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Using a sharp knife, make a criss-cross pattern on the pastry surface, but do not cut through to the filling. Pinch the edges prettily together. Paint the top with the egg wash. Bake the galette for 30 to 40 minutes until the pastry is crisp and brown. Transfer to a rack and cool. Dust with icing sugar. The bean or ring is optional, in days of yore the finder would have been king or queen for the evening, just remember to tell everyone to beware, broken teeth are the last things one wants.
G
in has been my discovery of the year and I am forever grateful to Beefeater for opening my eyes to its nuances and subtleties. One of the gins we didn’t try at that time was Brecon Gin, an omission which has since been remedied. It is a delicious gin, a very smooth hit of juniper, almost creamy,
followed by subtle hints of citrus; I would recommend that you try it cut with just a bit of water and then take a view; we had been planning on gin and tonic after the serious business of tasting but to add the tonic seemed a crime. A very good drink-tray staple and a great gift. We also tried Sipsmith, distilled in a garage in Hammersmith, and this is definitely another to add to the list of those that should be savoured and makes a good stand by if you can’t find the Brecon! It is available from Waitrose and Majestic. Delicious chocolates are always a good gift. When I was a child one of the signs of a special occasion was the appearance of beautiful boxes in the dining room, Prestat, Charbonnel, Bendicks, their awesome opulence a deterrent to acquisitive fingers. Christine Sanders of Pembrokeshire (www.christine-sanders-chocolates.com) supplies the most delicious chocolates in luxurious boxes, best of all, bearing in mind there is usually one which nobody really wants, you can, if you want choose the ones you like. Sarah Bunton, latest member of the Cambrian Mountains Initiative, also produces an excellent array of chocolates, which she makes herself near Devil’s Bridge; we particularly liked the hazelnut milk chocolate log and the Merlyn liqueur-flavoured milk chocolate. It is always nice to have a liqueur (or two) in the house, apart from being a rather nice tipple, there is something festive about the sweet richness, and an indulgent companion whilst pottering in the kitchen. Liqueurs are also extremely useful for pepping things up. Celteg do a rather fetching little boxed set of five miniature bottles. A splash added to whipped cream will add prettiness as well as flavour, a quick cheat of a pudding can be whipped up in no time by simply topping some Daffodil Cottage shortbread with this. They also make rather good oatcakes, and although we weren’t too sure about the laverbread variety, we still thought they made a great gift for the curiosity value! Nadolig Llawen i bawb - MWYNHEWCH!
Hotel & Restaurant Review THE GROVE Molleston, Narberth, Sir Benfro, SA67 8BX T:0044
(0)1834 860 915 E: info@thegrove-narberth.co.uk www.thegrove-narberth.co.uk
I
t is such a pleasure when you hear good things about a place and then find them fulfilled. The problem is that high expectations lead to a much greater degree of disappointment. No worry of that here! Our only worry was actually making it there, we had heard rumours that in bad weather it was hard to access. The driveway is wonderfully even, and later I was told that if there is bad weather the hotel are more than happy to send out rescue vehicles and ferry guests in and out. It is hard to believe that the graceful house, obviously newly refurbished cottages and these cared for gardens were derelict only three years ago. Neil Kedward and Zoe Agar discovered the house whilst on a family trip to Pembrokeshire in 2007 and immediately fell in love with it. In September it became theirs and only eight months later they opened for business: a quite extraordinary feat. The restoration work has been done incredibly well, while the cottages do have that pristine, just done up look, the house itself manages to look loved and extremely well cared for and as though it always has been. The interior has the quiet elegance that comes from textiles which haven’t been skimped on and very good underlay. It was a freezing cold day and we bundled quickly into the wonderful warmth, the sight of roaring fires dispelling our reluctance at giving up our coats. We were shown into the drawing room, Sunday papers were scattered about, and the odd book, giving it a very homely feel despite the bar in the corner. The walls are hung with paintings of local scenes by local artists like John Knapp Fisher, many of which are for sale. Drinks orders were quickly taken and menus proffered. Many of the dishes are followed by a G. Curious. I inspected the small print, to find that it denotes ‘ingredients produced in the Grove Kitchen Garden’ and, further
down, a list of local producers. I like it. It turns out the kitchen garden is huge, an acre, and they have just planted a whole field of fruit trees. If you are staying in the selfcatering cottages you have carte blanche to help yourself a wonderful incentive to book in. The impression I get here is of great generosity and warmth, real hospitality. A few minutes after we order a waitress arrives to check whether our youngest (aged 10) would maybe prefer roast potatoes to new; I can tell they really want him to enjoy his meal. There is a children’s menu but it is just a simplified version of the menu proper not, thank heavens, the usual style of choice. We plump en masse for a proper Sunday lunch, roast sirloin, which arrives, thick tender pink slices with humungous Yorkshire puddings and potatoes so delicious that even my carbohydrate-wary husband ate one! The potatoes were described as roast but the impression they gave was a cross between roast and fondant, luxuriously, velvety centred. After lunch we have a guided tour, from the top of the stairs we look down at the beautifully carved cruck, Zoe Agar tells us that the house has evolved over the years which explains it having both Georgian and Victorian facades. The architect John Pollard Seddon (responsible for the restoration at Llandâf and University College of Wales, Aberystwyth) commissioned to do the Victorian extension and remodelling was a lover of Gothic, and the finials and fireplaces (each different) are proof of this attention to detail. The large upstairs landing with soft inviting sofas and wall of books, games and DVDs promises an enjoyable retreat not simply a place to spend a night. Beautiful countryside for walking, a breathtaking view of the Preselis, and the lovely close-by town of Narberth are additional reasons for making the journey. Do.
The University of Wales Dylan Thomas Prize
O N L O O K E R
ABOVE (L-R) Elyse Fenton, Eleanor Catton, Nadifa Mohamed, Professor Peter Stead, Emily Mackie, Caroline Bird and Karan Mahajan outside Dylan Thomas’s former home, 5 Cwmdonkin Drive.
W
elsh Literati - and Gliterati - gathered at Swansea Bay’s Patti Pavilion (BELOW RIGHT) on 1st December for the Dylan Thomas Prize Award Ceremony. American poet Elyse Fenton (TOP RIGHT) won the 2010 Prize for Clamor, her book of war poetry inspired by her response to her husband, a medic, being sent to Baghdad: an exploration not only of her own feelings but of the wider impact and meaning of war. The book had already won several other awards. This is the first time a poet has won. The judges were Professor Kurt Heinzelman, Kate Burton, Peter Florence (Chair of Judges), Gwyneth Lewis, Bruno Maddox, Natalie Moody and Professor Peter Stead, founder of the Award. The - now annual - £30,000 Prize is open to published writers under the age of 30 in the English language from anywhere across the globe. This year another category has been added: the Sony Reader competition (sponsored by Sony) for young unpublished British writers. The winner of the £5000 prize was Steffan Mohamed of Powys (CENTRE LEFT); Cerys Matthews presented the Award, and gave a reading of a Dylan Thomas poem. (CENTRE RIGHT) The six shortlisted authors, British poet Caroline Bird (Watering Can), Nadifa Mohamed (Black Mamba Boy) from Somalia, Canadian Eleanor Catton (The Rehearsal), Indian-born Karan Mahajan (Family Planning), American poet Elyse Fenton (Clamor) and Scottish novelist Emily Mackie (And This is True) arrived in Wales a week before the award ceremony and embarked on a series of visits to schools, colleges and universities, giving readings and holding workshops. They stayed at Keepers Cottage, Clyne Farm as the guests of Mr and Mrs Geoff Haden who are also responsible for restoring Cwmdonkin Drive. Past winnersinclude Rachel Tresize for Fresh Apples (2006), Nam Le for The Boat (2008). www.thedylanthomasprize.com
What’s
hot in Wales
JOHN UZZELL EDWARDS WILL BE EXHIBITING IN LONDON in the Londonewcastle Project Space at 28 Redchurch Street, City of London E2 7DP alongside his son Charlie who paints under the name Pure Evil until 31st December. Charlie Uzzell Edwards is part of the international urban art scene and has his own gallery close by at 108 Leonard Street, Shoreditch, 020 7729 2866, well worth a look too.
WALES MILLENNIUM CENTRE HAS
LAUNCHED AN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE THEATRE SCHOOL for children aged between seven and 11 years old in Cardiff and the surrounding area. The Young Company will run alongside the Centre's established Welsh-language drama company, Ffwrnais Awen, run
John Uzzell Edwards 2010 (Mixed media -158cm x 163cm)
by the Urdd and based at the Centre. The aim is to give children hands-on experience of working in a theatre, from rehearsing and performing to learning how the lighting and sound desks work. Members will also be encouraged to develop other essential skills including communication and teamwork through theatre and drama. For further information call 029 2063 6464 or visit www.wmc.org.uk BERWYN AND MARTHA JONES WERE PRESENTED WITH THE NATIONAL WELSH AMERICAN FOUNDATION HERITAGE AWARD at the North American Festival of Wales (NAFoW) held this year in Portland, Oregon (LEFT). Long time subscribers and supporters of
Cambria
(they have hosted
Cambria’s
stand at NAFoW for the last few years)
many of our readers both here and in the US will be well aware of how much they deserved this prize. Several years ago they established the Great Plains Welsh Heritage Centre in Wymore, Nebraska, they have taken on the responsibility of archiving Y Drych, a valuable record of Welsh American life, and Martha has translated Early History
of the Welsh in the Proscairon District of Wisconsin. The 1894 Welsh edition is based on a draft by the late Phillips G. Davies and Hanes Cymry America - A
History of the Welsh in America by Rev. R.D. Thomas (1872). This is a new translation with many corrections and revisions and (for the first time) an index of names: a goldmine for Welsh American genealogy. INFORMATION:
www.welshheritage.org
Berwyn Jones and Martha Davies receive the NWAF Heritage Medallion for their work in preserving Welsh History in America. The medallions come with a beautiful plaque that explains the award. It will be mounted permanently at the Welsh Heritage Centre in Wymore, Nebraska.
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BROADEN YOUR MIND. AND YOUR HORIZONS.
UCAS 2011
Finding a great university in a superb location
ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE
HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE
isn’t as impossible as it seems. Just take a
ART AND DESIGN
MARKETING
closer look at Swansea Metropolitan University.
AUTOMOTIVE DESIGN/ ENGINEERING
We have a proud history that stretches back over 150 years. During which time we’ve built
BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT
MOTORSPORT ENGINEERING/ MANAGEMENT
up an unrivalled reputation for turning degrees
BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT
into jobs – and aspirations into achievements.
3D COMPUTER ANIMATION
Join us here on the stunning south coast of
COMPUTER GAMES DESIGN/ DEVELOPMENT
Wales and as well as a quality education you’ll
COMPUTING AND IT
PSYCHOLOGY
COUNSELLING
PUBLIC SERVICES
enjoy a quality of life that’s simply irresistible. So for sun, surf, smiles and success, make your way to Swansea. For further details go to www.smu.ac.uk call 01792 481010 or email prospectus@smu.ac.uk
ENGINEERING ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION EVENTS MANAGEMENT
MULTIMEDIA MUSIC TECHNOLOGY PERFORMING ARTS PHOTOGRAPHY/ PHOTOJOURNALISM PRODUCT DESIGN
SPORTS MANAGEMENT SURFACE PATTERN DESIGN
FINE ART
TEACHING/EDUCATIONAL STUDIES
GLASS
TOURISM MANAGEMENT
GRAPHIC DESIGN/ ILLUSTRATION/DESIGN FOR ADVERTISING
VIDEO/FILM-MAKING WEB DEVELOPMENT
IT’S THE DESTINATION
www.smu.ac.uk