The term “Sin Eater” does sound like the title of a dodgy horror film. In fact perhaps it is. I wouldn’t know. But I came across it in a news item on the BBC last month (September 2010)

It is a fascinating idea and perhaps you will not be surprised to learn that this ancient tradition survived in the east of Wales and just over the border in Shropshire and Herefordshire longer than anywhere else. Indeed, it was still practiced into the early 20th century.

It is a bizarre adoption…

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That’s a headline you never expected to see on the Americymru website is it? Neither did I to be honest. I found it in a copy of The Caernarvon and Denbigh Herald. It is all about two lectures delivered in October 1843 in the County Hall in Denbigh. Bet you wish you’d been there.

On the first of the two nights the Mayor turned up and spoke in support of Mr. Jones, who clearly had remarkable gifts for all to see. The Mayor began his introduction by hoping that the people of Denbigh would be… Read more →

In June 1912 there was a reception for him back in Wales, at the Barmouth Picture Pavilion, and over 1000 people attended. Here he was presented with gifts of nautical equipment from grateful survivors. They were inscribed:



“To Harold Godfrey Lowe, 5th Officer RMS Titanic. The real hero of the Titanic. With deepest gratitude.”



Harold Lowe had found a place in history – and he was born and died in Wales… He ran away to sea when he was perhaps as young as 14. An impetuous… Read more →

I was inspired to write this by a wooden drinking vessel which you can find in the National Museum in Cardiff, one of many such objects apparently, made from a great oak tree which blew down in a storm in 1813. The tree was called Derwen Ceubren yr Ellyll – the Hollow Tree of the Demons - and it once stood on the old Nannau Estate near Dolgellau. And the legend will tell you that Owain Glyndwr once used the tree as a handy place in which to store the body of his cousin.

The story of Owain… Read more →

He is remembered in the name of a street a pub and a school in Cardiff. His achievements are recorded on a clock face in Cardiff Bay but his grave lies forgotten and neglected in Cardiff’s Cathays Cemetery.

His gravestone tells us

Captain E. T. Willows

Only beloved son of Joseph and Eva Willows

Died August 3 1926

At rest

The letters on the simple stone are metal and are falling off. Without them his grave will lose its identity and become no…

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