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"It is the Tale of American Wales,or South Wales or Modern Wales, since 1945...."
Read our review of Dream On here
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AmeriCymru: Helo Dai and many thanks for agreeing to talk to AmeriCymru. ''Dream On'' is your first novel. What inspired you to write it?
Dai: Dreams are as actual as day to day living but elusive in any representation of that living. Writing history is another way of dreaming up that past life by imposing a narrative or analytical order which the simultaneity of living,in past and present and in dreams and waking, implicitly denies. So,I wanted to find a form to tell an underlying truth,one to be found in the rhythm of dreams,about the people and places which hold me and which I have long attempted to reveal in my historical writings. That form was a fictive one, for a deeper story.
AmeriCymru: How would you describe the novel for an American audience?
Dai: It is the Tale of American Wales,or South Wales or Modern Wales, since 1945, and the intermeshing of the global and the local in various lives fixed by this space over time. My novel is a kaleidoscope which the passage of years shakes to rearrange the shards of individual, yet related lives. Something was available and someting has been irretreivably lost.Then,in keeping with my tragic theme,I use the bewildering variety of genres and language,of cultures and attitudes, which expressed those lives,at times irrespective of intentions or desire. We move at a pace from the blackly comic to gothic grotesque, from the noir of the thriller to the mundane entrapment of manners and customs.The intention is to subvert, by plot and tonality, any easy expectations at every turn. Just as it was in the lives of the dreamers I here imagine.
AmeriCymru: How significant was the immediate post war period in Welsh and indeed, British history? What role does the memory of that period play in the novel?
Dai: South Wales, politically and socially and culturally, was centre stage in British life for almost two decades after the Second World War. It was the very embodiment of the Phoenix which was set to emerge, and almost did, from the ashes of Depression and War. Think Aneurin Bevan and the NHS, Richard Burton and Stanley Baker, Gwyn Thomas and Dylan Thomas, and a supporting cast of hearts, minds and dreams. But, of course, as an economy based on coal and steel the Star was dying from within, even as its glory burned brightest. This, too, is my subject,and the contrast between the wild aspirations of the beginning of the twentieth century and of this more circumspect one.
AmeriCymru: There is much in ''Dream On'' to suggest a decline in political idealism since the miner''s strike of 84-85. Do you think this is true?
Dai: Yes. But one world has passed, and this new one needs a different approach, albeit if some human values must be constant.
AmeriCymru: Care to tell us something about your other recent title ''In the Frame: Memory in Society 1910 to 2010''?
Dai: That book, a compound of Memoir and History, was the bridge I constructed to let me cross over as a writer of fiction. It is a one way bridge.
AmeriCymru: What was the book that most influenced your fiction writing — and why?
Dai: The Great Gatsby. Because it remains the quintessential Fable of Modern Life, set to shape and direct all aspects of existence. And because it is gorgeous and indeed great. I never tire of reading it.
AmeriCymru: What are you working on now?
Dai: Well, I have just edited two volumes called "Story", to be the definitive volumes of short stories written in English from Wales. It will appear in the Library of Wales Series, of which I am General Editor, in the autumn. And a sequel to "Dream On", but set further back in time, is irrepressibly bubbling up.
AmeriCymru: Any final messages for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?
Dai: That we are closer, for all our differences, than some may ever care to know.
An Interview With Welsh Writer Vanessa Gebbie - Author Of 'The Coward's Tale'
By AmeriCymru, 2012-11-12
AmeriCymru spoke to Vanessa Gebbie recently about her novel ''The Coward''s Tale'' and her future writing plans. Vanessa is an author from South Wales, currently living in the south of England who has previously published two collections of short stories. ''The Coward''s Tale'' is her first novel and it is to be hoped, the first of many more. Visit Vanessa's website here Find her AmeriCymru page here Buy The Coward's Tale here
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Vanessa: Hi, and thank you so much for the invitation! Merthyr was always referred to as ‘home’. ‘Home’ was with my paternal grandmother Ethel Rose Rees, my uncle, aunt and cousin, in Highland View. Other relatives lived in Gwilym Terrace, off Plymouth Road, and Christopher Terrace. Memories are so many and so clear - I could (and probably did...) fill a book with them. But a few...
Wild ponies came to graze on the old coal tips at the end of Highland View. There were a few of us kids - we used to try to catch them with lassoos made of washing line. No chance! I remember one, a beautiful thing, grey as the mist. We called her Venus, but I expect that made no difference. As a small child, I would go up to bed before Coronation Street came on the television. I shared my grandmother’s double bed - and can remember the struggle to climb up, and how lovely it was - soft as anything. In the intermission, she would come up with a pack of sweet cigarettes - and I would lie and ‘smoke’ listening to the theme tune trickling through the floorboards. Listen - “Da - da da dee di da...” (!)
There was no plumbing inside the house - apart from in the kitchen. No bathroom. I remember how cold the china pot under the bed was!
I used to go with my uncle for walks across the river. He knew many things - where to find wild strawberries, and where the gypsies camped, and how to trick people into shaking his hand when he was holding rabbit poo. Squish...
He took me to the mouth of the old railway tunnel and we would stand together and shout into the darkness to hear the echoes. You could see the rib cage of a sheep a long way in, across the rails, like it was luminous.
And I remember my aunt sitting so close to the fire in the front room, that her left leg changed colour. It became mottled, like a map. I was fascinated to see how far up it went - but never found out.
Vanessa: Thank you for the comparisons - I learned a lot from Dylan Thomas, obviously, but I wanted to create something that wasn’t mere whimsy, like Under Milk Wood - lovely and genius though that is. Yes, there are individual tales - but the whole is a weave that makes them impossible to take out - or the whole would miss something - I hope you agree!
At the back of all the tales there is the echo of a disaster that happened a few generations ago - the collapse of a coal mine called Kindly Light. Families now are still coping with the fallout - even though they had no direct experience of the accident. One of the themes I was exploring is that of coming to terms with the past - understanding and acknowledging it - and then you can move on. Without that understanding, we are tethered, somehow.
That all sounds rather heavy - but the book isn’t heavy, is it? Like life, it is at times sad, then funny, sometimes serious, sometimes not.
I was also exploring the importance of ‘story’ to us all. Isnt it through fiction that we learn important truths about ourselves and others? I’ll leave that as a question.
AmeriCymru: ''The Halfwit''s and the Deputy Bank Manager''s Tale'' resolves itself with a wonderful and symbolic device. The dead and frozen fish rescued from the Taff illuminates the theme of the whole with a clarity that caused this reader to gasp with delight. As an aspiring short story writer I must ask ....how do you construct your stories? Do these revelatory episodes arrive first in your imagination and is the rest of the story constructed around them?
Vanessa: I am delighted you liked that story. And although I don’t plan and plot when I write, I often do have an idea of the final tableau of a piece - and set characters loose to work towards that tableau, to make sense of it. I think that’s how that piece happened - I wrote most of it in about 2005/6 so it’s a while back now.
The river freezing was a real gift - when things like that happen as I write, it reminds me why I love this work. Then I found photos of The Taff frozen over in reality - and that was great. Here’s a link to some images, taken in 1895. http://www.peoplescollection.org.uk/Item/7446-view-of-the-bridge-over-the-frozen-river-taff
But if course, this happens in September, in The Coward’s Tale, and at the end of that piece it says, “but rivers don’t freeze in September...” so it’s up to the reader to decide whether it did or didn’t! I love playing games.
I am a visual writer, and take inspiratation from visual images too. Photos, paintings, all sorts.
If you are a short story writer, I think Short Circuit - Guide to the Art of the Short Story is available in the US. I was asked to pull together a text book on writing short fiction - and as I’d never got to the end of a single-author ‘how-to’ book myself, decided to invite over twenty prizewinning short story writers, who are also teachers of writing, to contribute chapters/essays on all sorts of craft and process issues. It’s gone down well - and is recommended reading on many writing courses. It’s deliberately slightly different - there is no single ‘do this and you will be successful’ message, like there is with so many others. Something for everyone.
AmeriCymru: In a recent Telegraph article the reviewer/interviewer observed that "...Astute readers will find the 12 apostles in the characters he (Ianto Jenkins ) describes." Is this a religious novel? Does it have a religious dimension?
Vanessa: No - it isn’t. Not in the “Religious with a capital ‘R’” sense. I am not religious, really. However, the creation of the main characters was greatly helped by images and myths that have attached themselves to the twelve men who we have come to know as The Twelve Apostles. All I was doing was using those images as guides in making up my men, and/or their problems. They gave me jump-off points.
Some were easy - Peter, for example, The Rock - it was obvious to attach him to coal in some way. Others were less easy. Nathan, or Bartholomew, for example - less immediately well known images. I needed to research, and I much enjoyed finding out about the myths and legends, and in many cases used Biblical stories too. The Clerk’s Tale, for example, uses Tommo Price, a character who is a modern version of Doubting Thomas, in large part.
But having said I am not religious - I wouldn’t say I am not spiritual. Maybe partly, the novel is saying we need to accept the existence of things we don’t understand, things that have no or little logic?
AmeriCymru: I know you must have been asked this before but how does it feel to have your first novel described as "the legitimate offspring of Dylan Thomas and Gabriel Garcia Marquez” ?
Vanessa: Rather nice! I am immensely grateful to a fab writer, Charles Lambert, for that quote.
AmeriCymru: Besides appearing in numerous anthologies you have also published two collections of short stories, ''Storm Warning'' and Words From A Glass Bubble Can you tell us more about these collections? What can we expect to find between the covers?
Vanessa: “Storm Warning - Echoes of Conflict” is my ‘war book’. Written for my late father, who was a Sapper, and decorated in WWII, it explores conflict from the point of view of those caught up in it.
My father was a mild, gentle man from a Welsh valley town, working in a drawing office. He was pivoted into WWII as were so many, not really knowing what he was going to. He rose to the rank of Captain in the sappers, and was awarded the MC. But afterwards, he never really came to terms with what he’d experienced - it affected him for the rest of his life, in subtle and not so subtle ways.
‘Storm Warning’’s stories usually take place after the conflicts - WWI, and WWI, Vietnam, and many many others - and explore the legacy of the conflicts. (My Vietnam story is interesting, about power, and revenge - a man wants to take revenge on his old commander, and takes a job as janitor in the block of flats where the now-retired man is living...)
‘Words from a Glass Bubble’ is my first collection, a gathering of stories that had won prizes here and there, at Bridport, and Fish among others. Both that and ‘Storm Warning’ are from Salt Modern Fiction.
AmeriCymru: From your blog ( http://morenewsfromvg.blogspot.com/ ) we learn that you run a series of ''Daily Story Gym Exercises'' on Twitter. Care to tell us more about these?
Vanessa: Sure. I tweet as vanessagebbie on Twitter. But it struck me that it would be nice to have writing prompts appearing out of the blue, not attached to any writer in particular. So if you search for #StoryGym on Twitter, you will find a daily writing prompt tweeted by me, designed to intrigue, to kick off a new character, a story, perhaps. It’s about the first thing I do every morning!
AmeriCymru: What are you working on currently? What''s next from the pen of Vanessa Gebbie?
Vanessa: A novel, but it will take a long time. It is a prequel and a sequel in one, to The Coward’s Tale. Ianto and Laddy feature large as life. I am also writing poetry, and doing a lot of teaching.
AmeriCymru: Any plans to visit the US?
Vanessa: I wish! Who knows, maybe if the book does well, Bloomsbury will stump up for a ticket and a vist to an Eisteddfod. Wouldn’t that be great!
AmeriCymru: Any final message for the members and readers of AmeriCymru?
Vanessa: Thanks for your time reading this, it is greatly appreciated. And thanks Ceri for such interesting questions. Good luck with your own writing.
AmeriCymru spoke to Welsh author Meic Stephens about his new book Rhys Davies: A Writer''s Life. This is the first biography of the "..most prolific, dedicated and accomplished of Welsh prose-writers."
Buy Rhys Davies: A Writer''s Life here
Check out Rhys Davies on Amazon here
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AmeriCymru: Hi Meic and many thanks for agreeing to be interviewed by AmeriCymru. For any of our readers who are not acquainted with the man and his work, can you explain the importance of Rhys Davies in the history of 20th century Welsh literature?
Meic: Rhys Davies (1901-78) was the most prolific, dedicated and accomplished of Welsh prose-writers. He wrote more than a hundred short stories, some twenty novels, three novellas, an autobiography, two plays and two topographical books about Wales. But it was as a short-story writer that he excelled and influenced other writers. Taking Russian and French writers as his models, he took the form to its limit in objectivity. Before him there was only Caradoc Evans, but he left his mark on later Welsh writers such as Glyn Jones, Gwyn Thomas and Alun Lewis. He was, in short, and by general assent, a master-craftsman in the form.
AmeriCymru: What inspired you to write a biography of Rhys? How did your interest in him evolve?
Meic: I first read him as an undergraduate in the 1950s, and my admiration grew as I worked through his oeuvre. I met him in his London flat in the 1970s and kept in touch until his death. Then, one day in 1990, I was contacted by his brother Lewis Davies who wanted me to set up a Trust in his memory. This I did, with money provided by Lewis, and after Lewis’s death in December 2011, the Trust inherited his entire estate. I became its Secretary. The Trust is chaired by Dai Smith and the other two Trustees are Sam Adams and Peter Finch. Its aims are to keep the writer’s memory green and to promote Welsh writing in English. For example, we put up plaques in memory of writers and help fund the work of Rhys Davies in every possible way. The conference organized by Literature Wales in 2013 was funded by the Trust, which also commissioned me to write the biography.
AmeriCymru: Davies''s autobiography ''Print Of A Hare''s Foot'' is evasive and unreliable. How much of an obstacle was this to you in your research?
Meic: It soon became apparent to me that the events mentioned in Print of a Hare’s Foot didn’t always correspond to the known facts of Rhys’s life. Lewis was a great help in pointing to where the book strayed from what had actually happened. It is particularly misleading in that it tries to hide or camouflage the author’s homosexuality. It must be remembered that homosexuality was illegal in Britain until the Sexual Offences Act of 1967. Rhys was promiscuous as a young man but never mentioned his sexuality or wrote about it, except tangentially. Other facts are contorted or obscured for no apparent reason except that he seemed incapable of giving a straight answer to a straight question about himself. This presents a problem for a biographer who has to know when the false trails laid down by Rhys are leading nowhere and how to decipher the code in which he habitually wrote about the things that mattered to him. His instinctive need to dissemble explains to some extent the detached, almost clinical way in which Rhys observed other people without becoming emotionally involved with them. It gives his prose a chilling quality that some readers admire. He enjoyed no lasting sexual relationship with another person and with the women who found him kind, gentle, witty, charming and excellent company, such as Anna Kavan, he maintained strictly platonic friendships. Above all, he protected his privacy and independence, fearing intrusion into his inner life by anyone who came too close, man or woman. It suited him, too, to have no close companion because he maintained a rigorous work-schedule that left little time for an emotional life. The title of his autobiography was well chosen. The hare is a secretive creature in folklore, said to change its shape while always resolutely remaining itself, sexually active, living by its wits and giving out misleading signals, a symbol of paradox, contradiction and transitoriness, both lucky and unlucky, damned in Deuteronomy as unclean and forbidden, an endangered species, lying low and leaving only the lightest of prints before disappearing into its form in its own mysterious way.
AmeriCymru: Can you tell us a little about his Welsh background? Would it be accurate to describe him as an outsider, a ‘marginal character’?
Meic: Rhys was born in the mining village of Blaenclydach, near Tonypandy in the Rhondda Valley. His parents kept a grocer’s shop known as Royal Stores. He had an elder brother who was killed in the last weeks of the Great War, three sisters who became teachers and a nurse, and another brother,the benjamin of the family, Lewis. Their status as shop-keepers kept them apart from a working-class community on which they relied for custom and which, in turn, was almost wholly dependent on the coal industry: they employed a maid and a man to take deliveries up and down the valley, enjoyed holidays and were never short of food like many of their neighbours. The parents and older children spoke Welsh. Rhys was brought up in chapel but as a teenager began attending services at a church where the services were in English, losing his Welsh along the way. Just before his fourteenth birthday he decided he had had enough of school and left, much to the chagrin of his parents. He spent the next seven years wandering the hills above Rhondda, reading voraciously, and helping his parents in the shop. This last was crucial: he learned to listen to the customers, particularly the womenfolk, with whose tales of woe and misfortune he was able to sympathize. Many critics have remarked upon his ‘feminine’ sensibility and the fact that many of his stories are about women or written from a woman’s point of view. His female characters are brave and resolute, determined to overcome whatever life throws at them while his menfolk are craven creatures, the victims of cruel circumstance. There is very little discussion of politics in his books but he did observe the Tonypandy Riots which brought troops into the Rhondda in 1910.
AmeriCymru: How would you characterise his relationship with the Rhondda?
Meic: I’d say he had a love-hate relationship with the Rhondda. It provided him with material for most of his books, and he knew it. But he found it hard to break away and write about somewhere else. Most critics think his Rhondda stories and novels are far superior to work set elsewhere. He was, however, disgusted by what he saw as the ugliness of the coal-mining community, the muck and mire of the industry and what it did to people’s lives. Although he often went home, especially when money was short or he had nowhere to live, after his parents’ death he had no reason to visit the Rhondda and lost contact with the Valley.
AmeriCymru: Davies was a friend of D.H. Lawrence. Do you think Lawrence influenced his writing in any way?
Meic: He was invited to stay with the Lawrences in the South of France in 1928 and later accompanied them to Paris. He carried the manuscript of Pansies back to London and through the customs which had seized them previously. He had admired the English novelist long before that and there are traces of his influence throughout Davies’s early work, in particular in his depiction of women: the Lawrentian woman appears more than once in his stories. He was aware of it and, as he matured as a novelist, began to shake it off.
AmeriCymru: ''The Black Venus'' was one of his most popular titles. Can you tell us a little about this book? How representative is it of his work?
Meic: Published in 1944, the novel is set in the fictitious village of Ayron in Ceredigion; when Davies wasn’t writing about the Rhondda, he often set his work in west Wales, for which he had a sentimental attachment. It’s a fantasy created around the custom of courting in bed, or bundling, by which a young woman was allowed to receive suitors who would stay the night on, rather than in her bed. The custom was common among the peasantry in the 18 th and 19 th centuries. Opinion seems to be divided as to whether it was observed under conditions of strict chastity, with a bolster placed between the sweethearts, or whether sexual contact was allowed. Olwen Powell, the beautiful young heiress of a large farm, uses it to test the eligibility of various suitors, thus turning the custom on its head, much to the disapproval of the community: the woman is in control and eventually triumphs. Critical opinion is divided about the sexual significance of the Black Venus, a carving which is to be seen in Olwen’s room, though it adds considerably to the amusement of the novel. It is not Davies’s best but it went into several editions.
AmeriCymru: Davies is noted for being a particularly hard working author. Can you tell us something about his work routine , ethic and preferred working environment?
Meic: Except for a few years as a draper’s assistant on first going to London, and a short stint of war-work, Davies managed to live almost wholly by his pen. His meagre income was not supplemented by any teaching, journalism, broadcasting, or hack-work of any kind. He sat on no committees, signed no manifestos, believed no political nostrums or religious dogma, never read his work in public, attended no conferences, never edited a magazine, engaged in no literary squabbles, spurned all cliques, shunned the company of academics, had no taste or talent for self-promotion, joined no literary clubs, never competed for a prize, never sat in judgement on his fellow writers as an adjudicator of literary competitions, and only very rarely as a reviewer of their books. He believed the proper business of the writer was to be writing. Living in rented or borrowed accommodation from which he invariably soon moved on, he maintained a rigorous work-schedule, writing, eating and sleeping in one small room. He cultivated detachment as if by not fully belonging to any one place, he could preserve something of himself, something secret, his inviolable self, which he prized above all else. When immersed in a story, as he often was, he wrote a thousand words a day until it was finished. Domestic comforts, such as a home, a regular partner and some security of income, which make life tolerable for most writers, were not for him. He did not even turn to the anodyne of drink, which has sustained and destroyed so many, though he was not averse to the occasional glass in one of his favourite pubs. As for drugs, he had seen what they had done to the only woman he cared for, the heroin addict Anna Kavan. The only time he was celebrated as a writer was when he won the Edgar – the prize awarded by the Mystery Writers of America – for his story The Chosen One in 1967 . Towards the end of his life he found a new readership in America.
AmeriCymru: Davies was a prolific short story writer. Are there any of his stories that you would particularly recommend?
Meic: The stories I admire most include ‘Nightgown’, ‘Canute’, The Benefit Concert’, ‘Revelation’, ‘The Pits are on the Top’, ‘Weep not my Wanton’, and ‘Resurrection’. Unfortunately it’s difficult to find books by Rhys Davies, except via Amazon. The three-volume Collected Stories I edited in 1998 is no longer available. But there will be several in Dai Smith’s anthology due from Parthian shortly in the Library of Wales. There are also seven in Nightgown , published by Carreg Gwalch. The Rhys Davies Trust is currently considering grant-aid for the Selected Stories .
AmeriCymru: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru? Why read Rhys Davies?
Meic: Take a look at Amazon to see whether any of his books can be bought there. His novel The Withered Root has been republished in the Library of Wales. You might also read my biography as an introduction to his work! You can read Rhys Davies solely for the literary pleasure it affords. But he was very much of his place and time. His achievement as a writer was that, by the mysterious process we call art, he left work that is timeless and universal, and that still speaks to the human condition.
CYMRAEG | ENGLISH
In this interview John Good speaks to Menna Elfyn, an award-winning poet and playwright who writes with passion of the Welsh language and identity. She is the best known and most translated of all modern Welsh-language poets. Author of over twenty books of poetry including Aderyn Bach Mewn Llaw (1990), winner of a Welsh Arts Council Prize; the bilingual Eucalyptus: Detholiad o Gerddi / Selected Poems 1978-1994 from Gomer and her previous collection, Cell Angel (1996) from Bloodaxe, children’s novels and educational books, numerous stage, radio and television plays, she has also written libretti for US and UK composers.
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John: Fel person sy wedi dysgu''R Gymraeg yn America ar ôl gadael Cymru yn y saithdegau, mae diddordeb mawr ‘da fi mewn profiadau pobl Cymraeg eu hiaith Tramor. Fel awdures, a ydych chi byth wedi’ch synnu gan y brwdfrydedd a chroeso a gafodd eich gwaith ar draws Clawdd Offa oddi wrth bobl Ddi-Gymraeg?
Menna: Wel ydw mewn gwirionedd. Wnes i erioed freuddwydio y byddai fy ngwaith yn croesi dros Glawdd Offa na chyrraedd America, Tsieina, Sbaen, Norwy-- a gwledydd eraill ond mae''n deimlad hyfryd am fod hynny''n golygu bod cynulleidfaoedd yn dod i wybod fy mod yn sgwennu yn y Gymraeg yn gyntaf ond mae fy ngwelediad wrth gwrs yn ehangach na hynny. Rwy''n gweld y byd trwy ''r Gymraeg a does dim testun na ellid ysgrifennu amdano yn yr iaith honno. Dyna i chi Harlem yn y Nos, cerdd a luniais pan oeddwn yn ysgrifennu libreto ar gyfer Cerddorfa Ffilharmonic Efrog Newydd ac yn gorfod byw yno am wythnosau ar y tro , dros gyfnod o flwyddyn a hanner ac yn gorfod mynd i gwrdd a''r cyfansoddwr a oedd yn byw yn Washington Heights... a dychwelyd wedyn trwy Harlem.
Un enghraifft efallai ond rwy''n dal i ddweud wrth bawb pan af ar Wyliau Llenyddol -- mod i''n ysgrifennu ar gyfer y byd i gyd felly dyw e ddim yn syndod mewn gwirionedd.. Ers Tachwedd 2013, rwy wedi darllen yn Tsieina, Hong Kong, Vancouver, Seattle, St Andrews yr Alban a''r wythnos nesa'' yn Grasmere, cartre Wordsworth , yna yng Nghernyw ddiwedd Mai. Felly rwy wastad ar grwydr a wastad yn dechrau darlleniadau gan ddarllen yn Gymraeg ac yna''n darllen rhannau rhwng cerddi, fel bod y Gymraeg yn toddi''n naturiol i''r cyfieithiadau Saesneg. Fy ngherdd gynta'' bob tro yw '' Cusan Hances'' ar ol i RSThomas ( a wnaeth gyfieithu dwy o''m cerddi gyda llaw) ddweud bod cerdd mewn cyfieithiad fel cusanu trwy hances! Gwell hynny na pheidio a chusanu o gwbl!
Menna: O''r cychwyn, pan oedd galw i mi ddarllen mewn mannau fel Sbaen a ''r Iwerddon roeddwn wedi pwyso ar gyfeillion o feirdd-- Nigel Jenkins, Gillian Clarke a''r un sydd yn ffrind gorau i mi Elin ap Hywel, ac eraill er mwyn cael y cyfieithiadau gorau posib. Roedd yn rhaid i mi wneud ambell un fy hun ond roedd Tony Conran yn dweud '' you are not worthy of the poet!'' achos roedd e''n credu fy mod yn mynd ar goll wrth drosi a ddim yn ffyddlon i''r gerdd . Ond pam ddylwn i? A dyna''r drwg wrth gwrs o wneud y cyfieithiad eich hun sef eich bod yn mynd i rywle arall yn lle glynu at y gwaith mewn llaw. Dyna pam mae cyfieithu yn gelfyddyd o''i wneud yn iawn. Un gorchymyn oedd gen i -- i''r cyfieithwyr - gwnewch y gerdd yn well -- trowch hi''n gerdd annibynnol ond gydag ambell gysgod o''r Gymraeg. Rhaid iddi fyw heb ei chwaer fel petai.
Mae cyfieithu i ieithoedd eraill yn fwy o broblem wrth gwrs ac mae''n cymryd amser. Mae cyfrol mewn Hindi ar waith, cyfrol Arabeg, cyfrol Gatalaneg, i enwi dim ond rhai. Lwc pur yw cael rhywun fel yn achos yr Arabeg i ddod atoch ar ddiwedd darlleniad a dweud ei bod yn mynnu fy nghael yn ei mamiaith hi sef Arabeg. Fel yna mae''r gwaith yn hedfan mae''n debyg. Bydd ambell wall wrth gwrs mewn ambell lyfr er enghraifft fel wnaeth cyfieithydd o Tsieieg gyfieithu '' Drws yn Epynt'' yn y llyfr o''m gwaith yn yr iaith honno yn '' Drws yn yr Aifft -- Door in Egypt! Wrth gwrs doedden nhw''n gwybod dim am Epynt yng Nghymru ac am y bobl yn cael ei hel o''r darn hwnnw o Bowys er mwyn i''r milwyr ymarfer yno.
Ond, erbyn meddwl roedd ysbryd newydd rhyfedd i''r gerdd ar ei newydd wedd ac roedd yn gweithio gyda phob dim sy''n digwydd yn y wlad drist honno y dyddiau yma. Yn Murmur mae dau o''m cyfieithwyr yn rhai newydd-- Damian Walford Davies ac rwy''n ceisio annog Paul Henry i wneud mwy gan ei fod yn fardd mor wych ac yn siarad Cymraeg. Fe gollais fy nghyfieithydd cyntaf eleni, gan y bu Nigel Jenkins farw a fe a fi oedd yn cyfieithu ein gilydd ar y dechrau nol yn yr wythdegau. Colled bersonol i mi a cholled fwy i''w deulu a Chymru. Ond dyma fi wedi crwydro oddi ar y cwestiwn. Nigel ddarllenodd y cerddi mewn cyfieithiad yn un o''m lansiadau yn Abertawe gan ei fod yn ffrind mor agos ac annwyl i mi .
John: Unwaith, mae athro Cymraeg wedi fy ngofyn i a allwn i siarad Cymraeg. “Dim ond Cymraeg ‘Cwmafan’ oedd f’ateb. Yn syth ymlaen , mae fe wedi dweud rhywbeth fel “Hynny yw Cymraeg!” Beth ydy’ch meddyliau chi ar y pwysigrwydd o dafodieithoedd a sut all pobl gyffredin, lenyddol a chymdeithasau fel AmeriCymru camu i’r adwy’u hachub nhw?
Menna: Rwy''n dotio ar dafodieithoedd ac yn casglu pob dim a medraf er mwyn eu defnyddio rywbryd mewn cerddi. Mae''r bardd yn wiwer wedi''r cyfan a''i chnau yw geiriau. Ie, dylid ar bob cyfri eu casglu, eu harfer, eu cadw a llunio geiriau newydd sbon. Er enghraifft mae''r gair '' selfie'' wedi ei droi erbyn hyn yn hunlun sy;n reit dwt dwi''n meddwl.
John: Bob hyn a hyn ac weithiau yn aml, ceir yr ysbryd neu gysgod o Gynghanedd yn eich gwaith chi. Ydy harmoni a gwrthbwynt y geiriau yn gymar cyfartal i ystyr yn y cyfansoddiad?
Menna: Pan oeddwn i''n ysgrifennu yn chwedegau, doedd gen i ddim amser i ddysgu''r rheolau a cheisio ffrwyno fy ngwaith -- roedd gen i bethau own i am eu dweud heb hualau ''r gynghanedd. A hynny er bod fy nhad yn cynganeddu ond roedd mynd ato a dangos ambell linell o gynghanedd ac yntau''n dweud bod yna gam acennu yn ddigon i mi roi''r gorau iddi. Ond mae''r gynghanedd fel un haen yn hyfryd -- ac er fy mod erbyn hyn yn medru cynganeddu a gwneud ambell englyn neu gywydd digon teidi, dwi ddim yn meddwl ei fod yn fy nghyfffroi yn gymaint a cherddi rhydd.
Dwedodd Robert Hass.. I love the line, following the line - I''ve never written a sonnet in my life''. Wel dwi wedi ysgrifennu mewn ffurf pan yw''n gweithio''n ddiymdrech ond rwy''n dwlu ar farddoniaeth Americanaidd - mae dull y beirdd mor eang , mor ddihualau a dyna dwi''n treio ei wneud yn fy ngwaith innau. Rhaid cael yr angerdd cychwynnol a bwrw iddi wedyn ac os daw llinell o gynghanedd i''r golwg neu dan yr wyneb, wel gorau oll, ond nid cychwyn yn y fan honno dwi''n ei wneud. Rwy''n ei weld fel nofio mewn pwll nofio -- i fyny ac i lawr, cadw o fewn eich ffiniau gyda''r nofwyr eraill tra bod y wers rydd yn gadael i mi nofio yn y mor, heb wybod ei ddyfnder , ac heb wybod ei berygl ac yn gallu mynd o un man i''r llall heb i neb fy rhwystro -- heblaw fi fy hunan wrth gwrs.
Menna Elfyn yn darllen '' Handkerchief Kiss '' / '' Cusan Hances '' a cherddi eraill YouTube
John: Ydych chi’n hoff o ddedleins? Fe ddywed rhai’u bod nhw yn symbylu ‘r dychymyg; eraill sy’n dweud y gwrthwyneb. Hefyd, beth ydy’ch meddyliau chi am gomisiynau?
Menna: Wel rwy''n byw ar gomisiynau erbyn hyn boed yn ddramau radio neu''n gerddi neu''n ddrama lwyfan. Ond gan fy mod yn ysgrifennu bod dydd mae''r bardd wastad a''i lygaid yn agored am y gerdd nesa'' . A''r annisgwyl sydd wastad wedi fy nghyffroi.
Fe ofynnwyd i mi lunio dwy linell am Catrin Glyndwr i gerflun a godwyd iddi yn Llundain ac mi luniais--
Godre twr adre nid aeth
[At the tower end –far away from home
Aria ei rhyw yw hiraeth
[Longing is a woman’s song]
Dyna un fan lle mae''r gynghanedd yn help i greu rhywbeth byr , twt. teimladwy gobeithio. Ond ar ol ei llunio roedd Catrin Glyndwr yn fy meddwl a bob hyn a hyn roeddwn yn meddwl am ei sefyllfa yno gyda''i phlant yn Nhwr Llundain ac yn tristau wrth feddwl am hynny. Ac er i''r cerddi gymryd deg mlynedd mewn gwirionedd - dyna oedd y cerddi rown i am eu gosod yn gynta'' yn Murmur. Mae''r gyfrol yn llawn Murmuron wrth gwrs ond mae''r cerddi hyn yn mynegi rhywbeth dwfn am fod mewn gwlad estron ar glo, heb eich mamiaith.
John: Mae Cymru a’r Cymry yn rhan annatod o’ch gwaith llenyddol chi. Ydy hi’n wahanol ysgrifennu oddi cartref? Oes hoff le gweithio ‘da chi?
Menna: Pan dwi adre ,dyna pryd y caf gyfle i feddwl, i ystyried popeth. Pan mae rhywun ar daith mae yna gymaint o bethau i''w gweld, ac i fod yn ofidus fel checo bagiau, cloi drysau stafelloedd yn y gwesty ac ati. Ond dyna pryd rwy''n rhydd sef gartre a hefyd lle mae''r Gymraeg i''w chlywed ar y stryd. Mae Llandysul yn dal yn un o''r pentrefi mwyaf Cymraeg yng Nghymru a chaf foddhad o fynd i bob siop a medru siarad Cymraeg. Ond rwy''n anniddig hefyd yn aml gyda'' mi fy hun a''m cyd- Gymru.
Gwnes ymgyrch bersonol yn ddiweddar o ddweud diolch nid unwaith wrth adael siopau mewn ardaloedd Cymraeg a mannau lle doedd y person ddim yn siarad Cymraeg gan ddweud diolch rhyw deirgwaith -- yn y gobaith y byddent efallai yn troi i''w ddweud yn Gymraeg. Amlach na pheidio dim ond ''thank you'' a gawn sy''n reit warthus wrth feddwl faint o weithiau y mae''n rhaid gen i -- iddyn nhw glywed y gair. A dyna''r gair cyntaf a ddysgaf o fynd i wlad dramor. Os na allwn fynd ymhellach na '' diolch'' yna... wel, mae''n well peidio a dechrau''r sgwrs honno!
John: Ers tro byd, mae beirdd Cymreig wedi bod crefftwr di-ofn, hyd yn oed gyda’r ddyletswydd o siarad am gamwedd. Rhowch inni eich barn ar wleidyddiaeth mewn celfyddyd, os gwelwch chi’n dda?
Menna: Rwy''n gweld y ddeubeth weithiau yn dod at ei gilydd. Fe wnaeth Nigel Jenkins a finnau ddechrau ymgyrch gwrth -apartheid yn yr wythdegau i beidio a gadael i''n gwaith gael ei ddangos gydag arddangosfa o Dde Affrica. Mae sefyll dros annhegwch wastad wedi bod yn rhan o waith bob dydd beirdd OND pan rydych yn ysgrifennu, mae''r gwaith yn galw amdanoch i fod yn ffyddlon i''r grefft a bydd pob mathau o deimladau, rhagfarnau, yn dod i''r wyneb. Felly, dwi ddim bellach yn ysgrifennu gwaith didactig na gwaith ffeminyddol gwleidyddol ei naws. Efallai bod hynny yn siom i rai oedd yn fy ngweld fel lladmerydd i achosion arbennig.
Ar ol dweud hyn i gyd, rwy''n gyffrous bod PEN Cymru ar fin ei lansio gan i mi ddechrau ymchwilio i''r posibiliad rhyw ddegawd yn ol ond roedd y teithiau yn ei wneud yn amhosib i mi ymrwymo i''w sefydlu. Rwy mor falch y bydd yn realiti cyn bo hir. Rhaid bod yn wleidyddol fel dinesydd wrth gwrs ac rwy''n cefnogi llawer o achosion gwleidyddol- rhy niferus i''w nodi yma.
John: Unrhyw beth diddorol ar y gweill? Unrhyw ddymuniad heb ei gwireddu?
Menna: Mae cyfrol am '' Gwsg'' i''w gyflwyno erbyn diwedd y flwyddyn i Wasg Gomer ar gyfer ei gyhoeddi yn 2015. Bu ar waith ac ar stop oherwydd gweithiau eraill. Bydd cynhyrchiad theatr hefyd gyda Theatr Clwyd a hefyd mae '' Gair ar Gnawd'' sef oratorio a luniodd Pwyll ap Sion a finne yn mynd ar daith yn 2015 gyda Chwmni Opera Cenedlaethol Cymru ( cafwyd dau berfformiad yn 2013) ac rydym wedi ychwanegu ato cyn iddo fynd ar daith eto. Rwy am gyfieithu mwy o farddoniaeth Gymraeg i''r Saesneg fel yn Murmur - sydd a 3 cerdd o waith Waldo yno.
John: Oes unrhyw negeseuon terfynol ‘da ti am yr aelodau a darllenwyr AmeriCymru?
Menna: Rwy wrth fy modd gyda''r wefan hon ac yn llawenhau ei bod hi mor fywiog -- dylem ar bob cyfri ei hanwesu a diolch i Ceri Shaw amdani. Ers i mi ymweld gynta'' a''r Unol Daleithiau yn 1997 rwy wedi dychwelyd i ddarllen neu ymweld -- bob blwyddyn bron iawn. Rwy wrth fy modd yno felly os ydych am fy ngwahodd i roi darlleniad i chi -- byddwn wrth fy modd yn dod atoch. Hwyl am y tro a diolch am y cyfle i gael cyfweliad ar AmeriCymru.
Interview by John Good
CYMRAEG | ENGLISH
In this interview John Good speaks to Menna Elfyn, an award-winning poet and playwright who writes with passion of the Welsh language and identity. She is the best known and most translated of all modern Welsh-language poets. Author of over twenty books of poetry including Aderyn Bach Mewn Llaw (1990), winner of a Welsh Arts Council Prize; the bilingual Eucalyptus: Detholiad o Gerddi / Selected Poems 1978-1994 from Gomer and her previous collection, Cell Angel (1996) from Bloodaxe, children’s novels and educational books, numerous stage, radio and television plays, she has also written libretti for US and UK composers.
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John: As a person who has learnt Welsh in America after leaving Wales in the 70’s, I have a great interest in the experiences of Welsh speaking people abroad. As an authoress, are you ever surprised by the enthusiasm and welcome your work has received across Offa’s dyke from people who don’t speak the language?
Menna: Well in truth I am. I never dreamt that my work would cross Offa’s Dyke then reach America, China, Spain, Norway and other countries but it is a lovely feeling because it means that audiences get to know that I primarily write in Welsh but my perspective is wider than that. I see the world through the Welsh language and there isn’t a subject that cannot be written about in that language. There you go, Harlem yn y Nos (Harlem at Night), a poem that I fashioned when I was writing a libretto for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and I had to live there for weeks at a time, over a period of a year and a half, having to meet with the composer who lived in Washington Heights … and return afterwards through Harlem.
One example perhaps, but I continue to say to everyone when I go on Literary Excursions that I write for the whole world and, truthfully, it isn’t a surprise. Since November 2013, I have read in China, Hong Kong, Vancouver, Seattle, St. Andrews Scotland, and next week Grasmere, Wordsworth’s home, then in Cornwall at the beginning of May. So I’m always roaming and always start readings reading in Welsh and then read [English?] passages between poems, because the Welsh mixes naturally with the English translations. My first poem is always ‘Cusan Hances’ (Handkerchief Kiss) after RS Thomas (he translated two of my poems by the way), saying that poetry in translation is like a kiss through a hanky! Better that than no kiss at all!
Menna: From the outset, when I was asked to read in places like Spain and Ireland I relied on poet friends -- Nigel Jenkins, Gillian Clarke and my best friend Elin ap Hywel and others for the best translations possible. I had to do some myself but Tony Conran said '' you are not worthy of the poet!'' because he believes I’d get lost while translating and not be faithful to the poems. But why should I? And that’s what’s bad about translating yourself, that you would end up somewhere else other than keeping to the work in hand. That’s why translation is an art that needs to be done carefully. I had one dictate for the translators – make the poem better – turn it into a self-contained poem, but with the ghost of the Welsh language. It has to live as if independent of its sister.
Translations to other languages are more problematic of course and it takes time. There are volumes available in Hindi, Arabic and Catalan, to name but a few. In the case of the Arabic volume, it was pure luck to find someone, after a reading, saying they would like to have my work in their mother tongue i.e. Arabic. As in this case, poetry can fly presumably. There will be some bad ones of course in some books, for example, the Chinese translator translated ‘Drws yn Epynt ‘[Door in Epynt] in a book of my work in that language as ‘Drws yn Aifft’ --Door in Egypt! Of course they didn’t know anything about Epynt in Wales and the people being driven from that part of Powys for the army to train there.
But, on reflection, there was a surprising new spirit to the poem with its new mien and it worked with everything that was happening in that sad country at that time. In Murmur, two of the translators were new – Damian Walford Davies and I’m trying to urge Paul Henry to do more, for he is such a brilliant poet and speaks Welsh. I lost my first translator this year when Nigel Jenkins died and he and I translated each other in the beginning back in the 80’s. It was a personal loss to me and a greater loss to his family and Wales. But there I go wondering off the question. Nigel read the poems in translation at one of my book launches in Abertawe as he was such a close and dear friend to me.
John: Once, a Welsh teacher asked me if I could speak Welsh. “Only ‘Cwmafan’ Welsh” was my answer. Straight away he said something like “That is Welsh!” What are your thoughts on the importance of dialects and how can ordinary and literary people and societies like AmeriCymru step into the breach to save them?
Menna: I dote on dialects and collect everything I can in order to use sometime later in poems. After all, a poet is a squirrel and words are her nuts. Yes, they should on every account be collected, their use, their safe keeping and [also] the formation of brand new words. Take the word ‘selfie’ for example, by now it has turned into self-portrait, which I think is really neat.
John: Every now and then and sometimes frequently the ghost or shadow of “Cynghanedd” [strict-meter/Bardic Welsh poetry] is found in your work. Is the harmony and counterpoint of words an equal partner to meaning in the composition?
Menna: When I was writing in the 60’s, I didn’t have time to learn the rules and try to rein in my work – I had things to say without the fetters of cynghanedd. And then despite my father writing using Cynghanedd and trying to show me a variety of such lines, going on to tell me there were mistakes in the stresses was enough for me to give up. But cynghanedd as one stratum is lovely – and even though by now I am able to use it and make a decent enough englyn or cywydd it doesn’t excite me as much as free verse.
Robert Hass has said…’ I love the line, following the line - I''ve never written a sonnet in my life''. Well, I have written in a form when it works effortlessly but I dote on American poetry – the range of the poets is so wide, so unfettered, and that’s what I try to do in my own work. You must have the initial passion and strike at it afterwards, and if a line of cynghanedd appears or comes into view, all the better, but I don’t start from that place. I see it like swimming in a swimming pool – up and down, keeping in your lane with the other swimmers, while free verse allows me to swim in the sea, without knowledge of the depth and without knowing its danger and able to go from one place to the other without anyone limiting me –except for myself of course.
Menna Elfyn reads ''Handkerchief Kiss'' / ''Cusan Hances'' and other poems YouTube
John: Are you fond of deadlines? Some say it sparks the imagination; others the opposite. Also, what are your thoughts on commissions?
Menna: Well, these days I live on commissions, be they radio dramas, or poems or stage plays. But having said that, poets always have their eyes open for the next poem. And the unexpected always excites me.
I was asked to write two lines about Catrin Glyndwr for a statue that was erected to her in London and I wrote –
Godre twr adre nid aeth
[At the tower end –far away from home
Aria ei rhyw yw hiraeth
[Longing is a woman’s song]
Here’s one place where cynghanedd helps create something concise, neat, a touching hope. But after it was written, Catrin Glyndwr was on my mind and every now and then I would think about her situation with her children in the Tower of London, and was saddened thinking about it. And even though in truth the poems took ten years, those were the first poems I would include in ‘Murmur’. The volume is full of Murmuron [murmurs] of course but these poems express something deep about being locked up in a foreign country without your mother tongue.
Recently I began a personal campaign of saying ‘diolch’ not only once when leaving shops in a Welsh-speaking area and places where the person didn’t speak Welsh, but three times in the hope perhaps they would turn to saying it in Welsh.
John: Wales and welsh people are an integral part of your literary work. Is it different writing away from home? Do you have a favorite work place?
Menna: When I am home, that’s the time when I’ll have the chance to think, to consider everything. When someone is travelling there are so many things to see, and to be careful checking bags, locking hotel doors and so on. At home, that’s when I am free and also where Welsh is heard on the street. Llandysul continues to be one of the strongest Welsh-speaking villages in Wales and I have the satisfaction of being able to speak Welsh in every shop. But I am also frequently irritable with myself and my fellow Welsh.
Recently I began a personal campaign of saying ‘diolch’ not only once when leaving shops in a Welsh-speaking area and places where the person didn’t speak Welsh, but three times in the hope perhaps they would turn to saying it in Welsh. More often than not I got only ‘thank you’ which is shameful when you think about how many times they must have heard the word from me. And that’s the first word I learn going overseas. If you’re not able to go further than ‘diolch’ then …well, it’s better not to start that conversation!
John: For a very long time, Welsh poets have been fearless craftsmen, even with the responsibility of speaking about injustice. Give us your opinion please on politics in art?
Menna: Sometimes I see the two things come together. Nigel Jenkins and I started an anti-apartheid campaign in the 80’s not allowing our work to appear in South African shows. Standing up against unfairness always has been the every-day work of poets BUT when you write, the work calls for you to be faithful to the craft and all kinds of feelings, prejudices will rise to the surface. Therefore, I don’t write pieces with a didactic or politically feminine tone. Perhaps this is a shame to some who have seen me as an emissary of special causes.
Having said all that, I am excited that PEN Cymru is about to be launched, because I started researching the possibility some decades ago but travelling made it impossible to commit to its establishment. I’m so happy that it will be a reality before long. As a citizen, you have to be political of course and I support many political causes – too numerous to mention here.
There’s going to be a volume about ‘Cwsg’ [sleep] before the end of the year for Wasg Gomer that’ll be published in 2015.
John: Anything in progress? Any wish that needs to be realized?
Menna: There’s going to be a volume about ‘Cwsg’ [sleep] before the end of the year for Wasg Gomer that’ll be published in 2015. Because of other works it’s been stop and go. Also there’ll be a theater production with Theatr Clwyd and ‘Gair a Gnawd’, an oratorio written by Pwyll ap Sion and myself that is about to go on tour in 2015 with The Welsh National Opera Company ( it had two performances in 2013) and we’ll have added to it before it goes on tour again. I want to translate more Welsh poetry into English as in Murmur – that has 3 poems of the work of Waldo [Williams] in it.
John: Any final message for the members and readers of AmeriCymru?
Menna: I really enjoy this site and am delighted that it is so lively – on every account, we should embrace and thank Ceri for it. Since my first visit to The United States in 1997 I have returned to read or visit very nearly every year. I am in my element there, so if you invite me to give a reading, I’d be delighted to come to you. Bye for the time being, and thanks for the chance to be interviewed on AmerCymru.
Interview by John Good
For more from Terry Breverton on AmeriCymru check out the links below.
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AmeriCymru: Hi Terry and many thanks for agreeing to be interviewed by Amri Cymru. Care to tell us a little about your recent book Everything You Wanted To Know About The Tudors But Were Afraid To Ask ?
It asks whether Henry VIII composed Greensleeves. What were Thomas Cromwell''s bizarre toilet habits? Did Anne Boleyn have six fingers on one hand? We all know the old nursery rhyme: Mary, Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells, And pretty maids all in a row . Did you know that this is Mary Tudor, and her garden is an allusion to graveyards which were increasing in size with those who dared stay Protestant? The silver bells and cockle shells were instruments of torture, and the maids were a form of guillotine. Peasants had never heard of ‘the Black Death’. Henry VII was the first English king with British (i.e. Welsh) blood, from his father Edmond. The Tudors could have been called the Merediths or Bowens. The Tudor line did not die out with Elizabeth I. The first National Lottery was in 1569, discontinued in 1826 because of religious feelings. Elizabeth liked appearing topless as an old woman. And so on – it includes brief biographies of all the rules as well.
AmeriCymru: You have also written recently on Jasper Tudor: Dynasty Maker . How important was Jasper in British and Welsh history?
AmeriCymru: What line does your recent book on Richard III take regarding his historical reputation? Was he a monster or was he a victim of Tudor propaganda?
Richard III: The King in the Car Park is a comparative analysis of the lives of Richard Plantagenet, a usurper king, and Henry Tudor, demonstrating the cruelty of Richard throughout his career and his arbitrary executions to take power. Ricardians fail to see that so many Yorkists deserted his cause in his two-year reign, and so few peers turned up to support him at Bosworth Field. He was not liked by peers of people, even in the Yorkist stronghold of London. He made Edward V and Prince Richard illegitimate when he imprisoned them and seized the throne, while Edward IV’s widow fled into sanctuary. He murdered Edward V’s bodyguard and Edward IV’s best friend Hastings. From sanctuary with her daughters, Queen Elizabeth Woodville plotted with Henry Tudor’s mother Margaret Beaufort to bring Henry to power, once she knew her sons had been murdered in the Tower in June 1483. Richard’s greatest ally, Buckingham, rose against him in the first year of his reign. Elizabeth Woodville’s remaining male family joined Henry in exile, along with hundreds of disaffected Yorkists who had rebelled across the south of England. Richard’s history from his time as a young man until king demonstrates a ruthless personality. Henry never displayed any vengeance in all his lifetime, and European ambassadors reported their astonishment at his treatment of his enemies after Bosworth and throughout his reign. Those that believe that Henry VII killed the ‘princes in the Tower’ are very misguided.
AmeriCymru: You recently contributed an article titled The Wind Follies of Wales to the AmeriCymru site. Have there been any further developments on that front? Anything you would care to add?
Terry: Wales is still being despoiled – near me great forests are being cleared at Brechfa for more of the pointless things, but even bigger than previous generations. Unfortunately all political parties in Britain see them as some sort of answer to a possible energy problem, ignoring fracking potential. They also seem to think that climate is controlled by man, not wishing to look at historical variations caused by Milankovic Wobbles, which I explained in my ‘Breverton’s Encyclopedia of Inventions.’ It baffles me, with an engineering background, how people call wind turbines ‘renewable energy’ – it’s just lies as no energy is renewable, only transferable with a loss of efficiency. And as for wind farms, again it’s marketing-speak – what about coal farms, gas farms, nuclear farms and oil farms? I fear that the Western World is killing itself economically with all this climate change garbage – climate is always changing – just read any history book. Gore’s Nobel Prize was based upon a statistical untruth – the Mann Hockey Stick graph. An analogy would be that a team wins three games in a row, so will always keep winning. Nonsense.
AmeriCymru: What''s next for Terry Breverton? Any new titles in the pipeline?
Terry: Henry VII: The Maligned Tudor King is on its way for next Summer, showing how his position as y mab darogan , ‘the son of prophecy’, was vital in his taking the crown by marching through Wales and amassing an army. There was no opposition as Yorkists and Lancastrians alike flocked to his banner. It’s a great story of being in danger nearly all of his life to taking the crown in his first ever battle in his late twenties. Then he changed England and Wales to solidify the power of the monarchy against nobles and made the country economically sound, while beginning the British Empire. A recent prize-winning book, The Winter King , was a hatchet job to sell copies and I want to readdress the balance. It was the last successful foreign invasion of England – Welsh and French armies – but historians still follow the line that 1066 was the last. I have no idea why many historical writers just follow their feelings and what they have read – instead of truth.
AmeriCymru: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?
Terry: I’ve been to the National Festival of Wales in Vancouver and Washington, and many of our countrymen on the American Continent have a lovely, nostalgic view of the Wales they knew. It has changed massively in my lifetime – I’m now 68 and remember when living standards were on a par with those of England and far above those of France and Italy. Wales is struggling desperately economically… you have to be aware that the Wales Assembly Government has no answers. Like Westminster it is full of unemployable placemen and women who have never had a proper job in the private sector. Their major advisors, quango leaders and civil servants are equally dense as regards the Welsh situation. Some Assembly members refuse to answer any questions directly unless they get them in advance for a team to write an answer. As well as zero knowledge of how to restore the nation to parity with England and the rest of Europe, they have limited awareness of what is happening across Wales – the dying of the language and the disintegration of the infrastructure – as they are insulated from the people. We can add to this their ignorance of what the past means to Wales – there is little interest in how our heritage can really stimulate tourism. I’m a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and of the Institute of Consulting, with a track record in international strategy and consultancy, but there seems to be no-one advising Welsh MPs or AMs with any understanding of private industry.
Astonishing amounts of funding is thrown at non-Welsh companies on its north-eastern borders, employing English commuters, to no benefit to the Welsh economy. The Labour administration is intent upon building more and more houses when there are no real jobs – all this does is attract incomers who rely on benefits, or retirees. 90% of Welsh population growth for the last 20 years has come from incomers – they do not come here to work. The population has grown from two to over three million people in my lifetime, and over a third of the people now say that they are not Welsh. Perhaps another sixth are the children or grandchildren of incomers. I believe that the true Welsh people are down to about 1.5 million people, less than half of the Moslem population of Britain. Millions of pounds are thrown into promoting multiculturalism, while the relict British population exists on something similar to a Native Indian reservation. I have called Wales ‘Europe’s Tibet’ in the past because of the displacement of the population. The best have to go to England or overseas to work. They are replaced by incomers. The unemployed want to be relocated to Wales – they get free housing and benefits in the full knowledge that there are no jobs that they can be forced into. The elderly ‘white flighters’ escape multicultural England to moan about the language and become an increasing drain on the health service. Upon all socio-economic parameters, Wales constantly falls against the rest of Europe. Labour does not care, as the unemployed, elderly, ill, benefits-seekers and immigrants are overwhelmingly Labour voters. And the Welsh vote Labour as if we have been ovinified. If we voted tactically, perhaps more attention would be paid by Westminster.
It is a sad story but I see no end to our problems. If we were a more violent nation, like the English, Scots and Irish, perhaps we might get somewhere, but we have always been pacifist. If you visit Wales, please travel across the land, and write to the press about what you see. Outside Cardiff, there are deprivation, poor housing and low incomes. Our tourism industry hardly exists. The seaside towns along the North Wales coasts have hotels now converted to social housing. The west coast is very underdeveloped in terms of good places to stay, unless you want to stay on one of the ubiquitous caravan sites cluttering virtually every mile of coastline across the country. In South Wales it’s the same story. Across the land there are very few good hotels for a touring holiday. I apologise for being so downbeat about a nation that I love but you will not get politicians telling the truth. I lived and worked for most of my life outside Wales, and can see the reality from an external view. There is poverty here, not just in terms of housing stock and people on benefits, but in terms of any politicians taking a long-term view of how Wales can get out of the mess it’s in.
We desperately need a dose of reality. This is a letter which I recently sent to the press but was never published:
‘I cannot believe the political squabbling about Wales being granted £2 billion by the EU because it is one of the poorest parts of Europe. Welsh politicians should have been trumpeting this poverty for decades, as the nation has consistently fallen behind upon all socio-economic indicators. I am a Fellow of both the Institutes of Consulting and Marketing, have written over thirty books upon Wales and have published criticism of politicians and the Welsh economy for over two decades, so have some inkling of what is going on. [John Redwood, when Welsh minister, famously and moronically refused much-needed EU monies upon ideological grounds.] If that quagmire of bureaucratic idiocy, that represents EU policy, recognises that Wales has very serious problems, why cannot our politicians? Wales has missed out upon billions of pounds under the flawed Barnett Formula, but why has it taken until now for any senior politician to think about raising the subject? Why do politicians moan that the EU has at last discovered that the nation has serious problems? These are problems that the WAG should have been addressing, not pouring money into English Deesside and pointless ‘aeroscience’ parks.
We have poor and underfunded education, from schools to universities. We have among the poorest health statistics in the Western World. There are no real private sector job prospects, and little help for indigenous companies. Our towns and villages are mouldering outside Cardiff and a very few places like Narberth, Cowbridge, Abergafenni and Hay. It will be interesting to see how the £2 billion is dispensed (i.e. lost) among and by committees, quangos, councils and the Assembly – do not hold your breath for it to be allocated in a cost-effective manner, by politicians, civil servants and their advisors who have never had a real job. It must be spent upon building up a tourism infrastructure - tourism is Wales'' primary hope for its decimated private sector. A serious reallocation of the Barnett Formula can start readdressing major health and education issues. Welsh politicians must seriously argue for more British Government funding to help its indigenous people, not consistently conform to Whitehall and Millbank policies. They should begin to represent the interests of Wales and the Welsh, not London parties as in the past.’
I realise that this sort of stuff in unpalatable – but my career was in corporate strategy and international consulting, so I’m not constrained by what happens across the road or what someone else repeats. I have an odd background for a historical writer, but it gives me a better perspective that our politicians who have never worked in the private sector. We have to compare Wales to other countries, benchmark what happens here, and unless we get this dose of reality we’ll get nowhere. And we have to begin with better protecting our heritage, culture, landscape and language - Hwyl
Back to Welsh Literature page >
© Copyright Tom Jolliffe and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence
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CHALICE
For the sculptured novelist and bon viveur Martin Amis, as quoted in discussion with A.N. Wilson, The London Evening Standard, 17th July 1991.........this was before he spent over £20,000 upon having his rotten teeth transformed into humanoid ones and left his wife for a younger model.......
“The South Waleyans are a particularly bitter and deracinated breed”. He began a bad-taste joke about Aberfan causing a “ripple of pleasure” through the mining valleys, but he choked it back with a giggle.....Martin does the Welsh voice with an accuracy which reflects real loathing”.
......
The Lordship of Senghenydd
Green on Grey on Black
Betrayed by Norman Englishmen
A Thousand-Year Attack
......
On the only nation
Which has never
Declared war
On anyone
......
We were your first and last colony
And a prototype of ethical cleansing
You almost killed our language
Because it was fifteen-hundred years older than yours
With your Welsh Not just out of living memory
You killed our Church at the Synod of Whitby
Taking it away from the people and giving it to Rome
You gave us a higher density of castles and forts
Than anywhere in the world
You killed the old laws of Hywel Dda
Because they looked after the people and accepted women as equal
And instead gave all rights
in ascending importance
to people with property and titles
You tried to kill our countryside with water on villages
Like Trywerin and charge us more than your Middle Saesneg for it
You tried to kill our culture by using our best in your wars
And you stripped out all our minerals.............
......
In return you gave us nystagmus and insanity;
Emphysema, silicosis, pneumoconiosis - slow death
......
And fast death................... ......
Last century, children under 8 spent hours in the pitch black opening and closing the trapper doors of ventilation tunnels. If over 8, they dragged baskets of coal to the bottom of the shaft.
In 1840, 6-year-old Susan Reece said ‘I have been below six or eight months and I don’t like it much. I come here at 6 in the morning and leave at 6 at night. When my lamp goes out or I am hungry I go home. I haven’t been hurt yet'. Her mission was to open and close the ventilator at Plymouth Colliery, Merthyr Tydfil.
The boys who, with chains around their waist, pulled trucks of coal through galleries too low for pit-ponies, were called ‘carters’. James Davies, an 8-year-old carter, reported that he earned 10 pennies a week, which his father took from him. John Saville, a 7-year-old carter, said that he was always in the dark and only saw daylight on Sundays.
...
Listen to my inventory of lost human capital:
...
1825 Cwmllynfell 59 men and children killed in an explosion
1842 The English Parliament under Lord Shaftesbury forbids the employment
Underground of women, girls and BOYS UNDER 10 years old
As miners
The mine owners opposed the bill and there was little inspection
1844 Dinas Middle, Rhondda, 12 men and boys killed
1849 Lletyshenkin, Aberdare, 52 men and boys killed in an explosion
1849 Merthyr, Dowlais, Rhondda 884 people killed by cholera
1852 Middle Duffryn, Aberdare, 65 men and boys killed in an explosion
1856 Cymmer, Porth, 114 killed
7 of the 114 were UNDER THE AGE of 10, 7 were 10, and 7 were 11 years old
1867 Ferndale, Rhondda, 178 killed
1869 Ferndale, Rhondda, another 60 killed
1877 Tynewydd 5 killed in a flooded pit
1880 Naval Colliery, Rhondda, 96 killed in an explosion
1885 Maerdy 81 killed in an explosion
...
The first “firemen” were covered with water-soaked rags and crawled towards seepages with a naked flame on a long stick to explode the gas
...
Some survived
...
Methane = Firedamp
Carbon Monoxide = Afterdamp
Carbon Dioxide = Blackdamp
Hydrogen Sulphide = Stinkdamp
...
In 1889, there were no major disasters
- it was a good year
- just 153 deaths in the pits.
...
Among them............
...
John Evans age 14 killed in a roof fall at Ocean Colliery, Treorchy
Thomas Evans age 16 killed in a roof fall at Seven Sisters, Neath
James Minhan age 13 fell from shaft at Great Western Colliery, Pontypridd
Thomas Jones age 17 rushed by trams at Cwmheol Colliery, Aberdare
Thomas Jones age 17 knocked down by tram at Duffryn Main, Neath
Morgan Harris age 16 run over by a coal wagon at No 9 Pit, Aberdare
James Webber age 17 killed by falling stone at No 1 Pit, Ferndale
Richard Jones age 17 killed in roof fall at Abercanaid Colliery, Merthyr
Thomas Cooper age 15 killed by a roof fall at Albion Colliery, Cilfynydd
Joseph Grey age 17 crushed between tram and coal face Gendros Colliery, Swansea
John Howells age 13 crushed by trams at Penrhiwceiber Colliery
Thomas Davies age 17 head crushed between crossbar and tram at Cwmaman Colliery
Thomas Pocket age 16 killed in roof fall at Brithdir Colliery, Neath
Thomas Evans age 17 killed in roof fall at Dunraven Colliery, Treherbert
Richard Martin age 15 killed in roof fall at Coegnant Colliery, Maesteg
David Jones age 17 crushed by tram at North Tunnel Pit, Dowlais
William Meredith age 15 crushed by pit cage at Maritime Colliery, Pontypridd
Aaron Griffiths age 14 crushed by tram at Clydach Vale Colliery
W.R. Evans age 15 died in roof fall at North Dunraven Colliery, Treherbert
Henry Jones age 14 killed in roof fall at Blaenclydach Colliery, Clydach Vale
Samuel Harris age 14 killed in roof fall at Fforchaman Colliery, Cwmaman
Joseph Jones age 16 killed in roof fall at Ynyshir Colliery
John Barwell age 13 fell into side of tram at Clydach Vale Colliery
Thomas Welsh age 15 killed in roof fall at Nantymelyn Colliery, Aberdare
Walter Martin age 15 killed in roof fall at Albion Colliery, Cilfynydd
Robert Thomas age 17 killed in roof fall at Treaman Pit, Aberdare
David Thomas age 17 killed in roof fall at Old Pit, Gwaun Cae Gurwen
Thomas Evans age 13 run over by trams at Glamorgan Steam Colliery, Llwynypia
David Arscott age 14 run over by tram at Abercanaid Colliery, Merthyr
Ben Rosser age 14 killed by fall of rock at Gadlys New Pit, Aberdare
William Osborne age 14 crushed in engine wheels at Albion Colliery, Cilfynydd
...
1892 Parc Slip 114 killed - in a gas blast - the school had a half holiday
...
1893 A Health Report on the Rhondda Valleys stated ‘the river contained a large proportion of human excrement, pig sty manure, congealed blood, entrails from slaughterhouses, the rotten carcasses of animals, street refuse and a host of other articles - in dry weather the stink becomes unbearable’
...
1894 Albion Colliery, Cilfynydd - 290 killed of the 300 on the shift - 11 could not be identified. One miner’s head had been blown 20 yards from his body. “All trough the darkness the dismal ritual of bringing up the dead continued, illuminated only by the pale fitful glare of the surrounding oil lamps....each arrival of the cage quenched the glimmer of hope that lived in the hearts of those who waited” A court case was brought against the mine owners and managers but all serious charges were dropped.
...
There is no compensationFor the dust of our land
Now in our lungs
And in every pore of our bodies
Except our white eyes
...
A solitary
disfigured
maddened
cripple
...
Was unlucky to survive
The 1901 explosion
At Universal Colliery, Senghenydd
When 81 miners died
...
A forewarned accident
But never responsibility
So back to work, it is lads
Serene immutability
...
For the company,
Lewis Merthyr Consolidated Collieries Ltd.,
All charges were of course dismissed
...
1901 Morgan Morgans died in a fall at Cymmer Colliery, Porth, which pushed him onto a pick axe, which went through his head. His son, Dai Morgans, aged 13, witnessed the accident and was so traumatised that he never worked again
...
1905 National Colliery, Wattstown, 109 killed and the first disaster at Cambrian Colliery, Clydach Vale, 31 killed
...
October 14 1913,
Let us return to Senghenydd
Same pit, different scale
Cover their faces with their coats
There are plenty more Welsh males
...
The Universal was known as a “fiery” pit, full of hidden methane-filled caverns.A miner went to the lamp room to light his wick, a roof-fall nearby released methane into the tunnel, the explosion ignited the coal dust, and the fire caused a massive second explosion that roared up the Lancaster Section of the pit, smashing through the workings.
...
The fires could not be put out for a week, during which all but 18 of the survivors died of carbon monoxide poisoning
...
The pit cage was blown right out of its shaft
Into the clear blue air
...
Aged a little over 14 years
Harry Wedlock’s first day
As a colliery boy was spent in tears
With cracking timber falling away
...
Fire and foul air filled his chest
While Sidney Gregory cwtched him best
As he could in the black smoke and dust
2000 feet under the management offices
...
Upon October 14, 1913, at the Universal Colliery
The dead included:
8 children of 14 years
5 children of 15 years
10 children of 16 years
44 children of 17 to 19 years
And......................377 other miners
...
8 bodies were never identified and 12 could not be recovered
...
Of the 440 dead, 45 men were from Commercial Street, Senghenydd
and 35 from the High Street
...
Not one street in Senghenydd was spared -
Parc Cottages 1 dead
Gelli Terrace 2 dead
School Street 2 dead
Windsor Place 2 dead
Cross Street 2 dead
Clive Street 3 dead
Kingsley Place 4 dead
The Huts 6 dead
Alexandra Terrace 8 dead
Station Road 8 dead
Brynhyfryd Terrace 8 dead
Phillips Terrace 9 dead
Coronation Terrace 10 dead
Station Terrace 11 dead
Woodland Terrace 12 dead
Graig Terrace 14 dead
Parc Terrace 15 dead
Grove Terrace 19 dead
Stanley Street 20 dead
Cenydd Terrace 22 dead
Caerphilly Road 39 dead
High Street 40 dead
Commercial Street 44 dead
...
Some women lost their husbands in 1901 and their sons in 1913
...
Mrs Benjamin of Abertridwr lost her husband and
both her sons, aged 16 and 14
...
At 68 Commercial Street, the widowed Mrs Twining lost
each one of her 3 sons, the youngest aged 14
...
Richard and Evan Edwards, father and son, of 44 Commercial Street, were found dead together
...
Half the village rugby team died -
They changed their strip from black and white
To black
...
“ For weeks, there was no rugby on Saturday
..................................................only funerals ”
...
In 12 homes, both father and son died
...
“When Edwin John Small died
with his 21 year-old son
it left his 18 year-old daughter Mary
to rear 6 children
the youngest 3 years old”
...
A survivor, William Hyatt, recalled
...
“My father always said
That there was more fuss
If a horse was killed underground
Than if a man was killed..............
Men come cheap
...........................they had to buy horses”
.....
Houses are better than people we know
But that’s not the reason the argue
They’re all tax exempt for those in the know
We know of a price, not a value
.....
It was 75 years ago today
That the pit boss brought the band to play
But it didn’t help him
They’ve been going in and out of style
But they’re guaranteed to raise a pile
The manager was found guilty on 8 charges
So let me introduce to you
The one and only real scapegoat
Of breaches of the 1911 Coal Mines Act
And fined £24..............
.....
Five-pence ha’penny a corpse
In old money to us
2 p to you
.....
There was no compensation
Wrth gwrs
.....
For the company,
Lewis Merthyr Consolidated Collieries Ltd.,
All charges were
Of course
Dismissed
.....
But we appealed, we showed 'em
.....
And Lewis Merthyr Consolidated Collieries Ltd.
Were fined £10
With costs of £5 and 5 shillings
The copper content of the bodies
.....
There was no compensation
.....
“We slunk to the biblical parlours to stare in shock
At the coke of flesh in the coffin, the ashes of a voice;
There we learned above the lids screwed down before their time
Collects of red rebellion, litanies of violence”
.....
In Senghenydd and Abertridwr
The graves are brambled now
Monuments overgrown
The 14 year-old’s place
Into the ground is sewn
.....
Death rolls around this country
A skull with dust in its sockets
.....
1915 Thomas Williams was killed at Lucy Drift Mine, Abercanaid, leaving a widow and seven children, five of whom were still at home. No compensation was paid.
.....
St David’s Day, 1927 Marine Colliery, Cwm, Ebbw Vale - 52 dead
.....
Half a mile underground
1934 Gresford
262 colliers dead
And 3 of the rescue brigade
Despite the shotfirer’s premonition
About the gas in Dennis Deep Section
.....
“The fireman’s reports are all missing
The records of 42 days,
The colliery manager had them destroyed
To cover his evil ways”
.....
Charges? What charges?
.....
The dust comes out of the ground
Into our silicotic lungs
To be vomited near to death
Not hootering death
But doubled-up suffering wheezing darkness before our time death
.....
Buckets of death feed the flames
More dust goes on the slag heaps
.....
Fear of tears, insider squealing, new markets, Newmarket and
The Falklands hide the blameless obscenity of pulverised spines
.....
The Great War hid Senghenydd
A slag heap hid the school
Can hate fade like pain?
.....
Who wants to know?
.....
Between 1837 and 1934 there were more than 70 disasters in Welsh mines,
And in 11, more than 100 were killed in a single day
.....
Who worries, Lord Bute?
Fill the boneyards and build mock castles over them
.....
1931 Cilely Colliery, Tonyrefail, John Jones killed. Wife and four children receive £6 compensation
.....
1937 - from the notebook of Idris Davies, miner and poet - ‘I looked at my hand and saw a piece of white bone shining like snow, and the flesh of the little finger all limp. The men supported me, and one ran for an ambulance box down the heading, and there I was fainting away like a little baby girl.’
.....
Davies understood the sullen slavery of his fellow colliers -
.....
‘There are countless tons of rock above his head,
And gases wait in secret corners for a spark;
And his lamp shows dimly in the dust.
His leather belt is warm and moist with sweat,
And he crouches against the hanging coal,
And the pick swings to and fro,
And many beads of salty sweat play about his lips
And trickle down the blackened skin
To the hairy tangle on the chest.
The rats squeak and scamper among the unused props
And the fungus waxes strong.
.....
And Dai pauses and wipes his sticky brow,
And suddenly wonders if his baby
Shall grow up to crawl in the local Hell,
.....
And if tomorrow’s ticket will buy enough food for six days,
And for the Sabbath created for pulpits and bowler hats,
When the under-manager cleans a dirty tongue
And walks with the curate’s maiden aunt to church .......
.....
Again the pick resumes the swing of toil,
And Dai forgets the world where merchants walk in morning streets,
And where the great sun smiles on pithead and pub and church-steeple.’
.....
1941 Coedely Colliery - Hugh Jones was killed and his mother received £15 compensation, of which the coffin cost £14 14s. She went to the pit with the £15 and waved it at miners, shouting “Look, boys, get out of this pit as quick as you can - because this is all your lives are worth”
.....
1941 Markham Colliery - Leslie James killed, family also receives £15 for the funeral
.....
1947 Lewis Merthyr Colliery - George Waite killed - wife and five children receive £500 compensation
.....
1947 Lewis Merthyr Colliery - 18 year old Neil Evans suffocated in roof fall. His family receives £200 compensation but the National Coal Board takes away their entitlement to free coal in return
.....
Between 1931 and 1948, of the 23000 men who left mining because of pneumoconiosis, almost 20,000 came out of the South Wales pits.
.....
1950 Maritime Colliery, Pontypridd - John Phillips dies - no compensation for family
.....
1951 Wern Tarw Colliery - two brothers, Aaron and Arthur Stephens were killed in a roof fall - Aaron’s widow received £200 compensation, and Arthur’s widow £250. The differential was explained by the fact that Arthur had two children.
.....
1957 Bedwas Colliery - Bobby John killed - parents receive £300 compensation
.....
1960 Six Bells Colliery, Abertillery, 45 dead
.....
In 1961 No 7 Pantglas Tip was started, on top of a mountain stream, next to 6 other slag heaps on boggy ground on the side of a hill. Directly underneath it was Pantglas School. There were local protests.
.....
1962 Tower Colliery, 9 dead - Dai Morris was decapitated. The miner with him reminisced “when the nurse pulled my shirt off, she pulled away half my skin with it”
.....
Ken Strong died - his wife, Mary was only 32 and never left her home for 15 years until she died in 1977
.....
No 7 Pantglas Tip was getting bigger - the National Coal Board - a nameless, faceless, ignorant bureaucracy, used it to deposit “tailings”, tiny particles of coal and ash.
.....
1963 a Merthyr Council official wrote to the National Coal Board “You are no doubt aware that tips at Merthyr Vale tower above the Pantglas area and if they were to move a very serious situation would accrue”
.....
When wet, tailings form a consistency identical to quicksand
.....
1965 Another disaster at Cambrian Colliery, Tonypandy, with 31 dead in the explosion
.....
But we digress, it was only a ‘small’ disaster - hardly touched the ‘Nationals’
.....
Let us instead return to Merthyr Vale and Pantglas
Buy Terry''s latest book ''The Physicians Of Myddfai'' here.
For more from Terry Breverton on AmeriCymru check out the links below.
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AmeriCymru: We learn from your biography that you have written more than 40 books on a wide range of topics. How do you pick your subjects?
Keeping my normal jobs as a university lecturer and management consultant, I also began a small publishing company, Glyndwr Publishing, to publish my books and those of other Welshmen who could not get great non-fiction books upon Wales published. I’m quite proud of what I achieved, but now concentrate upon writing only, as time is running out and there’s so much to write about. I’m 67, and I want to write another 16-17 books, including a definitive one on Arthur, but that is so convoluted that it’ll take at least two years, although I have almost all the materials.
AmeriCymru: Looking through your titles it would certainly appear that Welsh history and culture have provided your main focus. Would you agree?
Terry: Definitely – most people do not know that British history was rewritten by Bishop Stubbs to bolster the Hanover dynasty. George I was 58 th in line to the throne and was a princeling from a tiny country the size of the Isle of Wight. History was altered to take out the native Christian Britons and define its success as the greatest empire the world has seen as stemming from the pagan Germanic invasion of the Angles, Saxons, Jutes etc.
Today’s history taught in schools and colleges reflects this opinion that there was nothing except the Romans and Anglo-Saxons before the Norman invasion. Even in Wales, there is no history taught about the British, i.e. Welsh people. Much of the scorn for Iolo Morganwg stems from people being taught the Angle, i.e. English version of history. Welsh academics follow an out-dated English propaganda version of history. Our politicians follow the same line – it’s almost as if we should be grateful to the English for ‘civilizing’ us, whereas the reality is the reverse. We had over a thousand saints before they were even Christianised.
AmeriCymru: In the foreword to ''The Welsh: A Biography'' you state that the book is ''....a deliberate attempt to rewrite our national history''. Why in your opinion has it been necessary to do this?
History across the world is written by the conquerors. Colonial nations like Wales are taught to accept a different version of history to the historical truth. France and England have very different historical books upon the relations between those countries. The English people think that they always beat the French in battle but the reverse is true. The French people believe in the myth of the Resistance. The French army we rescued at Dunkirk asked to be sent back home and was repatriated as no threat to the Germans, whereas the Poles who managed to escape fought for Britain throughout the war. The French believe that de Gaulle actually achieved something during the war. History is stranger the more you look into it. If you start by questioning everything, you thankfully get some very different conclusions. It helps that I’m reasonably good at languages and look at events from other nations’ perspectives.
AmeriCymru: You published ''Breverton''s Complete Herbal'' in 2011. Can you introduce this remarkable resource for our readers?
He wanted to demystify medicine, and take it out of the hands of expensive doctors, pharmacists and assorted quacks and give it back to the people. He therefore told people all the plant remedies that were used, and where to find the herbs growing. Herbal remedies have been used for millennia, and those in use had often been developed by the Greeks, Arabs or Romans. It is a fascinating area, and there is an interesting interface with modern drug companies.
Many herbal remedies actually work with no side effects, but some have been attacked in the press following ‘scientific evidence’ from researchers in the pay of the drug multinationals. It was a really, really enjoyable project. Also in the other book on the 12 th century Myddfai doctors at the court of Rhys Grug of Dinefwr, I found their descendants still practising medicine, including an oncology professor in Seattle! What other country can boast a line of 800 years of doctors in one family? And the original was expurgated – there are over 1000 remedies, but around 40 dealing with sexual diseases were omitted from the last translation in 1861.
AmeriCymru: One of your books is a biography of renowned Welsh pirate Black Bart - ''Black Bart Roberts: The Greatest Pirate of Them All''. In what sense was Black Bart the greatest pirate of them all?
When Davis was killed, Roberts was elected captain by the senior crew, the ‘House of Lords’. He almost brought transatlantic shipping to a halt. He attacked heavily-armed French, Portuguese, English and Spanish naval vessels, whereas other pirate captains would flee. He took the King of Portugal’s treasure ship and dressed in scarlet silks for battle. Black Bart took over 400 ships in his short career. A teetotaller, he was trapped in his role, and he was the first to say ‘a short life and a merry one shall be my motto.’ His crews featured in the greatest pirate trial of all time, and in my researches I found that Israel Hands, one of Blackbeard’s crew, sailed with Black Bart before being hung in chains with the other senior crew members. Roberts was a star, worthy of a film.
AmeriCymru: You have also compiled a Pirate dictionary. Can you give us a few colourful samples of the vernacular?
AmeriCymru: You have been to the States a few times in the past to speak at NAFOW. Care to comment on those visits?
Terry: They are brilliant affairs, but celebrate some sort of myth of what Wales was, rather than how it is now. The nation is on its knees with the lowest socio-economic indicators in Europe. I love the concept of NAFOW, but it is fairly tragic that the overwhelming number of people attending are white-haired like myself.
We have a problem across the Western world in that younger people are less and less literate. They have too many distractions to bother with reading, history, heritage and culture. Of course, I’d be the same if I was their generation, constantly scanning my mobile phone or Facebook or Twitter, reading and sending vacuous messages. People of my age grew up with books as their only major form of entertainment. My parents had a TV when I went to university, and it never featured in my life as a source of entertainment until my 30’s. Now people have the latest electronic gadgets, but I got rid of my mobile phone and have no need of any technology except an old television, a landline, fridge-freezer and a 3-year-old laptop computer. I am thought primitive because I do not wish to replace my car, clothes or equipment when there is nothing wrong with them.
I fear for the culture of Wales here in Wales, let alone in North America. The language is dying – forget what Welsh politicians say, they are completely wrong. I moved from Glamorgan to the Ceredigion-Carmarthen border as it was one of the last bastions of the language, but it’s virtually gone here. It is the same across Wales – you hear more foreign voices than Welsh language or accents. The powers-that-be think that because Welsh is taught in schools, it is being used in real life, but in-migration has seen it off. In my country lane only 6 of 38 inhabitants are Welsh, and it’s the same across Wales. 90% of population growth for many years has been from outside Wales, but no-one will speak out.
The non-Welsh population, if you define being Welsh as having Welsh grandparents, is probably over 50%, and growing. The identity of Wales has been lost in my lifetime – R.S. Thomas saw it coming in his poetry. It is really, really sad. Luckily I can speak out about it because I have no need of honours, political advancement or academic preferment. Unluckily, I am powerless to affect anything.
AmeriCymru: What are you reading at the moment? Any recommendations?
Terry: I only read for researching books, so my reading list would be quite boring… I have a load of books on the Plantagenets to work through. My favourite poet is Idris Davies, who was very highly rated by T.S. Eliot – his life and work is an example to everyone. His collected poems are utterly brilliant, and define the Great Depression in the mining valleys. Everyone Welsh should read them. To be honest I enjoy reference books – if I see a different bird or plant or visit a new place, I have to find out about them – I don’t like not knowing about things.
AmeriCymru: What''s next for Terry Breverton? Any new books in the pipeline?
Terry: There is a semi-hagiographical process going on since they found Richard III’s bones, with cathedrals squabbling for his relics, presumably to attract tourist income. For some reason he has been moved from the status of ‘black king’ to ‘white king’ by recent historical writers. My book Richard III – the King in the Carpark will put him back where he should be, and incidentally promote the misunderstood Henry Tudor, whose army killed Richard at Bosworth. After that I’m doing a history of Welsh rugby. I played until I was 41, and still miss it, but the modern version is far more savage and less spectator and participant-friendly unfortunately.
I’m really tempted to walk the Offa’s Dyke Path staying at pubs, writing about the history of the area, but it would be too expensive in alcohol costs. Also the route of Henry VII from Pembroke to Bosworth – 200 miles – would be a good walk that could be developed for tourism, but I need to find suitable footpaths.
I’d like to write a book upon the stories of the white Indians – basically because there’s a lot of eye-witness accounts of Welsh-speaking Indians which could just possibly be related to Madoc ab Owain Gwynedd. I’m rewriting my The Book of Welsh Saints and The Journal of Lewellin Penrose as well. The problem is that I live on an old farmhouse in the Teifi Valley and it constantly needs work, along with the garden. There aren’t enough hours in the day.
AmeriCymru: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?
Terry: Wales is being seriously let down by its elected representatives. Education, health and housing are poor and there are no job prospects in the private sector. No-one speaks for the Welsh people, certainly not Plaid Cymru, or Plaid Gwynt as they have come to be known. Tourism is our only remaining industry, not very successful compared to Scotland or Ireland, and the faceless authorities are even trying to wreck that. I tried to get a version of the following article in the press, with no results, even as a truncated letter:
( Click above to read the statement on the AmeriCymru Forum )
