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The Story Of Welsh Boxing

 
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Lawrence Davies' new book confirms his status as the historian of Welsh Boxing. His earlier title 'Mountain Fighters of Wales' ( see this post ) first published in 2012, established his reputation and subsequent offerings have amply confirmed his dedication to the task of chronicling the early development of the Welsh 'fancy'. Davies' obvious passion for his subject matter and meticulous research combine to ensure that this book will appeal to boxing afficianados everywhere but the general reader will also find it a richly rewarding experience.

The core of the book consists of a series of biographies of early Welsh pugilists all of whom have been more or less lost to history. You might be forgiven if the names of Thomas 'Paddington' Jones, Ned Turner, the Savage brothers and William Charles are not familiar to you. In his day the last named was, "considered another Glendower,..." and was hailed as the Welsh Champion. William Charles' battles with Bristolian Jem Bailey are vividly and entertainingly recounted in the closing chapters of the book. 

Readers who are intrigued by Tom 'Paddington' Jones and wish to learn more are advised to check out this article which Lawrence Davies posted on AmeriCymru earlier this year:- Tom Jones Inducted Into International Boxing Hall Of Fame!

Ten chapters are devoted to the career of Ned Turner, the Out-and-Outer, who in his day was 'the greatest fighting Welshman of the age'. Although he was born in London both his parents were from Newtown in Montgomeryshire and this fact sufficed to guarantee him the support of his countrymen. He was noted for his extreme skill in the ring and his gentlemanly conduct outside it.

'The game Ned Turner once a toast,
No better man alive!
He was 'the Fancy's' pride and boast,
On victory did thrive.'

This is also a book which will delight social historians and anyone with a penchant for archaic English slang. Pierce Egan was the author of Boxiana, a  series of volumes of prizefighting articles published in the early 19th century. Mr Davies says of him:-

"Egan was .... named 'the Great Lexicographer of the Fancy' as he did not merely record the language of the followers of the ring; in many instances he created it. The 1822 edition of Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, which had been edited by Pierce Egan, would include many terms that had been coined by Egan himself.'

The book includes an appendix on pugilistic terminology where we find such entries as:-

KNIGHT OF THE LEEK - A term used to denote that a pugilist was of Welsh origin. Occasionally also used to describe his supporters 'the benefit was well attended by the knights of the leek'

IVORIES - The teeth. A pugilist who has broken his opponent's teeth is said to have 'cabbaged his ivories'.

In conclusion we unreservedly recommend 'The Story of Welsh Boxing' to the Boxing enthusiast and general reader alike. You may find inspiration and you will certainly find humour, but above all you are guaranteed a first rate read.

LINKS

The Story of Welsh Boxing: Hardcover

The Story of Welsh Boxing: Kindle Edition

2012 Interview with Lawrence Davies

2019 Interview with Lawrence Davies

VOICES FROM WALES – TWENTY SIX OF FIFTY-TWO, WALK FOOTBALL IN WALES

Sport is loved all over Wales and football is a game that I was brought up on. There was no rugby for my generation in Carmarthen until you were Under 11 and then it was 15 a side District game on a full size pitch! The rugby clubs of town only offered the sport to Youth and Senior teams. All primary schools had the tradition of playing football on a Friday afternoon , eleven a side on specially prepared smaller pitches.

Rugby enthused us as youngsters, world class Gareth Edwards, Barry John , icons of the sport displayed their skills in the Five Nations Championship. But football lived alongside rugby and offered us other Welsh sporting heroes: John Charles , Leighton James, Gary Sprake, Terry Hennesey, Brian Flynn.

As we get older, joints creak, muscle get sore and sometimes the heart beats to an irregular pace but the older generation can still feel the buzz of the team ethic and the thrill of competition in walk football sessions at the same pitch that I would have played those primary school cup finals : Richmond Park, Carmarthen.

Josh Edwards, is coach at Carmarthen Town AFC – ‘ The Old Golds ’.

Check the video out and find a club near you and start enjoying sport again.

EXCLUSIVE FOR AMERICYMRU READERS

AmeriCymru is pleased to announce the availability of a small number of first edition hardback copies of 'John Jenkins: The Reluctant Revolutionary?' by Dr Wyn Thomas. The hardback first edition is now out of print. Originally priced at $34.00 this important & historic biography can be yours for only $23.99 including shipping and handling (offer applies in U.S. only). New, unread and unmarked but slightly damaged with bumped corners. 

"The mastermind of a Welsh bombing campaign in the 1960s claims that the terrorist group he led could have killed Prince Charles during his Investiture as Prince of Wales fifty years ago."

The mastermind of a Welsh bombing campaign in the 1960s claims that the terrorist group he led could have killed Prince Charles during his Investiture as Prince of Wales fifty years ago. 

John Barnard Jenkins plotted a long and audacious bombing campaign with the Welsh nationalist group  Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru  (the ‘Movement to Defend Wales’ – generally known as MAC) that caused damage to water pipes and government buildings throughout Wales from 1963 to 1969. In a new biography of Jenkins, he claims that they could have killed Prince Charles in 1969. He says in the book, published exactly fifty years since the Investiture, “We could have killed him... For one thing, I was a sergeant in the British Army’s Dental Corps, and was on duty in Caernarfon that day. I could have carried a rifle and I could have shot him there and then if I wanted. Furthermore, if I’d said ‘Right, I want a couple of people   who are prepared to do something and not come back from it’, I know at least two who would have come forward and volunteered. I’m talking about a suicide operation.” 

During the period leading up to the investiture many targets were bombed, with one device killing two of the bombers themselves in Abergele. Another bomb injured a child, though Jenkins insists their intention had been only to attack infrastructure and not to injure anyone. 

The campaign was undertaken in the belief that the political voice of Wales was being ignored. There had been mass protest in Wales earlier in the decade about the plan to evict the Welsh-speaking community of the Tryweryn Valleyso as to turn it into a reservoir to supply water to England. Despite the fact that not one Welsh MP voted in support of the Bill, it was passed in Parliament and the project was allowed to go ahead. In 1966, a huge spoil tip collapsed onto the village primary school in Aberfan, killing 124 people, most of them children. Although the National Coal Board had been warned of the danger beforehand and was found responsible for the disaster by the ensuing inquiry, it was not prosecuted or   fined. John Jenkins says that both incidents influenced MAC’s campaign. 

John Jenkins: The Reluctant Revolutionary?  by historian Dr Wyn Thomas reveals the international interest in the Welsh bombing campaign, with offers of help coming from Libya and Communist East Germany. John Jenkins also discusses how his campaign influenced the IRA, with their cell system based on the one he devised for MAC. 

The author, Wyn Thomas, said: “What John Barnard Jenkins did in spearheading  Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru ’s bombing campaign in Wales and England during the 1960s is unparalleled in Welsh if not British history.”

Since the group’s bombing campaign ended with John Jenkins’ arrest in 1969, questions have been asked about what motivated MAC’s formidable leader and strategist’s course of action. Wyn Thomas’ authorised biography provides the answers, throwing light on this complex and hitherto guarded individual. As the group’s bombing campaign intensified, the authorities were desperate to locate MAC - and its anonymous controller. But unknown to all but the smallest band of associates, John Jenkins was in fact hiding in plain sight, as a serving member of Her Majesty’s Forces. The story of John Jenkins and MAC has been engulfed in a fog of speculation, innuendo and rumour, but for the first time, with the publication of Thomas’ biography, the true extent of the threat posed by the group is shockingly revealed. 

This meticulously researched appraisal has been written on the back of fifteen years of interviews conducted by Thomas with John Jenkins, and – among others – former police officers and members of MAC and their families. The result is monumental: the amount of fresh information surrounding the narrative is astonishing, and each disclosed detail offers a fascinating insight into the shadowy world of MAC and its brilliant, if flawed, organiser. It is not just a study of one man, but also an absorbing social history which considers the political and cultural background to, and impact of, MAC’s campaign. The extraordinary life of John Barnard Jenkins is as complicated as the campaign of militant activism he so effectively led. The title of the biography is a question:  John Jenkins: The Reluctant Revolutionary? This is based on the emotional turmoil that Jenkins apparently experienced when increasingly compelled to orchestrate a campaign of militant activism in the name of Welsh political freedom. Other observers maintain, however, that far from being resistant and ultimately resigned to his role of leading MAC, John Jenkins relished the challenge and the task of providing a worthy opposition to the British state.

From the Wikipedia - Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru :- "Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru (Welsh: [ˈmɨːdjad amˈðiːfɨn ˈkəmrɨ], Movement for the Defence of Wales), abbreviated as MAC, was a paramilitary Welsh nationalist organisation, which was responsible for a number of bombing incidents between 1963 and 1969. The group's activities primarily targeted infrastructure carrying water to the English city of Liverpool.

MAC was initially set up in response to the flooding of the Afon Tryweryn valley and the flooding of the village of Capel Celyn to provide water for Liverpool. Its founders were Owain Williams, John Albert Jones and Emyr Llewelyn Jones. On 10 February 1963 a transformer at the dam construction site was blown up by three men, of whom one, Emyr Llywelyn Jones, was identified, convicted and sentenced to one year imprisonment. MAC blew up an electricity pylon at Gellilydan on the day of his conviction. This led to the arrest and conviction of Owain Williams and John Albert Jones. READ MORE HERE

VOICES FROM WALES – TWENTY FIVE OF FIFTY-TWO, SPOKEN WORD SATURDAY

Spoken Word Saturday is held on the second Saturday of the month at the Zion Chapel in Llanelli. It is organised by Eleanor Shaw of People Speak Up . It attracts young and old and is open to all. It gives people an opportunity to perform prose and poetry in front of a knowledgeable and caring audience.

The afternoon has invited guests who headline the afternoon: a musical performer and a professional story teller. The afternoon is held as part of Theatr Ffwrnes.

This week Ioan Hefin led the professional performers with excerpts from a new venture, Play and a Pint, that he was taking on tour around pubs and venues in Carmarthenshire. Ioan is a university lecturer in Carmarthen and is an accomplished actor, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2955942/

Last week a good friend and board member of People Speak Up , Mark Montinaro, died. He had been a supporter of Spoken Word Saturdays since the very beginning and was a regular performer. Although not known by all the performers on this day he was remembered with recitals of his poetry, personal stories and poetry written in his memory.

This video is dedicated to his memory.

The author of an unusual new handy pocket-sized phrasebook is hoping to use humour to inspire people to learn a few basic bits of Japanese in readiness for the Rugby World Cup, which will be held in Japan in September 2019. Unlike many traditional phrasebooks, Teach your Dog Japanese Rugby World Cup 2019 Travel Edition  (Y Lolfa) shows that learning useful expressions doesn’t have to be boring or daunting, and makes picking up a few basics accessible to everyone. 

Every phrase is shown in both  romaji  (Japanese  words spelt out using our alphabet) and English, accompanied by appealing 1950s-style retro illustrations as well as help with the Japanese pronunciation. There are over 70 expressions to practise, from rugby-themed phrases such as  Sukoa-wa nan-ten desu-ka?  (‘What’s the score?’) to general tourist-themed phrases such as  Eigo-no menyū arimasu-ka?  (‘Do you have an English menu?’). It’s an excellent and really fun introduction to learning Japanese for all ages, and will help visitors to Japan with talking about the World Cup as well as with typical tourist activities such as finding your way around and travelling by train. 

Nigel Botherway, well-known rugby writer for the Sunday Times called it “a brilliant Japanese phrase book for rugby fans - and dog lovers!” 

The book is part of a series designed to help you learn a language while engaging with your favourite pet, and was inspired by illustrator Anne Cakebread’s bestseller  Teach Your Dog Welsh  (Y Lolfa, 2018). 

“The popularity of the series has been amazing! I was thrilled when  Teach Your Dog Welsh  was reprinted for the first time – but I’m amazed that it’s been reprinted three more times since! Hopefully this book will encourage rugby fans to learn a little bit of basic Japanese!” said Anne Cakebread. 

The inspiration for the original book came to Anne after she re-homed Frieda, a rescue whippet. Anne came to realise that Frieda didn’t understand English and would only respond to Welsh commands. Slowly, whilst dealing with Frieda, Anne realised that she was overcoming her nerves about speaking Welsh aloud by talking to the dog, and her Welsh was improving as a result – this gave her the idea of creating a book to help other would-be language learners whilst also using her skills as an illustrator. 

Summoning up the confidence to use a language you’re learning can be intimidating at first. A number of books are available to help with vocabulary and pronunciation, but the light-hearted context and the beautiful illustrations mean that this book is a bit out of the ordinary. It will especially appeal to people who haven’t had much success with languages in the past. 

Carolyn Hodges, Head of English Publishing at Y Lolfa, who developed market-leading language-teaching materials for Oxford University Press for many years, said: “One of the key factors in motivating someone to start learning and using a new language is to make it enjoyable.” 

Anne Cakebread is a freelance illustrator whose work was used in  Rugby World  for over 15 years. She grew up and went to school in Cardiff and now lives with her partner, two whippets and lurcher in St Dogmaels, Wales, where they run the Oriel Milgi boutique B&B. Anne also runs Canfas, an art gallery in nearby Cardigan. 

Teach your Dog Japanese Rugby World Cup 2019 Travel Edition  by   Anne Cakebread (£5.99, Y Lolfa) is available now.

This week sees the publication of In Passing: A Welshman’s bizarre adventures from Merthyr to Mecca  by distinguished Welsh academic, Professor Randall Baker.  

The unusual collection of offbeat anecdotes are a collection of just some of the strange incidents which have happened to him over a period of 65 years, and over several continents:

“ I am lucky to have done an awful lot of travelling, including with the Spanish Foreign Legion in the colony of Spanish Sahara, being surprised by several nasty earthquakes, and being in East Germany as they built the wall, but my stories are in the shadow of the world affairs rather than dealing with them directly,” says Randall Baker.  

The incidents recorded in  In Passing  are all true stories from his own life, starting from when he was a pupil at Abermorlais Junior School in Merthyr. Over the years, he started to realize that the number of odd events that happened to him was unusual. Speaking of the realization, Randall said:

“Throughout my life, when I discussed something that had just happened to me, inevitably I was greeted by cries of “Oh, come  on ” and the like. Eventually, my wife started to preface them with “Here comes another of Randall’s stories” . The hard thing for me was that I was just recounting something that had really just  happened . Eventually I realised that life is not like this for everyone and so for posterity, I decided to put all the most interesting or amusing events together, starting with post-war Wales and moving on to New Zealand, Fiji, Mecca, and other places far from Merthyr. As a scientist I do require rugged standards of proof, but what do you do when the incident happened to you and you have absolutely no way of explaining it!”  

He credits his childhood in Merthyr as ‘a good training ground’, enabling him to go out and face some of the wilder corners of the world.  

“Merthyr’s history in the iron and steel industry and the buying of ore and selling metal brought Merthyr into the world – in a way that’s hard to imagine today. Merthyr manufactured cannons for Nelson, and built almost every railroad in South America. It’s hard to imagine this world leadership as you stroll around Merthyr these days, but it’s not like any other place in Wales,” says the author of his hometown.  

Crimebusting soothsayers, a homicidal optometrist, men who fall off trains or into open graves, a ridiculously over-attentive waitress, an abandoned stripper and a fellow traveller whose huge suitcase is packed solely with alcohol are just a few of the colourful characters populating this engaging book, The stories get more and more inexplicable, though all are true! He comes across coffee with strange properties, gets caught in the crossfire in the OK Corral of English tearooms, locates lost property through the power of suggestion, meets royalty and rebels, and POSSIBLY steps back in time into 1944 New Zealand. Holding all of this together is an infectious sense of Welsh humour, especially in handling the unexpected!

Randall Baker is a distinguished Welsh academic who has studied and taught in universities all around the world. He co-founded the School of Development Studies at the University of East Anglia, and has acted as an advisor to UNESCO, the Fijian Government, the Prince of Mecca, the Sultan of Brunei, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, The British Foreign Ministry and Crown Agents, UNEP, and the US State Department. He has published extensively on both academic and non-academic subjects. He now spends half the year in Bulgaria and the other half in Newbridge-on-Wye in Wales.  

In Passing: A Welshman’s bizarre adventures from Merthyr to Mecca w ill be launched at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth at 1pm on Thursday 19 ^th  of September. Seats can be reserved at  www.library.wales  or turn up on the day. Dr Brinley Jones will host the session.  

In Passing: A Welshman’s bizarre adventure from Merthyr to Mecca  by Randall Baker (£9.99, Y Lolfa) is available now.

VOICES FROM WALES – TWENTY FOUR OF FIFTY-TWO, RON LEWIS PART THREE

It’s the final part of the Ron Lewis interview and once again he reveals stories from his career as a T.V.reporter.

Thanks for sharing, Ron, it was a real insight.

You can read Ron's memoir here for more: Confessions of a TV Newsman: Broadcasters behaving really badly in the Golden Age of ITV

VOICES FROM WALES – TWENTY THREE OF FIFTY-TWO, RON LEWIS PART TWO

Ron Lewis, retired T.V. journalist and reporter, reveals more about working in Pontcanna, Cardiff as part of the news team on the newly founded Harlech Television, H.T.V.

When I first heard Ron’s voice, I giggled to myself, as in its soothing warmth I heard a voice from the past, from my childhood. It brought memories of sitting with my family in front of the telly and having to sit through the news every night, whilst all I wanted to do was watch cartoons.

Ron is a natural storyteller and has a rich vein of experiences during his lifetime to call on. The morning we spent with him was both relaxing and illuminating.

Please take 10-15 minutes of your day to enjoy his reminiscences.

Hear both English and Welsh language acoustic versions of  Whirring  HERE  
Released October 25th via Hassle Records

The Joy Formidable are today announcing the release of a special commemorative 10-year double album edition of their acclaimed debut release  A Balloon Called Moaning.  The double album will include their 2009 EP  A Balloon Called Moaning  plus a newly recorded acoustic Welsh language version,  Y Falŵ​n Drom .  

Written and recorded in a bedroom over a decade ago by lead singer and guitarist Ritzy Bryan, and bass player and vocalist Rhydian Davies in North Wales,  A Balloon Called Moaning  was an instant hit. Rated 8/10 by NME, it was the first of the band’s releases to feature their now iconic single  Whirring –  a track that was named amongst Pitchfork’s Top 100 Tracks of The Year and described as “the song of the year” by Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl.

In the passing decade, as the world tours, festival main stages and stadium shows have racked up, it has always been especially important to the band that they continue to recognise and highlight the importance of their Welsh heritage. In this new anniversary edition, each song from the original release is re-worked acoustically and presented again in the Welsh language. On the new release, Ritzy said: 

"We’ve been through such a lot as a band over the years, it’s been a really reflective studio session, returning to the old recordings and transforming them into these beautiful stripped back, intimate versions. It’s exciting hearing them in the Welsh language because now they have new life too and can be a celebration of language as well as memory."

In celebration of  A Balloon Called Moaning / Y Falŵ​n Drom , The Joy Formidable are also announcing the launch of Formidable Fest / Gŵyl Aruthrol ,  a mini festival at The Tramshed in Cardiff on Saturday 23 November 2019.  Ritzy commented: 

“We see Formidable Fest as a lovely opportunity for us to invite some bands to play in Wales, in front of an audience that otherwise might not get to see them. That, and having a bill that promotes Welsh language acts and bands from Wales - just a really inclusive night of great music. We’ll be doing 2 shows that night, one short acoustic Welsh set & the other full electric.”