Blogs
A collector
becomes commander
in his top secret militarised mind
a director
of virtual brigades battalions
and cavalry stallions
I revisit my childhood bedroom
its ceiling trailing plastic aircraft models
from drawing pins and fishing gut
how I made my own sky
with dioramas of dogfights
of Hurricane and Stuka
Flying Fortress and Focke Wulf
Spitfire and Messerschmitt
born of glue that got everywhere
until I gave them away to younger cousins
when I thought I ought to have outgrown them
(there were people who were still around then)
decades later I don decals
war paint and sloping armour
having returned to the wheat fields of Prokhorovka
amid the diesel and shell bursts
of the battle of Kursk
sinking back into those earlier times
my 1970s reimagining
of the Great Patriotic War
the faces of my brave toy soldiers
of indeterminate racial representation
their frozen stances somehow
suggesting action
face each other in lines
their bayonets bent in the crush of packaging
loyal to me in outcomes I decide
never dying
I use part of my disposable income to rekindle
the fantasy campaigns of my childish days
acquiring more solid diecast Panzers
half-tracks and anti-aircraft guns
in my camouflage under the radar
still at play in a world
in which my government is a supplier
of armaments that kill children
BB Skone
I first met Malcolm Cawley aka BB Skone over 25 years as a music journalist at a gig in the Officer’s Mess in Pembroke Dock. His writing was erudite, educated and entertainingly witty.
He has become a legend in West Wales for promoting and encouraging musical projects of aspiring performers. His Comprehensive Gig Guide column and gig reviews in local newspapers are always the place to find out what is going on in the music scene. For so many years he broadcast from Radio Pembrokeshire and was an innovator within the music scene: live performances from the smallest studios and always championing local music. He has now moved to Pure West Radio in Haverfordwest and has a two hour show on Sundays.
BB SKONE'S PEMBROKESHIRE MUSIC SHOW
https://www.facebook.com/groups/49393023806/
BB Skone's Pembrokeshire Music Show Page features all you need to know about the Pembrokeshire music scene. BB broadcasts his local music show at 7 p.m. every Sunday on www.purewestradio.com BB also writes for the Western Telegraph.
THOMAS SKEEL – A NAPOLEONIC SOLDIER FROM LAUGHARNE, CARMARTHENSHIRE PART 1
I’ve only ever heard it within the township of Laugharne.
Mother Bear is an exclamation of surprise, similar to the phrase Gordon Bennett! or Cor Blimey!
It began with the chance discovery of a memorial stone in churchyard, which led to finding the diary of Thomas Skeel, born 1781, a farm labourer from Hangman Street, Laugharne. The diary told the story of an ordinary man caught up in extraordinary events. His story deserved to be retold. So came the birth of Mother Bear Community Theatre Group , mixing storytelling with music to relive the history of those that have lived in the unique township on the banks of the River Taf. War, love, lust, murder and more are recalled in the tales from Agincourt to The Second World War. The treatments are presented as pop up theatre.
In this video John tells the story behind his research into the life of Thomas Skeel , landlord of the Ship Inn in Laugharne and relates some of the stories of his young life.
In Part 2, we find out about his adventures in Spain and Portugal, fighting the armies of Napoleon and being wounded at the Battle of Tallavera.
Mother Bear still performs regularly. They are looking to perform a 19th century arsenic murder mystery very soon! In the meantime Mother Bear produces these videos for Americymru – we got a few to go!!!
The Big Spring Beach Clean, Surfers Against Sewage
Freshwater West, Pembrokeshire
April 7th 2019
It’s World Oceans Day, June 8th, and people around our world celebrate and honour the ocean, which connects us all.
https://www.worldoceansday.org
To celebrate we would like to release a video of the Big Spring Beach Clean . It is the UK’s biggest coordinated beach clean activity, which has brought together over 150,000 volunteers over the last five years, contributing an incredible two million hours of volunteer time to protecting and conserving our beaches for everyone to enjoy. These vital community events not only remove dangerous plastics from our unique and precious coastal environment, but also indicate where action needs to be taken further upstream to reduce the leakage into and impact of plastics on our ocean and beaches.
Jaz Strelecki has been a representative for Surfers Against Sewage since she was nine years old. Jaz also helps mum, Anna, run her iSea Surfwear clothing business in Amroth. Jaz is the surfer of the family and has always had a passion for spreading the word about environmental issues and especially beach cleaning.
As lots of groups help to clean Freshwater West already Jaz and Anna decided to focus on the teeny tiny micro plastics and nurdles/mermaids tears, to see how bad it really is on this lovely beach.
Mermaids’ tears, also known as resin pellets or nurdles, are used in the manufacturing of plastic products. S.A.S. identify these plastic pellets as a major source of pollution on Welsh beaches, and their undercover work in plastic factories have identified a route from plastic factories to the beach, via the storm drains.
Kelsay Books has published Elizabeth Spencer Spragins' debut poetry collection, The Language of Bones: American Journeys Through Bardic Verse. This volume features Celtic-style poems representative of many of the official Welsh meters. On this poetic journey from Jamestown, Virginia, to Muir Woods, California, the reader encounters the power of internal and external landscapes where human triumphs and tragedies have woven themselves into the fabric of the terrain. Available from Kelsaybooks.com and on Amazon.
ISBN-13: 978-1-949229-98-1 (Paperback)
VOICES FROM WALES - SIXTEEN OF FIFTY-TWO, THOMAS SKEEL – A NAPOLEONIC SOLDIER FROM LAUGHARNE, CARMARTHENSHIRE PART 1
I’ve only ever heard it within the township of Laugharne.
Mother Bear is an exclamation of surprise, similar to the phrase Gordon Bennett! or Cor Blimey!
It began with the chance discovery of a memorial stone in churchyard, which led to finding the diary of Thomas Skeel, born 1781, a farm labourer from Hangman Street, Laugharne. The diary told the story of an ordinary man caught up in extraordinary events. His story deserved to be retold. So came the birth of Mother Bear Community Theatre Group , mixing storytelling with music to relive the history of those that have lived in the unique township on the banks of the River Taf. War, love, lust, murder and more are recalled in the tales from Agincourt to The Second World War. The treatments are presented as pop up theatre.
In this video John tells the story behind his research into the life of Thomas Skeel , landlord of the Ship Inn in Laugharne and relates some of the stories of his young life.
In Part 2, we find out about his adventures in Spain and Portugal, fighting the armies of Napoleon and being wounded at the Battle of Tallavera.
Mother Bear still performs regularly. They are looking to perform a 19th century arsenic murder mystery very soon! In the meantime Mother Bear produces these videos for Americymru – we got a few to go!!!
The Big Spring Beach Clean, Surfers Against Sewage
Freshwater West, Pembrokeshire
April 7th 2019
It’s World Oceans Day, June 8th, and people around our world celebrate and honour the ocean, which connects us all.
https://www.worldoceansday.org
To celebrate we would like to release a video of the Big Spring Beach Clean . It is the UK’s biggest coordinated beach clean activity, which has brought together over 150,000 volunteers over the last five years, contributing an incredible two million hours of volunteer time to protecting and conserving our beaches for everyone to enjoy. These vital community events not only remove dangerous plastics from our unique and precious coastal environment, but also indicate where action needs to be taken further upstream to reduce the leakage into and impact of plastics on our ocean and beaches.
Jaz Strelecki has been a representative for Surfers Against Sewage since she was nine years old. Jaz also helps mum, Anna, run her iSea Surfwear clothing business in Amroth. Jaz is the surfer of the family and has always had a passion for spreading the word about environmental issues and especially beach cleaning.
As lots of groups help to clean Freshwater West already Jaz and Anna decided to focus on the teeny tiny micro plastics and nurdles/mermaids tears, to see how bad it really is on this lovely beach.
Mermaids’ tears, also known as resin pellets or nurdles, are used in the manufacturing of plastic products. S.A.S. identify these plastic pellets as a major source of pollution on Welsh beaches, and their undercover work in plastic factories have identified a route from plastic factories to the beach, via the storm drains.
No Bones Jones started after Hugh Jones returned from a long period driving an overland tourist bus around India, Nepal and Turkey in the 1980s.
“When he left, he knew little about food or catering, and cared even less. When he came back, he was a man transformed! He seemed to have gone food-mad and enthused at length about the exotic salads, magical spices and fabulous flavours he had discovered in far-flung lands. He seemed to have set his heart on crafting here at home these same delicious, mainly veggie dishes of vibrant colour and fragrance,” says Mark Jones, friend, translator and co-author of the book.
In the meantime, Hugh’s former girlfriend from his school days had started a vegetarian and wholefood café in their home town. With Jill’s cooking experience and Hugh’s new-found love of exotic vegetarian food, together they developed what is now No Bones Jones, a catering company that feeds thousands of happy customers at a host of festivals over the summer months every year – from Glastonbury to the National Eisteddfod of Wales to numerous folk festivals.
“Our aim was to provide a mixed, nutritious vegetarian meal. This was something most unusual in those early days, but it was what we ourselves wanted to eat. We started with two dishes: lentil stew and chickpea curry with brown rice and salad. In 1995 this was considered off piste , but we knew we were on the right track and we’ve never looked back,” says Hugh, who is nowadays a frequent guest on BBC Radio Wales, where he cooks live on air for a following of regular listeners.
No Bones Jones: Festival Cookbook is more than a recipe book as it also discusses the company’s ethos and ideas. The work tirelessly to keep their carbon footprint as low as possible, which has won them the coveted Green Trader Gold Award at Glastonbury (awarded by Greenpeace, the Soil Association, the Fairtrade Foundation and the Nationwide Caterers Association to one out of 400 on-site food traders). Their vehicles run on bio diesel, their lighting is solar-powered, and packaging is kept to a minimum by staples in 20kg sacks, spices by the kilo and all vegetables in returnable crates.
Hugh Jones cites two people as being the main influencers of the company’s approach. The first was his mother:
“Like all mothers of that era, she knew how to prepare a nutritious meal from very little and how to make do and mend. It's nothing new to recycle, reuse and repair. People back then had grown up during the war with very little, so their whole ‘3Rs’ approach was not so much a virtue as a necessity, and at the time was simply called good housekeeping.”
The second was a young Nepalese woman who cooked her dal-bhat (Nepalese lentil and rice dish) on a dried cow dung-fuelled stove in a little shack on the side of the Rajpath, the road leading to Kathmandu, for 3 rupees.
“Barefoot she was with her two young children, but nevertheless successfully eking out a humble living. In her hut I was dining in the original ‘lean start-up’, the antithesis of a modern restaurant and for me far more exciting,” says Hugh.
The book recounts the fascinating and often highly amusing anecdotes behind the discovery and development of their recipes. It also tells the story of a man who got out of his rut and chose a path less trodden. Throughout the book, Hugh’s enthusiasm for distant locations, and his passion for not impacting the planet and for vegetarian food is infectious. Hugh states “you don’t have to be a vegetarian to eat veggie food! You’re not a pigeon, so don’t pigeonhole yourself.”
Hugh and Jill Jones live in Montgomery in Powys, where they were well known in the local community.
Hugh’s lifelong friend Mark Jones is a freelance writer and translator based in Avignon in France.
No Bones Jones: Festival Cookbook by Hugh and Jill Jones with Mark Jones (£12.99, Y Lolfa) is available now.
Tunes of vigour soar in that chapel
in the Simple Round-Headed style
raised by your great grandfathers
in a confluence of overworked meadows
and sparse whitewashed settlement
the Word and its compositions
its words verses and choruses
among friends and familiar worshippers
joining in with your sister at the organ
as Mrs Angel falls to her knees in her fervour
praying as tears escape down her face
while outside the minstrelling of blackbirds
the hymns of wind
the sighs of boughs
and the symphony of waves approaching
then breaking do their bit
as a tailor you earned your wages
in nearby towns and villages
while your mother wove quilts for her neighbours
and your aunts fashioned hats and dresses
your carpenter-joiner father
furnished the interior of his home
with the plane and saw of his craft
in that cottage you thrilled to listen
to the great composers and dance bands
on a wind-up gramophone
the endless devotion to arranged sound
the enjoyment of private moments
in a community way of living
you died of TB aged 27 in 1935
THE FORGOTTEN CONSCRIPTS
These young men could well be described as having served in the secret underground movement during the Second World War, but not in the sense that most people would imagine, for even today many have not heard of the term Bevin Boy.
Sixty-eight years ago on the 2nd December 1943, Ernest Bevin the wartime Minister of Labour and National Service announced in the House of Commons a scheme that was to change the lives of many young men, by being directed to serve their National Service working underground in the coalmines of Britain.
When war was declared against Germany in September 1939, a large number of experienced miners were called up into the Forces, with others leaving to take up work in other higher paid industries. In the years leading up to 1943 various schemes were set up to recruit labour and thus increase coal production vital to the needs of the nation.
The release of ex miners in the Home Forces, the recall of retired miners, unemployed and young boys of school leaving age to make a career in coal mining were all tried, proving to be unsuccessful.
The only way of overcoming this serious situation was to conscript an additional 50,000 men to work underground in the coal mines over a period of eighteen months.
By Warwick H Taylor, MBE,
Former Vice President of The Bevin Boys Association
I first met writer, Jaye when she needed to use The Great War trench system in Pendine to be a location for her screenplay Letters Home .
Letters Home started life as a short play in 2012 at Pontardawe Script Slam and went on to win the audience award. Jaye adapted it to a screenplay, which reached the semi-finals of the London Underwire Festival, and was chosen for a rehearsed reading at the London Screenwriters Festival.
After the success of Letters Home , her next project is Forgotten Conscripts . Jaye has a passion to get the story over and is now in the middle of postproduction of The Forgotten Conscript Trailer, which will act as a proof of concept and hopefully her skill, effort, and energy in remembering The Bevin Boys will be noticed by someone out there in the media world.
