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I had a doll when Iwas a child. A large procelain doll that made a soundwhich was supposed to resemble 'Mamma'. I called her Jenni and she had two teeth which disappeared into her gums when I tried to clean them. My mother paid a dressmaker to sew some extra clothes for Jenni, (pink crepe de chine dresses). I gave her a wipe over when I was in the mood and walked her out in a pram.

Emma had a doll andpushchairand Kate had Suzy and a pram. Kate preferred stuffed animal toys to dolls soSuzy's popularity soon waned.

For some unknown reason, Kate and I were talking last week about people whocoo into babies prams. I said people in Fishguard liked babies and Kate said Carmarthenpeople do, too, remembering when Ffion was small.

Atthe weekend I stood aside for a middle aged woman with a small pram to come out of a shop. As she manoeuvered it carefully over the step I noticed what I thought was a baby, swaddled in frills, sleeping. 'Oh, a contented baby', I said brightly, but the woman went on her way.

Inside the shop, one assistant saidto the other: 'If she brings that doll in again, I'll be spooked. It's really weird'.

I was looking at some Christmas cards, when a thought flashed up. 'Was that adoll in the pram?'

The words had left my mouth before I'd had time to think. The assistants nodded. 'Shebought it on the internet. She's ordered another. The chest goes up and down as though it's sleeping'.

I wondered if the woman was returning to some part of her childhood when she'd not had toys. The assistants said that this person had grown-up children, but was spending a small fortune on these dolls (one dollcost eight hundred pounds).

I thought of men who collect dinky toy cars, model aeroplanes and toy trains and I saw some parallels with doll collectors.

Later, I spoke toEmmaabout it and I mentionedarrested development.We both know people who dress as though they are still twenty one, forty years later, because twenty one was the age they felt was their best and so these, too have a 'golden age'.

Emma said people who have lost their mothers at a young age often re-live that time with the sort of toys they would have had.

I could not let this woman andthe doll she treated as almost real, out of my mind. And the other thing was, why did this doll make us feel uncomfortable?

Ernst Jensch, the psychologist, said thatuncanny feelings arise when there isuncertainty if something is alive or not.

Masahiro Mori, the roboticist, said if something is obviously inanimate, its human characteristics will stand out and be endearing, but if the boundary between human and mechanistic is blurred, the ambiguity will createuncertainty.Thiswould explain ourunease.

Somewhere,I've read: 'Whatever you have lacked, you will do your utmost toput into your life' and this refers to our deepest emotional needs.I'll remember this if I see the 'baby' again.

The Edwardses attempt to Occupy Wall St? Are the descendants of Welsh pirate Robert Edwards the legitimate owners of Manhattan Island? The claim is not new but now a Hollywood director wants to turn the whole saga into a movie. Read on.....

Welsh fight for chunk of Lower Manhattan to become a movie

The Claim (From the Wikipedia ):- "Robert Edwards was a Welsh buccaneer given 77 acres (310,000 m2) of largely unsettled Manhattan by Queen Anne of the Kingdom of Great Britain for his services in disrupting Spanish sea lanes. From Edwards, who died in 1762, the property passed in 1877, via a 99-year lease to the brothers John and George Cruger, with the understanding that it would revert back to his heirs after the lease expired. Apparently, this never happened. It is alleged that the Crugers were wardens of Trinity Church, an Episcopal Church -- today, one of New York City's biggest land owners. Maybe everything was tangled in a muddle of colonial Manhattan land giveaways. But, according to family lore, the whole tract wound up in Trinity's hands.

Trinity indeed got a large slice of the land that seems to be described in the Edwards family account. But the church got the last of the ground in 1705, all of it directly from Queen Anne, according to a church pamphlet published in 1955, at a time when Trinity was bedeviled by Edwards family claims.

The legend has since proved persistent, and indeed some high profile claims of rightful ownership to the fortune, now estimated to be worth around 650 billion dollars. The most recent of these was a claim from a Cleoma Foore, whose research led to the foundation of the 'Pennsylvania Association of Edwards Heirs', a body funded by donations in a bid to finally prove that they were entitled to the vast fortune through direct ancestry. This fund attracted around $1.5m at its peak, but no firm evidence was forthcoming. Indeed, the end result was an embezzlement case tried at the federal court in Pittsburgh before Chief Judge Donald E. Ziegler in 1983.

More recently, this ancient claim has been the subject of many multimedia productions including books, TV shows and radio reports and a 1998 primetime UK TV show called 'Find a Fortune' and hosted by Carol Vorderman amongst others, attempting to shed new light on the topic.

A document held at the Glamorgan Record Office in Cardiff, Wales, entitled Edwards Millions outlines the case as it stands today, with claims and counter claims further muddying the issue.[1] Tales of unscrupulous lawyers and fraudulent claims have also hampered attempts by amateur researchers to get to the truth. Finally, the introduction of the 'Statute of Limitations' in NY State, which sets a time limit for all claims, to be commenced within fifteen years of the expiration of a lease, appears to have all but buried the claim with the death of Robert Edwards himself.

The only document that could prove the matter would be the original of the 99-year lease signed over to the brothers Cruger, but that would now be statute barred."

The Director ( From the Wikipedia ) "Sara Sugarman (born 13 October 1962 in Rhyl, Denbighshire, Wales) is a Welsh actress and film director whose work includes Disney's Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004) and Very Annie Mary (2001). She has also starred in two movies Dealers (1989) and Those Glory Glory Days (1983)."

How do you feel about furniture. Is a table a table or is itsomething else? (I'll leavePlato alone in his own heavenly furniture shop for the moment.) Let'stalk about a wooden top with four legs or perhaps a grand dining table with an extra leaf and extra legs. That's for when you use the best silver, cut glass, napery and maybe have a butler waiting on you.

I don't mean to be snobby about this, but furniture can tilt peple into some very squiffy angles, especially food critics like AA Gill. Yes, that's the one. He's tangled with the Wesh before. He'sbitter. More than a bit. Bitter as wormwood and the gall.

Unless I misrepresent him, and I'm tryinghardto be fair, he's gone and said it again.Said that anyone who is anyone would not own anything 'as common as a Welsh dresser'.

I ran to the 'phone to tell Emma. (My life is so narrow). 'Bless him. He's really bitter,' she said and we both cracked ourselves laughing.

Peter is nine years older than me. What hasthis got to do with our furniture? Well, everything, once. Not now so much.

My husband (note I nearly always refer to him as Peter but I'll say 'my husband' just to vary things, because he has a perfectly good name and I can't standcolumninst who coyly call their husbands 'him inside' or 'husb' - haven't they got a name, for goodness sake and if so what's wrong with it? -if they were called 'TinTin', Ramboor 'Tarzan' I could forgive the shyness) began his teaching career in London and on a Saturday he sometimes visited the Design Centre, where all the lateststyles were on show.Before we married he had decided we would have Ercol and G Plan furniture in our home. (We've still got it, the club-style teak G- Plan reupholstered in grey flannel from Melin Tregwynt and lookingsurprisingly perky.)

Over the years I've sneaked things in. We have a French linen press, with shelves I've added to hold books. A mirror from an Irishfarmhouse hangs on one wall, a Victorianoccasional table holds a lampand a window seat from the same era has been reupholstered in purple velvet. I've given Emma antique corner shelves and dressing table mirrors I've tired of. (She lives in a three-storey Georgian house so they are more at home there than in my eighties box).

I also have a dining table, with removable centre leaf and matching chairs bought in Llandissillio. You will realise I'm not a purist.

But my younger daughter will not have anything old in the house. Nothingwith a past life goes through her door.She agrees with Feng Shui that old things hold the spirit of previous owners. I agree, too, butI can treasuresomeone else's treasure and look after it.

Although my taste is eclectic,I haveone stricture and I'm strict about it: please, no imitations. An imitation is an imitation and I don't see the point ofreproducing things, especially when old wood mellows to a beautiful patina.

Going off on the squiff for a moment, I stood in Edinburgh Castle, in the same wooden panelled roomwhere Charles 11, Lucy Walter's 'Black Boy', was entertained in the seventeenth century.I felt a very strong sensation of Charles's presence, as though he had left something of himself in the fabric of the room. I can't quite find the words to describe whatI felt so I'll paraphraseOliver and Harry and say: 'Awesome', 'Legend'.

Now, if that had been a Disney mock-up, it wouldhave been nothing more than pink bubble gum stickingto your sole.Some people can't tellthe difference and it's nota problem for them. I don't mean to besnobby.

Jim Butcher is the author of the very popular "Harry Dresden" fantasy series, about a Chicago private investigator who's also a wizard and the hidden world of wizards, vampires, Fae and other magical creatures barely restrained from falling upon us all, starting in Chicago.

Butcher contributed a short story to a new anthology, published this year, Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy . "Curses" revolves around a well-known Chicago curse and a well-heeled representative of an unnamed client comes to Harry Dresden to hire him to remove it. In the course of tracking the origin of the curse, Dresden finds himself at The Llyn y Fan Fach Tavern and Inn.

Llyn y Fan Fach is a man-made lake near the natural lake Llyn y Fan Fawrin the Brecon Beacons. A legend says that a young man married a woman who rose out of the lake and said she'd be his wife until he hit her three times and then she'd leave and take her cattle. These idiots in mythology can never restrain themselves so, of course, he hit her three times and she left him, but returned occaisionally to see and teach her children, who went on to become the Physicians of Myddfai.

The Llyn y Fan Fach turns out to be run by "Jill," a beautiful woman who's accent "came from somewhere closed to Cardiff than London" and whom Dresden asks for information on the shape-shifting Tylwyth Teg . Of course, "Jill" turns out to be more than she appears and becomes Dresden's guide in seeking the author of the curse.

I saw the name of the tavern, then Butcher's description of it and chortled with glee (I'm a huge Dresden addict): "... located at the lakeside at the northen edge of the city. The place's exterior screamed "PUB" as if it were trying to make itself heard over the roar of brawling football hooligans. It was all white-washed walls and heavy timbers stained dark. the wooden sign hanging from a post above the door bore the tavern's name and a painted picture of a leek and daffodil crossed like swords."

So there you go, any Jim Butcher "Harry Dresden" fans, a Welsh-ish "Dresden" story, and Welsh in Chicago for the Tafia.

It has become evident over the last three days that we are not going to be successful in our bid for a $25000 dollar grant in the Chase Community Giving race. There are several reasons for this:-

1. For sure a number of people are liking the page instead of voting or objecting to liking the app. This doesn help. BUT we had both these problems in 2010 when we came within 30 votes of winning.

2. What we did NOT have in 2010 was a position where we had to stay in the top 100. In 2010 all we had to do was stay in the top 200 for the grant. If this was 2010 we would still be well in the race. Chase split the competition into two this year. One for charities with operating costs of over $1,000,000 and one for those with operating costs under that figure. The first contest ocurred earlier this year. We qualified for this round but then so do MOST US charities. The fact that some of the big hitters aren't in the current competition doesn't help us much. We are still up against the vast majority of US charities and expected to raise our overall position by 100 places in half the time.

3. It's not a good time. In 2010 the Chase race occurred well before the Left Coast Eisteddfod and we were able to capitalize on the buzz for the upcoming event. This year it is well after the recent hugely successful L.A. event which makes it all the more difficult to generate enthusiasm.

4. A number of key players who were willing to render massive assistance last time round are not available ( for a variety of reasons ) to assist us this year.

All in all it looks like a case of three tries for a Welshman i.e. we'll give it a go again next year. I do not intend to spend the next ten days fighting a losing battle when there are so many other more useful things to do. This will not affect our plans for the forthcoming 2012 West Coast Eisteddfod which is still subject to an initial costing exercise. Of course the extra funds would have been handy BUT we didnt have Chase money in 2009, 2010 or 2011 and the Eisteddfod went ahead

Open for comments:-

Reproduced with kind permission of Cymru Culture Magazine

A BAFTA Cymru award winner, Boyd Clack is a writer, actor, singer and musician. He is probably most famous for putting the Welsh onto Welsh television, having co-written (with his partner Kirsten Jones) and acted in the sitcoms Satellite City and High Hopes . O nly graduating from the Welsh College of Music and Drama in 1986 (at the tender age of 35), h e has worked on some iconic projects, including: Twin Town ; (Rob Brydon's) Marion and Geoff ; and Pirates of the Caribbean . Just over the last year he has appeared in Baker Boys , Being Human and New Tricks .

Born in Vancouver, Boyd returned to Wales at three years old. His dad, who had been in the Royal Regiment of Canada, died of leukemia at only 45, and Boyd was brought up with his mother's sister and brother-in-law in the the village of Tonyrefail, in the south Wales valleys. Before becoming an actor, Boyd had a rather adventurous life, involving a dozen or so different jobs, a religious cult in Australia, the band 'Boyd Clack and the Lemmings' and a 'squat' in Amsterdam. Boyd kindly agreed to tell us more ...

Boyd Clack (Photo: Ben Hussain)

CC Calling your childhood 'challenging' doesn't quite cover it. How has your upbringing most affected your adult life?

BC I felt paranoid and claustrophobic in my teens. I was a delicate, bespectacled hippy and was out of place in the testosterone charged, violent, alcohol fueled enclave of the valleys. I thought I'd die. I had to get away. The girls fancied the muscle bound, chisel jawed guys who were tough and shaved when they were ten. I wanted to be with dreamers and romantics. I wanted magic, in fact. I wanted mystical couplings on exotic beaches. I wanted sex!

CC The Head Chef at Tr Cymru Culture Towers' family live in Tonyrefail. Would you tell them which part of 'Ton' you are from? We're thinking 'blue plaque', here.

BC I was brought up in 10 the Avenue 'till I was ten, then 133 High Street.

CC You had an extraordinary variety of jobs as a young man, including: tax officer; hotel porter; builder; waiter; park keeper; psychiatric nurse; telephonist; door to door vacuum cleaner salesman; and porn shop assistant. What ambitions did you have at school? Did you have any idea what you wanted to do once you had left? Would you do any of those jobs again?

BC I wanted to be a hippy, travel the world having fun and chasing after beautiful girls. I had no other ambitions. I'd work in the porn shop again - 'Venus Erotic Supplies'. Apparently I showed an aptitude for it!

CC How did you come to travel so widely?

BC I grew up in the valleys in the fifties and sixties. The fifties was dreams and fear all mixed up in sunshine and rain. The world was small, like one of those Christmas things you turn upside down and snowflakes fall. The sixties, the later sixties, was the time that shaped me. The outside world filtered in at first, then with Telstar and other satellites, it gushed in. I became the poet laureate of despair. The nights were cold and hung with fists full of diamond stars. I kissed girls outside in the cold and saw their breath rise up in clouds like angels. This intense romance and heart chilling excitement shaped me as clearly as Michelangelo shaped David. Everything I am comes from this. It will be the last image in my head as I die. Life is too weird to try to understand all of it. All I can do is live in frozen images. I think that the valleys in the late sixties was a magical experiment conducted by dead wizards. I sometimes feel so intense about it that it makes me cry. Mais, o sont les neiges d'antan? (But, where are the snows of yesteryear?)

CC What led to you to form the original Boyd Clack and the Lemmings? How long did you stay together?

BC I moved back from Australia to South Wales in 1977; into a shared house in Cardiff. The other residents were fellow zombies and we decided to form a band to do my songs. None of the others played instruments, so we had to start from scratch. It was the time of punk, so it wasn't that difficult. We were magical and sparkling in a hellish way, our songs were Doom Rock and space/time travel romance. Sanity was not our strong point. We were intense and theatrical. We were apocalyptic explorers, the world was being sucked into the pit. Amsterdam was Dead. Dark times were coming. Twilights were ominous.

CC When you re-formed the band in 2007, did you contact any of the original line-up?

BC When I did Welsh Bitter last year I called the band The Lemmings as a tribute to the original band. But that's where the similarity ended, except for a few of the songs, which were done by the original band.

CC Who are your musical influences?

BC My musical influences are essentially mainstream sixties psychadelic pop e.g. Pink Floyd; Small Faces; Badfinger; Amen Corner; The Move; The Beatles of course; The Kinks; Donovan; Neil Young; Cat Stevens; and The Searchers (not psychadelic but great) etc. Also, Dr. Feelgood; early The Who; Bowie (up to Station to Station ); and scattered one hit wonders from the sixties . I love The Monkees too. Then there's Leonard Cohen; Joni Mitchell; Jacques Brel; Alex Harvey; Kate Bush; and Gabriel-era Genesis. My pop musical likes ended in 1975. The post-punk, late 70s band Killing Joke are cool. I love the soundtracks of Blade Runner - Vangelis ; and The Last of the Mohicans Clannad. And Mike Oldfield, paticularly Ommadawn and Voyager . No-one now; I am into Mahler.

CC How extensively did you tour before your second album, Welsh Bitter , was released? Do you have any dates planned now?

BC We didn't gig much in the new band, just a handful to get tight before recording and one at The Globe to release the album. I am at present recording a new album to be released hopefully at the end of the year. It's called Labourer of Love and Ill do a couple of gigs to promote it.

Cover of Boyd Clack's autobiography (Photo: Kirsten Jones)

CC Your autobiography, Kisses Sweeter Than Win e* , published late last year, discusses you dealing with the symptoms, diagnosis and treatment of your clinical depression. Have you noticed any change in attitudes to mental health issues since you first became aware of them?

BC I think society's attitudes to mental illness has changed little. It's like racism, sexism etc. - always there, but fashionably empathetic at the moment. Suffering is ugly and the world worships prettiness. Mental illness is marked out by terrifying loneliness. It brings the vibe down. People despise their own imperfect reflections.

CC Who were your contemporaries at the Welsh College of Music and Drama? Have they ever forgiven you for winning the WCMD's 'Best Actor' award?

BC My most successful contemporaries at the Welsh College are Dougray Scott, Rob Brydon, Mark Lewis Jones, Bethan Morris and Maldwyn John. I don't think any of them think about me other than in a general thinking of the past way, except Mark who is a little puppy dog, and I am happy for their success. Proud in some cases. I have no competitiveness. It would be silly in an unreal profession where lack of logic is the norm. I just do what I do and seek to make it beautiful. Let the Gods do what they do.

CC Had you not been walking past the WCMD, on the last day available to apply for their auditions, what do you think you would have been doing for the last 25 years? Would you still have written Satellite City for the Chapter Arts Centre?

BC Had I not strolled past the Welsh College on that far off summer morn, and not become an actor, I would have retired from the world and become a hermit or a monk.

Cast of Satellite City (seies 2)

CC What insipred you to write the sit-coms Satellite City and High Hopes ?

BC The inspiration behind all of my work is to celebrate and analyse the human condition. In Satellite City and High Hopes it is done through the medium of comedy within family relationships. The comedy is natural. I have never forced a word. It comes from character and situation. Both shows also demonstrate human fallibility and kindness. There are no bad guys. Being Welsh and using a Welsh setting is perfectly natural don't you think. An American wouldn't be asked why his work was based in American society, with American accents, neither would an English writer. We are every bit as significant and interesting as any other culture.

At the time Satellite City came out there had been no previous indigenous sit com in English, so it seemed to be making a point; but it wasn't. It was just real. One thing I have learned in life is that all people in all nations are exactly the same. We all want safety, warmth, love and happiness. This is as true of a loin cloth wearing Amazonian native as a Russian prince. There is a commonality, a collective unconscious as Jung put it, that flows through us all. This is what I have always sought to highlight. It is what makes racism the idiocy that it is. No-one is inherently better or worse than anyone else full stop. Some ancient Greek dramatist said that action is character, and I think that's spot on. If I am better than someone else it is because I do better, more humanistic things. I am better than a thug who goes around bullying weak people, for instance. I am better than Tony Blair, say. I have never murdered people or stolen people's hard-earned wealth. Nelson Mandella is a better man than me because he has devoted more of his time to helping others.

What unites us is far greater than what keeps us apart. The problem is that the qualities of 'bad' people - greed, self interest, brutality, lack of empathy etc - are also the very qualities that lead to positions of influence in society. Hence the appallingly low standard of those in public office, the prediliction to favour themselves and their fellow charlatans ahead of us, and their casual warmongering and incitement of bigotry, suspicion and hatred amongst us. They do this because it advantages them to have us blame each other for the unfairnesses in society, rather than turn our anger on those rightfully to blame, i.e. them. It is a part of the duty of the artist to highlight unspoken truths. Comedy is a good way of doing this. Every episode of High Hopes has a specific angle that takes this into account. It may sound corny, but the basis of everything I do is an empathy for other people. Love, in fact. Because love is as necessary to life as air to breath, and there's nowhere near enough of it about. Old Hippie that I am.

CC What were the main changes to Satellite City from stage, to radio and then television?

BC The difficulties in transferring Satellite City from radio to TV were the same as any other such transfer, though the world created was so distinct on radio and the characters so strong that it proved not too difficult.

CC I am at a loss to understand how a BBC series, which won a BAFTA Cymru award for 'Best Entertainment Series' would not be shown on the BBC, UK-wide. How was it explained to you?

BC Satellite City wasn't networked for a variety of reasons, none of which were to do with the quality of the product, which no-one doubted. Television is a strange inward looking thing, favours are offered and accepted, there's endless nepotism and bitternesses. A whole world of egos swirling and buffeting up against each other in a huge swirling miasma of money and self interest. Had it been shown it would have gone down a storm throughout Great Britain, I've not a shred of doubt.

CC At least the pilot for High Hopes was shown across the UK (1999). Why did it take three years to be commissioned into a series?

BC For High Hopes : see above!

Some of the cast from High Hopes

CC Inexplicably, High Hopes (the series) only aired on BBC Wales. What reason did its producer, Gareth Gwenlan (also the producer of Only Fools and Horses ), give for this?

BC Gareth Gwenlan did all he could to get High Hopes networked, but was stymied by a senior figure in BBC Wales who didn't want the English to see us in what they regarded as a negative light. This is ridiculous of course, the show shows us in a wonderful light, but there is nothing more dangerous than a figure in authority with a bee in their bonnet. Reason goes out the window.

CC When Ben Evans (who played Charlie) left the series, what made you decide to re-cast the role, rather than write in another character?

BC We re-cast Charlie because he was so essential to the concept. Ben is as lovely a man as you'd ever meet. He wanted to get into musicals though and had a great opportunity he couldn't turn down. He's in Jersey Boys in the West End at the moment. Ollie [Oliver Wood Ed.], who took over did a wonderful job. He's a cracking lad too. There were no fallings out about anything.

CC Would you re-cast the role of Mam if High Hopes is recommissioned?

BC Margaret John was a lovely, tallented and interesting woman, a fine actress and sorely missed. She had a great life and enjoyed every minute of it. She told me that High Hopes was her most enjoyable and loved roll. If we did more High Hopes we would not re-cast Mam, that wouldn't work, but we'd keep her 'alive'. This could be done in several ways. Has she gone to Greece on holiday with Mrs Coles? Has she met Stavros (played by Tom Conti) an old flame from her erotic dancing time, and fallen in love? Is she staying over there with him? It could be done. It would be fun to do it. Like I say, contact BBC Wales; let them know the demand is there.

I would also like to put in a word for Islwyn Morris, Dad in Satellite City , who died a month after Maggie. I knew Islwyn well. He was as wonderful a man as you'd ever meet. He was honest, intelligent, kind, and a brilliant actor. He was a gentle and dignified man with a fine sense of humour and a deep religious conviction. His warmth and friendship touched everyone who knew him. He was my hero and I loved and respected him. RIP old friend.

CC You can often be seen walking around central Cardiff, just doing your shopping etc. Are you recognised, and how do you react?

BC I do get recognised and approached a lot. I regard it as a great compliment that my work has given such pleasure to so many people. I am quite touched by it in fact.

CC Your affection for the valleys shines through in High Hopes . And the series was truly loved by many people (including just about everyone we know). Is there any possibility of another series?

BC We would love to do another series of High Hopes . The public would too. The recent third repeat of the best bits had a huge audience and audience share. There is a petition for the Beeb to do more, which you can sign online if you so desire [ click here for the petition Ed.], though it appears that they are putting their money into other projects at the moment.

CC You've done a variety of work in different media, including: Twin Town and Pirates of the Caribbean ; Othello , A Midsummer Night's Dream , Macbeth , Hamlet and Coriolanus ; Dez Rez (Royal Television Society award winner), Satellite City (on stage, radio and TV), High Hopes , A Small Summer Party ( Marion and Geoff ), Baker Boys , Being Human and New Tricks . Which is best: stage or screen (big or small)?

BC Both stage and screen are great fun. There is a magic on stage that you don't really get on screen; mainly because you have a live audience coming on the journey with you. And screen is shot out of sequence, so you don't feel the build up, the effect of the dramatic flow, so clearly. That said, screen, large and small, has its own magic. I love both. Acting is the greatest of experiences when it clicks. It is a time machine, a portal to another dimension. I love it, full stop.

CC Please tell us about your involvement in National Theatre Wales

BC I played Con in A Good Night Out in The Valleys last year, which was the inaugural production of the newly formed, and none too soon, National Theatre of Wales. I was very honoured to be cast and the experience was wonderful. I hadn't been on stage for 14 years, and had forgotten the immense physical and mental pressure of playing such a huge part. It nearly killed me.

The National is a fine organisation. It has a fine, enthusiastic, involved permanent staff, which is guided by John Magrath with an imaginative and inclusive hand. My partner Kirsten and I are involved in developing a stage idea with them at the moment; an adaption of a short story - Standing in the Valley of the Kings .

Album cover of Welsh Bitter

CC Judging from your recent work, you will have a dozen projects (at least) in the pipeline. Which ones seem the most exciting?

BC ... At the moment I am filming the second series of Baker Boys for the BBC. I am doing some gigs with Paul Childs and Jamie Pugh, which are fun. I am recording a new album, a follow up to Welsh Bitter (songs from which I sing in the concerts). It's going to be called Labourer of Love . I recently finished writing two novellas - Something Like Love and The River of Souls - which I am very, very happy with, and I'm working on a few other writing ideas. Acting work comes in reasonably regularly and I am reasonably content. The world is a funny old place though, and life has a weird way of catching you out, so who knows what the future may bring. The thing that really matters is being a decent person and valuing the friendship and love of your fellow beings. The rest of it is tinsel.

CC ... Boyd Clack, thank you.

* Kisses Sweeter Than Wine , Parthian Books, isbn: 9781906998301, 14.99

2011 Caregos Cyf. | Hawlfraint - All rights reserved

After a 6am alarm, a drive from the shadow of Snowdon to Bangor Station, a four-and-a-half hour train journey, I was finally in Cardiff. My conscience had been troubling me that I was confining my left-wing commitment purely to blogging, so yesterday morning found me joining a hundred or so like-minded people (many 40 years younger than me!) at the foot of a statue to my hero, Aneurin Bevan at the Occupy Cardiff protest.

Just before we set off I was handed a leaflet, What to do if arrested. Suddenly the reality of what I was doing hit me. I had no plans to break the law but could easily be included with a group less cautious than I am! When we left, I had been hoping we would be greater in number, carrying more banners, but I had my walking boots and waterproofs against the rain that set in at 2pm precisely, and was prepared for a two-hour march. Two minutes after setting-off we had crossed the busy road to Cardiff Castle and we had arrived! Swiftly jumping down from the pavement to the grass alongside the castle, the group set up tents and started its first General Assembly a key component of the Occupy movement which allows anyone to speak.

At that point, the weaknesses of operating an egalitarian group began to show themselves. Hesitation over who was facilitating the Assembly, a loud-hailer which was not up to the task, people not shown how to use the loud-hailer, batteries that were quickly exhausted with no replacement; all leading to disappointment that we couldnt hear what was said. It would have helped to have more banners, some musicians, and some rehearsed chants to make for better engagement of all present. I believe there is a lesson here having leadership, co-ordination and reference to a model that works elsewhere does not detract from the aims of equality for all. My other disappointment was despite a Cymdeithas yr Iaith banner, I heard no Welsh spoken. However, I was glad to see a later Tweet that the protest was the first time the, We are the 99 per-cent slogan had been heard in Welsh.

The police stood round in ridiculously over-the-top numbers looking embarrassed. There were mounted police, ordinary officers, community support officers, police cars, vans and, I suspect, every demonstrator could have been allocated his or her personal officer. Sadly, those officers waded in shortly after I left for my long trek back to North Wales, to remove the fledgling protest and the tents and some arrests were made.

I was energised by the passion and commitment of the participants and will take my experiences back to the nascent Occupy Bangor group. Hopefully, there will be a clear backlash against this attack on peaceful protest and the first Welsh expression of the Occupy movement will re-emerge to declare We are the 99 per-cent.

One door closes another one opens; the pub burnt down (I always wrote 'burned' then I noticed that my friends were writing 'burnt; when I was small I said 'burnt my finger', later I altered my pronunciation and the spelling to go with it, or vice versa, anyway I digress) I began going for long walks with my camera taking many photos of Brittany, then I started putting them on sale at the markets, not being worthwhile with the cost of petrol, now I can't afford the car insurance, instead I'm researching Welsh sport; Brittonic heritage; and music that comes out of Cymru/Wales & Breizh/Brittany, which I put on to their respective sites I've set up on Facebook, something I wouldn't otherwise have been able to do. Every now & again I glance across to the door and witness a shrew or a mouse or two being sadistically toyed with by my kitten Do(o)do(o), I've gotten over my worm phobia so I pick up and throw out the ones she brings in. Two days ago I was sitting on the settee with my laptop guess where? listening to the Roy Noble Show, there was something he wanted to know so I tapped a few buttons, found what he was looking for and sent it in, it was gratefully acknowledged and mentioned again the following day which I missed, I know because a friend told me on facebook.

I was talking to aphotographer whowas shooting scenes for aproposed book. Hehad been to various beauty spots in Pembrokeshire butwould not be returningalone tothe Preseli Mountains. One year, just after asnowfall, he went up to capturethestillness and isolation of the region.There wasno other living soul around and that was the trouble. He felt spooked.

Drive from Eglwyswrw, over the mountains to Haverfordwest when the moon is full, and you will sense something other worldly.

I was thinking of this today and remembering a plane thatcrashed in the Preselis on 19th September, 1944. The plane was a Liberator EV881, number 547 squadron, Coastal Command. It had a nine man crew, six of whom were killed. Each year a service is conducted on Carn Bria, the site of the crash, anda plaquehonours the memory of the dead.

Not only thespirits of humans return toa place, but that of animals, too.A brown dog haunts RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire. Itis said to have belonged to the leader of theDambusters squadron, Wing Commander Guy Gibson.

A large part of the C20th has been about remembering those who fought for us.A friend, now dead, attendedPrendergast Junior School, Haverfordwest,during the 1920's. The children marched down to the Cenotaph for a service each November 11 and the teachers who had fought in the Great War wore their uniforms that day.

In the Model School, Carmarthen, which I attended in the late 1940's, there was a plaque in one of the classrooms with the names of 'old boys' who were killed in World War 11. Each class had to march past the'memorial' and salute.

Following this service in school, one night Ithought of the horrors of war and couldn't sleep. My mother, to cheer me up, showed me the doll I was having for Christmas. It was just a quick look, but I went back to sleep again.