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In June 1912 there was a reception for him back in Wales, at the Barmouth Picture Pavilion, and over 1000 people attended. Here he was presented with gifts of nautical equipment from grateful survivors. They were inscribed:To Harold Godfrey Lowe, 5th Officer RMS Titanic. The real hero of the Titanic. With deepest gratitude.Harold Lowe had found a place in history and he was born and died in Wales He ran away to sea when he was perhaps as young as 14. An impetuous decision perhaps, but it was one which set him on the path of fate.Harold Lowe was born in November 1882 in Llandrillo yn Rhos and spent his childhood in Barmouth, learning to sail on the Mawddach estuary. When the time came, he objected to his fathers suggestion that he should take up an apprenticeship. I was not going to work for anybody for nothing. So off he went. He ended up spending five years working along the west coast of Africa before he joined the White Star Line. He worked his way up the ranks. He served as Third Officer on a couple of their liners before he was assigned to the Titanic in March 1912. The largest, safest and most luxurious ship in the world. A great honour that promised to be the start of a glittering career. To be sure, he would make his mark, but not in the way he anticipated.Lowe was one of the officers who tested two lifeboats to fulfil Board of Trade requirements before the Titanic left Southampton. But because this ship was truly unsinkable, lifeboat provision was hardly important. In fact Captain Smith decided not to hold a lifeboat drill to familiarise passengers and crew with procedures. It was the last time such a thing was allowed to happen.To begin with everything was entirely routine and Lowe got on with his watches.On Sunday 14 April 1912 he was relieved at 8.15 pm and went straight to bed. This would explain why, when the ship hit the fateful iceberg at 11.40 pm, he was fast asleep. Contact with a large solitary iceberg popped rivets and buckled hull plates below the waterline. From that moment the great ship was doomed.When Lowe responded to the commotion and made it up on to the deck, there were passengers wearing lifebelts and the boats were being made ready for lowering. It was at this time that they started to realise that there were insufficient berths in the boats for the number of passengers they carried. But then, why should there have been? The Titanic was unsinkable, an idea offering little comfort as the great ship began to settle and tilt in the water. Harold could feel it under his feet, the bow moving downwards and, anticipating the imminent chaos around him, he returned to his cabin to collect his revolver.He started to help passengers into boats, though he was particularly concerned that some were being over-filled and that the boats would thus collapse. He had experience of boats from his childhood, but many of the other seamen had not, and they had to man and lower 20 boats without even having practised the necessary procedure.It was for this reason that he had an encounter with Bruce Ismay, the managing director of the White Star Line, who was travelling on this auspicious voyage. He told Ismay to get out of his way, for he had work to do. In fact he told him to get the hell out of the way. He knew what he was doing, he knew experienced crew had to take control and because of this they lowered Boat 5 with 39 people on it. His outburst would later endear Lowe to the press, since Ismay was vilified for surviving when so many others who put their faith in his company did not. Thus Harold became a spokesman for so many others in that moment.To us, Lowes use of excitable language to his boss is understandable in such circumstances, but it was a shocking transgression to his contemporaries. It became a notorious moment, a key element in the mythology of the sinking, but it was not half as notorious as when Lowe fired his revolver to establish a sense of order when he crossed over to the other side of the ship to supervise the lowering of Boat 14.These were completely unexpected circumstances and Lowe rose to the occasion, taking control and bringing an order that would allow a lucky few to survive. He took responsibility, seeing that duty transcended status. The scene on the decks was peculiar. People were having to deal with the one thing they never felt would happen, and in the early stages of the sinking many of them thought it would all be sorted out. It was impossible to think that the cold open sea was safer than the huge illuminated liner. It was nothing more than a ghastly mistake.The instruction that it was women and children first meant that some couples refused to be separated and watched the drama in an almost detached way, arm in arm. With insufficient boats and no ordered way of allocating places, such a random approach to survival was perhaps inevitable.Some boats were lowered with insufficient passengers. In other areas of the ship there were scenes of chaos, with men disguising themselves as women to get themselves a precious place in a lifeboat. These boats were in danger of being overloaded, particularly Boat 14, where passengers tried to force themselves on board as it was being lowered. Lowe forced out a young man hiding beneath a seat, and fired his revolver into the night sky to stop the boat being swamped by desperate men. He was the officer with responsibility for the boat. I saw a lot of Italians, Latin people, all along the ships rails and they were all glaring, more or less like wild beasts, ready to spring.Lowe later apologised to the Italian Ambassador for such unnecessary comments.The tackle for lowering the boat had become jammed and it stopped about 5 feet from the surface. Lowe ordered the ropes to be cut and the lifeboat slapped down into the sea. Whilst they baled out the boat with their hats, Lowe took them all away from the Titanic.He assembled other lifeboats into a small fleet , tying some of them together for safety. He was completely the man in charge, squashing more survivors into the boats under his control. Whilst the survivors felt they were overcrowded, Lowe knew there was still room.From the comparative safety of their vantage point, Lowes passengers saw the Titanic sink. The stern rose high into the air, the lights went off, came on again and then went out forever. She slid beneath the calm sea. It was 2.20 am, a little over three hours since the collision with the iceberg. In the silence that followed, those in the lifeboats could hear the terrible cries of people struggling in the freezing water.When he decided it was safe he took his boat back into the wreckage to see if he could rescue anyone - the only person to do so. Even so it was a hard choice. He knew that he could not go back in too soon or he would be swamped by desperate people clinging to the boat in huge numbers. He had to wait for their numbers to diminish.When they eventually went back they were confronted by a terrible scene. There were hundreds of bodies, dead from hypothermia, floating in the sea, supported by their lifebelts. They could not row because of the number of corpses. They had to push their way through. They rescued four men, one of whom died quite soon afterwards. As they retreated from the awful wreckage they all burst into tears.As dawn broke he sailed the lifeboat back to the others and they waited, ready to be rescued by the Carpathia.His job was done. At the Board of Enquiry he was asked what he did next. He replied, There was nothing to do. All they could do was wait and stare at the huge expanse of water under which the Titanic had disappeared so quickly. It was an unlikely scene, for the Atlantic had been flat calm throughout the night.Of course many of the passengers were grateful for what he had done. But he refused any money that was offered him. I will never take money for doing my duty.The Titanic was his place in the sun, though in later life he rarely spoke about it at all and he willingly settled back into a more welcome obscurity. He married Ellen Whitehouse in 1913 and had two children. They were the future; the Titanic was behind him.But Lowe never lost his connection with the sea and spent the rest of his working life on it in some capacity or other. The First World War he spent in the Royal Naval Reserve and the second as an air raid warden. He died of a stroke on 12 May 1944. He was 61.Much later he would be played by the Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd in the famous film which acknowledges his role in recuing survivors when he rescues the fictional lead Rose from the icy sea. In reality it was a Chinese man called Fang Lang who Lowe found and rescued from a floating door, not a love-lorn heroine.I cannot imagine that he would have enjoyed all the fuss and attention of a film.If you wish to pay your respects to Harold, you must leave the A55 in North Wales and take the B5115 to Llandudno. As you reach Rhos the road takes a sharp turn to the right and there, at the top of the rise on the right hand side, you will find the church. Harold is close up against the boundary wall of the ancient Llandrillo Church, next to the road.As befits a modest man of principal, his grave is understated and discreet. It carries no hint at all of the part that he played in one of the events of the century.Devoted HusbandHarold Godfrey LoweCom.R.D. R.N.R.I Thank my God uponEvery RemembranceOf You.

...the winner of our 'Carmarthen Underground' giveaway competition is Mr. LR Laughton. We will be contacting Mr. Laughton via email today and mailing his prize shortly. If you didn't win this time round why not try our new competition? Win a copy of Peter Griffiths' superb 'Tongue-Tied'....go HERE.

Peter Griffiths first novel, 'Tongue-Tied' was recently published by Y Lolfa. On this page we are pleased to present an interview with the author. and an opportuniy to win an autographed copy of the novel by participating in our giveaway competition ( see below ) . To purchase a copy direct from the publisher go here An Interview with Peter Griffiths, Author of 'Tongue-Tied' "Tongue Tied" Author Peter Griffiths at the Clearing Cafe in Portland, Oregon Tongue Tied Spreads its Wings New authors powerful story resonates with American readers Welsh-American Author Writes Novel after feeling ludicrously patriotic Competition One of our Book of the Month selections for April is Peter Griffiths' 'Tongue-Tied'. We are offering not one, but TWO autographed copies of 'Tongue-Tied' to the winners of our monthly Welsh Book Club giveaway competition . All you have to do is answer the three following questions and email your answers to :- americymrucontest@gmail.com The deadline for entries is April 30th 2010 and the lucky winner will be announced on the site on May 1st. Please remember that we will only accept one entry per email address and duplicate submissions will be disqualified. So...fire up the Wikipedia and answer these questions to win the prize:- 1. Where in Wales is the Y Lolfa printing and publishing company based? 2. In which year was the company founded? 3. What was the name of the satirical magazine from which the company's name was derived? Pob lwc/Best of luck Comment or leave a message on Peters AmeriCymru page HERE.

Just wanted to let everyone know that thanks to all of your wonderful generosity I am currently sitting in the airport in Manchester England about to pick up the rental car to drive to Caernarfon Wales. I will try to keep you all posted as best I can.

I will actually be competing on Tuesday at 11:06 am (UK Time) so about 6am USA time.

Laura

For anyone new to this, lovespoons are a traditional Welsh folk art. David Western and Laura Gorun are lovespoon carvers who have very generously donated their time to create a one-of-a-kind masterpiece in support of the Left Coast Eisteddfod, a Welsh performing arts festival for the west coast of North America. This is David's second year of creation in support of this event and we are very grateful for his and Laura's generosity in sharing their work with us all. For a chance to win their spoon this year, click on the donate button on the blog or in the right-hand column on this page under the Left Coast Eisteddfod Competitions button and be sure to note that your donation is for the lovespoon.

Reprinted with permission from David Western's blog , all material 2010, David Western --

Potential customers are always surprised that creating the sketch for a lovespoon design takes as much time and effort as it does. As much as I wish I could just dip a bucket into a never-end well of ideas and pull out a finished drawing whenever I felt like it, it rarely happens that way. In fact coming up with the initial design spark or theme concept is the hardest part of the whole process. Generally, I count on a good third of the total time involved in the creation of a lovespoon to be taken up in design work.

Which is why, when Laura and I began trading some ideas via email to see if we could come up with a start concept, I figured it would be quite a while before anything much started to come together. Sure, we did have a couple of initial ideas such as our plan to work with the idea of '2' and the idea of incorporating symbols of both Wales and America, but scant else after that! So it was a complete surprise and shock when after only an hour or two this lovely sketch appeared in my inbox.

Laura had been working on an idea for a spoon with two layers and had mailed the sketch over to illustrate some of the descriptions she had mentioned during the emails. The design as shown, is a way to mix organic and traditional designs while using the double layers to highlight the '2' idea. Talk about a great start to the project! A lot of guys would be delighted to have this as a working drawing, let alone having it as a 'rough sketch'. I can already see a couple of potential ideas lurking in there and feel like we've rocketed over the hard part already!
- Dave

When Dave first asked me to join him for this project, I was very excited, so my mind was flooded with thoughts, but very disorganized. How would I make some sense of this chaos, and merge these ideas with Dave's? How does he approach coming up with a theme, or what elements to include, or what message to convey? Then, Dave suggested "two" as a theme, which made a great basis, and helped give some direction to the chaos in my head. So - Here I am, getting to work on a spoon with this carver whom I admire so much - naturally, I hope to learn from him, and hopefully even try something a little ambitious. I am so excited, I probably inundated him with thoughts and questions. But then, we started discussing ideas over email, and before I knew it, some ideas were easier drawn than described, so I sent a sketch over to Dave. It was especially to show him the 2-layer "bridge" idea I'd had on a recent design, but I got carried away and drew the rest of a spoon, too - trying to illustrate a few other ideas we had mentioned. I didn't intend for it to be a starting point, but once Dave suggested it, I realized I liked it, too. So there we were! This collaboration thing seems to be going well!

We had talked about playing on our strengths - as far as I can tell, everything is Dave's strength, and I suppose some of mine will reveal themselves. For instance, it seems I may be good for general shapes or concepts. Someone once asked me which I liked better: designing spoons, or carving them. I don't remember if I was ever able to come up with an answer. But, I do know that I struggle when I get into the details, so I'm hoping Dave doesn't. I am excited to see what happens next!!
- Laura

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/2010/04/01/just-the-thing-for-music-fans-91466-26146942/

I have made a note in my diary that I must buy Halley's CD and Huw's short stories when they come out. Halley's interview tells me that Celtic culture is alive and kicking, even so many thousands of miles away from its roots. That's so cheering.

Huw mentions Cambria magazine, which I take. It is mostly in English but there are Welsh articles too.

Blowing my own trumpet for a moment or three, I was so pleased to see further reviews of The Carmarthen Underground in Y Wawr, the magazine for Merched y Wawr, and on the GWales site, both of which were favourable. So keep 'em coming, folks! I need all the help I can get as the main bookshop in the UK (at least at my last visit) has not been stocking it. The Carmarthen branch of Waterstone's was enthusiastic about promoting the book, prior to publication. Now the company appears to have problems, probably because it was trying to take over every bookshop in the country. At the beginning of February, I wrote to the managing director but have not, thus far, received any acknowledgement. Fortunately, I can rely on the lovely little Siop y Pentan in Carmarthen market and it's available online in a number of places. I must also thank Trinity College, Carmarthen, for taking some publicity material for its students' union.

As I type from rainy Llundain, the north of the country is being attacked by blizzards. However, my front garden has hyacinths, daffodils and snowdrops - all harbingers of spring.

Good wishes to all,

Gaynor

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/just-the-mention-of-your-name/id363438899

For anyone new to this, lovespoons are a traditional Welsh folk art. David Western and Laura Gorun are lovespoon carvers who have very generously donated their time to create a one-of-a-kind masterpiece in support of the Left Coast Eisteddfod , a Welsh performing arts festival for the west coast of North America. This is David's second year of creation in support of this event and we are very grateful for his and Laura's generosity in sharing their work with us all. For a chance to win their spoon this year, click on the donate button on the blog or in the right-hand column on this page under the Left Coast Eisteddfod Competitions button and be sure to note that your donation is for the lovespoon.

Reprinted with permission from David Western's blog, all material 2010, David Western --

I'm very excited to be working on another lovespoon for the Left Coast Eisteddfod! After the success of last year's spoon and the enthusiastic response it generated for the Left Coast Eisteddfod, we decided to make it an annual event.

This time, though, I wanted to try something a bit different. I'll be designing and carving this lovespoon in concert with Ohio lovespoon carver, Laura Gorun, so it will very much be a joint effort! Laura is relatively new to lovespoon carving, but her spoons have the sophisticated design and elegant craftsmanship of someone who has been at it for much longer!! I'm certain that working with her is going to yield a really marvelous lovespoon!

Although we will be separated by many thousands of miles and have only ever met through the internet, we plan to design the spoon via lots of back-and-forth emails, taking advantage of the incredible opportunities for collaboration the electronic age has opened up.

Our 'theme' for the lovespoon will be "2." As it is the second year of the Eisteddfod, the number 2 seemed a good jumping off point for the design. We also thought that with one of us being male and the other female, one of us fairly new to carving, one an 'oldtimer' and with us living in two different countries, 2 seemed to crop up everywhere. The challenge now will be for us to work that into a viable design!!

When it comes time to carve the lovespoon, we will carve half the spoon each. Like all carvers, we each have elements that we are good at and some that we are not quite as comfortable with, so we will attempt to divvy up the carving so that we each work as much as possible to our strongest suit.

This will be a unique experiment for both of us, especially given that lovespoon carving is generally a pretty solitary endeavour. For both of us, working with another set of ideas and attitutes toward lovespoon carving will both open design doors and create some challenges!

The plan is to work up the design over the next couple of weeks and then begin the carving process. This blog will illustrate what we have been getting up to and will show the whole process from initial rough ideas to the finished piece. Both Laura and I hope that you will enjoy following along and that you will be inspired to donate to the Left Coast Eisteddfod for your chance to win the completed lovespoon!!

Next week we'll post the first set of drawings and then the hard stuff starts!

In the meantime, we hope you will visit us at:

www. BlakesPA.com to view Laura's handmade lovespoons and www.davidwesternlovespoons.com to view David's work

Last year Seren, one of Wales leading publishing houses announced that it had commissioned an exciting new series - New Stories from the Mabinogion . Since then the first two volumes in the series have been published ( see details below ) and a further two are slated to appear in October this year. The Mabinogion has inspired a number of imaginative reworkings and adaptations over the years including Evangeline Walton's Mabinogion Tetralogy first published in four parts in the 1970's and Lloyd Alexander's award-winning The Chronicles of Prydain, published in the 1960's. It also inspired a film version, Y Mabinogi, produced by S4C in 2003. The exciting feature of the recent Seren initiative is that it has commissioned ten of the finest contemporary Anglo-Welsh writers to adapt and renew these stories for modern audiences thus effectively creating a 'new Mabinogion'. The project is introduced in the following terms on the Seren website:- "In this series commissioned by Seren, the old tales are at the heart of the new. Each author reinvents a story in their own way: creating fresh, contemporary tales that speak to us as much of our own world as of events long gone." The first two volumes:- 'White Ravens' by Owen Sheers and 'The Ninth Wave' by Russell Celyn Jones appeared in October 2009 and the next instalments penned by Niall Griffiths and Gwynneth Lewis will be published in October this year. As an aside we would like to point out that Niall Griffiths , one of the authors of the 'New Mabinogion' will be judging the live narrative competition at the Left Coast Eisteddfod in Portland, Oregon this year. Anyone wishing to attend or compete in this event should go to this page for further details:- Night of The Living Bards 'White Ravens' - Owen Sheers Owen Sheers on 'White Ravens' Owen Sheers Poet and Author Amazon.com 'White Ravens' 'The Ninth Wave' - Russell Celyn Jones 'The Ninth Wave' on Seren GWales Review Amazon.com 'The Ninth Wave'