Blogs
I was surrounded by Whos. There were two women and six men, and I was the only guy who was not Doctor Who. I stood out like an alien in a blue Police Box. Even the women were Doctor’s companions. Eventually, a few other mere mortals joined the queue, and I felt a little less out of place.
I’ve been bothering Jonas and Mary-Alice for a couple years now. I’ve been bothering them, because they are nerds – nerds of the best kind. They are good friends from Salem, Massachusetts. They are also regular attenders at Doctor Who conventions. They have the paraphernalia. They have the costumes. They regularly show up at our Pub Theology gatherings in Salem with Who t-shirts and sonic screwdrivers and such. So, I’ve been bothering them to visit Cardiff with me as I make my annual pilgrimage to Wales. Cardiff is the home of Doctor Who, and the heart of the Who-home is the Doctor Who Experience on Cardiff Bay. Unfortunately, I’ve learned that the Doctor Who Experience is closing September 9 this year. I was going to wait until they joined me in Cardiff before I visited the mecca of Whodom, but the season of waiting had come to an end, so I made my way to Cardiff Bay, wandered past the Wales Millennium Centre, the Welsh Assembly, the Norwegian Church, and around to the holy place of Who.
The long, low blue dome of the Doctor Who Experience stands out on the edge of the bay like something between the Tardis and a beached whale. Just walking past the massive airplane hanger of Who trivia has the draw of a black hole. It sucks you in and threatens to keep you there in its “timey wimey” soup. So I got sucked in, and was standing in line to experience the Doctor Who Experience with these serious Who fans. It was a walk through an adventure with the 12th (and perhaps my favorite) Doctor, Peter Capaldi. We were attempting to save the Tardis, and presumably the entire universe from utter destruction by finding three necessary crystals to power the Tardis. We entered the Tardis control room and got bounced around in time travel. We were accosted by Weeping Angels. Eventually our team of Doctor Whos and Who companions found the crystals and we were saved from certain destruction.
After saving the world (and our own little skins), we wandered around the Who Museum filled with outfits, statues, and paraphernalia from the many years of Doctor Who. I have attached a few of the dozens of pictures I took in this wonderful place. If you are making it to Cardiff in the next couple months, go to The Doctor Who Experience before it is no more. Supposedly, now is the best time to go, because they are going to be doing some really special stuff as they close out their time on Cardiff Bay. Of course, there are whispers about Doctor Who Experience reincarnating in another form somewhere in Cardiff. The Doctor seems to do that sort of thing.
Link to the Doctor Who Experience: http://www.doctorwho.tv/
A beautiful new online collection of audio stories suitable for children of all ages from Beyond the Border – Wales International Storytelling Festival
In the autumn of 2016 we were really excited to announce Beyond Storytime - a way of providing families everywhere with beautifully told stories in their own homes. It is a small taste of our wonderful festival, available all the time, wherever in the world you live.
Beyond Storytime is part of Beyond The Border – Wales’ International Storytelling Festival which happens biannually in the Vale of Glamorgan in South Wales (The next is in July 2018). The festival has a mission to ‘…take Wales to the world and bring the world to Wales’ and we do this by showcasing the finest stories and storytellers we can find. Beyond Storytime means that your whole family can connect to your Welsh heritage from the comfort of your own home.
This online streaming service has a growing collection of stories from Wales and the wider world, told for English and Welsh speakers and carefully chosen for us by some of the best storytellers in the world, to be suitable for children of all ages…grown-ups tell us they enjoy them too. More stories will be added later so Beyond Storytime becomes a collection of treasured tales that grows and grows.
Visit www.beyondstorytime.com for a chance to hear a full story completely FREE. Having decided you like what you hear you can subscribe to the service for a whole year for just £11.95 (currently about $15 - less than £1/$1.25 a month). You can trial Beyond Storytime for three months for just £5/$6 Find out more, listen to some extracts, subscribe to the site for yourself or buy a gift subscription.
If you want to find out more about visiting our festival in summer 2018 you can contact us via our website at www.beyondtheborder.com We can help you make arrangements for families or larger groups to visit.
We welcome approaches from organisations that would like to sponsor or otherwise partner the festival. Contact us through www.beyondtheborder.com to see how we can work together.
Non-Pacifist Fist Anti-Fascist: A Tale From My Family’s History
By Paul Steffan Jones AKA, 2017-06-21
Like many men, I have always been fascinated by tales of courage especially in the theatre of war. I was thrilled when, at an early age, my father gave me the barest bones of a story concerning a member of his Treherbert family who was apparently executed in the Spanish Civil War. My father didn’t know how this man had been related to us, didn’t even know his name, and believed this unlucky ancestor to have been a journalist. When I began to become interested in my family history, my research, in the main, was to corroborate this tale but was to uncover a much more intriguing account.
Thomas Isaac Picton was born in Treherbert in 1896 and came from a family of Pembrokeshire miners. His father, also called Thomas, shows up, aged 18, in the 1881 census living at 8 Tynewydd Huts in the Rhondda Valley, with his uncle John Coles who had been born in Landshipping, Pembrokeshire. Landshipping was a heart-breaking landmark in the journey of the Picton family for on Valentine’s Day 1844, forty miners including women and boys died there in the Garden Pit Colliery when the eastern Cleddau river (Cleddau Ddu or Black Cleddau) burst into the shaft 67 yards below. Included on the monument to the dead erected by local people are the names of six Pictons and five Coles. Four of the Picton dead were a father and his three sons. Such bad luck doesn’t always encourage you to stick around.
Thomas Isaac Picton was also a miner. When The Great War broke out, he enlisted and stayed working with coal, becoming a stoker on the mighty battleships. He was twice decorated for his bravery including during the Battle of Jutland where he spent some time in the water. His Royal Navy service record measured him at 5 feet 4 and a half inches with blue eyes and dark brown hair and swarthy complexion. It noted that he had a tattoo commemorating his mother in a cross on his right arm. He was discharged with “defective teeth” and had spent 24 days in cells during his war years and 14 days in detention. The crammed calligraphy of a busy war observes in brackets that he “broke out” of the latter.
He was an avid boxer who was Wales amateur middleweight champion and he had also been the Navy light heavyweight champion. He managed to get a small number of professional bouts but was primarily a bare knuckle mountain fighter. At least one of his confrontations led him to prison. On one occasion, he left Cardiff jail after serving a short sentence for assaulting a police officer, wearing the boots of a prisoner who had recently been hanged.
As was the case with large numbers of working class people of the inter war years, he became radicalised and was a close friend of Communist Councillor George Thomas of Treherbert. In his early forties, Tom joined the International Brigade, older than the typical volunteers, most of whom were also swapping the uncertainty of their blighted industrial zones for the uncertainty of the Spanish Civil War. In common with hundreds of his fellow miners of the South Wales coalfield, he made the choice to illegally leave his country to fight the rising tide of Fascism in a country he had never previously visited. For entertainment on the journey through France, he was put into a ring to wrestle a bear. This seems an almost cartoon-like scene to the modern mind, a form of larger-than-life existence we have almost forgotten.
On their arrival at the barracks of the International Brigade, they were issued with ill-fitting uniforms and ancient firearms with ill-fitting ammunition. Some would go on to fight Fascists in another war, facing opponents who had honed their skills in killing machines above Guernica and other memorable places. Tom, due to his First World War experiences and his prowess as a boxer, may have been better equipped for the fight than many of his comrades.
He fought in the Battle of Teruel and was captured soon after and imprisoned in Bilbao. He was murdered by his jailers in April 1938 after he had punched to the floor a guard who was beating a fellow prisoner with his rifle butt. The Rhondda Leader newspaper of 29 October 1938 reported that he had been “put up against a wall and shot”. His body was never found.
These warriors are still remembered, still commemorated. Their sacrifice and their willingness to enrol in “the march of History” are still revered by those on the Left and their selflessness continues to haunt our unconfident, cynical age. I am proud that a member of my family was among them. Before I fully knew Tom’s story, I wrote a short poem, “Icons”, whose third line seemed to aptly describe his stance :
Not game footage
but I’ve outlived Stanley Baker
as non-pacifist fist anti-fascist
in humidity following Biblical rainfall
we all rust
...
In Undefeated - The Story of the 1974 Lions , Rhodri Davies not only brings the legendary 1971 tour to life, adding new perspective and insight, but he then proceeds to give the often unheralded 1974 Lions their historical due. With first hand contributions from Lions legends such as Willie John McBride, Fran Cotton, Gareth Edwards, JPR Williams, Phil Bennett, Andy Irvine and many more, the author captures the very essence of the greatest Lions of all time. The tour itself was brutal and scintillating in equal measure, but as well as contending with the fearsome on-field challenges the tourists also faced unprecedented political opposition both at home and abroad.
Should they have gone to apartheid South Africa at all? What exactly did they achieve by going? And how do they feel about it almost half a century later? Undefeated is a searingly honest reappraisal of the tour of '74 by the Lions legends who achieved the impossible. Their account is so compelling that 'Undefeated' was shortlisted for the British Rugby Book of the Year award on its first publication in 2014.
Here are "The Greatest Lions" - in their own words.
Undefeated - The Story of the 1974 Lions by Rhodri Davies is available now.
The company has since gone from strength to strength and has put the village of Tregroes on the map worldwide.
Kees began his musical career as a child in the Catholic church choir in the Netherlands and after moving to Wales he was encouraged to join the local choir, mainly as a way to learn Welsh. He developed a taste for competing at the Eisteddfod and in 2016 he won the Blue Ribbon in the national Eisteddfod in Abergavenny.
The experience of singing in the choir and having the opportunity to converse with the customers on his marketplace stall became a way for him to develop his use of the Welsh lanaguge. He is now fluent and uses the Welsh language naturally in his workplace and in the community.
After making a special effort to embrace all the customs and traditions that belonged to the local society, he appreciated the support he received from residents in the area when he faced a dark period in his life as told in his book.
‘In a way, this book has allowed me to give something back to the village and the society of Tregroes where I have now lived for over thirty years’ explained Kees.
As a result, any profits from the book will go directly towards the cost of refurbishing the old school to become a centre of the village and surrounding area.
Said activist and friend Emyr Llywelyn, ‘This book is the interesting and readable story of a very special man, Kees Huysmans. The strength of the book lies in the honesty and sincerity of the author and that is sure to touch all who will read it.’
‘It creates an unique picture of the virtues of a rural Welsh community through the eyes of an immigrant. I doubt anybody has managed to tell their life story in a way that is as memorable as this singer, businessman and adopted Cardi.’
The book will be launched at three events at St Ffraed church in Tregroes at am 7.30pm on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evening the 19 th , 20 th and 21 st of June.
‘Dechrau Canu, Dechrau Wafflo’ by Kees Huysmans (£9.99, Y Lolfa) is available now.
HMS Morris are a Welsh Art-Pop group that delve into the wonky, odd-ball side of psychedelia, finding the balance between bold experimentalism without giving up accessibility. ‘Morbid Mind’ and ‘Arth’ showcase the range of the band’s songwriting, sailing from a White Denim –esque fluster to melodies reminiscent of traditional Welsh folk music. ‘Morbid Mind’ explores the morbid curiosity that resides within all of us, that drives the popularity of ‘murderabilia’ and lies behind the rubbernecking instinct. The lure of the morbid can be explained as a noble desire to empathise with the unfortunate, but can also lead to obsession, insanity, even death...
‘Arth’ (Welsh for ‘Bear’), is a tribute to an animal associated in cultures around the world with spiritual strength, courage, and harmony with the cycles of the Earth. Today, as the fight intensifies to overcome the forces destroying our global communities and habitats, it seems more important than ever for us to channel the spirit of Arth. Following the success of their debut album ‘Interior Design’ the band are excited to showcase new material alongside old favourites and will be hitting the road from April.
Live Dates
June 23rd - Chester Live, Chester
July 1st - Gwyl Tafwyl Festival, Llandaff Fields, Cardiff.
Biography
HMS Morris are a Welsh Art-Pop group that delve into the wonky, odd-ball side of psychedelia, finding the balance between bold experimentalism without giving up accessibility. 'With an undercurrent of post-punk edginess, the group toy with colliding synthesisers and cooing vocals and still manage to create something cohesive and alluring' (Clunk).
Released in November 2016, the band's debut album 'Interior Design' is 'a real trip, a multi- dimensional sound that traipses across hitherto unexplored regions of sound' (Clash), and with an as yet untitled follow-up already in production, it seems the voyage is just getting started.
Photo credit: Rhodri Brooks
The last week, I’ve been in and out of Cardiff, or the ‘Diff. I am staying a little over 6 miles outside Central Cardiff with my friends Dawn and Andrew in Gwaelod y Garth. Gwaelod y Garth was once officially part of the Rhondda, but more recently has been incorporated into Cardiff. Consequently, it has become quite posh. I am staying at the foot of Mynydd Y Garth (Garth Mountian), which inspired the fictional location Fynnon Garw for the movie The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain . I still have yet to discover why the hill/mountain in the movie was named “Garw’s Well”. Oh well.
It’s a short travel to Cardiff from Taff’s Well, the nearest station from Gwaelod y Garth. So, I‘ve been coming down the mount to hang out in Wales’ capitol. I will go ahead and announce my prejudice now: Cardiff is my favorite big city in the world. Big is a relative term here. It is estimated to be about 360,000 right now (2017), which makes it a little over one-tenth the size of the Boston area, where I live. But, this is one vibrant and creative 360,000. A good deal of the BBC is moving to Cardiff. Doctor Who is filmed here. It has a vibrant nightlife, and lots of good food – and good craft and cask beer. Of course there is sport – especially Rugby. Principality Stadium in Cardiff is the 4th largest stadium in the UK, and each of the stadium’s bars is able to pour 12 pints of beer in 20 seconds, making it the fastest beer park in the UK – almost double the speed of Twickenham. It also has a resident hawk named “Dad” that chases pigeons and seagulls away.
I’ve been to Cardiff a number of times. I’ve been to a Six Nations tournament game. I’ve wandered Saint David’s Shopping Center, the Llandaff Cathedral. I’ve been to Saint Fagan’s Museum of Welsh History, but there were things I had not done. So today, I did a few of them.
I finally toured Cardiff Castle. Little of the Castle dates back to the ancient days of knights fighting dragons (which, of course, actually happened in Wales, but the big red dragons always beat the English posh-type-Lordy-dudes, and made friends with Welsh Princes and Princesses – true story, honest to Guinevere), but it is a worthwhile visit nonetheless. You can get the audio tour of the castle in Welsh and English. Always opt for the Welsh, unless of course, you want to understand it, and you haven’t learned any Welsh yet.
I stopped at Marchnad Caerdydd (Cardiff Market). It smelled of fish, curry, fresh fruit and Welshcakes. I walked away with Welshcakes in 5 variations. Last of all, I went to Chippy Alley. Caroline Street, as it is known by old folk (nod to Chris Castle here), is host to curry and chip shops, and I stopped at Dorothy’s for Chicken Curry and Chips – far more than I could eat. Dorothy’s is supposedly the original chip shop on Chippy Alley.
I have a few favorite stops in Cardiff: I love Waterloo Tea in Wyndham Arcade, Spiller’s Records (the oldest record store in the world established in 1894, and now located in Morgan Arcade), and a few pubs like Brewdog, City Arms, and Mochyn Du (Black Pig). Did I mention that good beer is a thing in the ‘Diff?
Tomorrow I am planning on visiting the Doctor Who Experience. So, until then Teithiwr Twp signs off while having a Session IPA at Brewdogs – that’s a beer, if I didn’t mention that there is good beer in Cardiff. Good beer makes a ‘Diff you know.
Some links:
Spiller's Records: http://
Fun history on Chippy Alley: http://yourcardiff.
Glyndŵr: To Arms! by the late Moelwyn Jones is an imaginary novel based on the real life and battles of Owain Glyndŵr. It follows the publishing of the bestselling Glyndŵr - Son of Prophecy last Christmas.
The trilogy was completed before the author’s death in 2015.
Glyndŵr: To Arms! Offers a portrayal of the life of Wales’ revolutionary hero Owain Glyndŵr, resident bard and Glyndŵr confidant Gruffudd ap Caradog tells of a time at the beginning of the 1400s when a new spirit of Welsh pride was born; when the Welsh nobility put aside their differences to unite under the banner of the Red Dragon to seek justice and self-determination.
In a vivid and vibrant account of the first two decades of the 1400s, we hear of the adventures of master bard and master lover Iolo Goch, the brutal realities of medieval warfare learned at the hands of champion axeman Einion Fwyall, and of Gruffudd's impossible love for the wife of a leader he reveres above all others.
The third and final installment will follow early next year.
Author Moelwyn Jones was raised in Bancffosfelen, Carmarthenshire, and had a career as a Welsh teacher in Cardiff before joining the BBC as an Information Officer. He then became Head of Public Relations for Wales and the Marches Postal Board and following his retirement worked in the Welsh Assembly.
‘Moelwyn had a great interest in the history of Owain Glyndŵr,’ says Delyth Jones, Moelwyn’s wife. ‘He conducted extended research into Owain’s story. He was quite the hero to Moelwyn’.
The cover art was illustrated by Machynlleth based artist Teresa Jenellen.
Glyndŵr: To Arms! by Moelwyn Jones (£7.99, Y Lolfa) is available now
The dark money
the dirtiest companies
the black in the white
our speckled humanity
the rainbows of this world
bled white by
underhanded organisations
of thieves and murderers
educated but unelected
covetous but unaccountable
colourless and colourblind
my colour-co-ordinated veins
handy for the hospital engineers
and their USB sticks
“We Are Not Ferocious Men” : Meibion Glyndŵr and Affordable Housing in The Welsh Heartland
By Paul Steffan Jones AKA, 2017-06-09
Following the seven million pound investigation into Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru (MAC) and its attempts to prevent the investiture of Prince Charles in 1969, two of its bombers were martyred, two, including the leader John Jenkins, were in prison, and two cells out of five or six were put out of action.
After the marching and explosions of the previous decade, the 1970s found Welsh nationalists focussing on Y Fro Gymraeg-the Welsh-speaking heartlands. Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg and Adfer fought language campaigns including paint-daubing and advocating that stocks of affordable homes be made available for local people. Tensions between Welsh speakers and monoglot English speakers influenced the result of the compromised devolution referendum of 1 March 1979. Welsh Labour MPs were especially vocal in opposition to an outcome that, in their view, would lead to domination by the minority, native language and hamper their party’s efforts to further culturally assimilate the Welsh into the British way of life. Many nationalists were daunted by the 4 to 1 vote against devolution. Gwynfor Evans, the leader of Plaid Cymru, even contemplated suicide. What ensued was a return by some to violent methods that were this time carried out on a more personal level.
The first fire attack on a holiday home occurred at Nefyn in the Lleyn peninsula on 13 December 1979. Initially, wax fire bombs were used that were filled with sulphuric acid and placed within condoms. Later incendiary devices incorporated timing devices and chemical explosives but most were unstable and the damage was not always extensive. A group calling itself Meibion Glyndŵr (Sons of Glyndŵr) claimed responsibility for the arson attacks. There was a theory that some of the new insurgents had been formerly connected to MAC and the police guessed that there were three cells of arsonists in operation.
Most of the attacks on holiday properties took place in North and West Wales in the winter months when it is was more likely that they would be unoccupied. The aims of the arsonists were to enable local people to afford to buy houses which were currently being snapped up by wealthier English incomers for second homes, and to resist the impact of inward migration on the Welsh language and culture. 16% of houses in Meirionnydd and Dwyfor were holiday homes. There were 20,000 such properties in Wales and 50,000 people on council house waiting lists. Meibion Glyndŵr believed that what was happening in rural Wales was ethnic cleansing and “cultural genocide”.
Operation Tân (Fire), a massive roundup of known Welsh nationalists on Palm Sunday, 30 March 1980, was the first use of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1976 in Wales. This law started life in 1974 as a temporary measure, a year of the worst violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Suspects were picked up in dawn raids but no evidence was found and no one was charged in connection with the arson attacks as a result of this activity which led to allegations of a “police state”. Papers obtained recently by Radio Cymru contained the following observation from a Home Office civil servant on the police view of patriots:
"As a result of my attendance at the last meeting of the committee of chief constables, I was left with some anxiety that the police generally and Mr. [name redacted] in particular, does not understand fully the….distinctions involved in studying subversive and criminal elements within a wide, legitimate political movement. Mr [...] seemed to think that the presence of law-abiding Welsh nationalists in influential positions in, for example, education and broadcasting was a matter worthy of notice by the police."
This operation, however, would eventually lead to the arrest of Dafydd Ladd who was found guilty of unrelated bomb attacks in the period from 1980 to 1982. British Steel offices and three Conservative clubs in Cardiff, another in Shotton and an Army Recruitment Office in Pontypridd were attacked. More chillingly, an explosive device was slipped through a window at the home of Nicholas Edwards, the Welsh Secretary. The Welsh Office building in Cardiff, a Severn Trent Water Authority building in Birmingham and National Coal Board offices in Stratford-upon-Avon and London were also bombed with a resumption in the use of gelignite in these attacks. Ladd was sentenced to nine years in prison and was connected to the Workers Army of The Welsh Republic.
In 1988, Meibion Glyndŵr changed their tactics. On 3 October, they attacked on a 250 mile long front, firebombing seven estate agents over the border with England-in Wellington, West Kirby, Chipping Camden, Neston, Worcester and Bristol. They associated these offices with the marketing of holiday homes in Wales and of course brought more police constabularies into the investigation.
On 26 November 1988, six estate agents in London’s West End were firebombed and a fireman was injured trying to tackle one of the blazes. Scotland Yard’s Anti-Terrorist Squad was recruited to the effort to detect the arsonists as were MI5 who provided 38 agents to assist the Welsh police. Taking their campaign of destruction to the English capital ensured publicity for the Meibion Glyndŵr cause that any number of attacks in the media ghetto backwater of Welsh-speaking North and West Wales would not have excited.
Letters signed “Rhys Gethin” (Owain Glyndŵr’s standard bearer and general) were received, stating that “English incomers and their businesses were in the firing line”. At this time, 57% of respondents in a HTV poll said they supported the aims of the arsonists.
In 1990, a letter bomb was sent to Land and Sea, a centre connected with yachting in Abersoch in the Lleyn peninsula. Sion Roberts, a known nationalist from Llangefni aged 21, was suspected and his flat was bugged by MI5 who also found bomb-making equipment. Further letter bombs were intercepted by a postal worker-the addressees were the head of North Wales CID, Detective Chief Superintendent Gwyn Williams, Detective Chief Inspector Maldwyn Roberts, the senior detective leading the hunt for Meibion Glyndŵr, and Conservative Party agent Elwyn Jones. Sion Roberts, who denied the accusations, was jailed on 26 March 1993 for 12 years. His co-defendants, Dewi Prysor Williams and David Gareth Davies, were acquitted of all charges. MI5 agents gave evidence from behind screens.
The arsons continued during the fifteen months the three accused were awaiting trial. In 1992 and early 1993, letters signed by Meibion Glyndŵr were sent to nineteen English families living in the Lleyn peninsula ordering them to leave Wales by 1 March 1993 or be burned out. These threats were written in Welsh and had to be translated as most of the recipients were unable to speak that language.
In 2017, the Welsh heartland has shrunk and changed shape, maybe ceased to exist. In the decade to 2013, it is estimated that more than 5,000 Welsh speakers left their country for England each year. In 2011, 21% of Wales’ population had been born in the neighbouring country. According to the Big Issue, more than 15,000 people become homeless each year in Wales. At the same time, Gwynedd is the county with the highest number of second homes in Wales-5,626.
There were 197 acts of arson attributed to Meibion Glyndŵr between 1979 and 1992-134 in North Wales, 43 in Dyfed-Powys police area and 20 in England but, to date, no one has been convicted of these offences. Like Owain Glyndŵr himself who disappeared into the mists of history, his “sons” seem to have adopted the same response to the end of their particular rebellion.
...
