From our This Day in Welsh History blog :-

The town of Bridgend in South Wales may seem a little remote from the main action in World war II. But on this day in 1945 a dramatic escape from the Island Farm POW camp in the town took place and for a short while 84 senior German military officers were roaming the Welsh countryside. Nearly all were subsequently caught having made it in a few cases as far as Birmingham and Southampton.

From the Wikipedia :- "Island Farm was a Prisoner of War Camp (Camp 198) on the outskirts of the town of Bridgend, South Wales. It hosted a number of Axis prisoners, mainly German, and was the scene of the largest escape attempt by German POWs in Britain during World War II. Near the end of the war it became known as Special Camp XI. The list of former inmates includes many senior SS military leaders, who were awaiting extradition to the Nuremberg trials.

Bridgend was also important during WWII for other reasons. It was the site of a massive ordnance factory at Brackla, just outside the town, which at peak production employed 40,000 workers, making it the largest single production plant in British history."

From the Wikipedia :- "Until 1936, the 900 acres (3.6 km2) of land occupied east to west by the Bridgend Industrial Estate, Brackla and the Brackla Industrial Estate was farm land. In 1936, noting the building propensity of war by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime, the British Government agreed creation of two new Royal Ordnance Factories, including one at Bridgend on the site of what is now Bridgend Industrial Estate. Needing to store munitions, they eventually dug eight long shafts under Brackla Hill, connecting it to two new ROF's on what is now Brackla Industrial Estate. Both facilities were connected to the Great Western Railway South Wales Main Line, with the line to the Barckla facility running along what is now Church Acre.[2] At its peak, ROF 53 employed some 40,000 people, and was the biggest single factory in Western Europe.

Once World War 2 ceased main operations, ROF 53 stopped production at the end of 1945, and closed completely by the end of 1946. The land was sold to property developers, with that north of the railway developed as a housing."

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Reproduced with permission from David Western's Portland Lovespoon Blog

Well, no sooner had we announced the contest to help design this year's Eisteddfod spoon, the ideas came flooding in! We're very excited to get such a positive response and we look forward to seeing lots more excellent ideas!

In case you missed it last week, here is the design for the spoon:

We'll be looking for 3 designs to fit the blank circular sections and are open to any and all ideas at this point. As mentioned earlier, you don't need to be an AmeriCymru member or have the artistic capabilities of a Rembrandt...you just need a desire to have some fun. Scribble down your best ideas and post them as comments at one of three locations:

• Dave Western's Blog
• AmeriCymru members
• Facebook members

You may enter as many ideas as you like but only one design idea per person will make it to the final poll.

The contest is open now and will close for entries on March 31 so you have chance to ammend, improve or re-do your entries you may have already sent or if you think of something better in the six weeks! The final poll to choose three designs will be up on all three sites for one month from April 1st and will close April 30. There are no restrictions to what you can enter -- pictures, photos, poems, whatever floats your boat! Just remember that it has to fit in a 2" inch diameter circle and I have to have a fighting chance of rendering it in wood. So photos of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling or the unedited text of Beowulf likely won't make the cut!! If you are Welsh or have Welsh ancestry, let your pride have free reign, if you aren't Welsh, pretend you are! Everybody is welcome to enter, we don't care if you are kids, grandparents, miserable cranks, wickedly irreverent humourists, capitalists, socialists, fat, thin, incredibly witty, ploddingly dull, even if you are English!! So go on, give it a go and don't use the old 'I can't draw' and 'I don't have the imagination for this kind of thing' routines, because we've already taken those....THAT'S why we're getting YOU to do the work for us!!!

Winners will be selected by public vote during the month of April. Visitors to the AmeriCymru website will be free to vote for their three favourites from 10 possibilities picked by a selection committee comprised of Ceri, Gaabi, Dave and Lorin. The selection possibilities will be chosen after a rigorous protocol of alcohol consumption, intense brawling, arguing and name-calling, in the Welsh tradition, has taken place within the committee.

We even have prizes!!! Fox Chapel Publishing have generously donated three copies of "The Fine Art of Lovespoon Carving" to be awarded for the three winning designs. As a bonus, you will also enjoy the unstinting praise and admiration of all who behold your champion design when they are announced on May 1!

Have fun and be part of the 2011 West Coast Eisteddfod!!! But please remember that the spoon's purpose is to help raise donations to support our event. Please see your way to helping with a donation and you could be the one who wins it!!

May be not new but certainly new to me ...great band from Wales, purveyors of 'punk folk-rock'...Weird Naked Indian. Listen to the tracks below then go here:- http://soundcloud.com/weirdnakedindian for more ( and here:- WNi The Garage Sessions )

Paul Potts - WNi The Garage Sessions

"Hello my name is Valerie.I am so thrilled to tell you that I am now a W-Icon!!This was the Sky and WI competition I entered to become the ultimate WI member, the result of which is introducing three learning guides which offer handy hints and tips of home management to sexual health and wellbeing for the over 50s. There are six guides in total which go live on Monday 13th October on so log on here and look!If you voted for me. Thank you.If you asked your friends to vote. Thank you. Thank you.Please do give them the good news. It was amazing, humbling, that so many people voted for me. Friends and friends of friends; People I know and love and people I have never met or am even likely to. I know that people from eastern Ukraine to the west coast of USA - From Latvia to Australia voted for me. That is truly amazing!The judges decided to have two W-Icons! Me, the oldest finalist, and Emma, one of the youngest. That was exactly right! Emma and I are both typical of WI. We both do the traditional things and embrace the modern. WI has always been a campaigning and educational organisation and I helped found a new educational campaign. The prize money, donated from Sky will get Learn with Grandma, a not for profit company, started. I read that 60% of grandparents in UK care for their grandchildren on a regular basis and wanted to help.With this prize money we can now make progress. Please visit our website . This website will have a facelift very soon and be linked to a new website for Learn with Grandma. I write educational books that include our unique Learn with Grandma fun activity pages. We suggest all sorts of activities that parents and teachers as well as grandparents can do with the children. All the activities are designed to bring the story to life, make learning fun and memorable.Now we can do more! One plan is to create a directory of useful websites and cheaper places to take children. Theme Parks are great. I love rollercoasters but, at over 100 for a day out, they are for high days and holidays. Throughout the country there are lots of great places to go that are either free or cost were little. Please tell us of places you know of. Initially, while we are building it, it will be an online directory. Later on we would hope to publish. Not everyone is computer savvy!Which brings me to another important project - Many grandparents, like me, are computer literate to a degree but we did not grow up with computers, as our grandchildren have. Many of us do not fully understand how to get the best from a computer and the internet. I am off to Germany in December to speak about this at a conference about e-learning. While there I will find out as much as I can about e-learning and, hopefully, find people who will join us in a project that will help older people catch up. Our aims are to help grandparents instil a love of learning; create lasting memories and have fun. We want to help older people use the internet with the same ease and proficiency as their grandchildren.By now you will have realised that we grannies have big plans to help other grandparents and that, wonderful as a prize of 10,000 is, it is not going to be nearly enough! 10,000 will get us started. If you would like to help, with a donation or a loan (a not for profit company can accept loans) or help voluntarily in some way Please get in touch.Thank you again if you did vote for me to be the W-Icon, and receiving the prize money from Sky, has got Learn with Grandma off to a good start.God BlessValerieMrs Valerie Wood-Gaiger MBE2008 Special Award for Innovation in Education GWIINDirector - Grandma's Stories LtdC-Founder - Learn with Grandma - a not for profit company.Brynamlwg, Myddfai, Llandovery, Carmarthenshire SA 20 0NZ, Wales U.K.01550 720994 See our website "

Welsh writer and 2012 West Coast Eisteddfod Online Short Story Competition winner Thomas Morris

Thomas Morris is from Caerphilly, South Wales. He has previously published short fiction in The Irish Times, The Moth, and Icarus, and has won first prize in both The Undercurrents Short Story Competition and the West Coast Eisteddfod. In 2012, he received an Emerging Artist Bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland.

Currently enrolled in the Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia, Thomas is working on a collection of short stories set in Caerphilly, and a novel, Second Best: The Diaries of a Substitute Goalkeeper. He is also a fiction editor with The Stinging Fly, a magazine and small press based in Dublin.

'Terramuni', which features here, is an extract from his as-yet-unpublished novella, 'As If I'm Standing In The Garden':-

Is she done yet?

I turn to answer; her head framed by Gareths living room window. The curtains are closed so you cant see anything, but you can still hear the music.

Is who duh-duh-done what?

The entertainment, I mean. Is she finished? She looks at the cake Im still holding.

I the word dunno gets stuck in my teeth. The done caught me out just there, and now Ive got a block on Ds again. I take a quick, shallow breath and decide to bounce off the first word.

I-think so, I say.

Whad you mean you think so? she says straight back, like she was at the net, waiting to volley the word right back at me.

Someones . . . I take another sharp breath to avoid stuttering. Someones-taken-her-stethoscope.

Fucks sake, the girl says, getting off the wall and heading to the front door.

Then she looks at me one more time. I dunno whats the matter with you fuckin boys, but you have to keep stealing the fuckin stethoscope dun you?

Im sorry, I say.

And thats all I can think.

Also featuring 'Aston Villa Baby':-

The baby was born in a full Aston Villa football kit. That is to say it came out of the womb like that. In a full football kit. How did it get there?

The doctors were mystified. Nothing in the ultrascans indicated such an abnormality. And it didnt make much sense to the parents either. None of them even supported Aston Villa.

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Eto specializes in Welsh fiction by Welsh writers and persons of Welsh descent from around the globe. We will also be featuring poetry, literary reviews and interviews. Visual arts and photography features will also be considered.

Sponsoring websites:- Kindle Authors AmeriCymru

Contact the editors Phil Rowlands Ceri Shaw Gaabriel Becket ( or use the contact form on this page ) Now accepting submissions for our 2nd Issue ( September 2013 )

To enter the 2013 West Coast Eisteddfod Online Short Story Competition please go here :- West Coast Eisteddfod 2013 Online Short Story Competition

There are many ways to enjoy this new feature. Lets start with the easiest.

Doing Crossword Puzzles

1. Select your crossword from the various categories at the top of the page OR from the Home , Latest , Popular or Solved lists.
2. To answer a clue, click in the first space in the word and enter your letter. Repeat until all the letter spaces are solved then click 'Solve Question'. If you are correct proceed to the next clue and repeat. The program will alert you if you have made an error. When you have finished all the clues click on 'Check Result'. If you have successfully solved the puzzle a popup box will appear to congratulate you. Click 'x' or 'Cancel' to dismiss.
3. If you are logged in you will be credited with having solved the crossword on the 'Solved' page ( and elsewhere ). This will only happen if you are logged in to the site when you complete the puzzle SO why not sign up now? Here is the Log In page.

Adding Questions

The questions in the database are crowd sourced. Which means that everyone gets a chance to contribute. If you have a few minutes to spare why not add a few questions to the appropriate category? The more questions the better the result when people click 'Create Crossword' ( see below ). All questions are checked and approved before being added to the db so please try and pick the best category in order to save our moderators time. If you add to the Cryptic category your clues need not reference Wales in any way, shape or form. We hope to develop a weekly cryptic crossword as a regular site feature. We may also hold competitions for best cryptic clue and top cryptic puzzle solver. Just follow the directions on the popup menu below to add questions. The popup menu can be accessed from the home page

Creating Crossword Puzzles

The Easy Way A further advantage to being logged in is that your account will be credited with the crossword puzzles that you create. To create a crossword the easy way simply click on 'Create Crossword' on the home page and the following dialog box will appear:-

Ignore the 'Click here' link at the top of the display and give your crossword a title and description. Then choose the category and the size of the grid ( 15, 20 or 23 ) from the dropdown menus. You can also elect to create an easy , moderate or hard crossword. Remember you will need to be logged in if you want your creation to be added to 'My Crosswords'. If not it will be credited to the Guest account. Please also remember that the program will not always be able to generate the desired grid size. This is entirely dependent on the number of clues in the category database.

The hard way OK so it's not really all that hard. Just click on 'Click here" at the top of the dialog box ( see above ) and you will be taken to this page Just follow the instructions to create a fully customized crossword. You can pick and mix questions from the different categories and add your own questions for immediate insertion. With a little bit of work you can set up your crossword just the way you want it. Enjoy