The Harbinger?

This headline suggests that the Mosleyite rump are more familiar with the Bayer Wald  than they are with Wales, but there's no denying they have some very comprehensive on-line historical archives.

They're so good that a few minutes research is all you need to come-up with a shed-load of pre-war Welsh fascists.  Real ones, not the pretend Welsh nationalist version that get Labour and it's drones all hot and bothered.

We learn that two blackshirts were killed in the Gresford disaster, one having gone back down the pit after his shift  to sell copies of the Action newspaper; that Barry Docks was a bit of a fascist hotbed and that even red Maerdy had a no-doubt shortlived BUF branch.   Prominent councillors like Mainwaring-Hughes in Swansea and W. O. Roberts in Caernarfonshire threw in their lot with Mosley and the World War One flying ace Rhys Soar was North Wales Organizer for OM's party.  Even Radnorshire was caught up in the excitement, with local farmers being invited to attend a BUF meeting in Knighton in June 1934.

Why entitle this piece the Harbinger?  Well in the 1940s - while Labour set out to build socialism, the Tories sought to hang on to Empire and nationalists dreamed of a Welsh state - Mosley's dream was of a united Europe.  Which of these was the most prescient?

Today we have local councillors under the thumb of their officials, companies run for the benefit of managers rather than shareholders, public money spent by unaccountable quangos and charities and powers transferred to a highly centralised, far from democratic Brussels.  It's a long way from Small is Beautiful or the Breakdown of Nations; infact the spirit of the age seems a lot closer to the elitist managerial corporatism envisaged by Mosley.

My Radnorshire Mama

According to Michael Foot's biography Nye Bevan had a Radnorshire mother.  In reality Phoebe Protheroe was born in Tredegar.  Her people were from Glasbury though, that part of the parish south of the Wye purloined by Brecknockshire in 1832.  Clearly Bevan's family can't have approved that act of theft.

George Lansbury actually made it to the leadership of the Labour Party and he certainly had a Radnorian mother, she was from Clyro.  Lansbury was proud of his Radnorshire roots, he was also the grandfather of actress Angela Lansbury and of Oliver Postgate - creator of the Clangers.

Perhaps our readers would like to guess at the identity of a third noted left-wing politician with local connections:

1.  Born in Merthyr in 1894, his mother, Emily Lewis, came from the Radnorshire village of Penybont.

2.  Imprisoned in 1917 for sedition.

3.  Came within 3000 votes of winning Rhondda East for the Communist Party.

4.  Took part in the 1916 Easter Rising.

5.  General Secretary of the NUM from 1946 to 1959.

You should have got it by now, otherwise click here for the answer.

Radnorshire Picts?

Take an interest in the historical uses of DNA and you soon learn not to get too excited about the latest headline.

Humans and Neanderthals never interbred says one piece of research, oh yes they did say subsequent articles; the Welsh and the English have quite different DNA says one, no they're remarkably similar says another.  Throw in the tendency of the media to sensationalize and the best thing to do is take things with a pinch of salt and await further developments.

A couple of months ago we were told that a Pictish marker had been isolated, see here for example.  All very interesting and who knows it might even turn-out to be true ...... possibly.  One of the flies in the ointment of this Pictish theory is a possible hotspot that shares the same marker, L1335+, which is said to be centred in Radnorshire.  It's even got a name "Wales II Cadwgon."

Why Cadwgon?  Well here it get's a bit daft.  The marker turned up in some fellow called Miles whose ancestor took part in Radnorshire's Quaker migration to Pennsylvania in the 17C.  With a complete misunderstanding of how Welsh surnames are formed, this Miles was then assumed to be linked to the Miles family of Kinnerton* - who by the way preserved the Book of Taliesin for posterity.  The Kinnerton Miles family traced it's ancestry to the 11C ruler of East Central Wales, Cadwgan ab Elystan Glodrydd, hence "Wales II Cadwgon."

Of course this may all be true.  We're talking about male-to-male Y-chromosones here, and although democrats like to think they're the direct descendant in the male-line from some hardy medieval peasant, chances are they're not.  Bottlenecks ensure you're far more likely to be a male-line descendant of a roguish prince or baron, someone like Cadwgan ab Elystan Glodrydd.

So let's accept for a moment that Pictish ancestry can indeed be identified and that the Radnorshire examples are also descendants of Picts.  Is there any historical evidence?  Now I've posted a theory that minor kingdoms like Gwerthrynion and Arwystli were formed to protect the headwaters of the Wye and the Severn from 5C Irish expansion - see here.  Who better to add a bit of backbone than to import a few warlike Pictish mercenaries to the area.  Of course that's just my outlandish theory, so here's something a bit more  substantial from the Jesus College MS 20 genealogies: 

Einyaw a Katwallawn llawhir Deu vroder oedynt. Ac eu dwy vam oedynt chwioryd merchet y didlet brenhin gwydyl fichti ym pywys.

The relevant bit translates as "Didlet king of the gwydyl fichti in Powys." The gwydyl fichti meaning either Irish Picts or wild Picts but definitely Picts.

Radnorshire Picts?  Perhaps our friends at Llwyth Elystan need to get tested, perhaps they already have?

* That's Kinnerton in Radnorshire not the one in Flintshire

Songs of the Defeated

Something new everyday and today I found out about Aikake.  Now Hawaii may have a whole lot more devolved powers than anything envisaged for Wales, but clearly too little and far too late.  When you've ended up as a less than 6% minority in your own country then living in a shack on a beach seems a pretty good option.

Of course we're all supposed to abhor such narrow nationalism and that beauty spot clearly needs a golf course ..... book 'em Danno!

UPDATE:  These people were evicted from the beach in 1996, no golf course yet though - or even a windfarm - probably due to the proximity of a US Army live-fire training area.

The talented Mr Henry

Richard Wyn Jones' new book (see previous post) provoked quite a reaction on twitter, well two tweets at least.  But then as Professor Jones pointed out there's a reluctance in Wales to get to grips with the real history of Welsh fascism rather than banging-on about Saunders Lewis.  Let's try and help fill in one or two blanks.

To students of British fascism Leigh Vaughan-Henry is one of the more obnoxious Jew haters of the 1930s.  A one time director of music for the British Union of Fascists, a "notorious pro-Nazi" according to the Home Office and someone suspected of having links with German intelligence.  Little wonder that he was picked-up in the summer of 1940 and sat out the rest of the war in various of His Majesty's establishments.

Dig a little deeper and you find that Leigh Henry - the Vaughan was a later addition - was born in Liverpool in 1889, the son of a man who features in the Dictionary of Welsh Biography, John Henry the Porthmadoc born composer of favourites such as Gwlad y Delyn.  Young Leigh was also a talented musician and joined Edward Gordon Craig as director of music at his experimental theatre institute in Florence. Leigh Henry was fortunate to avoid the bloodbath of the First World War as a civilian internee in the Ruhleben Camp; while, back home, his wife Nancy - they had married in 1911 - pursued a friendship with D H Lawrence.

It was in the 1920s, after the closure of his radical cultural journal Fanfare that Leigh Henry returned with a vengeance to his Welsh roots.  He joined the Gorsedd in 1923 and often figured in Eisteddfodic proceedings as a composer, conductor and lecturer.  His poetry and short-stories were published in magazines such as Welsh Outlook and he appeared regularly on the radio. In 1926 for example Henry hosted a St David's Day programme of Welsh folk music on 2LO.  A pleasant appointment at this time must have been as musical adviser to Clara Novello's Royal Welsh Ladies Choir on a tour of Australia and Noth America.

Divorced from his first wife, Leigh Henry was briefly married, it seems, to the vivacious American war correspondent Paula Lecler - forgotten now, but a woman whose globe trotting derring-do made Martha Gellhorn look like a stay-at-home.  Subsequently Henry married (bigamously it later transpired) a German woman, while always paying attention to wealthy ladies such as Winifred Coombe-Tennant and his fellow composer and musicologist Margaret Glyn.  The latter left him her fortune in 1945.  Shortly before she died Henry is said to have conducted the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in a symphony composed by Glyn at the 1945 National Eisteddfod.

A Radnorshire connection?  Well Henry wrote a biography and a rather badly received play about the composer John Bull (1563-1628), although he was unaware that Bull probably came from Old Radnor.

Leigh Henry died in 1958, having seemingly managed to keep his various identities quite separate - the progressive English musicologist and composer, the Welsh eisteddfodwr and the Union Jack waving anti-Semite.

The Big Lie

This thoroughly researched book, it's really an extended essay of 112 pages, exposes the big lie that Welsh nationalists can somehow be implicated  with pre-war fascism. The accusations just don't stand up to Professor Jones's scrutiny and are shown to be without foundation, unworthy of any decent person.

Such a serious book should receive wide attention so I'd like to restrict my comments to a couple of minor themes explored in the chapter entitled Diwylliant Gwleidyddol Cymru.

Firstly, while the lies about Welsh nationalism and fascism are recurring elements on the Welsh political scene, there has been virtually no effort to discuss the real Welsh fascists of the 1930s.  This is the solitary exception from the pen of an English academic.




I don't really agree with Professor Jones about the significance of the 30% polled by the Mosleyite candidate in Merthyr in 1931. It was a straight fight and in 1929 the Tories and Liberals had polled 40%. Certainly Mosley's long-time associate Jeffrey Hamm has been ignored in Wales, just as cosy myths about the Spanish Civil War are preferred to, say, examining the life of a revolutionary like Billy Griffiths.  Such people are confined to the footnotes.  I'd like to add a couple more forgotten names: the ex-Communist from Cardiff, Rupert Arthur Beavan, an influential BUF organiser in West Ham; and the Liverpool-Welsh journalist Norah Briscoe (nee Davies).  She wrote for the Daily Mirror, was jailed for wartime spying in an MI5 sting operation and later wrote a well-received prison novel No Complaints in Hell.  In contrast to exploring the lives of these real but forgotten fascists and others like them, we must endure the frequently regurgitated fantasies against Plaid Cymru.  Why?

Is it because socialists don't want to explore their own backyard?  After all Mosley was on the radical wing of the Labour Party, an ally of the likes of William Cove, Nye Bevan and A J Cook.  No Welsh parliamentarians followed Mosley into the fascist wilderness but plenty of other former Labour and ILP MPs and ex-candidates in England did, and not just those involved with the short-lived New Party.  Did these people suddenly stop being socialists or did they believe that the Fascist's policies of state worship, corporatism and collectivism were not a thousand miles from their previous standpoints?

Secondly Professor Davies makes a sad but surely correct observation when he suggests that the big lie has been around for so long and been revived so often that many Welsh nationalists have come to believe that it must be true.  Why is this?

Is it because Welsh activists are so involved with domestic matters that they have little time for the wider world?  You see this in the way the Welsh blogosphere has little of interest to say about foreign affairs.  Do Welsh nationalists nowadays see the wider world only through the prism of the BBC?  Does Plaid Cymru want to be loved by the British left - who they seem to view as moral arbiters qualified to pass judgement on Wales and her history?  My own view is that it's high-time that we engaged with the world and not just the  bien pensants.

Showtime

I've often thought that, left to its own devices, Wales would have developed a system of government somewhat along the lines of the Swiss cantons.  Fat chance of that happening of course, when we had the misfortune to share an island with such ambitious neighbours.

You find tantalising hints of the potential democratic canton in references like Lewis Glyn Cothi's request poem to the men of Elfael, or the men of Maelienydd paying £500 to confirm their medieval hunting rights.  Even in the 1630s the good people of Maelienydd were able to raise over £740, which they gave to King Charles to enable him to buy back the local Commons.  He had absent-mindedly sold them off to some rouge or other.  All these things, and we can find other examples, demanded an organisation of some sort and an organisation that had a fairly wide membership.  Even before the election of the first county council in 1889 the Radnorshire squirearchy realised that it had to rub along with the common herd, with arrogant newcomers soon learning that life was more comfortable if you didn't antagonise the locality.

It must have been this sense of localism that prompted some Radnorshire and Breconshire councillors to dip into their own pockets to raise much of the £23000 necessary to purchase the old Llanelwedd Hall estate in the early 1960s.  This was then gifted to the RWAS, enabling that organisation to provide a permanent home for the Royal Welsh Show. It's a bit hard to believe isn't it, not handing over a grant, but dipping into their own pockets!

I wonder what young people imagine life was like in 1960s Radnorshire?  One of my earliest political memories was of Tudor Watkins MP making a speech in our village street.  The gist of his message was that he knew exactly what the local councillors were up to, and he was the man to put a stop to them.  So what exactly were they guilty of?  Building council houses in almost every village? Maintaining roads that were the envy of  our neighbours; schools; libraries; social services; refuse collections, we had all that.  And all run without the assistance of the droves of imported officials deemed necessary for such things to function nowadays.

Of course a saintly few might have seen it as unfair that local families got the council houses and local school leavers got the council jobs, but at least the councillors could be voted off.  How do you get rid of an anonymous apparatchik without at least providing them with a cosy nest-egg?  Back in the 1960s we still had a degree of local government and now, perhaps for the first time in a thousand years, it doesn't feel very local at all.

Forgotten Radnorians - The Nabob

Here's a face that wouldn't look out of place perusing the stock pens at Llanelwedd, although in reality he found fortune in the Orient rather than the hills of Radnorshire.

It's a paradox that although Welsh was in rapid retreat across the Radnorshire countryside during the late 18C and early 19C, this only seems to have inspired some of the county's sons to take a deeper interest in the language and its antiquities.  For example the autodidact William Probert of Painscastle translated Y Gododdin and Edward Davies of Llanfaredd's researches earned him the sobriquet Celtic Davies.  Another who can be added to the list of the Welsh Language's Radnorian well-wishers was the man pictured, Thomas Phillips (1760-1851)

Although Phillips was born within the sound of Bow Bells, he came from a Nantmel family and spent part of his childhood in the county.  Having made a fortune in India and consolidated it with the purchase of a profitable estate in the Windward Islands, he returned to London and devoted himself to educational philanthropy.

Phillips gave over 22000 books to St David's College, Lampeter, endowing a chair of natural science at the college.  He also planned to endow a chair of Welsh but the Anglican hierarchy were having none of it.  Suitably rebuffed Phillips and his Radnorian friend John Jones of Cefnfaes planned to open their own Welsh Educational Institution in Rhayader.  Problems purchasing suitable land saw them transfer the project to Llandovery, leading to the opening of the College on St David's Day 1848. Phillips provided £4666 and 7000 books towards the new institution, in his will he would leave a further £12000.  Phillips and Jones stipulated that the Welsh language be taught at the college and that, for some portion of the day, it should be the only medium of communication and instruction.  A man ahead of his time.

Did Elaine Morgan ever live in Radnorshire?

How celebrated would Elaine Morgan have been if she'd lived in Hampstead instead of Mountain Ash?  She would surely have made it into the pages of Private Eye as yet another example of the London hacks over-use of the term "a national treasure."

As well as speaking with a regional accent and living in "the valleys" -  the current stereotype of the Welsh is based on television programmes such as BBC3's The Call Centre or MTV's The Valleys, certainly not on working-class girls who went to Oxford - Elaine Morgan also made the mistake of rather charmingly propounding an idea which is quite unacceptable to the closed ranks of academia:

I certainly agree with her comment that the scientific establishment is morphing into a priesthood and our reaction should be to treat them with the same lack of reverence that all chasuble wearers deserve.

No doubt the London broadsheets will eventually get around to printing an obituary and it may contain a reference, like Trevor Fishlock's piece, to Ms Morgan having once lived in Radnorshire.  The source for this will have been her autobiography Knock 'em Cold, Kid which mentions living on the border between Radnorshire and Herefordshire in Michaelchurch Escley.  Of course Michaelchurch Escley isn't near Radnorshire at all, and the farm mentioned, The Birches, certainly seems to be there and not in Radnorshire's Michaelchurch-on-Arrow.

It's a shame, but Radnorshire can't claim a connection with this talented woman.

Another review of a book I haven't read

It's more than 800 years since Giraldus reported that some of his Norman compatriots thought it best to turn Wales into an "unpopulated forest area and game preserve."  Which is pretty much what George Monbiot advocates in his recently published book.

George doesn't like the Cambrian Mountains, the Cambrian Desert he calls it; indeed he describes losing the will to live when faced with its bleakness.  Now as it happens, and as you can see from the satellite photo, Elenydd* isn't really an unproductive desert at all.  It's a major supplier of water - which presumably Guardian readers occasionally drink.  It produces electricity - both sensible (hydro) and daft (wind) - commercial forestry and the dastardly sheep.

Monbiot doesn't like sheep and I tend to agree with a good deal of what he has to say.  There is an over-dependence on sheep in Wales and Elenydd would certainly benefit from large areas being fenced off and restored to natural woodland. I'm not sure how that would affect the water catchment areas mind, and since he doesn't mention the reservoirs I'm guessing George doesn't either.

Of course the agricultural grant system encourages many of the wrong things, but what can Wales - or the UK for that matter - do about it?  I agree with Monbiot that grant aid should be restricted to smaller, family run farms, I agree that mad regulations should be ditched - the rule that fallen stock must be carted away rather than left to the raptors for example.  But these matters are decided in Brussels.  It's a puzzle to me why so many of the forces - the left, the unions, Plaid Cymru - who opposed it in 1975, are now the most enthusiastic backers of this constipated European cleptocracy.

Back at the end of the Sixties the Countryside Commission was pushing for the establishment of a Cambrian Mountains National Park.  They wanted it to open by 1972, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Yellowstone National Park.  Monbiot is also inspired by Yellowstone and especially its success in reintroducing the wolf.  He'd take it a step further though and bring back bears, bison, lynx and beaver to the hills of Mid-Wales. 

Personally I'd like to see the future of areas such as Elenydd decided, not by GATT, or the EU, or bored English environmentalists, but by the people of Wales.  I guess that makes me as much of a fantasist as George and the dream of elephants munching their way through Rhayader's Atlantic rain forest.

* I think it should be more properly called Elenid but Elenydd seems to have won the day.

A44

On this beautiful summer's day let's take a trip from the Herefordshire border town of Kington to Cardigan Bay.  Despite being the birthplace of one Radnorshire icon (Ffransis Payne) and the resting place of another (Elen Gethin) the 2011 Census shows Kington to be a thoroughly English place, 92% of the town claiming no Welsh identity of any kind.

No worries, we're soon over the border and crossing two Welsh community council areas, Old and New Radnor.  Back in Victorian times there were plans to erect a giant statue of the Duke of Wellington here, it would have dominated the Vale of Radnor.  Perhaps it should have gone ahead since both communities recorded 71% No Welsh identity in 2011.  The locals may have opted for a Welsh-only identity, but there were precious few of them around to bother the enumerators.

Cross Radnor Forest and, in the community council area of Penybont, Welsh identifiers are in the majority .... well just, with 49% opting for a non-Welsh identity.  The same is true (49% non-Welsh) in Llanbadarn Fawr - casual visitors will know it as Crossgates, the Post Office having made up the name to avoid confusion with a place further along our route.

We pass through Nantmel (52% non-Welsh) to arrive in the bwgi-wonderland of Rhaeadr Gwy.  As late as the 1960s the children of Rebecca were said to have dangled an over-zealous police officer from the Wye bridge until he promised to turn a blind eye to their activities. It's a much more law-abiding place today, with 45% claiming no affinity with such wild Welshness.

Respectible folk will be glad to leave Radnorshire and its "half things" behind as we enter the Montgomeryshire community of Llangurig (42% non-Welsh) with the promise of Ceredigion and a glimpse of the sea to come. Geraint Howells used to boast that his old cynefin - it's now officially called Blaen Rheidol - was a place where Cardis lived even though the crows starved.  The non-Welsh seem to be doing fairly well too - 51% no-Welsh identity.

We come to Melindwr - I'm the casual visitor now and would recognize it as Capel Bangor - and, saints be praised, the non-Welsh element is a miniscule 39%.  Dafydd ap Gwilym's Llanbadarn Fawr soon jolts us back to reality (58% non-Welsh).  Heavens, it's even less Welsh than Crossgates!  And so we arrive in cosmopolitan Aberystwyth, with a 55% Non-Welsh population. Its hardly surprising that I rarely hear Cymraeg on the streets or in the shops during my occasional visits to the town.

Does any of this matter?  You tell me.

Mythology .....you couldn't make it up

"let's build some modern myths and legends"

Well that's the opinion expressed in one anonymous comment to the blog.  Now of course this implies that there are not-so-modern myths and legends, which is obviously true, although you won't find them here.

When we occasionally discuss the more than 250 year resistance of the rulers of East Central Wales to the Norman invaders, we're not making it up.  You can read all about it in the contemporary record - not so much in the works of our Welsh historians mind,  indeed the best summary is to be found in a book by the UKIP candidate for Weaver Vale.

Welsh bardic poets and their Radnorshire patrons?  Again you don't need to invent a thing, for example more than 50 of the works of Lewis Glyn Cothi addressed to Radnorshire folk have survived, as well as poems by other bards too numerous to mention.  No need to go chasing after Shelley and his brief sojourn in Cwm Elan or Wordsworth's Radnorshire cousins.  There's a far more substantial body of work relevant to us as Radnorshire folk, we don't have to search for crumbs under another man's table.

The Rebeccaite organisation of Victorian Radnorshire?  Well it clearly existed, although I'll admit that they didn't donate their minute books and papers to the National Library. 

 If you want modern myths and legends best tune in to the BBC and not just their news output.  Be guided by their costume drama department and you'd hardly guess that most of the kings of England, pre-15C, spoke French or that all those RADA accents in Jane Austen are just so much codswallop.  The Welsh? Well according to the BBC's world view we didn't even exist back then. I suppose it serves a purpose though, to inform the masses that power properly belongs to people who sound like, that's right, the lads and lasses at the BBC.

Modern myths?  I'd nominate the attempt by the heritage crowd to turn Radnorshire into Kilvert Country and, as another comment pointed out, we have the Llandoddies.  These grotesques have spawned a series of children's books - the first rather disconcertingly published by Y Lolfa - authored by one Griswallt ap Llechitwyt - hilarious name what.  There was a time Radnorians did have names that appeared strange to foreign eyes:  Angharad verch Lello Bedo ap Madock of Llanvihangell Rhidython to give just one example.  Not joke names to amuse the ill-informed, but the real names of our Radnorshire forebears.

Out of the mouths

Now this young lad is obviously far too bright for the likes of Obama and Hague, but if you're wondering who should come out on top in Egypt, well he might be able to help.

Musical Interlude

It's good to see the Holohan sisters are back on youtube after a long exile on dailymotion.  I've picked out this performance because of its connection to the Radnorshire border country - it was one of the songs collected by Vaughan Williams from Mrs Powell of Westhope, Herefordshire.  I usually disable the show suggested video box but in the sisters' case I've made an exception - their version of Down By the Glenside is particularly fine.

Radnorshire Favouritism

Anyone interested in history - and I'm one of those who believe you can't understand the present without knowing a bit about the past - will welcome the ever-expanding coverage of Welsh Newspapers Online.

A couple of stories that caught my eye from the most recent upload were:

A report of two court cases at Presteigne Assizes in 1903 before Mr Justice Phillimore.  First-up a case involving seven Rhayader men accused of viciously assaulting water bailiffs in the employ of the Wye Board of Conservators.  A dangerous job being a bailiff on the upper Wye; and, as so often at Rhayader, the taking of salmon seems to have involved a large crowd acting in broad daylight.  Verdict - Not Guilty, with the judge accepting that in three cases this was fair, but as for the others ......

Next up six Newbridge men also accused of battering employees of the Wye Board - and on Christmas Eve as well.  This time the judge was more forthright in his summing-up, he regretted that the previous jury had either lacked sense or honesty and he hoped that the present jury would not entertain the idea of dismissing the defendants solely on the grounds that they were Radnorshire men.  Suitably warned the jurors withdrew, only to return shortly with another not guilty verdict. They obviously believed the men's story that they were innocent carol singers. This left the judge with nothing much to say, other than to express the wish that such cases no longer be heard in the county.

One lesson we can learn from old court cases such as these is how speedily they were dealt with, nowadays the legal profession would make sure they spent far longer feeding at the public trough. In the interests of justice, of course.

The second story concerns the Festival of Welsh Beauty held at Llandrindod's Albert Hall in 1910 and run by an organization called the International Association of Beauty Queens Ltd.  With travel and accommodation costs paid for, some 29 ladies - the competition was open to any girl of Welsh descent aged over 17 - descended on the resort from all over Wales and beyond.  First prize was a lightweight bicycle worth ten guineas and the promise of a trip to Paris in the company of  the organiser Mr Forsyth.  H'm.

The competition was to be judged  by the votes of the entire audience at the town's Albert Hall and perhaps this was a mistake:  First - Miss Annie Brick of Howey 347 votes, Second - Miss Jackson of Manchester 119 votes, Third - Miss Lily Davies of Llandrindod.  Foul cried the South Wales papers, they blamed local favouritism for the defeat of their local beauties.

A Reluctant Welsh Blogger

This blog started out to cover snippets of Radnorshire history - basically to show that the county was part and parcel of mainstream Wales and not, for example, as this offering would have it: "neither in Wales nor England, but simply Radnorshire." Well-meaning perhaps, but for me comments like this just play into the hands of our ill-wishers and have no real basis in historical fact.

Occasionally I've allowed myself a rant about some contemporary issue or other and this is probably why my blog got listed on Blog Wales, where it rubs shoulders with more mainstream political offerings.  I feel a bit embarrassed by this.  Do my new readers really want to be informed about some minutiae from Radnorshire's past?   I'm tempted to tailor my material to suit the new audience but that's not really on. So apologies to anyone expecting a Radnorian take on NHS reform or Climate Change.

Over the years I've posted a lot about the Rebecca Riots in Radnorshire.  Whereas in most of Wales these actions were done and dusted by the 1840s, in western Radnorshire they continued throughout the Victorian period and even as late as the 1930s.  Tory magistrates thought better of convicting the Rebeccaites while Edwardian Liberal politicians found it expedient to praise them.  Aimed mainly at the fishery laws, Rebecca's activities also encompassed actions against evictions and enclosures, over-pricing by shopkeepers and so on.

Knowing all this I was still a little gobsmacked to read about this action in 1916. With the socialists of  Merthyr Tydfil competing to see who could be more jingoistic in their support for the war and Lloyd George on the verge of becoming prime minister, you'd imagine that red, white and blue would have been the order of the day.  Perhaps Radnorshire is a world of its own after all.

"A Radnorshire Farm Boy" - BBC, 28th June 2013

It's getting on for four decades years since Westminster decided to abolish the old county of Radnorshire but still it won't lie down.  When Dan Lydiate turns out for the Lions later today, it's unlikely that the BBC will refer to him as a Powys farm boy.  Being based upon the old gwlad of Rhwng Gwy a Hafren there is something organic about Radnorshire which that modern-day invention, Powys, fails to emulate.

So best wishes to Dan and while we're at it let's remember another Radnorshire rugby player who twice toured Australia with a British Isles team, the second occasion in 1908 as captain.  A F Harding may have been born in Shropshire but his father was a Welsh doctor who took up residence in New Radnor when young Arthur was just two years of age.  Harding snr. continued to serve as the village physician for a further 40 years, he was also a local JP and a Tory member of Radnorshire County Council.

Who knows, young Lydiate might one-day emulate his Radnorian predecessor and actually play in a Welsh side that beats the All Blacks!

We're the future, your future

That perspicacious blogger Jac o' the'North has been looking at the census figures and it's instructive to compare his figures on "Country of Birth" for the current Welsh counties with those for Radnorshire.

In 1981 the Welsh-born were the largest group in 20 of the 24 Radnorshire communities.  By 2001 the Welsh-born were still on top in 16 of the (by then) 27 communities, but by 2011 it had fallen to just 10 out of 27.  It's a fair assumption that by today Aberedw, Llanyre and Penybont will also have joined the ranks of those with an English majority, leaving, just 7 Radnorshire communities out of 27 with the Welsh as the largest grouping.

In the 30 years between 1981 and 2011 the population of Radnorshire has grown from 20902 to 25821, but the number born in Wales has fallen by over 13%, from 12254 to 10604.  Meanwhile the English born figure has risen from 8052 to 13938, an increase of over 70%.  Of course it can be argued that part of this increase is due to the use of maternity hospitals across the border, but in reality many of the largest increases are in communities in the west of the county.

It comes as something of a surprise to find that when we compare Welsh-only identifiers with the total Welsh-born population of the county we arrive at a figure of 87%.  Only Gwynedd is marginally higher.  Clearly the Welsh-born folk of  Radnorshire feel more Welsh than ever.  Here's a map showing the position in the various communities:.

:

Of course this is of little importance when the number of Welsh majority communities has fallen from 20 to just 7.  Before long it should be possible to drive from Kington to Cardigan Bay without crossing a single community where the Welsh are in the majority.  What price Wales then?

Take it down from the mast....

Flags matter, symbols matter, slogans matter.  Would I have been quite such a jolly welshman if I hadn't grown-up seeing all the "Free Wales" slogans painted on walls in Mid-Wales during the 1960s.  At least they showed that not everyone agreed with the status quo and that there was another point of view.  Even today my heart lifts a little when I see Owain Glyndwr's banner fluttering in the streets of a border town or outside a cottage in some unexpected corner of Radnorshire.  Indeed I wouldn't be surprised if one 1960s "Home Rule" slogan had more impact on the general population than any number of our modern-day blog posts.  So I don't decry the part-time patriots of the National Stadium or the dressing-up associated with St David's day, better that than nothing at all.

The flag at the top of this post is a proposed Radnorshire flag which is being pushed by some (thanks to poster Fferllys for bringing it to my attention).  It's a pretty design incorporating the boar's head of Elystan Glodrydd with the azure and gold colours of the Mortimer family.  And there you have the problem.  The Mortimers were petty conquistadores who attempted to steal the lands of the Radnorshire folk and murder their leaders and patriots.  Why on earth would any Radnorian want to celebrate these rogues?  Let them stay in Wigmore where they belong.  At least the banner flown by the good folk of Llwyth Elystan - it's based on the arms of Cadwgan ab Elystan - has none of this Mortimer nonsense.

Of course there's a good chance that the Mortimer design could be adopted, after all Pembrokeshire already has a county flag which is seemingly flown from public buildings, you can even buy one on ebay.  Oh and look how it's advertised

Isn't that the truth of the matter, these flags appeal to those who would prefer to live in the English county of Pembrokeshire?

Wales has a flag and let's not forget that it only achieved official recognition in 1959.  The enemies of Wales have always seen the value of symbols, which is why they fought a rearguard action against Y Ddraig Goch, even trying to foist this monstrosity on the country as recently as the mid 1950s.

You're Welsh and you know you are....

..... it's a football chant that is sometimes used to wind-up the fans of Hereford United, and like all good insults it works because it has an element of truth.

Now why Herefordians, especially those from the south and west of the county, should be at all ashamed of  their Welsh roots is a puzzle.  After all native speakers of a Celtic language lived-on in Herefordshire for a hundred years after Cornish had died out.  Yet while the Cornish are rightly proud of their heritage, Herefordshire, even her local historians, seems to be in denial.

The author of this little book* - it was written in 2003, published in 2006 but I've only just got around to obtaining a copy - hopes that it will go some way to rectifying a situation where "the great majority" of those in Welsh Herefordshire are unaware of their history.

Does it succeed?  I think not. The book concentrates far too much on earlier times rather than the more recent past; and too much on general Welsh history rather than particular Herefordshire concerns.

The first 143 pages take us up to Owain Glyndwr, whereas the next 600 years merit just 28 pages.  You'll look in vain for the clash between the Welsh party and their English rivals in 15C Hereford.  There's no mention of Hergest and it's importance to Welsh literature nor of the Herefordshire patrons of the Welsh bardic tradition in the 15C and 16C.  Although the survival of the Welsh language into the 19C is mentioned there's no real detail; you'd be better off reading this blog: here for example. or here, or to save too much searching, here.

An annoying aspect of the book is the way in which the origins of some local placenames are guessed at because of their similarity to modern Welsh words. An old fault of the amateur historian which really shouldn't have a place in a 21C work.

 

* Herefordshire, the Welsh Connection, Carreg Gwalch, £6.90

Quiet flows the Teme

Rhwng Gwy a Hafren, the lands between the Severn and the Wye, they don't receive much consideration from our Welsh historians.  It's not as if they didn't play an important part in the history of our country - there's a reason why Llywelyn was killed at Cilmeri* and Owain Glyndwr's most important victory was won on the banks of the Lugg.  This area was the strategic key to Wales; if Maelienydd and Elfael resisted the enemy, and they usually did, then the territorial integrity of the Cymry was a tad more secure..

Everyone knows that the Severn and the Wye flow eastwards into England, but I wonder how many are conscious of those other Radnorshire rivers that head eastward into the English heartlands, the Teme, the Lugg and the Arrow.  The Teme in particular is a fairly important stream, I was surprised to discover that it is the 16th longest in the UK and longer, for example, than the Mersey, the Tyne, the Tees or the Dee.  Given the sparsity of population and its geographical openness to England, it's something of a minor miracle that the English language took a thousand years to extend its grip from Knighton to Rhayader.

* Or was it Aberedw?

Clutching at Straws

With mainstream nationalism having effectively given-up on a Welsh state, the dwindling band of patriots are placing a lot of faith in the forthcoming Scottish referendum.  If Scotland votes for independence can Wales be far behind seems to be the hope.  Actually I can't see Scotland voting "yes" and in any case what exactly are the Scots voting for?  Having dumped the idea of the euro the SNP now wants to use sterling.  Clearly they haven't much faith in the enthusiasm of the Scottish voters for real independence, for how can a country be truly free if it has no control over its fiscal policy?

Look at the case of Ireland, their economy only started to prosper when they broke the link with sterling in 1979.  Of course they eventually fell in with the euro and now the Irish taxpayer has ended up bailing-out the German banks.  You may disagree, but it seems to me that this is what happens when you break away from one imperium and sign-up to another, equally centralist, even less democratic project.

One advantage the Scots have is that their population is relatively homogeneous.  According to the 2001 census results - the Scots have yet to publish the 2011 figures - less than 9% of their population was born in England - in Wales it's closer to 21%.  As far as I can see no-one has suggested that there should be a residency qualification on who is allowed to vote in the referendum and it will be interesting to see what would happen if the yes campaign failed by a few votes.  Could Scottish independence be lost due to the votes of the - ugly term - "white settlers?"

Of course we are all far too politically correct to suggest that the constitutional position of Scotland or Wales should actually be decided by the Scots and the Welsh.  Infact there isn't a country in the world that doesn't apply some form of residency test on those allowed to vote in elections.  The Irish Republic is the most relaxed country  in Europe when it comes to allowing non-citizens to vote, but even they draw the line at referendums, only Irish citizens being allowed a vote in such contests.  Having no citizenship of their own Scotland and Wales could at least demand that anyone voting on constitutional matters have, say, a five year residency of the country.  Should the destiny of a nation be decided by the here-today-gone-tomorrow sorts or should it be left to those with a stake in the country?

Musical Interlude - songs of the defeated

I can't say I know much about these happy Polish hippies but they're performing a popular Serb folk song from Kosovo: "A dense fog has fallen over the plain of Kosovo"

With politicians like Hague and Hollande eager to intervene in Syria it might be worth reading John Pilger on Hague prosecutor (won't happen) Carla del Ponte's The Hunt: Me and War Criminals.

Ms Del Ponte was in the news recently when she raised the possibility that the Syrian rebels were using sarin. She seems a little off-message, wasn't she copied into the emails?

British Identity in Radnorshire, 2011 Census

The 2011 Census allowed respondents to choose between any number of multiple ethnic identities although in reality very few opted to do so. In the Radnorshire communities the great majority chose a single identity and that meant choosing between a Welsh-only, an English-only, or a British-only ethnicity.

The British-only identity trailed in third. Only in New Radnor (31.8) and Whitton (31.9) did Britishness emerge as the most popular choice.  In a number of communities (see map below) the British-only option dropped below 20%, although mostly the score was a respectable figure in the twenties - 22% in Knighton, 26% in Presteigne, 24% in Llandrindod for example.  So who were these Radnorshire Britons?

Turning from ethnic identity to place of birth we find that only in 11* of Radnorshire's 27 communities did the Welsh-born outnumber those born in England.  This is partly explained by the use of Herefordshire maternity hospitals although it's clear that this has had only a negligible effect.  The real reason is, of course, in-migration.

When we compare the ethnicity chosen by the Welsh-born and English-born we find an interesting contrast.  Below is a table showing how the Welsh-born are far more likely to opt for a Welsh-only identity. 

Welsh-only/English-only identity shown as a % of the Welsh-born/English-born for the 27 Radnorshire Communities:

The English-only identity choice is lower than the figure you would expect from the number born in England because substantial numbers of in-comers opted to describe themselves as British-only.  The locally born were far less likely to do so.  Conclusion:  In the 2011 Census for Radnorshire at least Britishness is essentially Englishness dressed up in a more polite garb.

* Rhayader, Abbeycwmhir, Aberedw, Glascwm, Llanbadarnfynydd, Llanbister, Llanelwedd, Llanyre, Penybont, St Harmon and Glasbury.

Forgotten Radnorian - A Nantmel Abolitionist

It's plain enough from the Laws of Hywel that slavery existed in medieval Wales.  It would be strange if it hadn't since it was an institution that was found in nearly every human society, from the Maoris of New Zealand to the Aleuts of Alaska.

For most of us slavery means the chattel slavery found in North America and the Caribbean - a somewhat Eurocentric outlook on such a universal and continuing phenomenon  - and as S4C have gone to some trouble to point out the Welsh played a part in all of this.  How else could John Henricus, for example, a runaway slave from New York in 1727, be described as speaking very good English and the Welsh dialect. Incidentally runaway bond servants were just as numerous as runaway slaves and pursued with equal vigour, they sometimes ran away together.

A rare exception to those who saw slavery as just a normal part of life was a Pennsylvania Quaker named Cadwalader Morgan, who, in 1696, after much pondering over the practicalities of owning a slave, decided that he had "no freedom to buy or take any of them upon any account."  He took his message to the Quaker's Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, which, although it rejected the call to forbid slavery, did agree that Friends "be careful not to encourage the bringing in of any more Negroes."

Cadwalader Morgan had emigrated to Pennsylvania from Merionethshire but, as Charles Browning's Welsh Settlement of Pennsylvania points out, his will of 1711 shows him to have been the son of James Morgan from the township of Faenor in Nantmel parish.  Cadwalader, who had married into a Merionethshire Quaker family, migrated to Pennsylvania in 1683.  His parents, three brothers and a sister sailed out to America in 1691; both father and mother died on the voyage.

It's interesting that Morgan based his opposition to slavery on practicalities rather than principle - he felt that owning a slave could have a negative moral impact on the owner and his household.  The abolitionists of 19C America also had to face practical concerns; how exactly could one emancipate what, in some states, amounted to 40% of the population without causing economic and social chaos.  In the end the matter was decided on the battlefield, with one soldier dying for every six slaves freed.

Radnorshire Redneckery

The previous post highlighted some of the less than complimentary statements about Radnorshire found in the Welsh language press of the Victorian era.   In reality, apart from the decades long, politically astute and well-organised activities of the Radnorshire Rebeccas, the county was noted for its lack of crime; for example, in its 90 year plus existence the Radnorshire Constabulary only had to investigate four murders.  Even in matters of religion the locality was not quite as pagan as the devout scribes of Pura Wallia would have it, see here. .  ........ But hang on, what if those Bible punchers were onto something, what if Radnorshire was indeed the pagan, immoral and ignorant place the press described.

In the past I've made the point that we should differentiate between language shift and anglicization.  Radnorians were certainly better able to pick up fluency in the English language than those living far away from the border.  It was mainly a matter of geography. With the Teme, the Lugg, the Arrow and the Wye all running eastward into England and much of the county lying within the orbit of English-speaking market towns, surely sparsely populated Radnorshire should be praised for holding back the tide of language shift for so long?

The language aside it seems that Radnorshire maintained many of the traditions of Hen Gymru Lawen and in these aspects, at least, it was less anglicised than it's respectable Welsh speaking neighbours. Take this report from 1861 concerning Aberedw published in Baner ac Amserau Cymru:

The other day I was in Aberedw, to see the ruins of the castle and Llywelyn’s cave. Aberedw is a place on the Radnorshire side (of the Wye). We went to sit for a while in a house that was known to one of our company. The niece of the man of the house happened be there on a visit.

“When are you going home?” someone asked.

“I’m not going home” replied the young girl, “ until after the feast.

“When is the feast?”

“Next Sunday”

“What feast is that” I asked.

“Aberedw Feast” said the girl.

“What sort of feast is that?”

But the young lady could not give an explanation, other than it was Aberedw feast, a little amazed that I should enquire about a subject of which everyone was aware.

"Gwlabsant” explained her uncle “that’s the feast.”

“Perhaps.” he said “you don’t know what gwlabsant is?”

I knew a little from history, but only from history. I had never before been in a district where the gwyl y mabsant, the feast of the patron saint was still alive.

Even the very mention of a saint’s feast has died out long ago in every other part of Wales. There’s barely one in a thousand who even knows the meaning of the word. The Sunday schools have extinguished virtually all of the old country customs except in Radnorshire. Here they have a refuge and a burial place.

Here's another description of the gwyl y mabsant in the parish of Betws Diserth, it appeared in the  Radnorshire Standard in 1898 but was recalling events much earlier in the century:

"I remember well attending the Betws Feast ....... Early on Sunday morning the guests would be in high spirits, and eager to exhibit their prowess in wrestling, jumping, ball playing, fighting etc.  The parson would arrive at the usual hour to hold a sacred service at the church, but suddenly his prayer would be interrupted by roars of imbecile laughter from the maudlin brains outside.  Some hundreds used to attend this gathering from all parts of Radnorshire and the neighbouring counties.  Here could be met the champion wrestler as well as the champion fighter of the county.  On the following Monday the hounds would be brought, the disciples of Diana would forsake Bacchus for a few hours.  Here for a whole week drunkenness and debauchery might be witnessed."

Even in Radnorshire respectability eventually managed to outlaw the merry-making associated with the parish wakes - although if Builth during show week is anything to go by, that may well have been a good thing!  There were those who regretted the passing of the old world.  In 1893 a correspondent to a Swansea paper recalled conversations with an old footballer who had played for Breconshire against Radnorshire at the beginning of the nineteenth century.  This, of course, was football as a mass-participation sport ranging over the countryside.  The writer remembers a couple of technical footballing terms from the time, namwn and hanner namwn, although I don't think you'll find these in the University's Geiriadur.

Regretting the passing of country sports and dancing the writer turns his ire on what he sees as the downside of chapel life:

"The Welshman had all the manliness preached out of him.  He became afraid of his landlord, afraid of the agent, afraid of the Set Fawr and the preacher, till his life became a burden to him, and there naturally developed in him low cunning and deceitfulness and so it has come to pass that Wales has acquired an unpleasant notoriety for untruthfulness and want of straightforwardness."

Of course now we are back with the prejudices of the Anglo-Saxon head measurers who were saying much the same thing:

"To paint the character of the sly, insincere, deceptive and cunning Welshman i.e. those unfavourable features which may be considered to distinguish him from his fellow subject of England, would take up too much space."

A Rock and a Hard Place

So you're an inquisitive child in Victorian Radnorshire and, thanks to the gradual introduction of elementary school education, you're able to read.  Read a book like the liberal scholar E A Freeman's - he would soon be appointed Regius Professor of History at Oxford University -  Old English History for Children.  What would the young reader make of Freeman's celebration of the Anglo-Saxon takeover of lowland Britain, and, yes, he's honest enough to call the dispossessed natives Welsh, not Celts or Romano-Brits:

"it has turned out much better in the end that our forefathers did thus kill or drive out nearly all the people whom they found in the land ...... (otherwise)..I cannot think that we should ever have been so great and free a people as we have been for many ages."

Meanwhile the Liberal MP for Herefordshire considers the Welsh a "miserable race of Celtic savages" and various scientists are running around the countryside measuring heads and noting down hair colour - a kind of proto-DNA research. Radnorians had a "nigrescence" score of 57.3% and scored particularly highly for "Celtic-eye", a dead give away for all those Anglo-Saxon obsessives who wished to identify the lesser breeds within the kingdom.

Now everyone in Wales had to put up with this nonsense but the poor Radnorians also got it in the neck from their fellow countrymen.  The animus shown towards Radnorshire in the Welsh Language Press of the period is at least understandable and can surely be traced back to the Blue Books.  These accused the Welsh of ignorance and immorality and blamed her language for the country's woes.  What better riposte to point to, by then, largely English speaking Radnorshire, a county with, for example, the highest illegitimacy rate in Britain.

Here are a few examples:

it is one of the darkest and most backward parts of the whole kingdom in terms of morality and learning. It is as if the human mind has disappeared from view as regards the population in general. Only the animal aspect of humanity can be seen living there. - Baner Cymru 1858 

Everywhere which has lost or denied the Welsh language ... those districts are full of immorality, cursing, blasphemy and prisons.  If you want proof look at Radnorshire. - Aberystwyth Observer 1876

There's no more pagan county in Wales than Radnorshire - Y Celt 1896

Fie Radnorshire! But there again, what can be expected from a people with no regard for their country's language and customs.  It's said that on the whole the natives of Radnorshire are remarkably ignorant and unable to speak either Welsh or English with any great alacrity - Tarian y Gweithiwr 1910

Even when someone came to the county's defence, such as Painscastle's Baptist minister, it serves only to illustrate the widespread prejudice against the county.

I note that an ill-founded impression of Radnorshire has arisen that its people are ungodly, ignorant and without morals - Seren Cymru 1885

My favourite quote of all comes from Iorwerth Peate, writing in 1933 he described the inhabitants of Radnorshire as "a deracine people, a people fallen between two stools a community of half-things."  I wonder what his colleague Ffransis Payne made of such sentiments?

Have such attitudes completely disappeared?  I doubt it.  

Squeezing the Orange

Back in the 1890s Alexander Richardson Binnie, the chief engineer at London County Council, had big plans for Radnorshire and Breconshire.  He intended to construct a series of reservoirs which would pipe water to the thirsty multitudes of the Great Wen.  In addition to drowning communities such as Llangammarch, Garth, Cregrina, Llanbister and Abbeycwmhir, the plan also envisaged the clearance of the population from the surrounding water catchment areas - these would be left to the sheep.

Some 18% of the acreage of Radnorshire would be commandeered by London and an incredible 58% of Breconshire - some 488 square miles in total.  With Birmingham and Liverpool also vying for Welsh water it was little wonder that the country was described by Swansea's Liberal MP Sir Henry Vivian as "a carcass which is to be divided between them according to their own needs and wishes."

Binnie's proposals, he had first noted the suitability of the valleys while building railways in the 1860s, was strongly supported by Sidney Webb and the Fabian backed Progressives who controlled London County Council.  By the end of the decade a less ambitious plan, supported by Welsh MPs from DLG to Mabon, would have seen the damming of just the Upper Wye and the Irfon.  This, too, fell by the wayside due to the opposition of the Tories, no doubt mindful of the interests of London's existing private water supply companies.

Although Binnie died in 1917 it's interesting to learn that the company that he founded designed Llyn Brianne in the 1970s ( see note below). Could his plans be dusted down again at some future date?  Surely no supporter of the one nation agenda could object to sacrificing our countryside to the greater good of the United Kingdom's most important city.  Indeed a British patriot should be flushed with pride at the very thought.

Note:  According to this page Brianne is not a local placename.  It is a near anagram of A R Binnie though.

Forgotten Radnorian

Live long enough and perhaps you'll achieve a whit of fame.  This is what happened to Evan Edwards of Torquay, described in the Edwardian press as the oldest Baptist minister in the world.  Born in Nantmel in February 1815, Edwards died just a few weeks before his 100th birthday in January 1914.  At the time of his death he had been a Baptist minister in Somerset and Devon for more than 80 years and was one of  the last witnesses to the preaching of such men as John Elias and Christmas Evans.

I'm more interested in his brief comment about the Nantmel of his youth and Dolau Baptist chapel:

"Cymraeg oedd iaith addoliad yn y capel ac yr aelwyd foreu a hwyr, ond ymledai y Saesneg i Faesyfed a mwy cyfarwydd oedd y plant yn y Saesneg"

"Welsh was the language of worship in the chapel and at home morn and night, but English had spread to Radnorshire and the children were more familiar with English."

Now this confirms that Ffransis Payne had the right idea when he wrote that Dolau Chapel turned to English around 1840.  It also shows how unreliable - in Radnorshire at least - it is to rely on the language of Anglican church services to estimate the date of language shift.  Nantmel parish church turned to English in 1755* and this very large parish (8 miles by 5) is consequently shown as thoroughly English on the published maps that illustrate language shift in Wales. Before the 1891 census such maps are mostly based on Anglican services.  I tend to think the dropping of Welsh services in the churches marked the disappearance of the last generation of monoglots rather than the demise of all local Welsh speakers as the maps assume.

Evan Edwards' family lived on the eastern side of the parish and it's a pity that no-one thought to ask him in greater detail about the linguistic ins-and-outs of his youth. The 19C Welsh language press was too busy trumpeting what a thoroughly pagan, immoral and stupid lot the Radnorians were to bother over-much about reporting on their recent history.  Even the Western Mail joined in the fun saying that the county's inhabitants lived in an "intellectual twilight, so inactive that a game of football would be a godsend to them."

* Nantmel is said to have had a monthly Welsh language service until 1807 but this has escaped the attention of the mappers.

Welsh Newspapers Online

Readers of the last couple of posts will guess that Radnorian has discovered the National Library's brilliant new resource, see here.

Nothing in the Papers

It was a summer evening in 1895 when a Cockney tramp, one Charles Rogers, stepped out of a Rhayader hostelry wondering where he would spend the night.  The town's police officers - James Niblett and Thomas Lloyd had recently joined the Radnorshire force from the Shropshire Constabulary, while Arthur Thomas had only been a policeman for a few weeks - were sure that Rogers should not be allowed to disturb the peace of the town.

Two uniformed figures were seen following Rogers as he wandered off in the direction of Builth and a few minutes later shouts and the sound of a beating could be heard.  The next morning Hugh Mason, a postman, discovered the tramp, lying in a pool of blood by the roadside.  Rogers was carried to the nearby workhouse where his condition was described as critical, his back covered in welts, much bruising and suspicions of severe internal injuries.

All very depressing but ........  a few days later the three officers were up before the magistrates.  Lloyd had witnesses who put him in Cwm Elan at the time of the attack but Niblett and Thomas were bailed to the next assizes in Presteigne.  Half a dozen townsfolk had no hesitation in standing up to give evidence against the pair, the jury returned guilty verdicts and Niblett and Thomas received nine months hard labour for the beating administered to the, by then, recovered tramp.

You won't find any mention of this event in Inspector Maddox's History of the Radnorshire Constabulary but then the popular inspector also failed to cover the forced resignation* of the Chief Constable Elystan Lloyd a couple of years later, surely the most momentous event in the history of the county force. Organisations like to keep their dirty washing firmly out of sight, even if, in the Inspector's case, it was some 60 years or more after the event!  How pleased such institutions and their servants must be with the Leveson proposals and how puzzled the commoners of the 1890s would have been with the pathetic clamour to muzzle the press.

* The Home Office refused to hand over the county's £800 policing grant  until the Chief Constable was replaced.

An Anti-Irish Riot in Radnorshire

We're aware of the sometimes violent antagonism between Irish and Welsh workers in 19C  South Wales and even Pennsylvania; but in early May 1863, during the construction of the Mid-Wales railway line, Radnorshire, too, had its very own anti-Irish riot.

The trouble seems to have started at Marteg Bridge with rumours of workers being laid off in favour of the Irish.  A demand was put to the contractors, Watson & Co, insisting that all Irishmen be gone within 24 hours.   This led to fighting between the two groups and the out-numbered Hibernians were soon fleeing in all directions.  Some reached safety in Llanidloes while others were caught and savagely beaten in St Harmon, where one man lost an eye.

The workers marched, some 200 or 300 strong, down the track into Rhayader where they proceeded to drive the Irish from their lodgings. Soon a crowd - the press claimed it was a thousand strong - had assembled in the town.  A Scotsman, mistaken for an Irishman, received a beating, as did a native of Somerset who had refused to answer the mob's queries as to his nationality.  A handful of locals did try to protect the Irish from the depredations of the crowd.  A Mrs Lloyd, who reporters waggishly dubbed the heroine of Cwmteuddwr, set about the rioters with a poker as they sought to eject a lodger from her dwelling. 

The three days of rioting - the local police had decided that intervention was impossible -  culminated with the mob driving the Irish before them into Newbridge where the village was searched.  The rioters finally ending their pursuit at Pontarithon on the Builth road. 

A local clergyman said that the riot had began inside a beer barrel, although the Irish practise of working at below the usual rate for the job seems to have been at the root of the unpleasantness.

Musical Interlude - songs of the defeated

Anyone who has read Bruce Chatwin's book will know about the Boers of Patagonia.  There's something about the ends of the earth which must appeal to defeated peoples, although the Confederates only made it as far as Brazil.

Time was when the Boers were seen as rather heroic by those who opposed British imperialism. The 1900 General Election in Radnorshire saw the Unionist's seeking to exploit the pro-Boer sympathies of  the Liberal candidate Frank Edwards.  It didn't do him any harm as he won back the seat, provoking a near riot in Llandrindod's Middleton Street with the Union Jack being burnt by Edwards' supporters after he was attacked by the Unionists.  Perhaps the town's Victorian Festival could stage a re-enactment?

The Unionist Radnorshire Standard put Edwards' victory down to pro-Boer sentiment and suggested that the local Radicals invite Paul Kruger over to celebrate.  Back in Parliament Frank Edwards campaigned  for an inquiry into the British concentration camps in which 26000 Boer women and children had died during the war.

Of course Welsh sympathy for the Boers disappeared during the apartheid era, although it's now 21 years since the Afrikaners voted to end that racist system and chose to become just another minority ethnic group in a state they had created.  I doubt if there's much sympathy for the on-going Boer travails amongst the London chatterati and their Welsh followers.  After all, these stubborn, rural dwelling Calvinists with their obscure language are just the sort of folk that stand in the way of the cultural hegemony the elite crave.

Spot the Difference - Wales and Tibet

I was reading a blog post about North Korea from the Mail on Sunday's Peter Hitchens.  All very interesting but what struck me was this snippet:

"That dead end, at present, leads only to Chinese domination, a fate which might well suit the rest of the world, but which North Koreans themselves greatly dread. As the Tibetans and the Uighurs know (in Tibet and Chinese Turkestan), Chinese domination means the end of national culture, probably the population of the national territory with Han Chinese until the Koreans become a minority in their own country. This is the form which modern Chinese imperialism takes, and I am always amazed that people who get hoity-toity about the wicked past of British imperialism are so uninterested in this development."

Now that comment is factually correct but isn't it also applicable to Wales?  Out of 27 Radnorshire communities, 16 have a majority which, according to the 2011 census, does not identify itself as Welsh.  This isn't because the locals don't see themselves as Welsh, far from it,  it is obvious that the vast majority chose a Welsh-only identity,  Like Tibet it is because of a government supported in-migration.  In Powys as a whole 49.8% of the population refused to acknowledge any Welsh identity, even though they live in Wales. The position isn't much better further west with 47% of the population of Ceredigion and 35% in Gwynedd also rejecting any Welsh identity, even though the census allowed multiple identity choices.

It seems to me that there are only three reactions to these figures.  Firstly you can deny that the Welsh have a separate identity; secondly you can say that it's progress and that the disappearance of small nations like the Welsh or the Tibetans is a jolly good thing; or lastly you can demand that Wales should control its own borders, which in reality means independence from both London and Brussels.

Of course there is a fourth choice, which no doubt most of us will take ¯\(°_°)/¯

A Radnorshire Casualty of the Falklands War

Hansard 14th June 1982:

Mr Eric Ogden, Liverpool,  West Darby:   Is the Minister aware that the Falkland Islanders who have been so tragically killed or injured are personally known to the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) and myself and that we are proud to call them our friends? Mrs. Doreen Bonner was a fine and courageous lady. She was a third generation kelper, who was much respected and will be missed by everyone who knew her. Mrs. Susan Whitley was a lovely and lively lady of good Welsh parentage, newly married to an excellent young husband. She was a teacher who was dedicated to the children and other people of the islands.

Susan Whitley was killed by a missile, probably fired by HMS Avenger, during the final assault on Port Stanley.  Like her husband - the islands' vet who had spent the occupation cutting Argentinian communication wires with his gelding tool and was subsequently awarded the MBE - Susan seems to have taken a defiant stance towards the invasion, reportedly refusing to dive for cover during the shelling.

Older Radnorians will remember Susan by her maiden surname of Giles and that she was born in Llandrindod and educated at the town's Grammar school.  Hardly forgotten, either in Llandrindod or the Falklands where she was a home economics teacher at the islands' Senior School,  charitable trust was set up in her name and an annual arts and crafts exhibition for Falklands schoolchildren continues to be held in her memory.

Susan Whitely is buried on Sea Lion Island, the most southerly inhabited island in the Falklands.

Seen in Llandrindod

I hope Y Dysgwr Araf won't mind me pinching this snap, cheered me up on a cold day::

I was recently sent some pictures of  trade union activists - is that the right word? - outside the town's Colonial Office on Budget Day:

Accent on Knighton

There was an interesting piece on the BBC breakfast show this morning featuring the Knighton rugby club or Tref y clawdd to give the team its proper name.  The point of the segment was to highlight the Wales/England rivalry at a club whose pitch straddles the border.  Pleased to say that most of the players support Wales - I've noticed that a few grumpy Welsh bloggers have been unfairly pooh-poohing what they call 80-minute-patriots recently.  My own view is far better that than a no-minute-patriot.

One of the young players said that although they didn't have a Welsh accent his father had always told him that the border folk were the first line of defence for Wales.  In part that's very true - after all the Saxon advance was pretty much stopped at Knighton and the Normans didn't fair much better.  Indeed the tide of language-shift took nearly a thousand years to travel from Knighton to Rhayader.  One thing the lad did get wrong was the accent bit - there isn't one Welsh accent there are many, and an East Radnorshire accent is just as much an authentic Welsh accent as anything heard from the mouth of Robin McBryde or Neil Jenkins.

In the meantime here's a youtube channel with some fabulous pictures of 20C Knighton.