Radnorshire Bardic Poems, 36

This is an elegy by Lewis Glyn Cothi for Hywel Goch ap Rhys ap Dafydd ap Hywel Fain of Gwestun, Llangynllo:

No. 179, Elegy for Hywel Goch

The falcon with the long golden hair,
Who I saw in Rhiwlallt,
Today, he does not pay the costs
In the land of Gwestun.
He went, this great grandson of Hywel Fain,
Through the throng to the oak and the winding cloth.
He went, as if across a sea,
From Rhiwlallt, on a bier.
Hywel Goch, who would hunt the wicked,
Son of generous Rhys of the ready purse,
Famed throughout the land,
A bed of earth for Hywel ap Rhys.

He was a planted tree in Llangynllo,
He was tired after the planting.
God keeps a fair dwelling,
The vineyards of God are full of leaves,
There he cut down, after summer,
The tallest of the young growth.
Hywel was a very tall plant
From a straight, well-bred vine;
A useful plant where I played,
God is the carpenter who cut him down.
He cut down an oak tree of Maelienydd,
And now the woodland is weaker.
He broke a string with a talent
To sing out from the centre,
He broke a fine bow with a
Talent for aiming straight.
A fair, modest falcon has fallen,
By magic, as he flew.
A tree in the top of the river-cliff uprooted,
By the sun, the greatest in Rhiwlallt.
The hand of Rhys ap Dafydd
Has been hidden in the choir of Cynllo.

Rhys was a stag from the conquerors
His seven antlers were truly beautiful,
And the seventh, his favourite,
Has fallen beside Rhys.
Rhys was a tree for us throughout the dominion,
And upon it were seven roots,
Jesus with his axe one night,
Cut a good one from the seven.
There was a castle on top of Gwestun
With seven towers, one was shot down,
Once again one of the seven is broken
By a cannonball from heaven.

Many the wounds on my cheek,
Many the cries of woe for Hywel Goch.
No healthy man, not two, can sing,
No human laughter with the string music,
No-one who comes is cheerful,
No-one puts on weight because of Hywel.
Are not the sons of widows upon every bench?
Are not the youngsters in a wretched state/?
Is not the world unpleasant for everyone?
Are the brooks of Gwestun not weeping?
Hywel is where we cannot see him,
We have need of him this month.
There is weeping for the soldier,
Heaven is now his home.

Eye Spy, Something Beginning with C

Back in July 1903 the Automobile Club held a series of events in the Emerald Isle which it described as the Irish Automobile Fortnight. Here for example we find C. S. Rolls in a 70 horse power Mors winning the cup presented by the Cork Constitution newspaper for the fastest time over a two mile sprint course, Roll's time 1-49.6. But who is this in third place in a 50 horse power Wolseley in a time of 2-04.5? A Lieutenant Cumming, much better known to history as Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cumming. In 1903 Cumming was already director of the foreign section of the Secret Service Bureau, later he would become the first director of MI6, the legendary C of popular culture.

Cumming is better remembered as a sporting pioneer of motor-boats rather than cars, but he was the first of quite a number of individuals linked to the world of espionage who had racing connections. No doubt we will highlight some of them over the next few months.

Llandrindod, A Welsh Canberra?

On 9th June 1919 the Chairman of the local Urban District Council, Mr Jeffrey Jones, opened the Welsh Home Rule Conference in Llandrindod Wells with a promise that the council were ready to donate a site for a Welsh Parliament House. That week's conference was covered by the London papers, which is more than can be said for this week's discussions between Plaid Cymru, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats about forming a coalition government at the National Assembly. As far as the English press are concerned the remarkable possibility of Nationalists and Conservatives sharing the admittedly limited powers on offer in Cardiff might just as well be happening in Tierra del Fuego.

Another summer, another meeting in Llandrindod. Nearly 700 "leaders of Welsh political, cultural and industrial life", as the Times described them, met on the 2nd of July 1950 to launch a petition calling for Parliamentary Self-Government for Wales. Some 57 years later and of course we are still waiting for a genuine law-making Parliament in Wales, I wonder if the council still have a spare site?

Radnorshire Bardic Poems, 35

This is a praise poem by Lewis Glyn Cothi to Henri ab Ieuan Fychan of Llansantffraid yn Elfael:

No 156, Praise of Henri ab Ieuan Fychan

Who is the apparent angel?
Who is the generous one in the parish of St Bride?
A long life filled with love
To you Henry, lion of half the land,
Son of Ieuan Fychan and like
Your forefathers, from the blood of Idwal,
Love from the father and the grandfather,
Proper authority to the righteous,
A leader where the great spears are splintered,
A bow of Elfael and Buellt,
A Bedwyr of Gruffudd ab Adam,
Let there be life for your mother’s son!
Arise and build for yourself,
The house of the father on the grandfather’s land.

Bryn Coch merits praise,
A hill of old wines and courtly song,
A hill of yellow gold and mead,
A healthy hill under a wide sky;
A hill of a noble baron’s line,
A hill of the bards and their eternal judgements.
For a bard and for a mere man,
Was there ever such a goodly hill?
Who made it, mead reared child?
Who? Cadwgan ap Hywel!
Ieuan was his natural son,
And after him his grandson Henri
Is in the courting place of his grandsons.
You come from Hywel Sais, from Lleision,
Generous one of your generation;
You’re a squire from Rhys Gryg,
You’re the fine linen of Tewdwr.
You began as a youth to share
The gold of the bank with all.
As a boy you gave me
The full bodied ale of Weobley;
A Goodman, for us at last there are
Gold and stallions, saddles and mead.
Never on this hill was born
Your better for sharing goods Henri.

You give us Henri, in one summer,
As much as a hundred since Henry the First.
You are the Henry of our day,
As brave as Henry the Third.
Henri you are, my lordship.
Henry of Derby was less than you.
Are you any worse for wine giving along
The banks of the Wye than Henry of Monmouth?
May you have health and a world of knowledge,
Henri your name will be recalled.
Their way one of riches,
May your hand have this Henri:
Half the lifetime that came to Moses,
May that be an added extra.

Another Book of the Month

Preacher's Son by Dewi Williams is an interesting book about everyday life in North Breconshire in the early 1950s, as seen through the eyes of a schoolboy - the son of the minister at Troedrhiwdalar. ISBN 1-84685-186-6, published by the Diggory Press.

Down Below

The 1950s saw the final flourish of that type of "gentleman" driver who had dominated the British motor sport scene in the pre-war years. Newer types, the garagistes and arguably in the case of Moss and Hawthorn that distinctly modern phenomenon - the pushy dad, were supplanting the toffs.

Two of the old-school were to be found just across the Radnorshire border amongst the hop-pickers of Herefordshire, although neither Grand Prix career could be described as distinguished. Peter Walker, a gentleman farmer of Shobdon Court, had a good deal of success in sports cars though, winning Le Mans with Peter Whitehead in 1951 and taking second place in 1953, when he partnered Moss. John Riseley-Prichard of Almeley competed in the 1954 British Grand Prix in his Connaught, although a career highlight was surely a works Aston outing in the 1955 Le Mans race, partnering Tony Brooks.

With their motor racing careers behind them both men's lives seem to have taken a downward, perhaps even a symbolic, course. It is reported that Walker eventually ended-up as an alcoholic down-out on the streets of London while Riseley-Prichard, a Lloyd's underwriter, was one of the original partners in the Ann Summers sex shop before it was sold-on to its present owners. It is further reported that Prichard became involved in child pornography, dying of AIDS in Thailand, hotly pursued by both the police and the British tabloids.

Setting the record straight

The well respected author and Lotus historian Michael Oliver recently found a witness to Innes Ireland's 1963 crash at Kent, Washington State. This is the crash where some idiotic track official parked his road-car at trackside which Innes proceeded to hit in his Lotus 19-Ferrari, with the result that his right thigh bone disappered eight inches up his backside.

Anyway this is what the "eye-witness" - he was a friend of the guy who parked the car - had to say to Oliver:

"Regarding Ireland's "injuries", my memory is that he didn't say a word to any of us on the turn when we asked him how he was. He sprinted across the track (with cars still running on the track), moved himself quickly up the hill toward the pits, and out of our sight. He may have been injured but there was no evidence of it to any of us on the turn."

Sprinted across the track eh! Luckily I was able to come-up with this picture which showed Innes before he was cut out of the wreckage. By the way Innes was allergic to morphia so was extracted without the benefit of any pain killer. Anyway the record was set straight and a piece of disiinformation hopefully put to rest.

Radnorshire Bardic Poems, 34

This request poem by Lewis Glyn Cothi is addressed to Syr Huw Iolo - a priest - and his cousin Hywel ap Ieuan Coch of Llansantffraid yn Elfael. It's unclear whether the Earl of Pembroke mentioned at the end is Jasper Tudor or William Herbert.


No. 134, Request for a Bridle and Harness

Two generous men, the kindly sort,
Who give gifts of the same type;
One is ordained, by Non,
The other a layman with a cruel hand.
Syr Huw Iolo, his Welsh is good,
From the fair land of Elfael;
The other is Hywel son of
Ieuan Coch, a wise leader.
Hywel Fychan was a patriarch
From a noble stock of men,
And they, two young Welshmen,
Come from his body like two branches.
For all his land they are two good shepherds,
They’re his two guardians;
One with the propriety of law
And the other with his courageous spear.

In summertime Syr Huw wears
The ermine cape of the most supreme;
Hywel wears an iron helmet
And steel armour.]; there from our judgement
Syr Huw Iolo our teacher
In the college of Abergwili,
In holy Menevia, it’s true,
He is installed in the two lands.
Hywel, take battle throughout the world,
He also wages war on men,
There he is before one hundred
With a war horse and the silver spear.
The two kinsmen, yoked together,
Who maintain their strength.
In Llansantffraid they are one party,
One blood, one people.

Oh God, it is generous
For two men to give gold.
If Syr Huw Iolo is too generous,
Then Hywel is just as generous.
I am a bard who follows their path,
Unsteady in my old age;
Although I’ve had gifts from these fine goodmen,
Now I seek for more there.
I seek a bridle and a harness,
I’ll get a saddle from the Wye vale.
Two liberal stags shall give them freely,
Hywel and that saint Syr Huw Iolo.
On my shod colt I’ll go to Chester
For the Feast of the Holy Rood.
To hold his riddel as he runs
The flaps must be set tightly.
Stars, the work of a jeweller of Rouen,
This chip-style leather work.
My strong stallion wears
A chasuble of belts,
Across his forehead there are daisies,
And woodland leaves all down his flanks,
Upon his mane, leaves of the same work,
And upon his breast is a citadel of colour.
A fine harness like stars or frost,
Reed stems to hold a charger.

My white charger wears a dress of stars
Syr Huw Iolo, the stars of Hwlyn.
Too much of a gift for a man,
The two presents that they give,
These two give me their two presents,
The Earl of Pembroke must provide a stallion.

Rex King-Clark

Robert "Rex" King-Clark is not a name that will ring many bells to followers of motor sport, indeed he is not even discussed on "The Nostalgia Forum" where even the most obscure racing topic gets an airing. A Scot, although born within a mile of the Brooklands track, he was educated, like his namesake Jim Clark, at Scotland's premier public school, Loretto.

A long and distinguished military career saw King-Clark winning an MC in pre-war Palestine where he commanded one of Orde Wingate's Special Night Squads and later commanding both the Manchester Regiment's 2nd Battalion and later the Army Air Corps. His motor racing career on the other hand was much shorter lasting only from the Brooklands Easter meeting in 1936 to that year's Autumn meeting. Driving a super-charged 747cc J4 MG the 22 year-old King-Clark managed a dead-heat with Welshman Roy Eccles at the 1936 Brooklands August meeting, a performance that earned him the coveted membership of the British Racing Drivers Club.

King-Clark's brief motor racing career soon took second place to more daring exploits, such as flying his Miles Whitney Straight monoplane to various postings in the Middle and Far East, flights that coincidently saw him taking aerial photographs of Italian military facilities in North Africa. I presume that King-Clark is still alive and if so he must be one of the BRDC's oldest members. You can read about his motoring exploits in his excellent book Free For a Blast.

Monaco 1960

Footage of one of Innes Ireland's madder moments can be seen here. Innes finally made it to the top of Beau Rivage and back to the finish - of course that meant he had to push the car through the tunnel! The Scotsman was classified as finishing either seventh or ninth depending on which source you consult.

Brands Hatch, 1951

With women racing on equal terms with many of the men at pre-war Brooklands, it's a surprise that the ladies failed to make much of impression when motor sport resumed after 1945. The influential 500cc Formula Junior class would seem to have been tailor-made for women, it being a class where a light body weight was a great advantage. For whatever reason it was not to be and this newsreel of a ladies race in 1951 gives a good impression of the chauvinism of the times.

By the way the race was won by Elisabeth Store in Alf Bottoms' JPS although the moral victor was the motorcyclist Olga Kevelos - winner of two gold stars in the International Six Days Trial - driving a works Kieft. Olga was winning the race so easily that she was asked to slow down only for Store to surprise her at the finishing line. Joan Gerard, wife of Grand Prix driver Bob, was third in a Cooper.

Rossa?

The blue and white car is John Surtees' Ferrari heading to a World Championship clinching victory at the 1964 Mexican Grand Prix. Enzo Ferrari was having one of his occasional fits of pique against what he perceived as a lack of support from his Italian compatriots. The car was entered under the banner of Chinetti's North American Racing Team, hence the American racing colours.

Llanbadarn Fawr

Pictured is a detail of the tympanum at Llanbadarn Fawr church in Radnorshire. For an English expert "a weak copy of the West Herefordshire school" or for an expert of more Welsh sympathy "the closest in character to the illuminations of the older manuscript tradition."

The tree growing out of a cat's head? The nine-pointed star? Mysteries which no-one has explained. How strange that we search the world for mysteries yet so often ignore those on our own doorsteps.

Brooklands 130-MPH Badge

Collectors of Brooklands memorabilia are getting excited about a forthcoming sale which will feature Kit Baker-Carr's 130-mph badge. Just 16 of these badges were awarded to drivers who lapped the Outer Track at over 130 miles per hour. The 16 were Kaye Don, John Cobb. George Eyston, Oliver Bertram, Dudley Froy, Whitney Straight, Charles Brackenbury, Chris Staniland, Freddy Dixon, Richard Marker, Lord Howe, Kit Baker-Carr, Jack Duller, George Harvey Noble, and two lady racers Kay Petre and Gwenda Hawkes.

Nowadays when a woman circulating mid-field in some obscure racing series is cited as evidence of feminist progress, it's interesting to note that more than 70 years ago their sisters were mixing it with the very fastest of the men.

Radnorshire Bardic Poems, 33

This is an elegy composed by Lewis Glyn Cothi to Rhys and Owain ap Philip of Cenarth in the parish of St Harmon. They were the grandsons of Owain Glyndwr.

189, Elegy for the two sons of Philip ap Rhys

Rhys and Owain were mighty of face like the ash,
The hand and arm of St Harmon;
From Gwerthrynion they went
To heaven, to see Non.

Oh Non and Caron! Oh Iorys!
His choir needed the deer of Philip ap Rhys.
Oh my Jesus! Oh Mauricius!
Now their shirts linger beneath the stones.

Two shirts without sleeves for gentle folk,
Long is the yearning and grief;
Two coats made from the ribs of the oak,
Two gowns from heaven and earth.

Earth is the end,
The proud ignominy of the grave,
A strange revenge, to steal Rhys!

Owain was the youngest,
He and his oldest brother
Were the most generous, the tallest like pine trees.

Cenarth is cheerless
Without the falcons of Deheubarth,
So too the courtyard of Sycharth in the two lands of Powys.

There is no land without drink,
No township without custom,
A hand is not useful without finger or thumb.

Their generous father’s land
Is left without benefit, without their fair brows
Without their grip, without their two fingers.

A husband and wife
Are left weak by the loss of two chieftains,
And from placing two stones over their two shrouds.

They were the thumbs of Bedwyr
They were the marshals of the host,
They were two eagles, like ancient Cyrys.

Two hands their two shores
Two waters, two shields,
Two places, two vineyards, from the same fair court.

These two were,
Over seas, over lands,
For thousands they were Lludd and Llefelys.

Brothers who loved poetry,
They gave to the bards,
After the manner of the Wales of Uthr and Emrys.

I cry out to God in heaven,
I do so in anger,
A cry again and again after that.

The lions of Gwenllian
Swim in the heavens,
They went from the court to the churchyard.

Two men who had land,
Two saints of a prince,
Two privileged goshawks of the land’s parishes.

Two lands with two shores,
Secure their inheritance,
Heaven at last is their share, Owain and Rhys.

100RMI

Although 5BPH is perhaps the better known of Innes Ireland's Lotus Elevens, his second car 100RMI certainly brought the Scotsman more major successes. A 2nd in class in the 1958 Rouen 3 Hour event was followed by a class win (see picture with co-driver Peter Lovely) in the Reims 12 hour race. Innes then took the car to an overall victory over the Ferraris in the Trophee d'Auvergne on the new Clermont Ferrand circuit. A class win at the Ollon-Villars hillclimb completed a successful Continental season.

The car although sometimes entered under the Team Lotus banner was infact owned and prepared by Innes. The number plate of course stands for Robert McGregor Innes and it was an Irish registered car - a Wexford plate.

Drum Ddu

In the previous poem it seems to me that Lewis Glyn Cothi alludes to the area within the Builth hundred that harboured outlaws - Drum Ddu. We know that Lewis was an outlaw himself at one period, so he may have know the area from then - the outlaw bard Llywelyn ap y Moel almost certainly did. Drum Ddu continued as a rebel stronghold well into the sixteenth century and even later - no doubt it was more heavily wooded then than it is today.

Anyway, this enables me to make a tenuous link to the fretless bass player Percy Jones, who included a track entitled Drum Ddu on the Brand X album Manifest Destiny. Now jazz fusion is not my scene but you can check out Radnorshire born Percy's interesting website here. One thing mentioned on the site is a CD of R&B tracks made from an old tape recording of The Viceroys playing at Glasbury Village Hall in 1965. In a way that CD must be almost as fragile and rare a piece of historical evidence as some of the manuscripts containing the old bardic poetry.

Radnorshire Bardic Poems, 32

This poem begins with praise of St Afan, so was probably composed for a parish feast to celebrate the saint's feastday - 16th October. the Patron of the feast Dafydd ap Maredudd belongs to the major descent group in Buellt, the Moelwyniaid. Lewis Glyn Cothi again alludes to an ancient manuscript roll in his possession, to which he adds the names of his own patrons.

No. 139, Praise of Dafydd ap Maredudd and Siwan vz Rhys

I have fashioned verse for you Afan of Buellt,
I have poems as numerous as dewdrops;
The son of Caredig C’redigion,
You are Afan, so true writing confirms,
Son of Cunedda Wledig, a good, wise man,
Backbone of the wealthy lands,
Son of Edeyrn of the race of the generous
Padarn Peisrudd, like a sprout from Israel,
Kinsman in the faith to Holy Dewi,
Kinsman of dark-fair Teilo the anchorite,
A bishop in your triple cope,
You are a saint of their lineage.

In your parish there is a divine Welshman,
He has the parish to follow him;
Dafydd the son of Maredudd,
Part of the silkwork of Llysdinan,
Of the line of generous Ieuan ap Morgan,
A lion of the land of Buellt and her splendid material.
Except for Dafydd, there is no man
More like Ieuan ap Moelwyn.

Truth grows from the words of his tongue,
Truth is what the man seeks.
There is not a word that is not honoured,
Yet only truth goes to the chair.
His tongue is the ready bragget
That varnishes judgements.
There were seven who counted the stars,
Many suppose, in the vale of Tiber;
Their seven tales to the nation
Protected a child after breakfast.;
Dafydd is the eighth,
His tale will come to his son.

The God of the Hebrews, to my breast
Has given an old rolled manuscript.
Just as he placed in Moses’ tablet
Ten commandments at the end of the roll,
Two names - they are not of the same age -
Have been placed in my heavenly roll:
The name of Jesus who was and will be,
In the tablet, and the name of Dafydd.

Two speeches, by Mary, were on my lip
Yesterday, yet spoken by Taliesin:
They were a speech concerning the psalters of Mary,
And Siwan’s speech of welcome.
A daughter of Rhys, with five fingers from the bank,
Is youthful, talented Siwan.
The Enid of Gruffydd this white wave,
A fair spoken grandchild of Ricert;
An Euron of the race of Anarawd,
A portent in her five years of fortune.
To Buellt, there as she grows,
The sun of Cantre’ Selyf has turned,
To Llanafan, a heavenly spot,
To Llysdinam, above the river meadow.
The best court between the Wye and the church
For a talented lad, Llysdinan.
I aim for Rhos Dinan,
I go to the peak of Caer Ddinan.
I’m not to be had, I’ve no wish, ever,
To be more than two steps from the castle of Dinan the Giant.

Siwan is in fair Llysdinan,
Dafydd, humble his words.
Today Dafydd and Siwan,
Both call for a feat on a fair headland.
Little Siwan is good for profit,
Dafydd is good and young,
They are good to everyone, all are good,
They were so kind, God be kind to them.

Radnorshire Bardic Poems, 31

Another praise poem by the fifteenth century bard Lewis Glyn Cothi which yet again reflects his great regard for the cantref of Elfael. Ieuan Du and Lleucu vz Ieuan Coch lived in the parish of Diserth, probably at Trecoed.

No 152, Praise of Ieuan Du and Lleucu vz Ieuan Coch

I walked through many lands
When I was footloose and free;
I saw with my own eyes
The riches of those evil countries;
I saw that their wealth was not to be had,
Not a score of their race were generous;
In Elfael I found bountiful folk,
There is no more generous land than this.

In Elfael on our own doorstep,
There is good fun and generosity;
In Elfael, the patrimony of the men,
There are warriors once more;
In Elfael, the land of Mael of the mead,
In crisis there is courage.
Here there is one of my nation
Who would hold the two lands once more:
Generous Ieuan Du, a leaping stag,
It is he, the son of Dafydd.
They talk throughout the five counties
Of the lineage of Hywel ap Meilyr;
I brought here for sale
A song for the goshawk of Diserth;
He gave me, and not sullenly
Three times its worth, and a little more.

There was once a lion in the town of Caerleon,
With his men of the Round Table;
He conquered, and shared with them,
Townships as far as Rome.
Ieuan has been a faithful pupil
To Arthur of old,
He has conquered, and will do so again,
In six places in Uwch Mynydd.

For Ieuan there is a hall
Entirely made of carved wood.
There within its walls
Is all that warms a resting man:
The warmth of food and discussion,
The warmth of gold, followed by verses,
The warmth of wine inside one,
The warmth of another silver coin.
Ieuan and his fair mistress
Share with all who are present.

There you’ll meet cheerful Lleucu,
A famous host, the daughter of Ieuan Coch;
She is the grandchild of Cadwgan,
He is the grandchild of Meilyr’s son.
A proverb, by the face of Non,
The kindness of these people;
They are the best of our country,
Sowing minted gold, providing mead.
Their mothers, their fathers,
Their brothers up in the vale of Edw,
Their children will be the strength of our land,
Their grandchildren will be honoured.
These two, a fine adventure,
Will excel over all others.

Jesus placed Lleucu under an oath,
Giving her hand to this prince;
He granted a wealth of power, Iefan,
And in that power and her share;
He granted tenants, he granted houses,
He granted fine soil, he granted good land,
He granted gold coins to him and to her,
Now grant them a long life.

Monte Carlo 1932

Click photo to enlarge