"Died for England"

Above is the somewhat Gothic war memorial in the Radnorshire village of Norton, it was designed to serve as a horse trough and drinking fountain. The wording on the memorial is of interest since it was "erected by the grateful village of Norton to commemorate the names of its faithful sons who fought and died for England and liberty."

Should this wording annoy patriotic Cymry? There was a time when no sooner had some Welsh folk set foot on mainland Europe than they would boast, maddeningly, about England or how they had met "another English couple." As if their new found friends were saying the same about them! Nowadays I think we can excuse the good villagers of Norton for this historical anomaly. In any case the wording on the memorial is probably quite accurate. I did look-up the census records of the two First World War names on the monument and was surprised that the elder brother of one, a 20 year old born in Heyop, was listed as being able to speak Welsh. An error or perhaps the result of a period of work in a Welsh speaking area?

Mind you when I saw this during a Google search I did have a potentially dangerous rise in blood pressure, only saved by the realisation that it was a cock-up confusion with some place in Leicestershire rather than a plot to tweeify Radnorshire :