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.

Rooster Cogburn's Cat

Why do so many black Americans have Welsh surnames?  It's a question that is regularly asked on the internet and the answer, more often than not, is unsatisfactory.  The Welsh must have been great slave owners say some; no it's because Welsh preachers were so well respected say others, clutching at straws!

The truth seems to be that, despite all the 1960s talk of "slave names," most  former slaves did not take the surname of their owner.  Until the conclusion of the American Civil War most slaves didn't have an established surname and with emancipation they became free to adopt any name that took their fancy.  Many chose Welsh surnames because the Welsh element in the South was so strong.  Former slaves adopted surnames they were familiar with, and these were often names of Welsh origin.

We tend to think of the Welsh in America as having migrated in the 19C to places like Scranton and Wilkes Barre.  Radnorians will remember the far earlier migration of Quakers and Baptists to Pennsylvania in the 1680s.  For example Sarah Stephens, daughter of Stephen and Elizabeth Evans, formerly of Llanbister, was the first European child born in Radnor Township, Pennsylvania. That was as far back as May 1686.  Yet even those Radnorshire pioneers were late comers compared with the Welsh who poured into Virginia earlier in the 17C.  The result was that, by the time of the first American census in 1790, Welsh surnames were far more common among the free population of the Southern states than in the North - 14% in North Carolina, 12% in Virginia, 10% in South Carolina and Maryland.

Sterling Price, the soldier not Rooster Cogburn's cat, was just one of dozens of Confederate generals with Welsh surnames or acknowledged Welsh ancestry - a leading Confederate naval commander was even named Catesby ap Roger Jones!  Price's ancestors included Radnorshire and Montgomeryshire patrons of the bard Lewis Glyn Cothi and although they had washed up in America as early as 1611, contemporaries still described him as a "Welsh Celt."  Indeed proponents of the controversial "Celtic thesis" estimate that 50% of the population of the South were of Celtic - mainly Scotch-Irish and Welsh - descent and that this is central to understanding the divide between North and South.  It's an interesting topic encompassing literature and music as well as politics, although bedevilled by racism and its distant cousin - political correctness.

Getting back to Welsh surnames: Williams is the 3rd most popular surname in the United States, 49% claiming to be white and 47% black.  For Jones (5th) the division is 58% white, 38% black.  Davis (7th)  - this has long been the usual American spelling  - 65% white, 31% black.  Two surnames which are more typical of Radnorshire than most Welsh counties are Powell (91st) 70% - 26%  and Price (59th) 76% -20%.  Some other examples Evans (48th) 71% - 25%, Lewis (26th) 61% - 34%, Thomas (14th) 68% - 28%.

You would expect a  name like Griffiths (369th) to be higher placed than it is, perhaps it gave rise to surnames like Griffin.  Certainly Rees became Rice (169th) or Reese (405th)  and Lloyd (493rd) had to share the limelight with Floyd (469th).  The difference between Owen (496th) with a 93% - 2% division and Owens (126th) 68% - 28% is striking.  Perhaps Owens belongs mainly to the 17C migration and Owen to that of the 19C.

What we can say is that black Americans were more likely to adopt the very common Welsh surnames like Williams, Jones and Davis, rather than those that were less common but still numerous, for example Morgan (62nd) 78%-16%, Morris (56th) 76% - 19% or Phillips (47th) 79% -16%.  These names were adopted because they were familiar and were not necessarily connected with slavery or actual Welsh descent.  At the same time although American slavery had an African origin, slavery itself descended through the mother.  This soon resulted in some slaves having 50% or 75%  white ancestry.  Condoleeza Rice recently had her DNA tested on a PBS TV show, it was 51% black, 40% white and 9% Asiatic probably Native American, no doubt a not untypical result.   Even if Welsh surnames are no guide it would seem safe to assume that a fair proportion of the population of the South - white and black - have at least some Welsh ancestry.

A Small Victory for Radnorshire

The English, according to the American writer Paul Theroux, only take an Irishman seriously when he's holding a gun.  It follows that the Welsh, who have long foresworn the use of such extreme violence, are rarely taken seriously at all.  No doubt because of this laudable moderation, authority has often seen fit to ride roughshod over Welsh interests, most famously at Tryweryn.

In the late 1960s the Severn River Authority plotted to flood the Dulas Valley in Radnorshire.  A reservoir of some 18000 million gallons was proposed, necessitating the flooding of around 25 farms and the removal of 150 people from their homes.  A local Defence Committee was immediately set up and its chairman Mr Iorwerth Thomas declared "we may be Welsh peasants but we are the backbone of the country."  Now this may well have been true but which country? Certainly not that recognized by the Malvern based River Authority.

The Defence Committee installed an old air raid siren which on at least three occasions was used to summon scores of local people to eject River Authority officials from private land.  If officialdom wanted to survey Cwm Dulas they would at least have to go through the courts and enter legally.  In all their contacts with the press the Committee stressed that they wanted no part of the then current MAC bombing campaign.  Of course, merely by mentioning the matter they were giving the authorities pause for thought.  A public enquiry was held in Llanidloes in February 1970 and in December of that year the new Tory Secretary of State for Wales, Peter Thomas, announced that the flooding of the Dulas Valley would not be allowed to proceed.  Things had moved on a little.

A Liverpool bureaucrat mocked a Trywern family by claiming that the city didn't drink the water of Llyn Celyn but rather used it to flush their toilets.  In 1970, in the Dulas Valley at least, that arrogance was sent home to think again.

Musical Interlude .... songs of the defeated

Hands Off Wales - The Radnorshire Connection

The author of the new book Hands Off Wales, Wyn Thomas, is a Radnorian.  On his website Dr Thomas mentions that he left Llandrindod High School without qualifications, only returning to education later in life.  The author's English-speaking, non-academic background must surely have been a help in empathising with the Welsh nationalist militants of the 1960s,  who, in the main, were working-class, English-speaking and uncorrupted by either chapel or university.

In a way this weighty book - 424 pages - is a bit like one of those BBC4 documentaries on punk rock, very detailed, very informative ..... as long as we remember that most people were listening to the likes of Abba, David Soul and the Muppets.  For those of us interested in Welsh history it is a fascinating and well-written account of another minority pursuit - physical-force nationalism.  The book is mainly taken up with a thoroughly researched narrative about Tryweryn, the Free Wales Army and John Jenkins.  The right questions are asked, the protagonists allowed to speak for themselves, leaving us to draw our own conclusions.  A short final chapter offers opinions, but these are predictable enough and provide no surprising insights.

What about Radnorshire?  There is new detail about the only action ever carried out by the Free Wales Army - the botched sabotage of the Fron Aqueduct in 1967.  We also learn that a planned attack on the Birmingham pipeline in Knucklas was called off by Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru because of the possibility of damage to houses in the village.  The very successful attack on the pipeline in West Hagley is said to have been carried out by a cell from Newtown and Llandrindod. Really?  Later in the book the author casts doubt on the existence of any such a cell, although he does mention an English resident of Llanbister (for some background on this individual see here and here) later associated with the historical group Cofiwn, who seemingly had links with John Jenkins.  Finally, the young Anglesey county council employees imprisoned in 1969 were said to have been instructed in the art of bomb making at Graig Farm, Llandegley - leaving many suspicious of the involvement of an agent provocateur.

Update: Wyn Thomas talking about Eileen Beasley, see here.

Hands Off Wales

The first military action taken by modern day Welsh nationalists - and by this I mean those who didn't actually want to get caught - was the bomb attack on the Fron aqueduct, near Crossgates, on October 19th 1952.

I've always been aware of that event since it was covered in national newspapers which also happened to carry a photograph of your blogger, merrily waving a Union Jack outside Llandrindod railway station.  The occasion was the visit of the Queen to open the Claerwen reservoir and my excuse for such an uncharacteristic display of British enthusiasm?.... I was just three years old.

Given the early connection between Radnorshire and the subsequent 1960s militancy, which is the subject of this new book from Gwasg Gomer, it's somehow fitting that the author was born and brought up in Llandrindod.

I'm off to read it now.

The BBC - redacted version

It's not really fair is it, that the                 of          County Council, on a salary of £            per annum, pays the same              licence fee as a poor sod on the minimum wage.  Would all these folk who worship at the temple of the                               Corporation be so pleased if they had to pay the same proportion of their salary as Joe Soap, say £1500 a year.  I bet we'd hear less tosh about how it was such splendid value.

                                                                                                                                                                  

                                                                                                                                                                  

                                                                                                                                                                  

                                                                                                                                                                  

                                                                                                                                                                  

                                                                                                                                                                  

If we must have a                             , and of course the                 are eager beaver to extend the charge to computers and mobile phones as they've just done in Sweden, then how about a bit of devolution.  Perhaps Welsh licence fee payers could see their hard earned cash going to support         and an English language television channel for Wales.  Maybe the two channels would end up with less cash to waste than the present arrangements but that might be a good thing.  Think about it, no more                   no more                and no more David               talking            about over-population and                       .  As Jimmy Leveson used to say                       .   

Cambrian Swains

I shouldn't watch BBC history programmes, they only leave me bellowing at the screen.  Janina Ramirez may have ditched her stilettos but she still managed to clump her way around France going on and on about the English, the English, the English.

Let's be fair, Nina did point-out that King Edward III and his commanders were, in truth, Frenchmen; but what about the archers and spearmen who actually slaughtered the continent's nobility at Crecy?   It's likely that the majority were Welsh, although that's a word that is unlikely to pass Janina's lips.  For example, Kent was the English shire asked to raise the most recruits for Edward's army - 280.  For most English counties the figure was less than 200, in many cases just 60.  Total up the recruits expected from the lordships - Maelienydd, Gwerthrynion, Radnor and Elfael - that would later go to make up insignificant little Radnorshire and you get a figure of  430.

Should we mind?  Well I think we should, deprive a country of its history and you eventually deprive it of its identity.  From the Daily Mail to all those politically-correct schoolboys who pass for comedians nowadays, there's a constant campaign to diminish and denigrate the Welsh.  Ieuan Brydydd Hir got it right some 240 years ago:

The false historians of a polished age
Show that the Saxon has not lost his rage,
Though tamed by arts his rancour still remains:
Beware of Saxons still, ye Cambrian swains.

Borderline

Clearly the 2011 Census figures appeals to my inner nerd; although it seems, from the deluge of comments such posts engender, this interest is not widely shared. Here's a last look at some snippets that caught my eye.  No more, I promise.

Tidenham

A few years ago the good folk of Tidenham in Gloucestershire held a vote aimed at swapping their  Newport postcode for a Gloucester version.  Some of the town's residents being incensed at the indignity of receiving bilingual utility bills and the like.  As it turned out not many bothered to vote and 40% of those who did opted to stay with Newport.  Here are the 2011 census figures:  English-only 46%, Welsh-only 15%, British-only 22%

Quite a Welsh flavour to this Gloucestershire town.

Bewick-upon-Tweed

Berwick Rangers may play in the Scottish Football League but how do the citizens of this Northumbrian town feel about their national identity?.  Here are the figures:  English-only 55%, Scottish-only 12%, British-only 19%. Cameron 1 Salmond 0 I'm afraid.

Maelor Saesneg

In the 1880s there were plans to hand over the detached portion of the old Flintshire to Shropshire, it never happened.  It's the one part of Wales where any demand to adjust the border in England's favour might have some historical justification. Even here though it's probable that the majority of the locally born population opted for a Welsh-only identity.

Hanmer:  English-only 38%, Welsh-only 24%, British-only 30%

Willington:  English-only 38%, Welsh-only 20%, British-only 32%

Bronington:  English-only 43%, Welsh-only 18%, British-only 27%

Maelor:  English-only 37%, Welsh-only 28%, British-only 22%

Overton:  English-only 25%, Welsh-only 35%, British-only 28%

Bangor:  English-only 26%, Welsh-only 38%, British-only 23%

Isycoed:  English-only 26%, Welsh-only 41%, British-only 22%

Along the Radnorshire Border with Salop

If the majority in South Herefordshire have opted for an English-only identity then the old Marcher Lordship of Clun is even more anglicised.  Only along the Radnorshire border are there many folk willing to admit to a Welsh identity.  Clearly playing in the Mid-Wales soccer leagues has failed to promote any feelings of camaraderie amongst the locals:

Betws y Crwyn:  English-only 64%, Welsh-only 8%, British-only 16%

Llanfair Waterdine:  English-only 54%, Welsh-only 9%, British-only 28%

Stowe:  English-only 55%, Welsh-only 16%, British-only 22%

Bucknell:  English-only 67%, Welsh-only 6%, British-only 16%

Along the Radnorshire Border with Herefordshire

It's no surprise to find not a single person in Kington, - birthplace of  Ffransis Payne - claiming Welsh as their main language.  It is a surprise to find that the Welsh-born element in the town is so small.

Brampton Bryan:  English-only 65%, Welsh-only 8%, British-only 20%

Stapleton:  English-only 58%, Welsh-only 7%, British-only 20%

Byton::  English-only 64%, Welsh-only 4%, British-only 16%

Titley:  English-only 53%, Welsh-only 9%, British-only 22%

Kington Town:  English-only 61%, Welsh-only 7%, British-only 17%

Kington Rural:  English-only 62%, Welsh-only 6%, British-only 17%

Brilley:  English-only 54%, Welsh-only 8%, British-only 19%
Clifford: see previous post

Gwalia Irredenta

As the recent programmes on S4C about Tryweryn made clear, the first direct action at the site was carried out by patriots from what commentators insist on calling anglicised Wales; in the case of Pritchard and Walters this being Monmouthshire.  I've already complained about the use of the term anglicisation to describe the process of language shift, see here.  If we want to see what anglicisation really means we have to look at somewhere like South Herefordshire and the national identity question in the recent census..

The last Welsh-speaking native of South Herefordshire is said to have died in the parish of Clodock in 1883.  Certainly there is documentary evidence to show that the language was spoken in places like Michaelchurch Escley and Craswall during the 18C and Welsh placenames and surnames are common throughout the area even today.  If more than 50000 natives of Cornwall could go to the trouble of writing-in a Cornish only identity in the 2011 Census, then surely there might be some evidence of a continuing Welsh identity in an area that spoke a Celtic language for just as long, if not longer, than Kernow?

In reality an English-only identity rules the roost throughout the old districts of Ewias and Erging.  Just as much of the population of eastern Germany is made up of thoroughly Germanised folk who happen to be of Slavonic and Baltic origin - Mrs Merkel for example - so South Herefordshire appears thoroughly anglicised, a people who no longer regard themselves as Welsh.

Is there any evidence of a continuing Welsh identity amongst even a small minority in the area?  There are a handful of parishes where the figure identifying as Welsh is greater than the figure born in Wales, but the numbers are small and there could be various explanations.  The most interesting anomaly are parishes where the number identifying as English-only is much lower than the Herefordshire average and the figure identifying as British-only is much greater.  Does this indicate some distinct ethnic awareness?  We also have to remember that, like rural Wales, Ewias and Erging are areas that attract incomers.  Anyway here are some figures for some of the parishes involved:

Herefordshire:  English-only 64% Welsh-only 4% British-only 16%

Clifford:  English-only 52% Welsh-only 8% British-only 28%

Cusop:  English-only 51% Welsh-only 15% British-only 19%

Dorstone:  English-only 54% Welsh-only 7% British-only 26%

Newton:  English-only 55% Welsh-only 9% British-only 27%

Abbeydore:  English-only 55% Welsh-only 5% British-only 23%

Longtown:  English-only 53% Welsh-only 11% British-only 21%

Llangarron:  English-only 56% Welsh-only 8% British-only 24%

Welsh Newton:  English-only 47% Welsh-only 8% British-only 30%

Ganarew:  English-only 50% Welsh-only 12% British-only 26%

Rowlestone:  English-only 50% Welsh-only 8% British-only 26% 

Little England No More

It came as something of a surprise when I found out that the term landsker - it describes the supposed frontier between north and south Pembrokeshire and turns up in nearly every article on the county you care to read - was actually coined as late as 1939.  The more I've read, the greater the realisation that Little England Beyond Wales is just a myth, an attempt to divide our country on purely linguistic grounds with no regard for history, family origin or national sentiment.

So what does the national identity question in the 2011 Census tell us about the folk of South Pembrokeshire, do they regard themselves as English or even Flemings?  Now Pembrokeshire is a long way from my Radnorshire beat but here are some brief stats for a few representative communities:

Haverfordwest:  54% identified as Welsh only, 69% of the community were Welsh born.

Tenby:  50% identified as Welsh only, 64% of the community were Welsh born.

Pembroke Dock:  55% identified as Welsh only, 70% of the community were Welsh born.

Dale:  50% identified as Welsh only, 62% of the community were Welsh born.

Stackpole:  40% identified as Welsh only, 57% of the community were Welsh born.

Marloes:  48% identified as Welsh only, 61% of the community were Welsh born.

Angle:  53% identified as Welsh only, 66% of the community were Welsh born.

Carew:  53% identified as Welsh only, 65% of the community were Welsh born.

So there you have it, the great majority of the locally born population identify as Welsh only.  Perhaps the rest of us can now stop insulting the folk of South Pembrokeshire with this Little England nonsense.

The Census Again

No Welsh Identity

The 'no Welsh identity' figures for Radnorshire make grim reading for those with a patriotic outlook.  Readers may well be reminded of J R Jones' comment about a particular bitter form of exile; that where, rather than leaving your own country, your country leaves you.  Here are the figures:

Abbeycwmhir 47%, Aberedw 49%, Beguildy 67%, Clyro 68%, Diserth 62%, Glasbury 52%, Gladestry 62%, Glascwm 47%,  Knighton 67%, Llanbadarn Fawr 49%, Llanbadarn Fynydd 44%, Llanbister 44%, Llanddewi Ystradenni 47%, Llandrindod 56%, Llanelwedd 40%, Llanfihangel Rhydithon 60%, Llangynllo 63%, Llanyre 51%, Nantmel 52%, New Radnor 71%, Old Radnor 71%, Painscastle 52%, Penybont 49%, Presteigne 76%, Rhayader 45%, St Harmon 49%, Whitton 71%.

Of course it's not all doom and gloom, the figures are inflated by cross border births and the non-Welsh element will be over-represented in the older age groups - people who, in the rather blunt words of Dafydd Iwan, have come to Wales to die.  I doubt if Radnorian folk have ever given a more ringing endorsement of their Welsh identity than they did in the census of 2011.  They may be a minority in much of their own land, but at least they see themselves as a Welsh minority.

Builth Hundred

Here are the figures for that little piece of Radnorshire that somehow ended up in Brecknockshire:

Builth Town:  Welsh only 52%, English only 15%, British only 20% - NWI 41%
Cilmeri:  Welsh only 45%, English only 21%, British only 25% - NWI 48%
Duhonw:  Welsh only 45%, English only 21%, British only 20% - NWI 49%
Llanafan:  Welsh only 51%, English only 14%, British only 21% - NWI 41%
Llangammarch:  Welsh only 42%, English only 18%, British only 29% - NWI 52%
Llanwrthwl:  Welsh only 35%, English only 19%, British only 29% - NWI 54%
Llanwrtyd:  Welsh only 34%, English only 25%, British only 27% - NWI 59%
Treflys:  Welsh only 46%, English only 21%, British only 21% - NWI 46%

NWI = % of population recording no Welsh identity.

Llanwrtyd

Part of the charm of border towns like Knighton and Presteigne has been their long-standing mixed ethnicity, but what about Llanwrtyd?   In the 1911 census it was 80% Welsh speaking with 1 in 6 of its inhabitants not even  able to use the English tongue.  Even in 1951 after two World Wars and the depression Welsh was still spoken by two thirds of the town's inhabitants.  By 1971 the Welsh speaking population had fallen to 48%, while today it stands at an optimistic 18%.  According to the latest Estyn report no children at the local school come from Welsh speaking homes, and now we find that 59% of the population of this little town at the heart of Wales won't even claim any kind of Welsh identity.  This is what happens to a country's economy and culture when it allows its laws to be dictated by foreigners.

Welsh in England

Some folk have long asked that the Census enumerate Welsh speakers in England as well as those in Wales.  The 2011 census didn't do that, but it did require that the main language of the household be noted where it was not English.  With a Welsh born population living in England of 500K you'd expect around 50K to be Welsh speaking, infact the number recorded was just 8248.  No doubt this is an underestimation of the total number able to speak Welsh but at least it is a realistic figure and not overly inflated by patriotic zeal.  1310 of such folk live in London, but what about the Oswestry area.

As we have noted before Shropshire, rather than Cornwall, was the last county in England with indigenous speakers of a Celtic language, parishes such as Selattyn having home-grown Welsh speakers well into the 20C.  For example in 1946 five of the pupils at the local school were fluent Welsh speakers from Welsh speaking homes (cf present-day Llanwrtyd).  In 2011 just 10% of the inhabitants of Selattyn admitted to a Welsh identity, in nearby West Rhyn it was 15%, with 14% in St Martins and around 8% in Oswestry and Whittington.  Just over 200 residents of Oswestry and vicinity listed Welsh as the main language of their household.  Whether they were Salopians or incomers who knows?

Radnorian Identity

The detailed 2011 census figures for parishes and wards were published this morning, you can search them here.

A popular fancy amongst the chattering classes is to talk of multiple identities - people who feel, for example, European and British and Welsh.  Well, there's not much sign of that in the results for the census question on national identity.  Although people could opt for numerous combinations, around 90% opted for a single identity and in Radnorshire that meant choosing between Welsh, English and British.

Here are the figures for Radnorshire communities

Abbeycwmhir:  Welsh only 46%, English only 20%, British only 25%

Aberedw:  Welsh only 44%, English only 20%, British only 27%

Beguildy:  Welsh only 27%, English only 36%, British only 25%

Clyro:  Welsh only 27%, English only 32%, British only 28%

Diserth:   Welsh only 33%, English only 34%, British only 23%

Glasbury:  Welsh only 42%, English only 21%, British only 25%

Gladestry:  Welsh only 34%, English only 30%, British only 23%

Glascwm:  Welsh only 47%, English only 19%, British only 25%

Knighton:  Welsh only 28%, English only 38%, British only 22%

Llanbadarn Fawr:  Welsh only 46%, English only 23%, British only 21%

Llanbadarn Fynydd:  Welsh only 44%, English only 20%, British only 18%

Llanbister:  Welsh only 49%, English only 23%, British only 18%

Llanddewi Ystradenni:  Welsh only 47%, English only 24%, British only 19%

Llandrindod:  Welsh only 37%, English only 26%, British only 24%

Llanelwedd  Welsh only 54%, English only 18%, British only 18%

Llanfihangel Rhydithon:  Welsh only 35%, English only 27%, British only 26%

Llangynllo:  Welsh only 31%, English only 34%, British only 22%

Llanyre:  Welsh only 41%, English only 24%, British only 21%

Nantmel:  Welsh only 41%, English only 20%, British only 27%

New Radnor:  Welsh only 24%, English only 31%, British only 32%

Old Radnor:  Welsh only 24%, English only 35%, British only 30%

Painscastle:  Welsh only 40%, English only 24%, British only 22%

Penybont:  Welsh only 43%, English only 22%, British only 20%

Presteigne:  Welsh only 21%, English only 41%, British only 26%

Rhayader:  Welsh only 50%, English only 22%, British only 17%

St Harmon:  Welsh only 43%, English only 27%, British only 20%

Whitton:  Welsh only 25%, English only 32%, British only 32%

I guess you could look at these figures and conclude that the Radnorshire population consisted of a substantial minority of English with a majority Welsh population, many of whom identified as British.  You'd be wrong.

Infact the Welsh born, and I know the figures are skewed by births in Hereford hospital, are a minority - Rhayader and Llanelwedd with 56% Welsh born being top of the list - in Knighton just a third are Welsh born, in Presteigne just a quarter - in 21 of the 27 Radnorshire communities the Welsh born are in the minority.

A fairer characterisation would be to say that the ethnically Welsh are now a minority in Radnorshire ...... that these Welsh overwhelmingly* identify as Welsh only.....given that fact, we can also say that the Welsh are marginally more likely to chose a mixed identity than the English .... and that the English are more likely to chose a 'British only' identity than the Welsh.

Finally people choosing no 'Welsh identity' at all comprise the majority in sixteen of the twenty seven Radnorshire communities.  I'm searching for a phrase to describe this phenomenon, ethnic cleansing springs to mind.

*  It's not failsave but if we compare the total Welsh only identifiers as a % of the Welsh born we get only two communities where the figure is less than 80%  - Whitton (75%) and Llangynllo (77%), in eleven communities it is more than 90%, in Gladestry it's 111%.

Not often you see this ....

......... a politician talking sense about the banksters - and, last time I checked, the President of Iceland was actually on a lower* annual salary than the Chief Executive of Powys County Council.

* Icelandic President £95K, Powys CE between 124K and 132K

Nature Notes

An ice tower in a Radnorian bird bath:

Spies of Llandrindod?

The BBC's latest espionage offering Spies of Warsaw, with David Tennant somewhat miscast as a tough French military attaché, is set in the late 1930s as Europe prepares for war.  Meanwhile in Llandrindod .....

Our story, a true one as it happens, starts in Vienna in 1934, with the assassination of the Austrian chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in a Nazi inspired coup. While Dollfuss bled to death on the floor of his own office, his pregnant wife Alwine was holidaying in Italy with her two young children Eva and Rudi.  They were staying as guests of Mussolini and his wife Rachele.  It was left to the Italian dictator to break the news of her husband's murder to Frau Dollfuss.  Angered and fearing a German invasion of Austria in the wake of the failed coup, Mussolini mobilised a force of some 50000 men and sent them to the Tyrolean border.  This gave Hitler pause for thought and it was not until 1938 that German troops finally entered the country.  Frau Dollfuss, by then a mother of three, fled Austria for Budapest before eventually finding sanctuary in Llandrindod Wells.

The family lived at Trevaldwyn, a white and green villa in Montpelier Park, the home of a South African widow, long resident in the town, Mrs Murray-Parker.  Frau Dollfuss, "a most lovable person" according to a maid at the house, was said to be writing a book and it was perhaps this, townsfolk reasoned, which led to the appearance of a carload of mysterious strangers in the Spa in April 1939.  The strangers, one was described by a garage mechanic as "a typical German with cropped hair and glasses," began asking for Frau Dollfuss at guest houses and hotels.  Eventually they called at Trevaldwyn, by which time the Dollfuss family, accompanied by Mrs Murray-Parker, had already fled the town.

Eventually Frau Dollfuss must have returned to Llandrindod since newspaper photographs from 1940 show the family preparing to leave for Canada.

Old Logic

The surname Burgoyne is a reminder that to the south and east of Radnorshire lay districts which once had a decidedly French character - the name means a native of Bourgogne or Burgendy.  In Radnorshire, at least, it was often spelt Burgwyn or, as in the case of young Thomas of the Gobe* farm christened at Gladestry parish church on 17th June 1827, Burgwynne.

By the time Thomas reached Australia in 1849 he had a young wife, a sound knowledge of all aspects of the building trade - a speciality of his family - and was spelling his name as Burgoyne.  You can read more about him in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, here.  To this we can only add that once, when confronted by a party of aborigine warriors, he impressed upon them the superiority of European weaponry by shooting their dog.  Thomas led his Independent (Country) Party in the South Australian assembly for 30 years, attributing his eventual defeat at the age of 88 to the fact that many hundreds of itinerant workers, engaged in building a railway, were on the electoral register.

* Does anyone know the origin of this placename?

A Radnorian and the Ku Klux Klan

John Evans, originally of Esgair Rhiw, Nantmel (1867-1958) and later a Saskatchewan politician and member of the Canadian House of Commons between 1921 and 1930, was a radical, anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist voice who eventually left the Progressive Party to join the socialist CCF.

Why given this background was Evans accused of being a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and why does his comment in the Canadian Commons that the Klan's members were "not in any way what one might call hot-headed and they are absolutely against any violent or unconstitutional way of doings things" get quoted in various histories of racism in Canada?

It comes as a surprise to learn that the Klan was estimated to have 25,000 members in Saskatchewan in the late 1920s, this in a province with less than a million inhabitants.  The prairie Klan had only the most tenuous links with its American progenitor, although it adopted the same regalia and cross-burning antics.  It exploited fears about East European immigration and the influence of the Roman Catholic church in some of the province's public schools.  If John Evans sought to ride the Klan tiger - and he would have known of another popular, secretive, oath-bound society from his native parish, the Rebeccaites of Radnorshire - his political enemies rode it better; Evans' defeat in the 1930 General Election being put down to Klan backing for his Conservative opponent.
 

Musical Interlude