A Great Day to be Welsh (in sporting terms)

Champions Wales 2012

Yesterday, being St Patrick's Day was a great day to celebrate being Irish. Or if Nottingham was anything to go by, an opportunity for hundreds of people with no Irish connection at all to don silly Guinness shaped hats; pretend to have an Irish accent, and get drunk.

I missed the St Patrick's Day parade; actually I avoided it. I haven't been to a parade since Belfast in the early 1970's, which put me off them totally, though I have no desire to prevent others from experiencing this strange form of enjoyment.

I do like my sport though, and with apologies to the Irish, and English, and Scottish, and Italian, and French, yesterday was a great day to be Welsh. Wales won the Six Nations Rugby championship by beating the five other nations over the last few weeks. At the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, they beat France 16 - 9, and so achieved the Grand Slam. This is the 3rd time in 8 years, and the 2nd time in the last 5 years that they have achieved this, which had Jonathan Davies talking about them in terms of the great sides of the 1970's. I'm not so sure that they're at that level yet, but they're still quite a young side, so who knows. They have however matched the achievement of 34 years ago by winning three Grand Slams in eight years. I remember Welsh Rugby in the 1970's, and the video below gives a glimpse of the magic of those days.



This was the golden era of 1969 - 1979 when Wales won four consecutive Triple Crowns, with players whose names still trip off the tongue: Gareth Edwards, Barry John, Phil Bennett, J.P.R. Williams, J.J. Williams, John Taylor, Mervyn Davies, (known as Merv the Swerve, and who sadly died just 3 days ago), Gerald Davies, and the Pontypool front row of Graham Price, Bobby Windsor and Charlie Faulkner.

Some people (mostly from outside of Wales it has to be said) are begrudgingly giving praise to Wales, but saying that the real test of how good they are is when they play teams from the Southern Hemisphere, such as Australia and New Zealand. Oh come off it. People don't say that when England win. Let's just acknowledge that as far as the Six Nations is concerned, Wales are the best team in the Northern Hemisphere, and that as far as Rugby is concerned, it's a great time to be Welsh.

But it's not just rugby. Yesterday, for the first time this season I watched Match of the Day. There were only two Premiership matches played, so there were some decent highlights shown.

First on was Fulham verses Swansea from Craven Cottage, with the result, Fulham 0, Swansea 3. This lifted Swansea to 8th position in the league, which is a remarkable achievement for a team who have just come up from the Championship.

But it wasn't just the score that impressed me, as good as that was against a very decent Fulham side. It was the manner in which Swansea played the game. I've read a lot of the plaudits that they have received for their style of football, and I was looking forward to seeing this for myself.

In the analysis of the game afterwards, they showed a marvellous clip which they had speeded up. It was a sequence of 30 - 40 passes lasting nearly 1:40 seconds, and it was a great example of possession football. And all of it was played on the grass, which reminded me of the great quote from Brian Clough, "If God meant us to play in the clouds he would have put grass there". Gary Linecar felt that Swansea were almost "Barcelonaesque" in the way that they played football. This is the kind of hyperbole that I would have been proud of. There are no "stars" in the team, just players who are comfortable on the ball, and know how to use it well. They are a credit to football, and another reason why yesterday was a great day to be Welsh.

But enough of this Welsh love-in. Yesterday also showed that football and rugby are just games, and other things in life are much more important. This was brought home by the collapse of Fabrice Muamba from a suspected heart attack while playing in the FA Cup for Bolton Wanderers against Tottenham Hotspur. Muamba is a former England under 21's player, and is young, fit and wealthy, but this didn't stop his heart from giving out, and at the time of writing this on Sunday evening, he remains in a critical condition. There really are no guarantees in life are there. I do hope that he pulls through OK.

The Enigma of History

Offa's Dyke and the Clun Valley

You know how it is, a question pops into your head, and you've just got to find the answer. No matter how obscure the issue, or how irrelevant it is to everyday life, you've just got to know.

This happened to me a few days ago when I was studying a map of the area in which I was brought up. I was pin pointing where my relatives lived, and it was as I was looking at Ruabon that the question popped into my mind.

On the west side of the village was a line marked Offa's Dyke, and on the east side, under a mile away, was a line marked Wat's Dyke. The question that wouldn't go away was why were there two earthen Dyke's running so close to each other? And a subsidiary question was, while we'd all heard of Offa's Dyke, why hadn't I heard of Wat's Dyke? It was barely two miles from where I was born. This niggled away at me, and I had to look into it.



Offa's Dyke is Red Line and Wat's Dyke is Brown Line

 I've dipped into about half a dozen archaeological works to find the answer, and there is conflicting views, particularly about Wat's Dyke.

However, digging through the mystery and the speculation, and the view that "nearly everything about Wat's Dyke remains uncertain", I'm hanging on to a consensus view, that makes sense to me. If my reader knows something else, they will no doubt let me know.

Wat's Dyke is up to 60 miles long, running from Basingwerk, Holywell, Flintshire, down to the river Severn at Maesbury in Shropshire. You can read about the Wat's Dyke Way Heritage Trail here.

Offa's Dyke is much longer, and runs from Prestatyn in the north, to Chepstow in the south,  a distance approaching 180 miles. The Dyke roughly follows the existing border between England and Wales. You can see the Offa's Dyke Association web site here.

I still hadn't answered my question of why, but I became captivated by the thought of what. What did the Dyke's look like? And reading about them took me back over 50 years to school drawings of castle escarpments (I hope that's the right word).

The Dyke's were generally, for most of their length made of a ditch, the soil of which was then made to construct a rampart. A bit like planting a row of potatoes, but a lot, lot, lot bigger. The Wat's Dyke varied in size over its length, with the rampart reaching anything from 6.4m to 12.2m in height. At Wrexham General Station, the bank was found to be over 6m wide, and the ditch in many places was at least 1.2m deep. Offa's Dyke was much bigger altogether, and as originally constructed, it was thought to have been about 27m wide, and 8m from the ditch bottom to the bank top. As can be seen from the diagram above, the ditch was always to the west, facing Wales.

The British Isles about 802 AD

So, who built the two Dyke's, when and why? At last I'm coming to answer my question, at least in a way that satisfies me.

The general consensus seems to be that Wat's Dyke was built by Aethelbald, king of Mercia from 716 - 757 AD. Mercia at the time was largely the area that we now call the English Midlands. The name Wat seems to be of uncertain origin.

King Offa was Aethelbald's successor, and reigned from 757 - 796 AD, and was responsible for building Offa's Dyke, which was an improved version, being much stronger and longer. It is thought to have been started in 785 AD and taken many years to build. To understand how and why such an impressive Dyke came to be built, it's perhaps helpful to look briefly at Offa himself.

One historian has summarised him like this. "Offa was King of Mercia from 757 to 796 AD. His kingdom covered the area between the Trent/Mersey rivers in the north to the Thames Valley in the south, and from the Welsh border in the west to the Fens in the east. At the height of his power, however, he also controlled Kent, East Anglia and Lincoln, and had alliances with Northumbria and Wessex, sealed by the marriage of two of his daughters to their Kings, Aethelred and Beorhtic respectively. He was, therefore, effectively an early King of England".

In response to the unrest emanating from the Princes of Powys along the Welsh border, he constructed the Dyke; either as an agreed boundary, defensive structure, or some other reason; historians and archaeologists are uncertain. Speaking as a layman, I think that there would have been easier ways to mark a boundary, and I can only assume that it was built to help keep the Welsh out of his kingdom of Mercia. The ditch facing Wales leads me to this view. He built it west of Wat's Dyke, so extending his own kingdom further into Wales.

It's amazing that after over 1200 years, so much of the Dyke's remain. I think that's testimony to the worker's of the day, and hundreds and thousands of walkers every year are enjoying the fruits of their labour. To another historian, "the origins of the Dyke are shrouded in mystery so that many of its aspects are speculated upon rather than being fully understood". What I've written may well contain some speculation, but I'm content that my questions of why, who and what have been answered. I now await the next question to pop into my head.

Land of my Fathers

Is it age that brings on feelings of nostalgia? Or is there something more deeply psychological that brings on yearnings to go back to one's roots? Maybe it's because that in retirement, I don't have that much to do, and 'thinking' takes up more of my time. In my professional career, I often debated, both formally and informally, the subject of nature verses nurture. What has made me the person the I am?

Nurture, means that our personality has been affected by our upbringing and surroundings, while Nature means that there is something in our genes or family history that explains the type of person we are. Whatever is the cause, I find myself increasingly looking back to the land of my birth, Wales. This can by seen in the number of blogs dedicated to My Village, My Home, My Life, and to references looking at Eisteddfodau and Welsh Male Voice Choirs. I'm in such a reflective mood today; thinking about the scenery, the history, the language and the people. But funny enough, I'm not thinking about moving back to Wales. Perhaps this shows that there is a great flaw in my character, that detracts from the pride of coming from Wales.

I also don't speak Welsh, but according to a Welsh Language Board survey in 2004 (the results of the 2011 Census are yet to be produced), 21.7% of the population of Wales were able to speak Welsh. So I'm actually in good company with the other 78.3% of the population. Not that I say this with any pride.

So, enough of my rambling. Here's some thoughts on Welsh Rugby and the Welsh language.

Wales Rugby Team 1905

Rugby has a strong association with Wales. The current game is pre-dated by the game of Cnapan, which is thought to have been played in Wales since the Middle Ages. There is a wonderful description of the game here. It largely died out in the middle of the 19th Century, with the coming of Rugby Union.

It seems to be generally accepted that Rugby came to Wales in 1850, when the Reverend Professor Rowland Williams brought the game with him when he moved from Cambridge to St David's College, Lampeter. The expansion of interest in Rugby went hand in hand with the growth in industrialisation in Wales. The railways brought new workers from the main cities to the new steel and coal towns of Wales. Places like Merthyr (1876), Brecon (1874) and Penygraig (1877) all adopted the new sport.

While Wales has not always been dominant in Rugby Union (I'm going to forget the fallow years), there has been two recognised 'golden era's' of Welsh Rugby. The first is 1900-1919 because of the success of the national team. The Triple Crown (beating England, Scotland and Ireland) was first won on 1893, and between 1900 and 1914 the team won the trophy a further six times, and three Grand Slams when France joined the competition in 1908 and 1909. Wales began to transform for ever, the way that the game would be played. This was partly done through the introduction of what was called the "Rhondda Forward". The Welsh front row was now to be made up of men who worked all day and every day in the coal, iron and tin mines; who were chosen for their strength and aggressive tackling. During the 1970's (which we'll come to), the most famous front row of all was the Pontypool front row of Graham Price, Bobby Windsor and Charlie Faulkner. They were all manual workers, and some have put forward the theory that when Welsh industry declined, and players started to be drawn from 'soft jobs', the team suffered.

The success of Welsh Rugby in the first two decades of the 20th Century is all the more remarkable when you consider a number of external circumstances. The valley areas in particular were part of a strong Nonconformist Baptist movement that saw Rugby as "a wicked temptation to the young men of the mining and steel communities, leading to violence and drink". The religious revival of 1904 saw communities completely reject Rugby, and local clubs such as the famous Senghenydd disbanded for several years. In 1913, five members of the Senghenydd team were killed in Britain's worst colliery disaster, and many other teams, including Welsh internationals lost their lives in the First World War.

In England, the game of Rugby was generally seen as a sport for gentlemen of higher learning, but I'm very proud of the fact that in Wales, it was fast absorbed into the working class areas, and the link was severed of Rugby as a sport for middle and upper classes.

The second golden era, perhaps the greatest of all, was the 1970's. This is the period that I remember, with players such as Barry John, Gareth Edwards, Phil Bennett and JPR Williams. The video below is a collection of some of the greatest moments from that period. On this occasion, a picture is worth a thousand words.



Wales won four consecutive Triple Crowns during the period, playing a type of free flowing Rugby that had rarely been seen before. In 2003, Gareth Edwards was voted the greatest player of all time in a players poll. He also scored what many believe to be the greatest try of all time in 1973, when playing for the Barbarians against the All Blacks of New Zealand. You can watch it on You Tube.

Let's move on to language.

On the 7th December 2010, the Welsh Assembly unanimously approved a set of measures to develop the use of the Welsh language within Wales. On the 9th February 2011, this measure received Royal Approval and was passed, so making the Welsh language an officially recognised language within Wales. What does this mean in practice? The measure;

• confirms the official status of the Welsh language
• creates a new system of placing duties on bodies to provide services through the medium of Welsh
• creates a Welsh Language Commissioner with strong enforcement powers to protect the rights of Welsh speakers to access services through the medium of Welsh
• establishes a Welsh Language Tribunal
• gives individuals and bodies the right to appeal decisions made in relation to the provision of services through the medium of Welsh
• creates a Welsh Language Partnership Council to advise Government on its strategy in relation to the Welsh language
• allows for an official investigation by the Welsh Language Commissioner of instances where there is an attempt to interfere with the freedom of Welsh speakers to use the language with one another

As I mentioned earlier, The Welsh Language Board indicated in 2004 that 21.7% of the population of Wales were able to speak Welsh. This grew from 20.8% at the 2001 Census; the growth in absolute numbers is around 35,000.

Welsh is therefore a growing language within Wales. The map opposite shows the strongest Welsh speaking regions, and while some may have assumed that this would be in the former mining valleys of South Wales, it is actually in the area of North West Wales.

I guess that a national language goes along with a national identity, and no doubt Welsh will continue to flourish with the new recognition of the language within Wales.

As long ago as 1977, a greeting in Welsh was one of 55 languages chosen to be included on the Voyager Golden Record as representative of Earth in NASA's Voyager programme. 'Is anyone out there?'. If there is, they may well be hearing the Welsh greeting, but translated as "Good health to you now and forever".

I may be a Welshman in exile, but I have an increasing fondness for the land of my birth. Rugby and language seem to be two of a number of things that sum up the country, and how I feel about it.

I'm going to end with a video of Max Boyce, the Welsh comedian, poet, singer/song writer, and former coal miner. He's been performing for 40 years now, and has performed some magical songs about Rugby and being Welsh. Many pieces are extremely funny, while others are very poignant. The piece I've chosen is about the closure of a coal mine, which has the refrain, 'The pit head bath's a supermarket now'. The song is called, "Duw it's hard". The slides add to the poignancy of the song.

My Village, My Home, My Life - part seven

1947 was a year of contrasts, and of beginnings. We had BUPA founded; the first tubeless car tyre; first transistor produced; a record football transfer fee of £15,000; Llangollen International Eisteddfod began; harsh winter; hot summer, and I was born.

Digging out a car, 30th January 1947

According to Met Office records, from the 22nd January to the 17th March 1947, snow fell every day, somewhere in the UK. In my County of Denbighshire, snow fell to a depth of about 5 feet, with drifts in exposed places reaching over 15 feet. There was inevitable chaos for a number of weeks. Men couldn't get to work in the area, and the mines had to close, with the looming threat of coal shortages. There was still rationing after the war, and the snow caused additional food shortages.

Hill farmers faced the threat of losing their flock of sheep due to the depth of snow on the mountains. And this is where I love stories of communities coming together in the face of adversity. Many miners and others who could not get to work because of the closures, went out on the mountains to help farmers find and recover their sheep. It seemed a daunting task, but experience had told farmers to look for dark brown patches in the snow. Sheep would lift their nostrils as high as possible to sniff the air, and the brown patches would indicate that sheep were near the surface of the snow. Many sheep died, but many were saved because of this collective community action.

You can't get to Penycae without either walking over the mountains, or going up steep hills, so the village was cut off for a considerable time.

I was born in September 1947, which means that unless I came about as the result of an immaculate conception, I was conceived around January 1947. This set me thinking; was I conceived because there was nothing else to do in a snow bound village? Oh, do tell me that there was more to my conception than that. Unfortunately, we'll now never know.

In March the snow began to melt, but because of the hardness of the ground, there was nowhere for the water to go, so inevitable widespread flooding occurred. Of interest to Nottingham readers is the fact that on the 18th March 1947, the banks of the River Trent burst, and hundreds of homes were flooded, many to first floor level.

After coping with deep snow in the early period of carrying me, my Mother had to endure the latter stages of pregnancy in a heatwave. The Summer of 1947 is the 6th warmest since records began in 1659. (You're dying to know the other five, aren't you? Well, 1826, 1846, 1976, 1983 and 1995). September 1947 was the 20th warmest month since 1659. I can imagine that after the snow of Winter, and the heat of Summer, my Mother would be relieved to see me pop out into the world.

LLangollen North Wales

Another significant event in 1947 was the first Llangollen International Eisteddfod, held in the magically beautiful town of Llangollen in the Dee Valley, just a short hop over the mountains from Penycae. The picture shows the centre of the town with its white water rapids at high level, and you follow the road to the right of the river, which takes you past the Eisteddfod ground, and on up to the ruins of Valle Crucis Abbey and the Horseshoe Pass.

Eisteddfod Pavilion

The Eisteddfod Executive Director says, "One of the joys of Llangollen is that it brings together in friendly competition some of the finest musical talent the world has to offer".

For one week in July each year, between 2000 and 5000 musicians, singers and dancers compete in over 20 high quality competitions during the day.

Every evening, the best and most colourful competitors share the stage in renowned concerts given by professional artists, many of whom started their careers in Llangollen.

It amazingly did not take many years to get established. Argentina and China participated in 1948; USA and Germany in 1949 (remember this was just four years after the end of the 2nd World War, but they were welcomed to the Eisteddfod with open arms); Brazil, Sri Lanka and Turkey in 1950; India and Indonesia in 1951. By 1953 - just six years after it started, 50 countries had competed in Llangollen. 2011 marks the 65th anniversary of this truly international festival.

Luciano Pavarotti (circled) Llangollen 1955

If you don't know the Llangollen International Eisteddfod, don't ever think of it as some mickey mouse event, held in the back waters of Wales. There is a seemingly endless list of now household names who have performed on the famous stage.

Placido Domingo acknowledges that his first professional experience in the United Kingdom was at the 1968 International Eisteddfod, and in 1955 Luciano Pavarotti (see picture), at the age of 17 competed with his father in the male voice choir competition with others from their home town of Modena. They won, and Pavarotti returned for a spectacular concert in 1995. Other stars who have appeared in the Gala Concerts are, Kiri Te Kanawa, Jose Carreras, Lesley Garrett, Bryn Tyrfel, Katherine Jenkins, Dennis O'Neil, James Galway, Nigel Kennedy, Elaine Page, Michael Ball and Montserrat Caballe. A truly glittering array of musical stars.

South Korean Dance Group

For this years Eisteddfod, 103 choirs and dance groups have been selected to participate from 35 different nations around the world. If you can get there, go and enjoy the spectacle of dance and song.

With so many people coming for a week to compete, where are they all to stay? The answer has always been in finding host families in the towns and villages around Llangollen. Penycae was one of those villages for many years, though for some reason, we were never a host family ourselves. Each nationality was allocated to a village, and as children, we waited with great excitement and anticipation which nationality of choir or dance group was allocated to the village.

Whichever group it was, at the end of their stay they would put on a concert for the village as a way of saying thank you. Weather permitting, the concert would be held on the green in the estate opposite my house in Cristionydd, called Groesfan. There would also be some gifts for the children, and I remember the Americans being my favourite, as they gave out loads of sweets and chocolates (like in the war with nylons, cigarettes and chocolates). Children can be so selfish can't they? I don't think that I can have changed that much, as I can still be easily bought with coffee, ice cream and chocolate.

I don't have first hand accounts from host families in Penycae, but in trawling through websites for memories of the Llangollen Eisteddfod, I came across a memory from someone in a neighbouring village, which could well be duplicated in ours. I love this recollection from 1977 as it shows how different nations lived at the time, and how Llangollen brought people together. The writer says,

"Another memorable year in the Eisteddfod calendar was when the Zulus, from Durban in South Africa arrived. My aunt hosted two young female competitors. My cousin recalls calling at the parish hall in their car to collect them. On reaching home it became obvious that the two young ladies were not at ease, with the situation becoming even more tense when they were asked if they would like something to eat.

Finally, when they were shown to their room, they broke down and confessed that they had never been treated so courteously, especially to be waiting on. The final straw came when they realised that they would be sleeping in the same house as a white person. It turned out that this was not an isolated case in the village, as other Zulu members asked shopkeepers if they could enter the premises to be served".

Remember, this was 1977, and at the time, apartheid was the official government policy of racial segregation in South Africa. Llangollen International Eisteddfod was there to embrace the world. Colour, creed and nationality were of no importance, the only thing that mattered was talent, and the world was brought together in healthy competition. For one week in July every year, Penycae embraced that vision, and while I can't speak for anyone else from the village, that vision has remained with me until this day.

Sorry, but couldn't resist ending with a shot of a Male Voice Choir.

My Village, My Home, My Life - part six

Painting by J Davies, Penycae

Wales is often described as the land of song, but I prefer to see it as wider than that, and call it the land of culture. This can be seen in all walks of life, and in many different ways. The above painting of various scenes in and around Penycae was done by John Davies, who has lived in the village all of his life. He was affectionately known as "Johnny Paraffin" (Wales does like its nicknames), as for as long as I can remember he drove a van around the village and surrounding area to deliver paraffin and a variety of household goods. He could talk for Wales on any subject, and never seemed to be in a hurry to get to the next customer. He was also a leader at Zion English Baptist Chapel (which I've mentioned before), and I shall be eternally grateful for the help and support he gave to me in my early development. He is now part of Penycae Art Club, which shows how important it is to document the life and history of a village, whether in painting, prose, poetry or song, while people are still alive.

The culture of Wales is very much kept alive through the Eisteddfodau (singular is Eisteddfod) held every year. There are two main ones: The Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales (very much Welsh language), and the Llangollen International Eisteddfod (promoting culture from across the world). In 1961 I was part of the National Eisteddfod when it came to my area, but more of that later. I'll also mention the International Eisteddfod, and its relation to the village in another blog.

The word Eisteddfod literally means 'eistedd' (to sit), and 'fod' (to be), so its historic meaning is The Sitting. I believe that this refers to the early days when 'judges' sat in a circle with the performers in the middle. The National Eisteddfod is the home of literature, music, dance, recitation, theatre, visual arts, science and technology, and all types of culture in Wales. Its purpose is to encourage the preservation of Welsh music and literature, and only those who sing or write in Welsh may enter the competitions.

Eisteddfod Field

Eisteddfodau have been in existence for hundreds of years. It is believed that the first Eisteddfod was held in Cardigan Castle in 1176. Records then show Carmarthen in 1451; Caerwys in 1568, and Corwen in 1789, which was the first time that the public were admitted.

The modern National Eisteddfod is very much from the 19th Century, and I have a theory as to what was one of the driving forces for change. The Government (in London) commissioned a report which had the title, "Reports of the Commissioners of Enquiry into the State of Education in Wales", which was published in 1847. The commissioners visited every part of Wales in 1846 gathering evidence and statistics. One of the problems, though, was that none of them spoke Welsh, and teachers and children did not speak English. The commissioners relied on information from witnesses, many of which were Anglican clergymen, at a time when Wales was a stronghold of Nonconformism. The report was not complimentary, and was not helped by a conclusion which said that " the Welsh were ignorant, lazy and immoral, and that among the causes of this were the use of the Welsh language and nonconformity".

The Blue Books

The report was presented to Parliament on the 1st July 1847 in three large blue-covered volumes, which resulted in a furious reaction. In Wales, the report was given the name, "The Treachery of the Blue Books". Robert Jones Derfyl, a Bard, wrote a book-length response, which some historians say was instrumental in the genesis of the modern Welsh self-government movement.

The general public felt that the report was an attack on the character of the Welsh as a nation, and the belief grew that it was important for the Welsh to create a new national image. In the 1850's people were talking of a national eisteddfod to showcase Wales' culture. One was held in Llangollen in 1858, and only three years later, in 1861 the modern, annual National Eisteddfod of Wales was born. 2011 marks the 150th anniversary of that date, and this years Eisteddfod is being held in Wrexham, just 5 miles away from my village, my home.

Wrexham Eisteddfod Proclamation Ceremony, 3rd July 2010

According to tradition, the intention to stage an Eisteddfod must be announced at least one year and a day before the actual event. On the 3rd July 2010, this is what happened in Wrexham. A procession of over 1200 people marched through the town centre, concluding with the proclamation ceremony.

At the heart of every National Eisteddfod are the Bards and the Gorsedd. Bards go back hundreds of years, and in their simplest form are poets and musicians, many of whom were professional, in that they were employed in the service of some Lord. The Gorsedd is a community or coming together of modern-day Bards. They hold the right of proclamation and of governance, while the Eisteddfod Council organises the event.

Ranks of the Welsh Gorsedd

There are three ranks of membership in the Welsh Gorsedd.

• Ovates - who wear green robes
• Bards - who wear blue robes
• Druids - who wear white robes

The Bard's Chair

There are three Gorsedd ceremonies at every Eisteddfod, which happen at the end of the three main competitions.

• The Crowning of the Bard - awarded to the poet judged best in the competition in free meter
• The Awarding of the Prose Medal - for the winner of the prose competition
• The Chairing of the Bard - for the best long poem

A new bardic chair is specially designed and made for each Eisteddfod, and is awarded to the prize-winning Bard each year.

Eisteddfod 1961

When I was 13, in 1961, the National Eisteddfod came to Rhosllannerchrugog (the Rhos) just one and a half mile from Penycae. With a population of around 10,000 people, it was one of the largest villages in Wales. Because of its built up nature, the Eisteddfod was held on the outskirts of the village on the fields of Rhosymedre.

I was attending Rhos Secondary School at the time, and somehow we entered a group in the Choral Speaking competition, and I was a member. Choral Speaking, for those unfamiliar with it, is projecting your voice and speaking in chorus. Imagine the finest choir. Take away the music and the singing, and just speak the words. I have always loved this form of art, and when done at best, it is powerful, evocative, intense and very moving. I have looked up some choral speaking on the Internet, but to be honest they were mostly rubbish, and I refuse to give a link in case you become tainted. I have no idea how we did in the competition, but as I had by then begun to love public speaking, I'm sure that performing on stage in front of thousands was a magical experience.

Not much about me or my village I know, but there is a link, and I hope that having a brief look at the magic of the National Eisteddfod is of some interest. This year in the Eisteddfod in Wrexham, there will be stiff competition for the three main prizes. The entries received are;

• For the Crown = 35
• For the Chair = 13
• For the Prose Medal = 11

I think that Marcus Garvey is right, "A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots".