The bard Ifor ap Glyn travels Wales attempting to do 'Popeth yn Gymraeg' (Everything in Welsh).
North East Wales
May 24, 2005
Busking on the streets of Wrexham today – with poems!
The north-east is the subject of the third programme.
I feel a little bit awkward performing the poems without any context. Usually one does this as a part of an evening’s entertainment and there’s a chance to say something which, hopefully, help make the poem relevant to the audience. But if you’re busking, you have a moving audience that’s changing all the time; you have to get their attention without introduction. I changed one or two lines to try and give it a local flavour e.g. “aethom in Wrecsam am drip” (We went to Wrexham on a trip), but all the while I was conscious, “what has this got to do with you?” Poems for non-consenting adults!
Despite this, quite soon I learnt a few of the busker’s tricks. A narrow pavement is better than a wide one – it’s harder for people to pass you, they have to come nearer. Here’s one aside I got:
- "I've lived twenty years in Caia Park where the riots were. I thought you were a beggar, but you're too well dressed."
A pint in the Horse and Jockey afterwards – the last time I was there with a crowd of Welsh speakers and the bar was empty except for us, the barmaid said that we were “rude” to speak Welsh in front of her. "That's really ignorant". Not speaking Welsh to her, mind you, just in her presence. Now the place has changed hands, and the landlord’s children are in a Welsh school. Good.
Busked outside the Borras Fish Bar then – which is owned by George Koumas, cousin of Jason the international footballer. A crowd of kids gathered around straight away and they were a diamond bunch; they didn’t want to hear my poems but they were willing to show how much Welsh they knew:
- “Yndw, nagdw, cau'r drws, he's calling me pen pidyn - what's that mean?” (Yes, no, shut the door, he’s calling me a dickhead – what’s that mean?)
- “When's this going out?”
- “Mis Tachwedd.” (November)
- “November?”
- “Sut mae?” (How are you?)
- “Da iawn.” (Very well)
But they had no inclination to listen to the poems.
"You're in the wrong part of Wales" said the youngster with the skinhead, "There's lots of Welsh in Cardiff… Or Bala… or Holyhead..."
"Can't you speak English?" said another one.
"Dwi'n dallt Saesneg ond 'mond yn siarad Cymraeg”, (“I understand English but I speak Welsh”), I said, signing “understand” and “speak” by pointing to my ear and my mouth.
"I can do that as well," one said and copied my mimes (ear, ear) "??!!...Off" (mouth, mouth) "You...??!!... So are you swearing at us then?"
"Nagdw." (No, I’m not)
"Oh."
I was glad that I was bigger than him and that he believed me!
There was seven pence in the hat. It was time to say goodbye and move on.
May 26, 2005
I feel a strong sense of responsibility in ensuring that people understand me and don’t get bored, or upset; that is, I try to create a situation where they’re prepared to be patient.
It was therefore interesting to hear a comment the lady from the shop in Caerwys made today to the cameraman shortly after we’d finished filming:
"He was very patient with us, wasn't he?"
And there I was thinking that she’d been patient with me! But perhaps she’s right. I have my responsibilities but what about the responsibility that each Welsh citizen has to try and understand? Does bilingualism have to be a one-way street? Good for you Margaret! And thanks for the lovely ham sandwich!
May 27, 2005
Lunch at the Fox pub in Oswestry today. I don’t know if Rhys Cain had a “local” when he lived here, but this pub is old enough for him to have drank here. Appropriately enough, a poem was being read on the radio when we came in, it started with the immortal line “shag and brag if you will”. This was obviously some kind of theme for the day, because then I heard Jeremy Vine saying "is it possible that your penis is so large that there's not enough blood in your body to make it hard?" Honestly, I’m not joking! And that in his angry just-answer-the-question-Prime-Minister voice. It was enough to put a man off his sausage.
The radio programme wasn’t the only weird experience we had in Oswestry – as we walked around, we started to come to the conclusion that the town was full of odd people...
1. A man with a white goatee walking past and saying “Ah!” loudly every other step, the poor thing.
2. - ‘Are you going back to your van?’
- ‘Sori?’
- ‘I saw you earlier.’
- ‘Dwi'm yn meddwl’ (I don’t think so)
- ‘Can I ask you one question then?’
- ‘Iawn.’ (Okay)
- ‘You know presenters, when they're filming, do they put on a false personality, or is that how they really are?’
3. ‘What's there to film here then? You should go to the well. It dates back to 1963 you know, and all the people of the town used to go there to wash the bacteria off their hands.’
The Welshman I came across in the tourist office was far more interesting. The town has been a part of England since 1536, but there were Welsh services in the parish church until 1814, and Oswestry is still the market town for many of the farmers on the border. Many bards have lived in the town or have praised it, including Rhys Cain of course.
Wiliam Morgan, who translated the Bible into Welsh, was a vicar in Oswestry between 1599-1602 and was therefore a contemporary of Rhys. Rhys wrote a cywydd on his behalf to thank the vicar of Abergele for a gift of geese – but the geese were so ferocious, Rhys Cain quipped, they had killed Morgan’s other poultry as well as his greyhound!
"Dyna afrad ar adar,
dyna bla gwyllt dan blu gwâr!"
Rhys Cain had a house on Wylyw street (rented to him by the widow of his former poetry teacher Wiliam Llyn who also lived in Oswestry) – the rent was twenty shillings a year and a red rose…the exact location of the house is by now unknown; it would be nice to think that it was near the pub on the street which has been named after one of the town’s more recent poets, the Wilfred Owen. By another happy coincidence, on the same street there’s a Bangladeshi takeaway called the Red Rose.