Llandudno and Conwy Valley

September 26, 2005

During the filming for the first four programmes, I’ve started to feel that I’m playing in the window, playing up for the camera, without getting to grips with the more sinister aspects which form the window’s frame, so to speak. Or so I believe. I’ve experienced this negative side several times before, but not during this filming.

- am I on an incredibly long lucky streak?
- Or does the camera induce good behaviour in the person I stop on the street?
- Or does the camera give me the confidence to deal with these situations more effectively?

I need a holiday. But I also need to prove or disprove this one way or another. And this was the idea for the fifth programme.

I got a camera that you can hide under a shirt button. It tends to slip and rest on top of my stomach pointing up slightly instead of lying vertically; so as I’m also quite tall, the danger is that the person I’m trying to film is very low in the frame, or worse than that they disappear entirely from the bottom of the frame! I hope I’ll get used to it!

September 27, 2005

picture from the programmeSo here I am in Llandudno, “The queen of seaside resorts” as they say. The Queen herself is a member of the Gorsedd; how Welsh is Llandudno?

As I filmed with the hidden camera today I didn’t come across many Welsh speakers (but if I stood outside the doors of M&S on a Saturday afternoon, it’s likely I would see half of Arfon and Conwy!) Having said that, no-one was unwilling to try and speak with me, so either my luck’s still in, or maybe attitudes really have changed…

Of the hundred or so who work in the hotel where I’m staying, six of them can speak Welsh apparently. I asked Gwilym on reception: "Be sy'n denu pobl yma? (What attracts people here?) "Y bae ac ati..." (The bay and all that..)

As we hear more about cultural tourism these days, I wonder how much interest the visitors have in the local language?

- "Maen nhw'n licio chlywad hi, ond sdim lot i'w glywad. Bydd lot yn holi am le gan nhw glywad canu Cymraeg - tafarn nos Sadwrn neu'r capel fore Sul. Mae gynnon ni rai drwodd rwan yn cael swpar cynnar er mwyn mynd i wrando ar Gôr Llanddulas heno; mae'r corau lleol yn rhoi cyngherddau drwy'r tymor, bob un yn ei dro."

(They like to hear it, but there’s not a lot of it about. Lots of people ask where they can hear Welsh singing – in the pub on a Saturday night or in chapel on Sunday. We’ve got some through there now who are having an early supper and going to listen to Llanddulas choir tonight, the local choirs take turns to give concerts throughout the season.)

I’ve made a list of things to do whilst I’m on my holiday and that includes trying the local food. I recall the story about an angry man going through the motions at a café in Cardiff and winding the waiting staff up before even ordering.

"I'd like to know if this is Welsh lamb" "Why's that sba'? You wanna ‘ave a conversation with it, is it?"

I went to Tiffanys for breakfast – well, with a name like that I could hardly go anywhere else.

September 28, 2005

picture from the programmeToday I went on a trip to Conwy and on to Betws y Coed. I remember coming to Conwy as a child with Mum to see the castle and Plas Mawr. The most vivid memory I have about the visit is the milkshake I had in the National Milk Bar, because I puked pink sick on the floor of the Crosville bus on the way home.

I went to the Tŷ Lleia (Smallest House) and met the guide Gwyneth. Her main duty is taking the money – there’s a tape playing which gives the history of the house. She put the Welsh version on for me: they offer the commentary in fifteen different languages, including Hebrew. Japanese and Spanish are the most frequently requested after English apparently.

At the castle, a woman asked me “er du Norsk?” (Are you Norwegian?)
Yesterday as I asked about somewhere to eat, another bloke said “byta? bitte? – ah! You’re speaking German are you?”

The best place I went in Betws y Coed was a souvenirs shop; a bit kitsch but “quality items” as Glyn, the owner, said. And he knows what quality is because he owns a collection of half a million second-hand books about Wales and a pretty large selection of them at the back of the shop. He had other curios; he showed me a bit of the Union Jack which was taken down from the tower of caernarfon Castle back in the thirties, when the authorities refused to fly the Welsh flag as well.

I was highly taken with this unusual combination of ‘high brow’ and ‘low brow’ culture under the same roof. But the gonks and the coasters and the Welsh caps are just as important in their own way. They proclaim our identity.

“Have you noticed,” I said, “on the ferry between Holyhead and Ireland they only sell Irish kitsch; leprechauns, Guinness merchandise and stuff like that, but the boat sails between Wales and Ireland. Why doesn’t our kitsch get a place on the shelf, I wonder?”.

I bought a hat with a red dragon from him, anyway...

September 29, 2005

I read that the Princess of Romania had stayed in the hotel over the road “for five weeks in 1896 after she missed the train”. Whatever happened then?! Surely she didn’t have to wait that long for the next train! Or was the shock of missing the train so traumatic that she was bed-ridden after it? There are hidden volumes in that simple sentence!

Today I met two friendly ladies from Australia:

- “O le dach chi'n dod yn Awstralia? O Sydney? O Melbourne?”
(Where do you come from in Australia? From Sydney? Melbourne?)
- “An old gold mining town called Walhalla. We're two and a half out of Melbourne.”
- “It's a tiny place, population of 15.”
- “That's 13 at the moment coz we're here talking to you!”

I like their sense of humour. For some reason, I was reminded of the conversation I had about Wales whilst I was in the US and started to speak to a friend of a friend in a bar. He was a union organiser; he knew about the influx of people into Wales, he actually knew about a lot of things. He had an ample dose of that very American optimism (especially those trying to work as union organisers in that unpromising country). We drank bottles of stout from Utica and there was a red neon light in the window next to our faces. We spoke about the difference between immigrants and colonizers, “Listen,” he said, these guys are gonna fold - an then they gotta deal - yo livin here now muth*@?uc!a"

He lifted his bottle to his lips. “Dare to struggle” he said. So we drank to that.

And I’ll raise my glass to Llandudno, Conwy and Betws y Coed who all passed the secret camera test…but if it was possible for me to do Popeth yn Gymraeg (Everything in Welsh) as hassle-free as this, how do I take things further?

It’s time to go back home.

I shook hands with the bus driver on the journey back from Llandudno and he introduced himself like so; "Pleased to meet you. I'm Larry Kewley. I'm an Elvis impersonator. I'm famous for being the world's worst Elvis impersonator."

What could I say? Diolch Larry...