RADNORIAN

Welsh in Cwmteuddwr Parish 1901

2008-07-24T21:54:00.004+01:00

According to Professor Geraint Jenkins' Introduction to Language and Community in the Nineteenth Century a volume in the series A Social History of the Welsh Language, of which the Professor is the General Editor: "the sparsely populated county of Radnorshire had lost its native tongue by the early nineteenth century." Here's a little tip Professor, check out the 1901 Census figures for Cwmteuddwr parish.

Infact the 1901 Census figures show 4% of the population of the parish speaking only Welsh, 70% speaking only English and 26% speaking both languages. Of course these figures are distorted by the presence of large numbers of workmen employed on the Elan Valley schemes. This has inflated the number of Welsh monoglots, but, at the same time, has also inflated the figure speaking only English. If we look only at those individuals actually born within the parish itself, a different picture emerges. Now we find that 36% of the Cwmteuddwr born residents are shown as Welsh speaking. In the over 60 age group the figure is 80% and even in the 20-40 age range 49% are still being recorded as Welsh speaking. Only in those aged under 10 does the figure able to speak Welsh fall below 10%.

What we have here is a process of language shift, a generation or so more advanced than that seen in Llanafanfawr. What is incontrovertible is that the viewpoint expressed by the academics that Welsh had disappeared from Radnorshire by the early nineteenth century is wrong, and that the story of the decline of the Welsh language in the county must be told parish by parish.

The Decline of the Welsh language in Radnorshire - Language Shift

2008-07-24T17:22:00.002+01:00

The first census to bother itself with the Welsh language was that of 1891, and of subsequent enquiries, only that of 1901 has so far been published in detail. By that time the process of language shift in most Radnorshire parishes was complete, but in order to gain some insight into how the process would have occurred we can examine the 1901 Census figures for the nearby Breconshire parish of Llanafanfawr.

The language of an area can change in two ways: by the replacement of the original population by newcomers, as has happened in Tasmania for example; or as in Tipperary, to take another example, by the original population ditching the old language in favour of the new. Despite some ridiculous claims to the contrary it is this second process that swept across the Radnorshire countryside in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The key to this shift is bilingualism, individuals must speak the new before they can turn their back on the old.

Turning to Llanafanfawr we find that in 1901 the parish could still be considered part of Y Fro Gymraeg with 72.6% of the population being able to speak Welsh. Yet the process of language shift was well under way with the 10% of the population unable to speak English already outnumbered by the 27% who claimed to know no Welsh.

If we examine those individuals speaking English we can see just how language shift occurs. In 15 households we find Welsh speaking parents bringing up their children to speak only English. If we add a further two households where locally born parents claimed, somewhat suspiciously, to speak only English, then these children account for 43 of the 117 English only speakers in the parish.

There are 7 households where a local partner has married a spouse from a nearby but already anglicised parish, here the children are again being brought up as monoglot English speakers. There are also 4 households where families from nearby anglicised parishes have taken farms in Llanafan. Together these account for a further 45 English speakers, mainly children. The fact that the local schoolmaster and his family are also listed as English monoglots is a further nail in the coffin of Welsh.

The reasons why families should want to switch to English are plain enough, after all it was the language of officialdom and, to an ever increasing extent, commerce. The schools, the Anglican church, the railways, the press were all factors driving out Welsh. At the same time bilingualism is largely achieved by day to day contact with the new language and it was the gradual tide of English spreading from Radnorshire and into the Irfon valley, which by 1901 had placed Llanafanfawr in the frontline of language shift.

It is interesting to note that there are 18 households employing English speaking servants. In a number of cases the only domestic servant in a Welsh speaking household was an English monoglot speaker. It seems to me that this may well have been quite deliberate, a means whereby the household could improve its grasp of the English language by daily contact with an English speaker. It is in these ways that the language shift that affected Radnorshire and then much of Builth Hundred would have been achieved.

High Flyers

2008-07-20T22:36:00.003+01:00

Discovered some more information about forgotten Brooklands racer Irene Schwedler, I've posted about her before, in the Royal Aero Club records. It seems her full name was Ilse Charlotte Schwedler and she was born in Schwanheim, Germany on 26th January 1906.

The photo isn't Miss Schwedler by the way, it's another lady pilot from the 1930s called Marjorie Clair. A resident of Pinner in Middlesex, she gave her birthplace as Llandrindod Wells. Anyone know who she was? Oh and her house in Pinner was called Cefnllys.

Work of the Forge and not the File

2008-07-13T22:10:00.006+01:00

It's a puzzle why so many supporters of the Union think their cause will be furthered by being rude about the Scots and the Welsh. Perhaps they are secret nationalists although somehow I doubt it. Anyway the recent publication of Hugh Trevor-Roper's The Invention of Scotland has certainly given the little England brigade plenty to pontificate about.

Roper's book "identifies" three Scottish myths: the clan tartan, the forged Ossian poems and the ancient Scottish constitution. Now, of course, these three myths were thoroughly debunked long ago, but never mind, it at least gives our friends the frisson of having made some great discovery. Something similar happens quite regularly here in Wales when a visiting journalist hits on the revelation that the Gorsedd and the Welsh National costume were "invented!!"

Of course the really important point, which escapes them, is why the clan tartan or the Welsh costume became so popular or why the Ossianic forgeries had such an influence on the wider cultural scene.

Roper certainly did not identify the Ossianic forgeries as some of his reviewers hint. That was done long ago, not least by Radnorshire's Edward Davies (1756-1831) - he was born at Hendre Einion in Llanfaredd parish. You can read his book, published in 1825, demolishing the Ossian forgery here.

Of course Roper the historian is best remembered for falling hook, line and embarrassing sinker for the forged Hitler Diaries. A sweet irony.

Down Memory Lane

2008-07-13T18:37:00.004+01:00

It's September 1962 and your blogger attends his first Formula One event, the Gold Cup race at Oulton Park.

Earlier in the year Stirling Moss had suffered his career ending crash at Goodwood and here we see him attending his first race meeting since leaving hospital.

Old chum Innes Ireland looks pleased to see the maestro back at the track, as does the gentleman with the cap standing between them, Innes's father Bill.

Race winner was Jim Clark in a Lotus 25, so smooth he was boring! The star of the day was undoubtedly Welsh Rhodesian Gary Hocking, killed just a few weeks later, before ever starting a World Championship event, and thus a non-person as far as the encyclopedias are concerned.

Bernard Cahier (1927-2008)

2008-07-10T22:36:00.005+01:00

It's reported that the French motor racing photographer Bernard Cahier died this morning. There may well have been one or two better action photographers, but for capturing what Henri Cartier-Bresson called the 'moment in time' Cahier had few rivals.

Cahier, who was a pal of Innes Ireland, played a leading role in a notorious incident following Ireland's outstanding victory at Solitude in 1961. Banished from the bar by an officious hotel manager, Innes and Bernard took to throwing fire crackers from their hotel window. No doubt somewhat upset by the defeat of the hometown Porsche team the Stuttgart press decided that Ireland had been shooting up the hotel with a gun. Luckily Cahier was able to set the record straight and the life ban demanded by the German tabloids came to nought. Cahier and his wife Joan later visited New Radnor where Bernard took a number of pictures, including one of Innes at Llyn Hilyn, which appeared in All Arms and Elbows.

The picture above was taken by Cahier at the 1961 Syracuse Grand Prix in Sicily. I think this typical Cahier photograph captures Innes as the confident star of Team Lotus with a youthful Jim Clark, still very much the number two but with his eyes clearly on his fellow Scots job.

The Decline of the Welsh language in Radnorshire - Introduction

2008-07-08T23:00:00.005+01:00

The 1891 Census shows two young sisters living at the remote farm of Claerwen in Cwmteuddwr parish. Margaret Lewis was 25 and her sister was 23, they were both born in Radnorshire and neither could speak English. They would surely have agreed with the shepherd girls of Pumlumon who so charmed George Borrow with their guileless hospitality: "What should we do with English here?" In 1891 there were still hundreds of thousands of Welsh people who spoke no English; a third of the population of Merthyr, two thirds of those in the Swansea Valley, a fifth of those in Swansea itself. Even in the Irfon valley parishes to the west of Builth there were hundreds who knew only Welsh.

Radnorshire appeared to be quite different from the rest of Wales. There were less than eighty Welsh monoglots like the Lewis girls in the whole of the county. While the great majority of Radnorshire folk spoke only English, Welsh was still spoken by many in the parishes of Rhaeadr, Cwmteuddwr, and St Harmon, but this was not apparent from the published figures. These were local people and they must have spoken what are now the lost Welsh dialects of Radnorshire. Although many lived on well into the twentieth century, no academics ever bothered to record their speech. Perhaps these professors agreed with the influential scholar Iorweth Peate when he declared that Radnorshire folk were "a deracine society, a people fallen between two stools, a community of half-things." In any case the fact of Radnorshire people speaking Welsh was ignored and the story of the decline of the language in the county, on the rare occasions when it was even addressed, littered with inaccuracies and prejudices.

It is my intention, over the next few months, to address these inaccuracies and prejudices in a series of posts dealing with the decline of the Welsh language in Radnorshire.

Radnor for Obama?

2008-07-05T17:52:00.003+01:00

Other than stirring up a language controversy, there's nothing the Western Mail likes better than finding an obscure Welsh connection to someone in the news. Given the number of Welsh folk who emigrated to America at an early date - and after all the continent is named after a Welshman! - finding a Welsh ancestor for presidential hopeful Barack Obama was going to be a dawdle.

Now lets get one thing straight, the township of Radnor in Delaware County, Ohio was not founded by Obama's Anglesey ancestor. No, the Ohio township was founded and was given its name by David Pugh of the parish of Llandeilo Graban in Radnorshire.

Little Words

2008-06-28T15:08:00.004+01:00

With the year almost half gone it's fascinating to look at some of the search terms which have brought users to the blog during the last six months.

No doubt many of these visitors come in search of information, yet I sometimes get the feeling that they probably have a lot more knowledge to impart than anything they're going to learn here. The regular reader from Stoke with a passion for Radnorshire placenames for example, or the reader from Sale with an interest in the Welsh speaking parishes of Shropshire.

It's reassuring to know that there are at least three other people in the world with a fascination for the British-Mexican actress and race driver Jacqueline Evans de Lopez, perhaps we should form a club. Sometimes there's disappointment, how were two individuals searching for Bill Sheen not fascinated by my theory that he was the model for Bill Sykes? They clicked away without pausing for a second. While often these search terms arouse the curiosity, who was Angela Fontana, racing driver? I've no idea but I certainly intend to find out.

Anyway if there are any readers out there who would like to post something on the blog of Radnorshire interest or concerning obscure pre-war women racing drivers, for example, then please get in touch. That's my email address pictured above, hopefully beyond the reach of the dreaded spiders. Oh nothing libelous please, except about Builth, that's allowed.

Mewn Anghof Ni Chaiff Fod

2008-06-28T11:21:00.004+01:00

The Welsh language children's programme Uned 5 have run a piece about the great Tom Pryce and the fund to set up a permanent memorial to him in Rhuthun. It features interviews with Maldwyn's friend Cledwyn Ashford and young F3 driver Hywel Lloyd plus glimpses of some of Tom's memorabilia.

You can view it here, just click on Gwylio'r Cip/Tom Pryce.

Drifting

2008-06-27T12:43:00.004+01:00

OK I'll admit it, I've been trying to think of a reason to post something about that soulful hogan, Miss Aimee Ann Duffy. But how to do so in a blog that's supposedly about Motor Sport and Radnorshire trivia.

Thanks to Mr Julian Turner of the Westfield sports car company I have my justification. Seemingly the Nefyn nightingale is going to be invited to a day of "drifting" organised by the Black Country manufacturer. Why it's even published in the Express & Star, a newspaper owned by former Innes Ireland Ltd pilot Doug Graham.

It seems that Mr Turner is a friend of Duffy's ...... I wonder if she knows.

Freddie Dixon

2008-06-27T11:57:00.003+01:00

This biography of pre-war racer Freddie Dixon is due to be published by Haynes next month. I wonder if there is any chance of a few more such books, concerning the interesting characters who circulated around the tracks in the happy days BBCE, seeing the light of day.

It's surprising how little is really known about these old timers. Even the country's leading motor-sport historian was under the impression that Dixon's 1935 prison sentence followed a fatal accident whilst he was racing Luis Fontes on the public highway.

Infact Freddie was sentenced to three months imprisonment for dangerous and reckless driving on 4th October 1935, in Middlesborough. The incident in which Luis Fontes, a Manchester born ace of Brazilian extraction, killed a motor cyclist, and for which he was subsequently sentenced to three years imprisonment, occurred on 6th October 1935 in Coleshill, Warwickshire. The close proximity of the dates must have led to the subsequent confusion.

Motor Sport history has been dominated to an extent by the rivet counters, after all many of the cars still exist and historic authentication, leading to sales, is big business. Driver biographies haven't usually strayed very far from the race-track. They've also tended towards the hagiographic, with everyone being a bloody good chap. It will be interesting to see where this new biography of Dixon stands.

When Radnor Showed The Way

2008-06-24T23:36:00.004+01:00

Here's an interesting letter from the April 1969 edition of Motor Sport. Wonder how much petrol you'd get for a shilling today? About three tablespoons worth if you're lucky!

Y Ffasiynau Diweddaraf

2008-06-22T23:24:00.003+01:00

At the beginning of the last century this Llandrindod business found it worthwhile to advertize its products in the Welsh language.

This would have been aimed not just at Welsh speaking visitors to the town, but also at the large market opened up in West Wales via the railway.

More fun than a barrel-load of monkeys!

2008-06-21T17:40:00.002+01:00

It seems that the new James Bond film Quantum of Solace (eh?) is going to include a car-chase around Italy's Lake Garda. Old time racing fans will perhaps remember that the lakeside circuit used to host races of the real, rather than the celluloid, variety.

Following the career ending Stirling Moss crash at Goodwood in 1962, Radnorshire based Innes Ireland picked up a number of the great man's scheduled drives. One of these was to compete in that year's Circuito del Garda, driving a works 1 litre Fiat-Abarth. The race saw Innes brushing aside the challenge of team-mate Ludovico Scarfiotti and with victory in the bag the two tiny Abarths cruised in convoy toward the chequered flag as team-orders demanded. A couple of miles from home Scarfiotti saw a chance of some hometown glory and scooted past the surprised Scotsman, hanging-on for a Pironi style victory. No doubt the film will see plenty of similar skulduggery!

Innes was placated somewhat by the cheers of the crowd, who thought he had made a magnanimous gesture to the Italian driver. His opinion of the Abarth provides the title for the post.

Motor Sport Goes Digital

2008-06-19T16:46:00.008+01:00

Motor Sport magazine are flogging DVDs containing full ten year runs of their magazine at £39.99 a decade - that's 120 magazines per disk.

The Good Points

1. It's a good deal cheaper than picking up the physical magazines on Ebay.

2. They're a lot easier to store than the real thing and infact the packaging is very attractive.

3. The whole magazine is reproduced included including covers, ads and classifieds.

4. Accessing and moving around the various issues is easy enough. Although it doesn't help that the pages on the display don't match those on the actual page.

5. There's a good search facility, although it doesn't highlight the term so you may have to read the page to find what you're looking for.

The Bad Points

1. The reproduction of the magazine is not particularly crisp but then neither was the original.

2. If you want a quiet read of the magazine then the physical copy wins hands down in terms of user-friendliness.

3. There's no DVD covering the pre-1950 magazines.

4. It isn't Autosport.

Conclusion

If you're into serious research then these DVDs are going to be invaluable. If you want to settle down into an armchair and read DSJ's take on the 1958 Monaco Grand Prix then the physical copies are probably worth the extra you're going to have to pay. Details of what's available can be found here.

Bryn Pennardd

2008-06-16T19:27:00.004+01:00

This is a picture of Penarth Mount in the parish of Cregrina, there's a good aerial photograph here. Like most such sites it's classified as a motte and bailey castle, even when, as here, there is no bailey.

To me it seems just as likely to have been the site of Bryn Pennardd, the home of two of Lewis Glyn Cothi's patrons Bedo Chwith and Gwenllian vz Gwilym. It certainly fits the description of the place in Glyn Cothi's poetry.

Welsh history has been seen too much in terms of the Roman, the Norman and English invaders, perhaps there needs to be a reconsideration of such sites from a more native perspective.

Booze in Fifteenth Century Radnorshire

2008-06-15T23:39:00.004+01:00

The feast was symbolic of the bardic world view. The man of power, the foundation stone of the civilised society, gives food and drink to his followers, and they repay his generosity with loyalty. Traditionally this drink was mead, and Lewis Glyn Cothi's poetry shows that this was still being drunk in Fifteenth Century Radnorshire. It is interesting to look at those men who served mead; Phelpod ap Rhys of Brilley was a cyfarwydd - a storyteller, Dafydd ap Rhys of New Radnor owned the Book of Taliesin and was able to discuss its archaic language. Ieuan ap Llywelyn Fychan of Llanfihangel Nant Melan enjoyed reading the tenth century poem Armes Prydain. These men were intellectuals, did Lewis trim his language to suit them, or were they traditionalists in terms of drink as well as literary taste?

The favoured drink of most of Lewis Glyn Cothi's poorer local patrons was ale, especially that produced in the nearby English towns of Ludlow and Weobley. Weobley, the more widely drunk of the two, must have been dark in colour as Lewis describes two dark milk cows, requested as a gift from two ladies of Aberedw, as being darker than the Weobley ale.

While ale and mead were native drinks, wine had to be imported. A common practice was for a local nobleman to buy a shipload of wine direct from the Continent, keeping some for his own consumption and selling the rest from a gwindy or winehouse. Lewis Glyn Cothi was born in the north Carmarthenshire parish of Caio. In the 1390s, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd of that parish was importing 16 tuns of wine per annum from Bordeaux through the port of Carmarthen, 55 bottles for every day of the year!

Less wine may have been drunk in Radnorshire than in some other parts of Wales, probably because of the distance from the sea. Thomas ap Rhys of Llangynllo is described as sending a wagon to Weobley to bring back barrels of ale. He also served bragget - a mixture of beer and honey and an unnamed spirit. His wine was Y Gien - either from the town of Gien on the Loire or Guyenne, the Bordeaux region. Morgan ap Hywel of Llanbister seems to have been an importer of wine. He bought Gwin Borgwin - Burgendy wine, which is dispensed from tunellau and pibau. A tun was a barrel containing 252 gallons, a pipe contained 105 gallons. Sioned vz Rhys of New Radnor had been given orange and claret since birth, she and her husband drank dwsed - doucet, a sweet wine. In Cefnllys Ieuan ap Philip served wine from the pipe and Gwin o Roeg ynys - a wine from a Greek island.

Lewis Glyn Cothi's poetry is full of the names of the wines his patrons served from France, Italy and Spain and even individual villages in France are singled out such as Sant Miliwn - St Emilion. All this goes to show that Fifteenth Century Wales and the districts that later became Radnorshire were far from being rural backwaters - they were part and parcel of a Europe wide economic and cultural order. A bard like Glyn Cothi, visiting the home of Rhys ap Phelpod and his wife Mallt in Llansantffraid yn Elfael, was charged with caring for his patrons mazer-cup, kissing the rim of the sparkling glass six hundred times during the feast. Nice work if you could get it.

What Happened Next!

2008-06-15T09:03:00.001+01:00

Ca Va?

2008-06-11T16:32:00.003+01:00

Apologies for the lack of posts recently. This is not because I am spending all my time stalking 60s revivalist Duffy, as a recent comment suggested. It is good fun to follow the upward trajectory of the Nefyn wonder's career, such as the recent triumphant Paris debut, via youtube; but no, I'm not even her biggest fan. It seems this guy is.

If anyone has visited my Innes Ireland website recently you will be disappointed by the lack of updates. Anyway, I'm hoping that Innes's daughter, Christianne, will be posting some entertaining reminiscences there before too long. In the meantime if you have any Innes stories, photos etc. you'd like to share, please get in touch.

There are many blank pages in motor sport history so I'm pleased to see quite a few hits on the blog (via Google analytics) from folk searching for information on racing pioneer Dorothy Levitt. It's crazy that nothing very much seems to be known about the life of this important figure - if you have any clues please get in touch.

An anonymous poster recently supplied some information about another forgotten female racer of days gone by, Irene Schwedler. I'd love to hear more.

The Pound in Your Pocket

2008-06-11T15:45:00.002+01:00

Currently for sale on ebay is this £1 note issued by the Rhayader Bank in 1811, starting price is £43.

I can think of one or two Bwgeyites who probably still have a few of these in their wallets waiting to see the light of day.

Rural Housing

2008-06-04T23:43:00.003+01:00

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation report into the housing scandal in Rural Wales should come as no surprise to anyone. What is disappointing are the half-hearted recommendations for addressing the crisis.

The public sector needs a revision of the points system to give priority to local working families. In the private sector a two-tier market should be created by ensuring that a substantial percentage of new builds can only be sold and subsequently sold-on to locally educated young people.

Our Friends From the North

2008-06-04T22:52:00.003+01:00

Here's an interesting image from John Speed's General Description and Severall Divisions of the Principality of Wales published 1n 1676.

As you can see Gwarthrynion, by which Speed means that part of Radnorshire west of the Ithon and consisting in the main of the parishes of Nantmel, Llanyre, Rhayader and St Harmon, was considered to be a part of the cantref of Arwystli. Arwystli was one of the three cantrefs of Meirionydd, which itself was part of Gwynedd.

Now I don't want to upset any of our good friends raised along the banks of the Bwgey but doesn't this mean that Rhayader folk are actually Gogs?

WB

2008-05-31T09:14:00.005+01:00

Having had his first article published in Motor Sport in 1930, long time Nantmel resident Bill Boddy still contributes an eagerly awaited monthly column to the recently re-vamped magazine.

It's clear, however, that the magazine's management are preparing for the day when its 95 year-old former editor - 55 years in the hot seat - finally pulls into that great pit lane in the sky. Farnham Friar, Doug Nye has been given a column alongside WB's at the back of the magazine which in terms of design is indistinguishable from the master's contribution.

Still, two for the price of one, is not to be scoffed at and both writers come up with interesting snippets of information from motor sport's colourful past. This month DCN mentions the only time that the two-wheeled fraternity competed at Goodwood in 1951. The wide-open spaces of the former airfield track did not appeal and the bikers' request that walls be built on the infield verges was not taken up. How times have changed! WB remembers a visit to fellow Radnorian Innes Ireland's home in the mid-Sixties. Boddy was ushered to Innes's sick-bed, only to witness a miraculous recovery when a phone-call from a film producer offering to buy some of the Scotsman's Sno-Trac vehicles was received,

Radnorshire Arts Update

2008-05-30T00:35:00.004+01:00

Work continues apace on Llandrindod's newly discovered inner gateway, we'll post pictures as soon as the installations are installed. Can't wait.

Meanwhile some sad news from St Peter's Church, Evancoyd where a 500 year old painting by the Italian artist Bernadino Luini was stolen from the church. Who even knew that such a treasure was to be found there?

Finally lets mention a challenging new work from that little known Breconshire artist Steffan Powell (right) called "Soggy Soggy Soggy Olé Olé Olé" - a collection of sodden Panama hats collected from this year's Hay Literary Festival field.

UPDATE, I've always been a great supporter of Breconshire artist Steffan Powell, sometimes against my better judgement, so it was with sadness I heard that, since his recent critical success, Steffan seems to have ditched his old friends - admittedly a rather sad and desperate bunch - for a newer, trendier crowd. On a totally unrelated matter it was good to hear that the Liuni has been recovered from a Mid-Wales art gallery.