Swansea

What aspects of your cultural heritage are you most proud of or interested in?

What aspects of your cultural heritage are you most proud of or interested in?

Right now, I am quite interested in (re-) learning the Welsh Language. Although I was born in Wales, I was never allowed to speak Welsh at home and my parents sent me to schools in which Welsh was never seen nor heard, let alone taught. That didn’t stop me from hearing out on the streets, reading it on the street signs, or visiting places whose names were only available in Welsh, or an Anglicized form of Welsh.

I am no longer an assiduous student of languages, but I get a Welsh Word a day by e-mail, and each word comes with an explanation of meaning and extended meanings. I also receive the words’ pronunciation and its phonetic changes (something peculiar to Welsh – they come in written form and can be quite complicated). Useful sentences are added – not long, but 3-4 seconds, repeatable ad infinitum, by reliable Welsh speakers, who often offer the variant pronunciations not only of North and South Wales but of other regions as well.

A great deal of linguistic and cultural history is wrapped up in language and the origins of the word are analyzed – sometimes going back to Indo-European, proto-Welsh, Medieval forms, and modern changes to the language. Emphasis is also placed on the survival of Welsh and its preservation, in written form, in Y Beibl Cymraeg, The Bible in Welsh. This fixed the language and helped enormously in its preservation.

I am also interested in Welsh Songs and Hymns. I already know most of the tunes having sung them in English during my childhood. Now I am learning them in Welsh and am currently working on the words to Calon Lan, one of my favorite hymn tunes. So, there you are. A new start at a very advanced age. A return to the past and an investment in the unknown future!

Love in Old Age

Love in Old Age

How do I love you? Let me count the ways.
I love you when together we start to write
for although you’re sometimes out of sight,
you’re never out of mind. So many days

we’ve spent sitting together at keyboards, tapping
at computer keys. Is this the way to please
each other, a choosing of words, a squeeze
of meaning into a smaller space, with overlapping

metaphors and images improved in ways
we never would have dreamed of? Each
to his or her own, we say. Yet we reach
out to each other over time and space,

not joined at hip or lip, but with energy and zest,
sailing similar seas, and trying our very best.

Commentary:

A Golden Oldie, the poem more than the painting. Moo is more up to date than me. He also thinks my beloved and I sit side by side, or at opposite sides of the table, gazing at each other, but not saying much. Hence his choice of cartoon – The Sound of Silence.

“Each to his or her own, we say. Yet we reach out to each other over time and space.” Sometimes silently, often with words. Silence is best – because as my hearing goes, what I hear is a mumble – like the rumble of the old Mumbles Railway – does anybody else remember that? The result of the overheard mumble is an inelegant ‘Eh?’ Too many ‘ehs’ spoil the silence. Don’t they, eh? What’s that you say, eh?

So, I am now having great fun reading a new word a day in Welsh. What a joy to pursue the language that was forbidden when I was a boy. I don’t have anyone to talk to, but that is beside the point. Reading, remembering, the old place names still there at the tip of the tongue – Brynhyfryd, Rhosili, Pwll Ddu. Each name brings with it a visual memory, usually silent, but sometimes filled with the cries of sea-gulls and the growling of corgis defending their territories. Whatever – what joy!

What is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?

Daily writing prompt
What is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?
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What is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?

Things I carry with me

            That old black cast-iron stove, wood-fired, that baked the best ever breads and cakes and warmed the bungalow on cold, summer mornings. The Welsh dresser with its age-blackened rails that displayed the plates, and cups, and saucers. The old tin cans that ferried the water from the one tap located at the end of the field. Full and wholesome, its weight still weighs me down as I carry it in my dreams. The Elsan toilet from the shed by the hedge and the shovels that appeared, every so often, as if by magic, as my uncle braved the evening shadows to dig a hole on the opposite side of the field, as far from the bungalow as possible.

            The outhouse at the end of the garden. The steps down to the coal cellar where they went when the sirens sounded, to sleep in the make-shift air raid shelter, along with the rats and mice that scurried from the candles. The corrugated iron work shop in the garden where my uncle built his model ships, the Half-Penny Galleon and the Nonesuch. The broken razor blades I used to carve my own planes from Keil Kraft Kits, Hurricanes and Spitfires, an SE5, and once, a Bristol Bulldog. Twisted and warped, they winged their ways into nobody’s skies, though once we built a paper kite that flew far away in a powerful wind and got tangled in a tree. The greenhouse from which I stole countless tomatoes, red and green. Kilvey Hill towering above the window ledge where the little ones sat when there were more guests than chairs in the kitchen. The old bombed buildings across the street. The bullet holes in the front of the house where the Messerschmidt strafed us.

            The old men spitting up coal dust from shrivelled lungs. The widows who took in lodgers and overnight travelers. The BRS lorries, parked overnight, that littered the street. The steep climb upwards into those lorries. The burrowing under dirty tarpaulins to explore the heavy loads, and many other things. The untouchable, forbidden drawer where the rent money waited for the rent collector’s visit. The old lady, five houses down who, when the shops were shut, sold warm Dandelion & Burdock and Orange pop for an extra penny a bottle.  The vicious, snub-faced Pekinese that yapped fierce defiance from the fortress of her lap. The unemployed soccer referee who on Saturdays walked five miles to the match and five miles back just to save the bus fare, his only financial reward. My father’s shadowy childhood. His first pair of shoes, bought at five years old, so he wouldn’t go barefoot to school. 

            Wet cement moulded onto the garden wall, then filled with empty bottles to be smashed when the cement set solid. The coal shed where the coal man delivered the coal: cobbledy-cobbledy, down the hole. The outside toilet with its nails and squares torn from yesterday’s newspaper. The lamp-lighter who lit the lamps every evening as the sun went down. The arrival of electricity. The old blackout curtains that shut in the light and shut out the night. The hand rolled fabric sausage that lay on the floor by the door and kept the heat of the coal fire in the kitchen. The kitchen itself with its great wooden chair drawn up by the fire. That chair: the only material possession I still have from that distant past.

If you could bring back one dinosaur, which one would it be?

Daily writing prompt
If you could bring back one dinosaur, which one would it be?
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If you could bring back one dinosaur, which one would it be?

Probably my maternal grandfather. He was always a bit of a fossil, ostrich-like, with his head buried in the past. A great-story teller, he spun a web of intrigue about things that happened in his youth, like when he ran away to sea, age 12, Swansea in the old days, and his time in the trenches during WWI. I would climb up the back of his chair while he was sleeping, and blow on the bald spot at the back of his head to wake him up. Then I would climb onto his lap and say, “Grandpa, tell me a story.” And he would.

My friend Moo painted a picture of the two of us together when I was younger. That’s him, on the left. I am the smaller one on the right. He would walk with me all over Swansea Sands, telling me stories as we walked. “This is where the medicine man would pitch his stall,” he’d say. Then he would tell me about the fraudulent way the doctor sold his bottles of cough mix. A miner, with no voice would approach from the crowd. One sip of the magic potion and he’d be singing hymns and arias, voice fully restored. “Bribed, of course,” Grandpa would tell me.

Next to the snake medicine stall, a travelling dentist would pitch a stage with a small brass band and his chair. Patients would handover their three penny coins, the band would start to play, the patient would open his mouth, the dentist would wield his pliers, and out would come the tooth. Then doctor and patient would dance to the band music until the patient stopped screaming. “No anesthetic back then, see,” Grandpa would chuckle.

Oh yes, that’s the dinosaur I’d bring back. And I’d record his voice, and write down, in full detail, every story, each tall, or short, tale he told me.

Heart and Hearth

Heart and Hearth

I remember the old coal fires in Swansea.
My grandmother’s house in the Hafod,
with a hearth separate from the kitchen.
The hearth held a huge cast iron fire-place
where cookpots and kettles hung
 or nestled into smouldering coals.

My grandfather’s house in Brynmill,
had a magic fireplace. Banked in before bed,
it gave warmth and light all through the night.
Warmth, comfort, the family gathered,
the wisdom of the old shared with the young,
traditional tales and songs passed down.

Everybody was welcome and each one
had a special spot reserved around the fire.

Comment:

I have been revising this poem, shortening it, and changing it very gently. Funny how the old days come back and dance before us, like the flames dance on the coals, as the old ghosts walk now upon the logs.

Click here for Roger’s reading.

Hearth and Soul

Hearth and Soul

The kitchen – hearth and soul of the house. Here we gather, sit around the table and talk our hearts out. But here, in Island View, we have a kitchen, a gathering, but no hearth, and hence no real heart around which the household revolves.

In spite of that, old habits die hard. I remember the old coal fires in Swansea. My grandmother’s house in the Hafod, with a kitchen in a separate room from the stove, with a huge cast iron fire-place where cookpots and kettles could be hung or nestled into the coals. My grandfather’s house in Brynmill, where kitchen and hearth were separated, but the fire-place still held its magic. Banked in at night, those fires gave warmth and light ar hyd a nos and then they we resurrected the next morning.

We have a woodstove here in Island View, but we rarely light it as the fine particles make breathing difficult after a while. We keep it for emergencies. This winter we lit it when the temperatures dropped to -40C, with the wind chill factor, and heat pump and electric furnace needed assistance.

Warmth, comfort, the family gathered, the wisdom of the old folks shared with the young, and the passing on of traditional melodies. All the old memories and thoughts, the wishes and desires, the hiraeth too, handed down, from old to young. Everybody was welcome and everyone had his or her special place.

Such memories tug at the heart strings – hearth strings. Anyone who shares them with me will know what I mean.

Moment

Moment
St. Patrick’s Day

So soft, so subtle, this moment,
when land and sea reach out
and touch each other,
sea hand offered for the land
to raise up and kiss.

The Equinox draws near.
This is the moment when sun and moon,
day and night are equal.
It is the moment when the world
seems to stop, then moves again
in another direction,
from winter’s darkness into daylight
and the spring’s delight.

And still I live in hopes to see
the land of my birth once more,
the land of my fathers
where my father and mother met,
the land where I first saw daylight,
felt the land reach out to the sea,
felt the joy of the sun-licked sea kiss,
saw daffodils dance on the shore,
and swans swimming on the sea.

“And still I live in hopes to see…
Swansea Town once more.”

Click here for Roger’s reading on Acorn.
Moment

Summer Storm

No, it’s not a beach scene, sorry.
It’s the view from my kitchen window
when a major rainstorm blew through the garden
just a couple of weeks ago

… and suddenly, one day on the beach, it started to rain … one small cloud turned into a big one … and the sky became black … from out of nowhere, a great clap of thunder and the storm scene from Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, the Pastoral, came resounding down in a shower of sound and everybody was running for shelter … into caves … under cliffs … under trees, on the far side of the rocks out  of the wind, and the water, and the horizontal tide of rain that brought relief from the heat … and some of us just stood out there … under the waterfall … enjoying the soaking … watching the water run over our hands, our faces, and our skins … 

… and that summer, like he storm and all the other summers, came to its abrupt end … we locked up the bungalow, walked up the lane laden with our bags and our packages … and when we got to the corner, we waited for the yellow and brown Swan bus that would carry us into town … and on the bus we retraced our steps, slowly and tiredly, away from the hedges, the sea shore, the sand and the beaches, and back to the red-brick houses and life in the cities from which we had come and to which we must now return …

…  and behind us, the salt sea, its bright sailor suit sparkling with waves and glee, waving us good bye from across the headland and away from the rapidly vanishing bay …

Snake

I don’t have a photo of Pwll Ddu.
Here’s the Beaver Pond at Mactaquac instead!

              … and once when we went to Pwll Ddu, to the Black Pool, in English, where the stone bank holds the river back and we can sail our boats on the pool and the water is warmer than the sea … and one day, a long time ago, we saw this snake swimming across the backed up river, between the banks of reeds at the end of the valley, of Bishopston Valley, where the trees meet the salt marsh which leads into the sea … and he was a big snake, though I don’t remember what sort of snake he was … and he didn’t have a care in the world, just swimming across the water in the sunshine, hissing to himself, then he climbed the bank with a slither and a slurp … and was gone as quickly and as mysteriously as he came and we were left there playing, paddling, building dams, throwing stones at lumps of wood and pretending they were enemy battleships, waiting to be sunk … and playing ducks and drakes … and making the flat stones, like pieces of slate, slip and skip across the surface, one bounce, two bounces, six, seven, eight, and nine bounces … and the little ripples on the pool’s surface moved slowly outwards and suddenly my cousin trod on a broken bottle and there was blood everywhere … because someone had used a bottle for a battleship and had broken it with a broadside of stones … and we had to stop everything and strap him up and take him home and then he went to hospital and they gave him stitches, eighteen stitches, in the sole of his foot,  and an injection … and suddenly what with the snake and the broken bottle, we cursed the pool at Black Pool, at Pwll Ddu, the name of which the boys from London could never pronounce, with their different accents and their capital styles, and though they were a part of us, like their mother was a part of us, they weren’t really part of us and they didn’t speak like us and they didn’t have our accents and they couldn’t pronounce the Welsh … and the neighbours laughed at them behind their backs …

Summer in Wales

Summer in Wales
aka
Cricket, lovely cricket!              

Summer in Wales is always as I remember it: glorious days of sun and sand and blue skies and warm winds … and especially the sun on the beaches with the water sparkling and little boys and little girls playing cricket on the dry wrinkled sand packed hard when the tide goes out and leaves the land stranded … and uncles and aunties bowl under arm, not over arm, so the little ones could manage to score lots and lots of runs … and I remember us, standing breathless between the wickets, or at the wicket, if there was only one set of stumps, or a picnic basket stood on its side, or three pieces of driftwood, with sea-weed for bails, and what are bails, you ask?

              Well, bails are the sea-weed that is draped over the driftwood that stands as stumps. And we guard our stumps with the cricket bat that somebody has brought and we bowl with wet tennis balls, because nobody will risk a red, leather ball on the sands, with the wet tide standing there, waiting for the ball to be hit at it, or into it, and it’s cold, but not that cold, and when uncle hits the ball, right out so sea, someone has to run after it, then dive, and then swim after it, and if it’s real runs you want, then uncle runs two or three quite quickly; then the aunties tell him to stop running so fast or he’ll have a heart  … so he slows down and trots four or five; then he walks six and seven; and when you throw the ball back, he’s walking eight or nine; and then the dog intercepts the ball, catches it in his teeth, and starts running around with it in his mouth and everyone is trying to catch the dog except my uncle who is now limping very, very slowly between the wickets, but he’s already up to eleven or twelve; and then the little ones start crying because “It’s not fair!” Loud sniff! Then uncle stops in the middle of the wicket and sits there, waiting for somebody to run him out; except everyone is tired, except the dog, who is tireless and completely energized, and now the centre of attention; and nobody is going to catch him;  and finally uncle walks to the wicket and he lifts the piece of seaweed with his bat and everybody appeals, then he’s finally “OUT!” because officially he’s hit his own wicket and that’s illegal and now the game can go on once more, with everyone happy and God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world …

And the dog has dropped the ball right at the edge of the waves and is barking furiously at the incoming waves as time and tide march up the beach and sweep us and our memories all away.