Spring 2017 PsychNews 1 Your Welsh Crib Sheet Saint David’s Day – A Welsh Tradition By Tracey Lloyd • The Welsh flag, as we Those of you studying in for the first me this year may not realise know it, was officially that March 1st is St. David’s Day (or, in Welsh, Dydd Gwyl Dewi). St David is the Patron Saint of Wales and was famous for making the ground rise recognised in 1959. up underneath him so that he could be seen and heard by a crowd that • The Tudors (The English he was teaching. This is said to have happened in the now famous village of Llanddewi Brefi (yes, the very same village that is home to Lile monarchs 1485-1603) Britain’s Dafydd Thomas – Dafydd also means David). Some say that were Welsh! David founded the church at Glastonbury. St David is believed to have lived somewhere between year 500 and 589 • There are about four and to have died on March 1st. As he died, it is believed that he urged mes as many sheep in people to live a good life and to: "Do ye the lile things in life" ("Gwnewch y pethau bychain mewn bywyd"). This is apparently a Wales as there are well known saying in Wales, though not one that I am familiar with. people. As a child growing up in North Wales, I remember St. David’s Day • The town name: celebraons well. The primary school I aended was bi-lingual, so we Llanfairpwllgwyngyll- were educated in both Welsh and English and kept Welsh tradions. On March 1st each year there would be a Welsh concert, with singing and gogerychwyrndrob- Dawnsio Gwerin (tradional Welsh folk dancing). We would all dress in wyllllantysiliogogogoch Welsh costume – large black hats and red woolen skirts with white aprons for the girls, and flat caps, checked shirts and waistcoats for the translates as “The church boys. Everyone got a daffodil (the flower of Wales) and a Welsh cake. of St. Mary in the hollow Sadly, I can’t find a photo of me as a child celebrang St. David’s Day to accompany this arcle… of white hazel trees near the rapid whirlpool by St. Why do we have a red dragon on our flag? By Caspar Wynne Tysilio’s of the red cave” Well, like so many things, the answer isn’t simple. The exact reason why • Apparently Wales has has long been lost to the annals of me. However, historians in their parcular kind of way, have postulated a number of differing theories. My more castles per square favourite, involves Merlin, prophecies, and one rather annoyed castle mile than anywhere else builder. So a Welsh king wanted a new castle, but the first me they built the walls, in the world! Caspar Wynne the ground shook and they came tumbling down. Curious but unperturbed, the king ordered the walls to be erected again, but low and behold the ground shook and they fell down once more. Well, they were prey angry by now. Why were the walls falling down? Just then Merlin happened to be wandering by, and he told the castle builder to dig down. Eventually they found a cave with two dragons in it, one white and one red. Merlin claimed that the white dragon represented the Saxons and the red dragon the Britons. He also said that although the white dragon was more dominant at the beginning of the fight, the red would eventually win overall, and that apparently is what happened. This story was recorded in the Historia Regum Britanniae wrien by Geoffrey of Monmouth during the twelh century. However, though this is my favourite tale of the Welsh red dragon there are many others, some even date as far back to the Roman occupaon of Britain! Spring 2017 PsychNews 2 : Introduction to a poet By Ben Joseph Govier Dylan Marlais Thomas was born in 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, on the 27th of October, 1914. His father, David John Thomas, known as D.J., and his mother, Florence Williams, had their family roots in Welsh speaking, working class, Carmarthenshire. D.J. studied English at Aberystwyth University, and took employment as a schoolmaster at Swansea Grammar School. Florence was a seamstress from the St. Thomas area of Swansea. They married in 1903.

Florence was a somewhat simple – though not unintelligent - loving, dong and maternal mother to Dylan, somemes excessively spoiling him. It has since been reasoned that this contributed to Dylan’s later inability to handle life as a responsible adult. In contrast to Florence, D.J. was more Dylan Thomas, Marina, Swansea complex. For much of his life, he harboured unfulfilled literary ambions and felt frustrated, bier and despondent in his job as a schoolmaster, occasionally turning to alcohol and becoming violent. He read Shakespeare “Do not go gently and the Bible to Dylan from a young age, and was an important and into that good night esteemed influence throughout his life. but rage, rage Academically, Dylan was a failure. Oen playing truant or simply refusing to apply himself in his studies, the only subject he excelled in was English. against the dying of Dylan would later say that his real educaon consisted in his being allowed to ‘read indiscriminately and all the me, with my eyes hanging out’. Upon the light” leaving school aged 16, Dylan took a job as a reporter at the local newspaper, the South Wales Daily Post. He did not last long in this Dylan Thomas, 1947 posion, largely due to his frequent daydreaming and evasion of work. Allegedly, on one occasion, he ran a report on a sports event that had been cancelled. He would later mock this period in his play ‘Return Journey’: it is recalled that young Thomas was sent to cover a local football match at the Vetch, and worked out the scores in rugby tries.

In his early years, Dylan was surrounded by various friends in Swansea who would have a lasng influence on him. Amongst them, Bert Trick, a local grocer with le-wing tendencies, , another, lesser known, Swansea poet, the composer Dan Jones, and the painter Alfred Janes. The me spent in long discussions and performances with these friends prepared him for his later readings and broadcasts in front of large audiences. He began wring poetry at the age of 8 or 9. He wrote around 250 poems between the ages of 16 and 20, including the majority of the Portrait of Dylan Thomas by Gianpiero poems in his first two books. ‘And Death Shall Have No Dominion’ was his Acs first published poem, in 1933. In 1934, at only twenty years of age, his first book of poetry, ‘18 Poems’, was published. His second book, ‘Twenty-Five Poems’, followed in 1936, and the ‘The Map of Love’, in 1939.

Spring 2017 PsychNews 3 Dylan Thomas: Introduction to a poet By Ben Joseph Govier For much of his life, Dylan moved between Wales and London, never seling in any parcular place for long. It was in a pub in London, in 1936, that Dylan met Caitlin Macnamara, a striking dancer from Ireland. They married on the 11th of July 1937. Dysfunconal, destrucve, and alcoholic, their relaonship was a tempestuous affair, with fighng, and accusaons of infidelity. Their marriage produced two sons and a daughter. Despite literary success, the The Boathouse, Laugharne. family lived in poverty, oen in debt owing to their financial recklessness. Laugharne provided inspiraon for Dylan would write, lyrically, to acquaintances, begging for money. Friends, the ficonal Welsh town featured in Under Milk Wood, ‘Llareggub’. (Try such as Vernon Watkins, who viewed Dylan’s poec mission as sacrosanct, spelling it out backwards.) oen obliged. His only period of stable employment was during the Second World War. He had no intenon of becoming a soldier. To him, war was farcical. Though he did want to contribute in some way. According to Caitlin, on the eve of his assessment for conscripon, Dylan purposefully got himself snking drunk. In the morning, the doctor assessing was confronted with a trembling man, coughing violently. Dylan’s plan was successful. Eventually, he gained employment working for a company producing material for the Ministry of Informaon. Further publicaons included the autobiographical collecon of stories ‘A Portrait of the Arst as a Young Dog’ - the tle a play on James Joyce’s novel - in 1940, and, in 1946, his most popular and accessible collecon, ‘Death and Entrances’. In 1949, the family took residence in the Boathouse in Laugharne. During this period, Dylan had a fixed roune of vising Brown’s Hotel in the morning, where he would drink beer, work through the Times Dylan Thomas’ Wring Shed crossword with D.J., and listen to the local gossip. In the aernoon, he would rere to his wring shed. In the shed, overlooking the Taf estuary, Dylan wrote the comic, pathos-filled play for voices - largely inspired by Laugharne and its inhabitants - Under Milk Wood. Here, he also craed some of his – and the English language’s – finest poems, including ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’, ‘Over Sir John’s Hill’ and ‘Poem on his Birthday’. In 1950, Dylan Thomas embarked on a tour of America, arranged by the poet John Malcolm Brinnin. Dylan dazzled audiences with his wit, charm, warmth and, of course, his poetry. A further three tours followed. These trips were lucrave, but Dylan wasted the money he earned. He was also unfaithful to Caitlin, and she reciprocated. By the me of his final tour, his health was increasingly deteriorang due to his smoking, poor diet, alcohol consumpon and lack of sleep. Dylan died in New York, in 1953. He was Under Milk Wood’s Captain Cat, Swansea Marina. thirty-nine. Shortly before his death, he’d bragged of drinking eighteen straight whiskeys, though witnesses say that this was an exaggeraon. Though his lifestyle at the me was not conducive to good health, it was perhaps the failure of a doctor in America to detect Dylan’s pneumonia, and the three large doses of morphine he administered to Dylan to ease his condion, which ulmately caused his premature death.

Spring 2017 PsychNews 4 Dylan Thomas: Introduction to a poet A few helpful words By Ben Joseph Govier and phrases Much has been wrien of Dylan’s life and, at mes, it is difficult to separate fact from ficon. Certainly, Dylan had a dark side. However, the Welsh English painter Alfred Janes described Dylan’s empathy with the world, and the people around him, as complete. It is for his intuive, evocave, playful, Helo Hello wiy, meculous, and melodious wring - and his euphonic voice - that he is remembered. Croeso Welcome I began reading his work in my early twenes. I vividly recall reading Diolch Thank you ‘Under Milk Wood’ and being capvated by his magical use of language. Reading his short story, ‘Just Like Lile Dogs’, and recognising the arch on Bore Da Good Swansea bay in which the story is situated, filled me with excitement. morning Dylan Thomas’ wring romancized Swansea for me. It is impossible for me to read – or listen to – Dylan without experiencing an intense feeling of P’nawn Good ‘hiraeth’ for my hometown. Reading his work makes me fall in love, anew, Da afternoon with the most ordinary and simple aspects of life. Noswaith Good Recommended poems: In My Cra Or Sullen Art, Fern Hill, Do Not Go dda night Gently Into That Good Night, The Force That Through The Green Fuse, I Have Longed To Move Away, And Death Shall Have No Dominion, Poem In Hwyl fawr Good Bye October. Da iawn Very good Other works: Under Milk Wood, A Child’s Christmas in Wales, A Portrait of the Arst as a Young Dog, Return Journey. Volunteering at ChildLine By Claire Owen ChildLine is a free confidenal service that is there for anyone in the UK under the age of 19 years old. Young people can contact trained counsellors 24 hours a day by telephone or online to discuss any worries or concerns ChildLine Facts and they may have, big or small. Counsellors are trained volunteers from all Figures: walks of life and different backgrounds who have an interest in empowering • ChildLine has helped young people to overcome issues in their lifes that are of concern to them. It 3.8 million children in is important that we, as counsellors, listen without judgement in a friendly its 31 years. and genuine manner. Therefore, we are trained to empathise with a young • Every 25 seconds a person’s world to enable posive rapport so a young person feels safe to child rings ChildLine. discuss opons in a child- centred way. This is especially important as high • Over 1300 volunteers risk calls oen occur where a child or young person needs safeguarding so work for ChildLine. the young person’s competence needs to be assessed to implement opons. • It costs £4 for a This enables young people to understand their problem, situaon, needs trained volunteer and rights, and to think about remedies to move towards construcve counsellor to answer a change. In turn this can empower young people to be more able to cope and call! take acon to improve their situaon. Volunteering for ChildLine is challenging but highly rewarding. I have never le a counselling shi Fancy helping out? without feeling I have made a posive impact on a child’s situaon and cannot imagine ChildLine not being part of my life. Volunteering for Search: ChildLine would be valuable for anyone hoping to pursue a career in clinical NSPCC ChildLine or counselling psychology. However, the best aspect of the experience for Volunteering me is protecng the wellbeing of young people in the UK. Spring 2017 PsychNews 5 The Reality of Research Insights from a Neuroimaging Research Intern By Katie Riddoch Over summer 2016 I was lucky enough to be offered an internship in the Hand & Brain Lab at Bangor University. I saw some amazing things, met so many intelligent people, and gained insight into the technology used in Psychological research. What I also gained was insight into what life is REALLY like as a postgrad/researcher… Psych Society needs you! 1. You will want to throw your computer out of the window Something that I hadn’t appreciated before my internship was the amount Do you have any ideas for of computer errors you have to deal with as a researcher. Don’t get me fundraising, events or wrong, the devices are extremely sophisticated… but oh-my-gosh they are activities you would like to not always user friendly. Yes, you could ask your supervisor for help, but do? they will likely be very busy and might take a while to get to you! Top tip; if you’re getting frustrated by errors and losing the will to compute, Then get in touch with STEP AWAY. Have a breather, a cuppa, and if you can’t fathom it on your own Psych Society. We are Google is an amazing place to start. always looking for new 2. Your calendar is going to be a disgusting mess and exciting things to do as a society. For some reason I had it in my head that research is an organised process which can be conquered with a solid timeline. In reality, this is not the case https:// though. Despite all your best intentions there will be roadblocks along the www.facebook.com/ way, and you will have to accept that some things are out of your hands BangorPsychSoc/ and have to be re-organised. Top tip; get a calendar with lots of space in each section so that you can cross things out and rearrange things when you need to. If you don’t have a Up coming Psych Society calendar, get one! events: 3. You see some horrific things When you’re first starting out in research there is nothing more horrifying March 3rd Freakshakes than the output of some of these experiments. You’ll open a spreadsheet Quiet night. and be greeted by thousands and thousands of data points screaming at the top of their lungs at you. Pub crawls not your thing? Top tip; exhale. Break it down. See if you can find some titles that can help Or are you just tired of all you out. No titles? Find a row/column of numbers that means something to those nights out. Then you. come along to the Psych 4. It’s a balancing act! Society Quiet night at Something that I hear a lot is that research is a ‘chilled’ profession… which I Freakshakes, we have confirm is not the case. As well as planning your experiment, testing games and other activities participants, processing the data, and analysing the data (which is no small as well as a chance to try feat!) there is so much more involved! Other responsibilities include (but some truly decadent are not limited to) supervising others, presenting your research, defending milkshakes! your project, and consulting on other projects.

Despite these challenges I hope that many of you will still consider a life in research. Overcoming these obstacles, developing new skills, and learning to manage your emotions is extremely rewarding… and working as part of a team of like-minded individuals is a really great feeling. Thanks for reading!

Spring 2017 PsychNews 6 The life and times of a mature student Nightline By Claire Owen By Ashleigh Jones As I sat at the same office desk I had occupied for the Nightline is an internaonal past 12 years on a cold January morning in 2014 I charity, providing a student- contemplated my career direcon and meaningfulness led listening and informaon of my role as a youth homelessness officer. I worked for service for the staff and a naonal social jusce charity (NACRO) who offer students of Bangor assistance to vulnerable people to change their lives University. We have a and reach their full potenal. This is achieved by diverse volunteer base of addressing social marginalizaon, inequality of roughly fiy students of different ages, schools opportunity and deprivaon. NACRO delivers services and backgrounds who are dedicated to help with to provide people with the advice, skills and support a variety of issues a student in Bangor may face. they need to live independently and improve their lives, From the number of a new takeaway, the closing covering educaon, housing, substance misuse and mes of a local supermarket, or to discuss more prevenon of further offending behaviour. Not to be personal issues such as bereavement or mental misunderstood, I really valued my job and got great health, we are here to listen. sasfacon working with the service users. However, We operate as a society within the Student regardless of how much I felt NACRO assisted and Union; governed by a highly movated student empowered vulnerable young people, were we really commiee, as such we have a uniquely dynamic doing what we aimed to do (assist people to reach their structure centred around an extensive training full potenal)? programme offered to new recruits and exisng Many of the young people I worked with were involved volunteers near the beginning of each semester. with social services, substance misuse services, Our society is relavely self sufficient, through homelessness teams, youth offending programmes the commiee handling most operang and child and adolescence mental health teams. What procedures, as such there is an abundance of biological or experiential aspects had directed these valuable opportunies available to our young people to such adverse social consequences and volunteers; whether they have interests psychological dysfunction? On many occasions it regarding public relaons, branding and became clear to me that I could help to enrich the lives adversement, financial planning and secretarial of vulnerable young adults in my work in many ways work; or even just to get together with a bunch of except by addressing what I felt to be the most like-minded, welcoming students, we have more important aspect (psychological distress). I wasn’t to offer than just the service we provide. adequately trained to provide the specialist interventional treatment needed to address these issues. Where would I obtain the knowledge to really help some of the most amazingly talented, kind hearted, underprivileged, and disadvantaged young people I had ever met? University! Really, me? I didn’t exactly excel at school and at the grand age of 34 years old, my aged brain would surely be too rusty for academia. Also how would my husband solely financially support our family? Luckily for me my husband told me this is exactly what he would do if it meant I was following my dreams even if it meant we were eating beans on toast for the next three years and he had to do enough overtime to forget he even had a home. So after a long supportive chat from the admissions tutor for the School of Spring 2017 PsychNews 7 The life and times of a mature student Nightline By Claire Owen By Ashleigh Jones Psychology at Bangor University I began my first day as Furthermore, Nightline has a rich heritage an undergraduate student in September 2014. associated with Bangor University, helping On that first day I felt like a fish out of water. fellow students since 1974. To mark the Regardless of the rich knowledge I had gained in the occasion of our 50th anniversary and the re- workplace over the years, nothing prepared me for this, launch of the updated service, we held a I didn’t fit in. I was surrounded with 18-24 year olds and wonderful ball in Powis Hall last January, felt the system wasn’t set up for me. How wrong could I sharing the beautiful celebrations with have been? After meeting other mature students and hundreds of supportive students, and our finding they struggled with the same nerves and mascot Dafydd the bear. insecurities at first, I was also surprised to become It is incredible to witness the support of both friends with some great young students and gained a the staff and students of this incredible vast amount of valuable knowledge from their institution we call home, without your help we experiences. This is one of the most valuable aspects would not be able to provide this valuable for me as a mature student, sometimes we get service, so on behalf of all our members, I say complacent with life and find it difficult to step out of thank you. our comfort zones. University gave me the opportunity to create good relations with people I would not usually Our service is open on Friday, Saturday and have met from diverse backgrounds. Sunday evenings between the hour’s 6:00pm Over the next few months I learnt that I wasn’t the only and Midnight – 01248383880 mature student studying. In fact, in 2014 there was a 7% rise in acceptances from people aged 25 and over, For any enquiries please feel free to message meaning that there are around 37,300 mature students our Facebook page: @nlbangoruni in Higher Education in the United Kingdom (UCAS, or email our coordinator: 2014). Mary Curnock Cook, UCAS’ Chief Executive [email protected] said: “This is a welcome reminder that higher education is not just for 18 year olds after leaving school. For #BangorNL many, the right time to get the most out of going to university is later in life.” Mature students certainly need these sort of incentives with so many other demands on our time. The balancing act of home life, bringing up children, financial commitments, employment and university, demands good time management skills and commitment. This is a juggling act but a challenge that personally I have come to relish. It is a fantastic feeling studying the subject I am so passionate about. The biological processes or life experiences that can determine maladaptive external behaviour fascinates me. More importantly the knowledge that clinical practice can enrich the lives of vulnerable people with psychological dysfunction, empowers me. This gives me hope that one day I can return to the workplace to share this knowledge and offer empowerment to vulnerable people. If you are thinking of University as a mature student “go for it.” For me I know I am gaining more out of Higher Education than I would have done at 18.