Welsh Horizons Across 50 Years Edited by John Osmond and Peter Finch Photography: John Briggs
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
25 25 Vision Welsh horizons across 50 years Edited by John Osmond and Peter Finch Photography: John Briggs 25 25 Vision Welsh horizons across 50 years Edited by John Osmond and Peter Finch Photography: John Briggs The Institute of Welsh Affairs exists to promote quality research and informed debate affecting the cultural, social, political and economic well being of Wales. The IWA is an independent organisation owing no allegiance to any political or economic interest group. Our only interest is in seeing Wales flourish as a country in which to work and live. We are funded by a range of organisations and individuals, including the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, and the Waterloo Foundation. For more information about the Institute, its publications, and how to join, either as an individual or corporate supporter, contact: IWA - Institute of Welsh Affairs, 4 Cathedral Road, Cardiff CF11 9LJ T: 029 2066 0820 F: 029 2023 3741 E: [email protected] www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Inspired by the bardd teulu (household poet) tradition of medieval and Renaissance Wales, the H’mm Foundation is seeking to bridge the gap between poets and people by bringing modern poetry more into the public domain and particularly to the workplace. The H’mm Foundation is named after H’m, a volume of poetry by R.S. Thomas, and because the musing sound ‘H’mm’ is an internationally familiar ‘expression’, crossing all linguistic frontiers. This literary venture has already secured the support of well-known poets and writers, including Gillian Clarke, National Poet for Wales, Jon Gower, Menna Elfyn, Nigel Jenkins, Peter Finch and Gwyneth Lewis. The foundation is also supported by several organisations, including Media Wales, The Church in Wales, Institute of Directors, Institute of Welsh Affairs, Literature Wales, Venture Wales, and Community Housing Cymru. H’mm was launched in December 2011 at the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, and is recruiting Welsh organisations to use its ‘Adopt a Poet’ scheme. This involves engaging a poet to deliver a workplace poetry reading, which can add immeasurably to the wellbeing of staff. A poet could be brought in for a one-off event, or there could be a more substantial engagement, such as a year’s incumbency as the organisation’s bard. Building links between the business and the arts communities should be creative for both, especially in a country which has a deep and innate respect for poetry. The creation of the H’mm foundation will be a new source of income for poets and hopefully a source of inspiration for people in business. Ali Anwar, Chief Executive The H’mm Foundation [email protected] | www.thehmmfoundation.co.uk ISBN 978 1 904773 65 8 September 2012 Design: www.theundercard.co.uk Contents 4 Introduction 42 Chapter 9 84 Chapter 18 Walking on air Motherland Ifor Thomas Jon Gower 6 Chapter 1 An outsider’s eye 46 Chapter 10 88 Chapter 19 Trevor Fishlock Citizens of the world The borders inside us Rachel Trezise Zoë Skoulding 10 Chapter 2 Our collective imaginings 50 Chapter 11 92 Chapter 20 Catrin Dafydd Boyos meet the bechgyn Development from within Peter Finch Osi Rhys Osmond 14 Chapter 3 Blindfold in the land 54 Chapter 12 100 Chapter 21 of our birth Just a normal place will do Wales belongs to me Nigel Jenkins Charlotte Williams Bethan Gwanas 18 Chapter 4 58 Chapter 13 104 Chapter 22 Serenity amidst the chaos Overcoming a history Polls apart Menna Elfyn of failed nerve Mike Parker Patrick McGuinness 24 Chapter 5 108 Chapter 23 A ribcage for the nation 64 Chapter 14 We are the ones we have John Osmond Perched on a creative been waiting for fault line Adam Price 28 Chapter 6 Tessa Hadley Easing up on our 112 Chapter 24 identity crisis 68 Chapter 15 Why Labour needs the nation Jane Aaron Inside the forbidden city Owen Smith John Williams 32 Chapter 7 116 Chapter 25 Everything must change 72 Chapter 16 Imaginative realism Grahame Davies Cultural connections of a serial optimist Daniel G. Williams Geraint Talfan Davies 36 Chapter 8 Microscopic Wales 78 Chapter 17 Rhian Edwards A country where we can breathe 122 Notes on the contributors Angela Graham Introduction This publication was conceived to mark the 25th Wales’ civic culture. We now have a staff of six, a high- anniversary of the IWA. We asked 25 authors to write an powered Board of trustees reflecting every aspect of essay casting their minds back over their experience of the Welsh life, over 1,000 individual members, more than 100 past quarter-of-a-century in Wales and reflect on what Fellows, and 130 corporate members. We have developed this inspires them to hope for in the next 25 years. They a branch network that covers the whole of Wales, were chosen mainly because of their facility as writers produced a raft of publications including our journal the but also because we judged they have something to say welsh agenda, and launched a daily online news magazine about how their own lives relate to the wider collective ClickonWales. experience of the nation. The contributors to this book were given no We also commissioned the photographer John specific guidance as to what they should write about, other Briggs to take portraits of the authors, which are reproduced than they should relate some of their own experience here alongside the respective essays. They feature in an to that of Wales during the fifty-year horizon we are exhibition that is touring Wales during 2012-13, beginning at examining. Inevitably the past 25 years predominates and the Old Library in the centre of Cardiff. it is interesting that, in a majority of the essays, two events The years between 1987, when the IWA was in that period stand out. They are the miners strike of the founded, and 2012 saw a transformation in the political, mid-1980s and the devolution referendum in 1997. With economic and cultural fortunes of Wales. A quarter of a the benefit of hindsight, and also the reflections contained century ago the Welsh economy was still dominated by in this volume, the interconnections between these two heavy industry coming apart in the wake of the miners’ events can be plainly seen. They provide the essential strike. Welsh politics were in thrall to a Quango-driven background for all that has followed and is likely to emerge state. Meanwhile a little-noticed cultural revival was in the coming decades. gathering pace. In producing this volume we have benefited from Today that era looks altogether like sepia-veiled close collaboration with Literature Wales Chief Executive history. In its place Welsh democracy has been born with Lleucu Siencyn and her colleagues, with the Chief the creation of the National Assembly that was granted Executive of the Arts Council Nick Capaldi, and with the primary legislative powers in the 2011 referendum. While Chief Executive of H’mm Foundation Ali Anwar. We are still struggling with the downturn, the Welsh economy grateful to them for their support and enthusiasm for what has broken free of what 25 years ago was a third-world has been a rewarding project. As editors we are grateful, structure and is developing a more balanced profile. too, for the ready agreement of the writers to participate Meanwhile, Welsh culture has flourished with and to John Briggs for his superb photography. sport, the arts and the media all gaining recognition on the world stage. Throughout the past 25 years these changes have been closely followed, analysed and promoted by the activities of the Institute. In this period our size and John Osmond influence has grown in response to the emergence of Peter Finch Trevor Fishlock, Cardiff Bay, 2012 1 An outsider’s eye Trevor Fishlock My father spoke little of his boyhood. He was, perhaps, as reticent times and make their stories live on the page. as many fathers of his time. Yet he was not at all withdrawn. He was To start writing one must start writing. A reporter needs voices cheerfully gregarious. He liked being in charge and enjoyed a little and detail; and nothing beats going and seeing. I had never seen a limelight as an amateur bass-baritone. He sang ballads at concerts and colliery so I asked for a trip underground and stumbled to the coalface relished a pint afterwards. to see a little of what mining meant. I liked being on the road. I wrote For years I thought he was from Hereford, where Lily, my at home and in cafes and libraries. The Times, newly-modernised, grandmother, lived. Father didn’t drive so it was quite an expedition for with news on the front page since 1966, had a commitment to better us to travel from Hampshire to see her. My earliest recollection is of a reporting of Britain to the British. Describing Wales to Welsh and small woman with a Welsh accent that delighted me. I had never heard British readers I was a resident stranger, an outsider’s eye. one before. A sepia photograph of my grandfather hung on her sitting It is not always easy to see the shape of things in the swirl of room wall. Grandmother said softly: “All those lovely Welsh boys.” current events. Wales was undergoing social change perhaps more Grandfather was a farmworker who travelled from his native significant than political change. News arose from entwined sources: Wiltshire to mine coal in the Rhondda. Lily was from Nantymoel. They the decline of coal in the last years of its Welsh century, miners’ anger married in Pontypridd in 1905 and had three sons and a daughter.