HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY

As you drive north from Gloucestershire the valleys get deeper, the hills rise to almost mountains. Wales is what dreamers dream about. My earliest memories - fictionalized and romanticized - the life of a Welsh coal miner, a book by Llewellyn made into a movie. Long lines of sturdy men (and boys) heading to the pits singing lustily. Of course there is more to being Welsh than being able to sing. That movie remains with me through. Donald Crisp the patriarch of the Morgan family. It was pure bathos but beautifully done thanks to John Ford’s direction and stalwarts Maureen O’Hara and Walter Pidgeon. And the tragedies of the pits and the poverty of the company-owned row houses. .

Travelled through most of south Wales and never did see one colliery. We did drive by Swansea, the scene of the most recent tragedy – four miners drowned in a vertical mine. The hills around Swansea probably still contain vast amounts of coal, but there are now better and cleaner ways to generate power. There must be some nostalgic longing among the British people for the days when the natural presence of both iron and coal were the machine that drove the Industrial Revolution, a “revolution” that came first to the U.K, with factories and steam trains and shipping and made them the most successful industrialized country on earth. Nostalgia of course, because they are no longer that power. Only the memories (and some of the bravado) remain. Back to our voyage of discovery..

By the time we crossed the border at Monmouth the hills shone green and loomed higher. The valleys grew greener, deeper and more lush. And there were forests. Only one had a name that we could see: Bean. But unlike our roads that are often rimmed with trees with plenty of room on the shoulder of the road, there is no room here and the forest seems to stretch back deeply from the roadside, roadsides often made picturesque but daunting by the hedgerows where our shoulders would be. And that’s my poetry and illusion about the once-country of Wales, last home of the Britons forced back by hordes of Saxons, Angles, Danes, and Norsemen.

The language. “Sufferin” Succotash” spoke Mel Blanc, the voice of Daffy Duck. The cartoon character made the sound I hear in Welsh. The “double L” is pronounced “sshh” but seems to be formed between the tongue and the back teeth in a puddle of saliva. Today’s Wales pays tribute to the language and all the signs are in Welsh then English. There are ff’s, there are words without vowels. I am no linguist of course, but is the derivation Celtic? It reminded me of Basque, a language that was never written until the Basque nationalist scholars decided that it could be. The letters used approximate sounds unknown to English speakers. Similarly in Welsh there are back-tooth sounds, gutturals, and throat-clearing consonants that defy “spelling.” No word is spoken as it looks. Beyond this, and it is only speculation, I have no knowledge of the language. Was it strictly oral? Was it written in some ancient script? Don’t know. I DO know that “ll” is pronounced the way Daffy Duck would say it.

We had been starved for castles and Wales offered castles galore. We saw, with one exception, nothing but ruins. I’m a little vague on the history of the area. There were castles built by the English to defend Wales against the Normans. (But the “English, courtesy of William I were Norman.) There were Norman castles to defend Wales for the Normans. The two best we saw were Raglan, just inside the Welsh border, and Kidwelly, a Norman castle – one of a chain that guarded Norman possessions in southwest Wales. It fell several times during the 11th and 12th century to the Welsh and in 1159 was burnt by Lord Rhys. It went back and forth but was finally held by the English the least of them was a portion of a battered Norman castle all that was left after the Welsh hero Llewellyn got through with it. But don’t think that there were only English villains and Welsh heroes. The Welsh fought bitterly among themselves, just as the English did in the 17th century civil war. I’m not an authority on the somewhat Byzantine shape of politics, friends and enemies, invaders and residents of what is now the U.K. Remember, there was a time when a king without a throne named Alfred, hid in a swamp while the Danes hunted him – Alfred who would be the first king of what came close to a unified England. Hence – Alfred the Great. Don’t phone and ask me for more. I’m ion over my head already

It is clear that the winners were vindictive, the losers vanquished. There was no such thing as what we mistakenly call “chivalry.” Look how Henry VIII ravaged the monasteries.

Raglan represented, at least to Cromwell, the worst of the Royalists. It had a history. One owner, William Thomas, fought alongside Henry V at Agincourt. The next owner was the Earl of Pembroke. It was also the boyhood home of Henry Tudor who became Henry VII and was heir t0o the Lancastrian control of the throne.

During the Civil War it was garrisoned by the Royalists and subjected to a long siege accompanied by heavy artillery bombardment. Cromwell’s engineers finished the job, tearing the castle apart to the point where no one could live there, assuring that no upstart Royalist could shelter there and strive toward renewed power. The saddest of all is that for many years Raglan was a “quarry.” People were urged to carry off as much of its stone as they wanted. They did not finish the job. The ruins are spectacular. The architecture timeless. Sans roofs and some walls – it is magnificent.

There was still another ruin to be seen: the site used on the Antiques Road Show. What a disappointment. Nothing to rival either Raglan or Kidwell, and certainly nothing to compare with another “roadshow” taping site: Gloucester Cathedral. Then finally – a castle – standing and preserved: Tretower. It is really more of a manor house. There are no soaring towers. No moats. No massive gates. A two story manor house but of course, with Royalist sympathies. The York kings stayed there

Finally the rain was getting to us. Let’s find out about modern Wales. Let’s buckle in and head for Cardiff. I often wonder, as I see tour buses Toronto, how much they really see and how accurate the commentary is. I am always disappointed but I keep going back for more. Disappointed because the buses make only the designated stops while whizzing by other stuff you want to at least photograph. (I n Toronto I heard that at least one tour stops at the south side of Casa Loma and gives them a view but doesn’t go u-p into the castle lot for the complete view. Takes up too much time and what do tourists know anyway?)

In Bristol, after we finally trudged what seemed like miles from our hotel through chilling winds, we came to a tour bus in front of Cardiff Castle. (Most of the castle was built or rebuilt b y a wealthy Welsh philanthropist, the Marquis of something-or-other.
What I got from the commentary was the story of one of the U.K.’s most successful cities. The newest “capital” in Europe and the smallest. The fastest-growing – see the huge stadium and the most cleverly redeveloped – see the transformed waterfront. He talked about how Cardiff was once a huge shipping port courtesy exports of coal and steel, both of which have shriveled to nearly nothing. The city seems to bustle, and I could easily put up with the commercial hubris of the commentator. Sidebar: turns out he is a retired musician who played with the Welsh National Orchestra and has made many trips to Toronto, one of his favourite cities. He played at Roy Thompson Hall.

Bristol, like many “re-invented cities is bustling and hopeful. So is Bristol only more so.
One trip to see the incredibly restored transatlantic steamer “Great Britain.” But we’re heading back. More to come.