Archive for 2022
Mr Bebb’s dislike of the motor car
Not many people these days have heard of Ambrose Bebb. Maybe some Welsh speakers, especially following Robin Chapman’s 1997 biography, but very few others. His son Dewi Bebb, the rugby player, and his grandson Guto Bebb, the former MP, are probably much better known. In the interwar period, though, Ambrose Bebb was known for his […]
Lost
Evening runs aren’t really my thing these days. Almost always I go out early in the morning. But today’s different. For one thing, this is my first run for several weeks, since aggravating an old Achilles tendon injury. So my route, as well as my timing, is unorthodox: short and slow; no cliffs, no hills. […]
Trais yn y pentra
Yn gynnar yn Afal drwg Adda, hunangofiant Caradog Prichard, daw brawddeg sy’n codi ael y darllenydd: Hyd yma [canfod ei fam yn mynd yn ffwndrus] yr oeddwn yn eofn a hunan hyderus, yn ymladdwr ffyrnig ac wedi ennill enw fel tipyn o fwli yn yr ysgol ac ymhlith hogiau’r ardal. Yn ôl pob sôn, cymeriad […]
Wye Valley Walk, day 13: Llangurig to Rhyd-y-Benwch
We’re back to four of us today. We’ve arranged to meet Ch on the Wye bridge: he’s been staying in Clochfaen, a large house completed in 1915 by the Verney family, who invested large amounts of money into the economy and buildings of Llangurig in the late nineteenth century. Earlier the village even had a […]
Wye Valley Walk, day 12: Rhayader to Llangurig
We gather at the town clock. It looks at first sight as if it’s one of the family of Victorian town clocks at the centre of many mid-Wales towns, but the Rhayader example dates from 1924 and acts as a memorial to the dead of the First World War. On each face are stone relief […]
Wye Valley Walk, day 11: Newbridge-on-Wye to Rhayader
Sun and warmth have returned. We’re taxi’d back from Rhayader to Newbridge for a rather longer walk than yesterday’s. We wait on the bridge, and immediately spot our first kite of the day. As well as A we’re joined by a second guest, J. The four of us start on a minor road below the […]
Wye Valley Walk, day 10: Builth Wells to Newbridge-on-Wye
We’ve been given a short stretch today after yesterday’s labours. The owner of the guest house waves us off. We’re too late to see the otters, he says, but we might consider a dip in Plum Tree Pool, a few miles upriver. Luckily I’ve left my swimming trunks behind. The sky has heavier clouds than […]
Wye Valley Walk, day 9: Boughrood to Builth Wells
At breakfast we resume our conversation with another Two Women. This time they’re trail riders (I detect a wince when I let slip the term ‘pony trekkers’). We saw them twice yesterday, next to the river. They’ve come from Hay, their borrowed horses are spending the night in a nearby field, and in the morning […]
Wye Valley Walk, day 8: Hay-on-Wye to Boughrood
Hay looks unbookish today. It’s a few weeks before the Literature Festival gets under way. The bookshops are open, but there aren’t enough visitors in town to make them look busy. Other shops look closed or hibernating, waiting for the end of May. But we’re here, C and I, back to start the Wye Valley […]
Swansea and Chile: exploitation, sanctuary, fulfilment
The Glynn Vivian has a show of work from its collection on the theme ‘art and industry’. It’s full of wonderful and thought-provoking things: well-known paintings as well as much less familiar items on paper and in other media. A whole wall is taken up with Josef Herman’s massive ‘Miners’ oil painting of 1951, surely […]
