Author Archive: Andrew Green
Swansea’s rebel women
For all their strengths in the campaign to gain votes for women Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst were by nature autocratic. In 1907 some members of their Women’s Social and Political Union took exception to their announcement that the WSPU’s annual conference would be cancelled in future and that they themselves and their inner circle would […]
Photo of a gate
On the wall almost opposite the foot of the bed, my home for a few days last week, was a thick frame containing a mounted colour photograph. Since it was one of the few unnecessary objects in the room, and the only occupant of its wall, I found myself giving it my full attention several […]
Popeth yn Gymraeg, yn llythrennol
Beth sydd ei angen er mwyn cyrraedd miliwn o siaradwyr Cymraeg erbyn y flwyddyn 2050? Llawer o bethau, heb os, ond un ohonynt yw cynnydd mawr iawn yn y maint o’r deunydd yn Gymraeg sydd ar gael i bobl – pethau i’w darllen, i’w gweld, i’w glywed. Ystyr ‘ar gael’, y dyddiau hyn wrth gwrs, […]
Dr Thurley crosses the border
Last year Ken Skates AM, then the Cabinet member responsibility for culture, commissioned a museum director from London, Dr Simon Thurley, to make recommendations on the running of the National Museum of Wales. (Technically the Museum’s latest English title is Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, a clumsy formulation which shows what trouble you get […]
Orwell’s toads
On 12 April 1946 the magazine Tribune published a short piece by George Orwell entitled Some thoughts on the common toad. It’s not perhaps his most original essay – its central theme is the coming of spring, and how ubiquitous it is, even in the centre of a large city like London – but it […]
A waxwork opens an embassy
Like many people – or at least like many non-Londoners – I was only dimly aware that the American government was building a new UK embassy in London, when Mr Donald J Trump kindly drew our attention to its imminent opening. According to a recent tweet it seems Mr Trump was planning to come and […]
Morfydd Llwyn Owen a Ruth Herbert Lewis
Faint o bobl sy’n ymwybodol bod un o’r mynwentydd gorau yng Nghymru i’w gweld oddi ar Newton Road, Ystumllwynarth? Ac o’r rheiny, faint sy’n gyfarwydd â’r gofeb urddasol sy’n llechu mewn cornel anghysbell o’r fynwent, fel na fyddai ymwelydd sy’n troedio’r llwybrau yn sylwi arno? Cyfeirio ydw i at fedd y gyfansoddwraig ifanc Morfydd Llwyn […]
Philip Pullman and the revival of fascism
One of the sweetest memories of reading books to our daughters when they were young was narrating Philip Pullman’s ‘His dark materials trilogy’ to E. in the 1990s, not long after the books were published. One of them, Northern lights, carries a message to E. from the author on its title page. Sometimes I’d continue […]
Walking to meet heroes
In October 1705 Johann Sebastian Bach set out on foot on a journey of 260 miles. He was twenty years old. He’d recently been in a brawl with a musician he’d insulted in the market place of his home town of Arnstadt in Thuringia, central Germany. The church authorities who employed him as organist in […]
Celebrating our research collections
The text of a talk given in Taliesin, Swansea University on 11 December 2017 to mark the 80th birthday of the 1937 Library. The talk was supported by Swansea University, the Learned Society of Wales and the Royal Institution of South Wales. Diolch yn fawr am y gwahoddiad i siarad – y tro cyntaf imi […]