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All my life I’ve been a chocolate addict. The high point of a visit to my granny’s at Howden was when she would open a secret drawer and give me some. At home my mother used to hide bars in…
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Against heritage
Having spent a big chunk of my adult life trying to help look after bits of it, I’ve developed a strong dislike, bordering on contempt, for the word ‘heritage’. Why, I wonder? Etymologically it’s an innocent enough word – something…
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Magnus Maximus, man and memory
Doing some research recently on the Roman fort and settlement of Segontium I found myself face to face with a Roman emperor, Magnus Maximus. His story is interesting but not unusual. Later memory of him, especially in his guise as…
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Cribarth
It’s the morning of the Pumpkinification of Donald Trump. Three of us have fled the bloggers, tweeters and trolls, to the head of Cwm Tawe. We park in Ystradgynlais, near Ysgol Golwg y Cwm, and walk up to the track…
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Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Ezra Pound
It’s exactly a hundred years since John Lane published Ezra Pound’s ‘memoir’ of the French sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, who died in action at Neuville-Saint-Vaast on the Western Front on 5 June 1915, aged 23 years. I first came across Gaudier-Brzeska…
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Charles William Mansel Lewis, painter
Last week I paid a visit to Parc Howard Museum and Art Gallery in Llanelli. I was on a particular mission in the museum, but had time to look round the paintings on display. The collection is mixed but interesting. …
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Y £5 newydd: ymlaen i’r gorffennol
Yr wythnos ddiwethaf cyrhaeddodd fy mhapur pum punt newydd cyntaf. Ychydig ddyddiau cyn hynny derbyniais i trwy’r post The new Fiver, taflen (uniaith Saesneg – er bod fersiwn Cymraeg ar gael) gan Fanc Lloegr sy’n ceisio esbonio’r newid a rhoi…
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The new Glynn Vivian: Day 1
For five years the façade of the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery has been hidden by tall wooden hoardings. A week or two ago the screens came down, and yesterday, at last, the ‘new’ Glynn Viv opened its doors to the…
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Peter Lord’s ‘The Tradition’
In front of me is a copy of The artist in Wales, the first book to attempt a full conspectus of art in Wales, past and present. It was written in 1957 by David Bell, when he was Curator of…
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An archaeological nightmare
In my experience – and I confess I haven’t lifted a trowel in anger for over forty years – archaeological digs bring nothing but lasting pleasure. For some, though, it’s obviously a different story. Quite recently a friend alerted me…