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-Bore da, Guto. -Bore da, croeso i'r Bala. | 0:02:17 | 0:02:20 | |
-I see you've brought the crown. -I take it everywhere. | 0:02:20 | 0:02:22 | |
So this is the White Lion, | 0:02:22 | 0:02:24 | |
where Seosamh Mac Grianna met the Welsh bard. | 0:02:24 | 0:02:26 | |
Gwych, fantastic. Let's go in. | 0:02:26 | 0:02:28 | |
This is the last verse of the last poem of the collection | 0:03:06 | 0:03:10 | |
that won me this crown at the last National Eisteddfod. | 0:03:10 | 0:03:14 | |
It's a poem about how homes in our Welsh language areas are empty, | 0:03:14 | 0:03:19 | |
how our structures are diminishing, | 0:03:19 | 0:03:22 | |
but how there are new opportunities | 0:03:22 | 0:03:24 | |
such as social media, Twitter and so on | 0:03:24 | 0:03:27 | |
that we can grasp and take forward. | 0:03:27 | 0:03:30 | |
"Ond cau dy lygaid ar wacter y coed, | 0:03:30 | 0:03:32 | |
"a gwranda ar y trydar diarbed: | 0:03:32 | 0:03:35 | |
"ein swn ni - ein canmol cynhennus, | 0:03:35 | 0:03:38 | |
"cynganeddion damweiniol ein delfrydau, | 0:03:38 | 0:03:40 | |
"ymrysonau ffraethineb y boreau bach - | 0:03:40 | 0:03:42 | |
"yn gwibio'n drydan drwy oerni'r aer | 0:03:42 | 0:03:45 | |
"Mae'r coed yn noeth ond ni bia'r awyr." | 0:03:45 | 0:03:47 | |
"The trees are bare, but we own the sky." | 0:03:47 | 0:03:50 | |
Beautiful. | 0:03:50 | 0:03:52 | |
I can't pretend or bluff that I understood the entire content there, | 0:03:52 | 0:03:56 | |
but certainly aurally, lovely, guttural Welsh sounds, | 0:03:56 | 0:03:59 | |
very appealing to the ear. | 0:03:59 | 0:04:01 | |
And I'm intrigued that you have, in your work, | 0:04:01 | 0:04:04 | |
you've managed to merge the ancient tradition, the classical tradition, | 0:04:04 | 0:04:08 | |
with the challenges facing the young Welsh-speaking population | 0:04:08 | 0:04:12 | |
-in the modern world. -That's what I aim to do. | 0:04:12 | 0:04:14 | |
I look back over the centuries of tradition that we have | 0:04:14 | 0:04:18 | |
and try to bring titbits of that, be it a poem or a tale, | 0:04:18 | 0:04:22 | |
and bring it into my poetry, make it relevant to our situation today, | 0:04:22 | 0:04:26 | |
to the predicament of our Welsh language communities | 0:04:26 | 0:04:30 | |
and try to put a new spin on it. | 0:04:30 | 0:04:33 | |
There's a huge tradition in Wales of poets going from house to house, | 0:04:33 | 0:04:37 | |
from mansion to mansion, | 0:04:37 | 0:04:39 | |
singing for their supper, basically, | 0:04:39 | 0:04:41 | |
singing the praises of the noblemen, | 0:04:41 | 0:04:43 | |
but our poetry as a generation today | 0:04:43 | 0:04:46 | |
is a lot more cynical - we challenge authority, rather than uphold it. | 0:04:46 | 0:04:51 | |
We'll be seeing you again very soon at the Eisteddfod next week. | 0:04:51 | 0:04:55 | |
Yes, at the start of the week, | 0:04:55 | 0:04:56 | |
I'm going to be admitted into the Gorsedd of the Bards, | 0:04:56 | 0:05:00 | |
the Order of Poets, | 0:05:00 | 0:05:02 | |
which is an honours system that we have | 0:05:02 | 0:05:05 | |
and I'm being allowed in cos I won the crown. | 0:05:05 | 0:05:08 | |
The Eisteddfod is much more than that. | 0:05:08 | 0:05:10 | |
It's a whole week of festival, of dancing, singing, live music | 0:05:10 | 0:05:16 | |
-and poetry as well. -One final request, please - | 0:05:16 | 0:05:20 | |
would you be so kind as to don your crown? | 0:05:20 | 0:05:23 | |
I'll put it on now. | 0:05:23 | 0:05:24 | |
It's quite stylish, isn't it? | 0:05:26 | 0:05:28 | |
-I wear it all the time, but not in the shower. -Very regal! | 0:05:28 | 0:05:31 | |
-Very regal. -Quite fetching, I think. | 0:05:32 | 0:05:35 | |
MUSIC: Men Of Harlech | 0:05:56 | 0:06:00 | |
It was a bit of an accident that Seosamh Mac Grianna ended up here, | 0:08:56 | 0:09:00 | |
because his original plan was to continue north | 0:09:00 | 0:09:02 | |
from Bala to Scotland, | 0:09:02 | 0:09:04 | |
but this was a bit of good fortune for him. | 0:09:04 | 0:09:06 | |
It was a bit of good fortune, yeah. | 0:09:06 | 0:09:08 | |
This is quite an ancient route here, linking Bala to Lake Vyrnwy | 0:09:08 | 0:09:12 | |
-and way back, this would have been an old drover's road. -Yeah. | 0:09:12 | 0:09:15 | |
This would have been where they would have bought cattle, mainly, | 0:09:15 | 0:09:18 | |
then, of course, taken them to markets, eventually, | 0:09:18 | 0:09:22 | |
over in England and, of course, | 0:09:22 | 0:09:25 | |
it's been used ever since. It was an old stagecoach route as well | 0:09:25 | 0:09:29 | |
and it was the way that we from the village used to come over | 0:09:29 | 0:09:32 | |
to do a bit of shopping over in Bala, so over the years, | 0:09:32 | 0:09:35 | |
it's been a very important route. | 0:09:35 | 0:09:37 | |
And there were certain dangers and hazards, historically, | 0:09:37 | 0:09:39 | |
on this route, from what I gather. | 0:09:39 | 0:09:41 | |
There were some very wild Welshmen up on the moors here, red-haired. | 0:09:41 | 0:09:46 | |
They were called the Gwylliaid Cochion, | 0:09:46 | 0:09:48 | |
a gang of bandits, marauding bandits. | 0:09:48 | 0:09:51 | |
They used to work the moors all the way, well, | 0:09:51 | 0:09:54 | |
probably a radius of about 20 miles here | 0:09:54 | 0:09:56 | |
and they would rob people coming over and particularly drovers. | 0:09:56 | 0:10:01 | |
When they'd taken the animals over to market in England, of course, | 0:10:01 | 0:10:05 | |
they brought the money back with them and they knew this | 0:10:05 | 0:10:08 | |
and they'd wait for them and they'd ambush them, take the money | 0:10:08 | 0:10:11 | |
and it took the authorities decades | 0:10:11 | 0:10:13 | |
before they eventually caught them, | 0:10:13 | 0:10:15 | |
cos if you think of these moors here, | 0:10:15 | 0:10:18 | |
if you know it, so many places for you to hide away, | 0:10:18 | 0:10:22 | |
so they were wild men, wild, red-haired Welshmen. | 0:10:22 | 0:10:25 | |
When Seosamh Mac Grianna embarked on this hike, | 0:10:29 | 0:10:32 | |
he had two primary objectives. | 0:10:32 | 0:10:35 | |
One was to source inspiration for his writing, | 0:10:35 | 0:10:39 | |
but equally, to challenge himself physically | 0:10:39 | 0:10:43 | |
and he covered 300 miles over the route, | 0:10:43 | 0:10:46 | |
about 24-25 average a day. | 0:10:46 | 0:10:48 | |
That was a tough challenge. | 0:10:48 | 0:10:50 | |
It was very tough, especially way back then. | 0:10:50 | 0:10:54 | |
We look at this route now and all the way along, | 0:10:54 | 0:10:56 | |
you've got a lovely tarmac road, it's very smooth, | 0:10:56 | 0:10:58 | |
it's quite easy walking, but if we were to do 24-25 miles a day, | 0:10:58 | 0:11:03 | |
that would be challenging even now | 0:11:03 | 0:11:06 | |
and when you've got little more than a path, a track at best, | 0:11:06 | 0:11:11 | |
with potholes everywhere, that would have been incredibly difficult. | 0:11:11 | 0:11:15 | |
Iolo, I'm conscious that Seosamh Mac Grianna would have been aware | 0:11:53 | 0:11:58 | |
of the history of what happened here - | 0:11:58 | 0:12:02 | |
a Welsh-speaking community was sacrificed | 0:12:02 | 0:12:05 | |
to create a water supply for the city of Liverpool. | 0:12:05 | 0:12:08 | |
Yes, yes, that's right. We're going back now to the 1880s, | 0:12:08 | 0:12:12 | |
when this dam was built. The city of Liverpool was a growing city. | 0:12:12 | 0:12:17 | |
They needed water for industry, but more than anything, | 0:12:17 | 0:12:20 | |
they needed water for the people. | 0:12:20 | 0:12:22 | |
The people lived in poverty, in squalor. | 0:12:22 | 0:12:25 | |
Disease was rife, they were desperate for clean running water, | 0:12:25 | 0:12:29 | |
so an act of parliament was passed for this dam to be built | 0:12:29 | 0:12:32 | |
and it drowned the whole valley here, five miles of it. | 0:12:32 | 0:12:36 | |
Unfortunately, it also drowned a village, farms, | 0:12:36 | 0:12:40 | |
a Welsh-speaking community | 0:12:40 | 0:12:42 | |
and that community now is under these dark waters. | 0:12:42 | 0:12:46 | |
And I remember, as a lad growing up here, in 1976, | 0:12:49 | 0:12:53 | |
the long, hot, drought summer of 1976, | 0:12:53 | 0:12:57 | |
going to where the village was | 0:12:57 | 0:12:59 | |
and because the water was at a record low, | 0:12:59 | 0:13:03 | |
you could see the ruins of the old village of Llanwddyn. | 0:13:03 | 0:13:07 | |
The bridge was intact, some of the houses were still there, | 0:13:07 | 0:13:10 | |
there was a cockpit | 0:13:10 | 0:13:12 | |
and it was incredibly sad. | 0:13:12 | 0:13:15 | |
Of course, it's happened since then. Hopefully, it'll never happen again. | 0:13:17 | 0:13:21 | |
WELSH CHORAL SINGING | 0:13:42 | 0:13:45 | |
-Ah, Guto! -Bore da! -Bore da! -How are you? | 0:14:56 | 0:14:59 | |
Very well, thank you. You're fully vested and raring to go. | 0:14:59 | 0:15:02 | |
Yes, looking magnificent. | 0:15:02 | 0:15:04 | |
Yeah, I've been given my robe | 0:15:04 | 0:15:05 | |
and then, in the ceremony later on at the Gorsedd Stones, | 0:15:05 | 0:15:10 | |
I'll be given my head dress as well, with leaves in it. | 0:15:10 | 0:15:13 | |
Then I'll be a full member of the Gorsedd of the Bards. | 0:15:13 | 0:15:15 | |
I'm overwhelmed by the magnitude of this event. | 0:15:19 | 0:15:22 | |
I've just heard that this is the second largest outside broadcast | 0:15:22 | 0:15:26 | |
by the BBC, second only to Wimbledon. | 0:15:26 | 0:15:30 | |
Yeah, that makes sense. It's a huge event. | 0:15:30 | 0:15:32 | |
You'll have seen the huge pink pavilion as you walked in. | 0:15:32 | 0:15:36 | |
That's where the main competing takes place | 0:15:36 | 0:15:38 | |
and that's where the crowning ceremony | 0:15:38 | 0:15:41 | |
will take place this afternoon. | 0:15:41 | 0:15:43 | |
But the Eisteddfod is much more than the pavilion. | 0:15:43 | 0:15:45 | |
It's got all these other tents, it's got lectures, | 0:15:45 | 0:15:48 | |
it's got singing, poetry. It's like a powerhouse for our culture. | 0:15:48 | 0:15:53 | |
It's been called a mobile capital city for Welsh-speaking Wales | 0:15:53 | 0:15:57 | |
and I think that's true. | 0:15:57 | 0:15:58 | |
A mobile capital city for Welsh-speaking Wales? | 0:15:58 | 0:16:02 | |
Yeah, the idea is that for one week, | 0:16:02 | 0:16:05 | |
we have got one place where everybody can celebrate the culture, | 0:16:05 | 0:16:10 | |
everybody who's interested in the culture will try to make the journey | 0:16:10 | 0:16:14 | |
to this small, uninhabited, almost, corner | 0:16:14 | 0:16:19 | |
of the middle of Wales and here, our culture reigns supreme. | 0:16:19 | 0:16:24 | |
MAN SINGS IN WELSH | 0:16:24 | 0:16:27 | |
-Hi, Lisa. -Hi. | 0:16:36 | 0:16:38 | |
-Nice to meet you again. -And you too. | 0:16:38 | 0:16:40 | |
And this is the young bardess? | 0:16:40 | 0:16:43 | |
Yeah, this is Casi and I've got a bib here | 0:16:43 | 0:16:45 | |
and she's got a bib as well. | 0:16:45 | 0:16:48 | |
It's not quite matching, but she's enjoying her first Eisteddfod. | 0:16:48 | 0:16:51 | |
She's in pink! | 0:16:51 | 0:16:53 | |
This doesn't signify anything in the bardic tradition, no? | 0:16:53 | 0:16:56 | |
No, I don't think there are any pink... Are there any pink dresses? | 0:16:56 | 0:17:00 | |
We wish you every success. Enjoy every second. | 0:17:00 | 0:17:03 | |
-Savour the moment! -I will. | 0:17:03 | 0:17:05 | |
FANFARE PLAYS | 0:17:19 | 0:17:21 | |
THEY SING IN WELSH | 0:17:26 | 0:17:30 | |
ALL CALL OUT IN WELSH | 0:17:39 | 0:17:42 | |
SHE SPEAKS IN WELSH | 0:17:42 | 0:17:45 | |
HE SPEAKS WELSH | 0:18:06 | 0:18:08 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:18:18 | 0:18:21 | |
WELSH CHORAL SINGING | 0:18:33 | 0:18:35 | |
CROSSING BELL RINGS, TRAIN'S WHISTLE SOUNDS | 0:21:09 | 0:21:13 | |
TRAIN'S HORN BLARES | 0:21:23 | 0:21:25 | |
Well, if Seosamh Mac Grianna had been doing his hike now, | 0:21:37 | 0:21:41 | |
rather than in 1934, Arthur, | 0:21:41 | 0:21:43 | |
he wouldn't have been tempted to get on the train, | 0:21:43 | 0:21:45 | |
cos the train no longer stops. | 0:21:45 | 0:21:47 | |
No, he'd have to be able to run fast - | 0:21:47 | 0:21:49 | |
they're going through here at 84mph. | 0:21:49 | 0:21:50 | |
But no, there was none of this here then. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:53 | |
It was a biggish station for a little village, | 0:21:53 | 0:21:56 | |
where we had two platforms, one each side, | 0:21:56 | 0:22:00 | |
there was a signal box over there, | 0:22:00 | 0:22:02 | |
the signalman lived in this house where we live now, | 0:22:02 | 0:22:05 | |
the station master lived next door, the booking office was there | 0:22:05 | 0:22:09 | |
and that's where they used to unload | 0:22:09 | 0:22:10 | |
and put all the parcels that we used to deliver when we were kids. | 0:22:10 | 0:22:14 | |
I can remember going down the road on a bike | 0:22:14 | 0:22:16 | |
with three boxes of day-old chicks | 0:22:16 | 0:22:19 | |
singing to me on the way going down the road. | 0:22:19 | 0:22:22 | |
It was very exciting round here | 0:22:22 | 0:22:24 | |
and the trains used to run up the sideline up there, | 0:22:24 | 0:22:28 | |
to Kerry and we used to ride on them, | 0:22:28 | 0:22:30 | |
either on the carriage van... | 0:22:30 | 0:22:31 | |
If Mr Swain, the station master, was here, | 0:22:31 | 0:22:33 | |
we'd have to ride in the carriage van. | 0:22:33 | 0:22:35 | |
When he wasn't here, we could ride on the footplate | 0:22:35 | 0:22:37 | |
and it was very exciting, riding on the footplate. | 0:22:37 | 0:22:39 | |
A lot of levers to pull, | 0:22:39 | 0:22:41 | |
whistles and what have you, innit? | 0:22:41 | 0:22:43 | |
But there was also a tragic incident | 0:22:43 | 0:22:45 | |
that happened here at Abermule station, | 0:22:45 | 0:22:47 | |
an accident that may well have changed the course | 0:22:47 | 0:22:50 | |
of world history, Arthur. | 0:22:50 | 0:22:52 | |
January '21 there was a head-on collision | 0:22:52 | 0:22:55 | |
about a half a mile up the line here, | 0:22:55 | 0:22:56 | |
a goods train and a passenger train. | 0:22:56 | 0:22:59 | |
Something had happened in the station here, | 0:22:59 | 0:23:02 | |
the wrong token was given to this train going up | 0:23:02 | 0:23:04 | |
and he thought he had right of way. | 0:23:04 | 0:23:06 | |
It turned out the one from Newtown had right of way. | 0:23:06 | 0:23:09 | |
16, I think there was, that were killed. | 0:23:10 | 0:23:13 | |
On that train, | 0:23:15 | 0:23:17 | |
there was an MP from Llanidloes, I think he was. He got killed. | 0:23:17 | 0:23:21 | |
He left some of his estate to Winston Churchill | 0:23:22 | 0:23:26 | |
and they reckoned at the time | 0:23:26 | 0:23:27 | |
Winston Churchill was near enough bankrupt and if he'd gone bankrupt, | 0:23:27 | 0:23:30 | |
he wouldn't have been able to be an MP. | 0:23:30 | 0:23:32 | |
Well, this bloke saved him, really, | 0:23:32 | 0:23:34 | |
and from that accident, | 0:23:34 | 0:23:36 | |
all the stations in India | 0:23:36 | 0:23:39 | |
where they've got the levers, there's a notice up above to say, | 0:23:39 | 0:23:44 | |
"Remember Abermule", to remind the blokes who work in the signal box. | 0:23:44 | 0:23:49 | |
-So a tiny village in Wales became... -World-famous. -World-famous? -Yes. | 0:23:49 | 0:23:53 | |
Arthur, it's been a treat talking to you. | 0:23:53 | 0:23:55 | |
I suspect if we had more time, we could talk here for a lot longer. | 0:23:55 | 0:23:58 | |
We could, yes. Once you start... | 0:23:58 | 0:24:00 | |
Cheers, my lad. | 0:24:00 | 0:24:02 |