The Angel Mountain Blog

Friday, 29 March 2024

PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING IN WALES

PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING IN WALES

https://senedd.wales/media/vfmmf1d1/cr-ld16426-e.pdf

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-68654383?fbclid=IwAR0w0UQo2z9SecsnrnERZNPYDU507KEjYw9qralOHSUvWw9eapAcXK4PEJE

It's good to see that the Welsh Assembly / Senedd has done another investigation of this matter. The Committee Report, just published, makes assorted worthy recommendations. But I was staggered to see that the Report contains virtually nothing about the in-depth representation of Wales (and the "selling of Wales") in public service broadcasting output. The Committee almost seems to be unaware that TV is a promotional medium, not just something used for entertainment and factual or news reporting.

Quote:

"70. The BBC also has work to do on ensuring that people across Wales feel represented by the services they receive. The scale of this challenge is clear as only half the Welsh population think the BBC reflects “people like them”. We are optimistic that improved representation will be one of the consequences of the BBC’s Across the UK plans. The BBC must be ambitious in these plans, and Ofcom need to be similarly ambitious in what it asks for from the broadcaster.

Recommendation 8. Ofcom should be ambitious in using its regulation of the BBC to drive improvements to the BBC’s representation and portrayal of people in Wales. The BBC and Ofcom should report back to this Committee before the end of the Sixth Senedd to report on its progress."

So there is no insistence that the BBC and the other broadcasters should devote serious resources to the telling of the Welsh story-- and play a role in developing Welsh national self-awareness and pride in its heritage. The "portrayal of people" in Wales is a different matter entirely. Wales is, arguably, already well portrayed through a string of "Celtic Noir" dramas, some of them good and some of them terrible -- but all portraying Wales as a pretty miserable place populated by psychopaths and weird hermits living in the dark woods and out on the bleak uplands! Owls, cobwebs, deserted farmhouses, and mutilated corpses proliferate.......

It's all very timid and unimaginative. A missed opportunity, since Welsh production companies currently spend much more of their time, and devote more of their expertise, to the telling of other peoples' stories rather than their own. That was a point made strongly round about the time of the last Committee review, a few years ago.

So are we nowadays a proud and confident nation with our own unique narrative? Not on this evidence. Scotland knows how to do it, with Wales lagging far behind.

Monday, 5 February 2024

Newport 1835

This is a wonderful image from the National Library selection. Newport around the year 1835 around the topm end of Marketv Street. The building where the Friends Garden is now located does not look like a dwelling -- there are no proper windows. Also the arched door is unusual. Could it have been a stable for people who were coming into town to attend the market or on other business?

Note how ruinous the castle is. It was renovated and brought back into use as a dwelling around 1855 -- and the facade overlooking the town was changed almost out of recognition, with the trimming down of the left tower and the addition of assorted windows,

So this is how the centre of town will have looked around Martha's time..........

Sunday, 17 December 2023

Christmas Quiz 2023 -- the answers

1. Rose Castle Tower, near Picton Point

2. Mountain Railway, Carningli, near Newport

3. Gedeon Chapel, Dinas Cross

4. Dinas Head, seen from the Nevern Estuary

5. Carn Meini (Carnmenyn) seen from the Waldo Williams monument

6. Ty Canol Wood, near Brynberian

7. Shell House, Cilwendeg

8. Baptistry, St Dogmaels

9. Pwll Deri seen from Garn Fawr

10. Trehowel, on Pen Caer

11. The Bennet and Traeth Mawr, seen from Newport Castle

12. Interior of Cilgerran Castle

13. Stepaside Iron Works

14. Cattle Pound, Mountain West, Newport

15. St Dogmaels, near the Abbey

16. Cwm yr Eglwys

17. Llanllawer holy well, Cwm Gwaun

18. Rosebush slate quarry

19. Folly at Monk Haven, near Milford

20. Solva lime kilns

21. Castell Henllys Iron Age Village

22. St Govans Chapel

23. Pembroke Castle keep

24. Priory Ruins, Haverfordwest

25. Five Arches, Tenby

26. Abbey, Caldey Island

27. Skomer Island

28. Haverfordwest Castle

29. Rhosygilwen Mansion

30. Maiden Castle and Lion Rock, Treffgarne

Brian's Christmas Quiz 2023

Here are 30 Pembrokeshire images culled from my Facebook and blog sites -- thanks to Steve Mallett and Ruth Crofts for some of them. And thanks too to Rhiannon James for acting the part of Mistress Martha a few years ago. Can you identify all 30 of the places where the photos were taken?

No prizes -- you can just bask in the glory of knowing that you are a Pembrokeshire expert. If you get 1-10 answers right, you need to get out more often. If you get 11-20 right, you can get moderately chuffed. And if you get 21-29 answers right, you can count yourself as rather well-informed and observant. If you get all 30 answers right, it means you have probably been following me around for the last 50 years or so, and should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself........

The answers can be found here:

https://brian-angelmountain.blogspot.com/2023/12/christmas-quiz-2023-answers.html

... and a very happy Christmas to you all!

Sunday, 26 November 2023

Mari Lwyd

A nice pic of the Mari Lwyd from the Castell Henllys web site.......

Wednesday, 15 November 2023

Jemima & Co 1997

A nice pic from 1997 (the Bicentenary Celebrations relating to the Last Invasion of 1797) -- showing Yvonne Fox (Jemima Nicholas) and her ladies striding across the town square in Fishguard. A fearsome sight indeed........

Pic -- from the Hanes Abergwaun web site.

Tuesday, 14 November 2023

The Wizard of Werndew

Having collected up as much information as possible about Joseph Harries (1830-1890), the Wizard of Werndew, I have now published it as a short article on the Peoples Collection Wales web site:

https://www.peoplescollection.wales/items/2062701

I have added 13 stories about Joseph that seem to be authentic -- but you never can tell when it comes to folk tales.........

Once upon a time I acted the role of Joseph Harries in a dramatic production in Newport called "The Enchanted Land". That was fun........

The Joseph Harries as he is revealed in historical snippets is very different indeed from the character I invented for the purposes of the Angel Mountain saga:

Joseph Harries the Wizard

(Spoiler alert: the following gives information which new readers may prefer not to know.....)

Joseph Harries of Werndew is one of the key characters in the story. He was born in 1761 and died in 1826 at the age of 65. In Martha’s time, wizards (or “knowing men”) were greatly respected. Joseph Harries really did exist -- there are a number of folk tales about him. In reality, it seems that he might not have been a very nice fellow! And he did live at Werndew, just above the village of Dinas on the north side of the mountain ridge. The cottage was, and still is, within walking distance of Carningli and Plas Ingli.

But in my mind, and in the stories, Joseph is a herbalist, mystic, apothecary, surgeon, psychiatrist, sleuth, diplomat, counsellor and master of the arts of observation and deduction. He is a scientist, as well as being a man of culture. He knows several foreign languages and is familiar with many of the esoteric books on which the world’s great religions are based. On occasion he retreats into his cottage before emerging, exhausted, with answers to very complicated questions; but there is always the possibility that he is a “charlatan” with a superior intellect and an ability to observe things and make deductions in the manner of a prototype Sherlock Holmes. Whether or not he is familiar with the denizens of the spirit world, he certainly does have a vast range of abilities, acquired during years of careful study under a variety of great teachers, whom he mentions every now and then. We cannot doubt that in some way he is the inheritor of the wisdom of the Druids, who were reputed to be active in this area at the time of the Roman invasion and who might have had a grove in Tycanol Wood.

Joseph is a stout and loyal friend to Martha, and a friend to many others as well. Sometimes he charges for his services, or over-charges in certain cases, on the basis that his services provided to the poor are generally free. So as well as being a Sherlock Holmes, he is also a Robin Hood figure, loved by the poor and hated by at least some of the rich. He is also Martha’s knight in shining armour, who rides to her defence from his place across the mountain whenever he senses that she is in distress or in danger.

But while Joseph is always good humoured, eccentric, witty and supportive of others, he is also a tragic figure. As the stories unfold he reveals very little about himself and his family background, for as he explains to Martha, it is in his own interests to maintain an air of mystery about who he is, where he has come from, and where he will go to when his task on earth is done. But in one sensitive moment he admits to Martha that he was once married and that he lost his wife and child in childbirth. He dies after a horrible accident, gored by a bull during the course of a routine visit requested by one of the estates. There is irony as well as tragedy in that, since Joseph says many times that he enjoys working with animals.

He loves Martha from the the very beginning of the stories. This might be suspected by the reader, but Martha never realizes it until Joseph confesses it to her when he is on his death-bed. Even then he can try to make light of it, and when he has gone to his grave Martha finds the situation very difficult to bear, blaming him for his foolishness in allowing his emotions to get the better of him, and blaming herself for her blindness as to the reality of the situation.

Joseph knows, from the beginning of their relationship, that his love for Martha will never be requited, because she is a member of the gentry and he is a disreputable wizard with nothing but a small cottage and a pretty garden to his name. In any case, he is almost old enough to be her father. So he loves and worships her from a distance, gaining comfort from their close and easy relationship, and some physical pleasure from their frequent embraces.

He is quite a mysterious figure, and by all accounts he has a little fan club all of his own!

===============================

Did the real Joseph Harries have a "Big Book" or grimoire? If so, were there incantations like those found in the papers of Dr John Harries of Cwrt y Cadno?

One of the incantations recorded by Dr John Harries, Cwrt y Cadno

The only first hand documentary material we know about is that which was recovered from a waste skip (yes, really!) by Dr Hywel Bowen-Perkins. It consists of many pages from Dr Harries's case books, dealing with patients, symptoms, remedies and results. Some patients died, but most seem to have recovered! The local doctors clearly did not approve of Dr Harries and his dealings with patients across a wide area -- but Hywel says that the remedies prescribed and issued by Dr Harries were sensible and quite advanced, with no indications of "quackery". In fact, Hywel thinks that his remedies were potentially far more effective than those prescribed by Dr Owen and other medical men in North Pembs. There is evidence of good knowledge of herbal remedies and pharmaceutical practices, and not a trace of the occult.......

This is a typical page -- difficult to read but full of meticulously recorded detail:

Hywel is editing and annotating this treasure trove of material, and he hopes to publish it in some form in due course. It also needs to be archived somewhere safe, as it is full of fascinating information relating to medical practices in the late 1800's.

On one page, in 1887, Joseph describes the ailments and treatment of "my dear brother David Harries" -- so maybe in later life they did get on well together, having gone through a rough patch earlier on...... That's family life for you!