A Welsh Poetic Hero

A lovely few days last week visiting North Wales with my daughter; it's a part of the world where I feel completely at home (although a South Walean by birth) and tremendously inspired by the fantastic scenery and the welcome that is always accorded. This visit was special in that it included a morning at the cottage of the Welsh poet Hedd Wynn (Ellis Humphrey Evans), where we were enertained by his nephew Gerald, a delightful 85 year old who lived there alone - without the benefit of electricity or any other modern convenience - until a couple of years ago.

The parlour of the cottage contains the six bardic chairs won by Hedd Wynn at eisteddfodau at the beginning of the last century. The story of the most prestigious, that from the 1917 National Eisteddfod, is a sad one. At the chairing of the bard ceremony the winning poem was announced as Yr Arwr ("The Hero"), written under the nom-de-plume Fleur-de-Lis, and the winner was asked to come forward; no one came to claim the prize. For it had been written by Hedd Wyn, who had been killed at Passchendaele six weeks beforehand. The chair was draped in black and the Archdruid spoke of "the festival in tears and the poet in his grave". He had been thirty years old and at the peak of his creative genius.

"The harps to which we sang are hung / on willow boughs, and their refrain is / drowned by the anguish of the young / whose blood is mingled with the rain" War by Hedd Wynn

Update on the Unknown Soldier project

Further to my blog entry below - over twenty one and and half thousand letters were sent to the Unknown Soldier before the closing date of August 4th (the centenary of World War One's outbreak). So many different, thought-provoking messages - stories (true and imaginary), poems, memories of those who fought at the front and those who served on the home front, many written in the form of letters from wives, sweethearts, children. They make hugely affecting reading - do look at the website, they'll be displayed there until the centenary of the war's end in 1918, after which they will be preserved in the British Library.

Brave New World

... the theme of this year's Cheltenham Literature Festival, the complete programme for which is revealed today. I shall be scanning the pages and no doubt signing up for a lot when the booking opens later this month. A definite though will be the Gloucestershire Writers Network event on the evening of Sunday October 5th. The results of this year's competition (based on the Festival's theme) were announced this week. Iris Lewis, an ex-colleague from Somewhere Else, has won in the short story category with her superb story "No Small Thing" and my colleague Derek Healey from Catchword was a runner up in the poetry section. I was also a runner-up with my short story "The Drop", so will be reading at the Festival event. Last year's GWN evening proved a great, really exciting experience so I'm delighted to be taking part again.

Can't guarantee such super weather but can guarantee a terrific Festival!