The Banter of Bob and his Butchers boards, and how Adwaith are making Welsh super-cool again

The young men are finding, the industry employing their young men and fathers, there’s a future, a secure future, in Welshpool today

People will always need coal- Public Service Broadcasting

Hi. My name is Angharad and (deep breath) I am incapable of pronouncing my name properly. -Hi Ancarrot, welcome to accentless anonymous.-

Once I was introduced to someone by a friend as ‘the nicest person, and the funniest drunk’. This same friend probably attributes the hilarity, that apparently ensues from me being drunk, to her having a strong valley accent, which caused me to follow her asking for her to say my name properly for me (please say Angharad agaaiiin).

My story begins when my dad somehow convinced an English ‘Southerner’ to marry him in Welshpool and get a primary school teaching job in a welsh village, having to complete a weekS-long intensive course in the Welsh language (she should have known better, considering she went to Bangor uni and therefore had a doubly long graduation which was said in both Welsh and English)

Real life Gavin and Stacey huh.

Their apparent love of the Welsh I assume is the reason they chose a traditional Welsh name for their eldest child, but doesn’t necessarily explain why they proceeded to shorten it to Annie 60% of the time, (Pannie, Panhead, Panini and Petit-pain shares the other 40%).

I sometimes wonder if they had decided on that name regardless of the gender, more than once I’ve had people think it’s a male name, and if that had been the case I would RESPECT that.

It’s interesting to not know for certain if someone will know my gender based off the name written on the CV (although I’ve more recently put Annie in brackets to help out whoever will inevitably stumble on the pronunciation).

As an aside, I am almost certain that 8-year-old me signed off my letters with Angharad.R.G purely because I was proud I had finally learnt how to spell it.

It is Meg the Rock, the old man’s neighbour, her skin plastered with mud, her layers of tattered green jerseys merging with the ferns and lichens of the slope, talking to the wild creatures of the Welsh hills as if she were one of them-as indeed she is.

(On the Black Hill– Bruce Chatwin).

Before I was @ the age of three we had followed the ‘fickle finger of fate’ across the border to Wem (Shropshire), and by the time I had turned five we had made the big move to the unknown Fens (Peterborough) where they have ‘Toona on Toosdays’ and there is a distinct lack of hills or any incline whatsoever- I noticed this significantly when my driving teacher directed me the furthest we’d ever been purely to find a hill to teach me hill-starts (‘geographically- it’s flat and boring’).

One language lecturer constantly asked my opinion on the tutorial discussion, from the perspective of someone who could speak the Welsh language. Sadly, I had to repeatedly state that although I have a Welsh name, I admit that I can’t actually speak Welsh.

EXCEPT, once a fellow Alto singer in St Guthlac’s choir, a strong singer from North Wales, turned to me when the choir had rehearsed Bread of Heaven (Cwm Rhondda) and told me that ‘one of these days we’ll have to teach them it in Welsh’. I was her little annie alto apprentice and I didn’t have the heart to tell her I would be unable to teach the choir a language I knew little of.

Not to be too much of a nerd, and bore anyone, it has become increasingly obvious in academic studies that Welsh DID have some influence on old English– kudos to language academics (the BBC probably put it more concisely than I would). Not so long ago, I was listening to Adwaith- a song that is actually one of the most streamed songs in Welsh [Fel i Fod] in my mum n dad’s kitchen doing the washing up (it goes so much more quickly with music on right?) Dad walked through and said ‘oh you know what sheets y gwely means don’t you?’ No dad, unfortunately I didn’t until you told me it means bed sheets despite now remembering that every so often when you go up to bed you say ‘amser gwely’ (bedtime!) Well that MAY have POSSIBLY been a lesson in how I grew up dismissing the Welsh language and often assuming that my dad was making up nonsense.

Another tangent, but, from my observations and small insight into the Welsh dynamic, **BOLD STATEMENT ALERT** speaking or not speaking Welsh sometimes comes across as being reflective of a class issue in some parts of Wales (especially the area I was born in that had a complex history of being Welsh, English, Welsh [repeat a few times over thousands of years]). Similar to Tudor society changing from Catholic to Protestant to Catholic (and ironically Tudor is a family name), it seems that admitting that you do or don’t speak Welsh can suggest an allegiance or restrict your ability to social climb.

A Jehovah ’s Witness in Llandrinio once questioned why I would study English rather than Welsh since I have a traditional Welsh name…

Margaret Thatcher (who I assume Adwaith are insulting in Osian) put down the Welsh people but I flippin’ love them- who else would burn the letter off street signs because English employees in the council clearly didn’t understand the use of the Welsh language regarding gender and acknowledgement of Saints.

I CAN’T WAIT to spot Rodney’s pillar, wake up to sheepie’s baa-ing and listen to more tales of my dad playing strip poker @ a friend’s stag do, being ditched by his friends whilst naked and grabbing a Butcher’s Board [apparently a 6 foot model of a butcher] to cover himself on the walk through the winding streets from Welshpool to Llansantffried/ Llansanffried/ Llansantfied (oh I DON’t KNOW) [okay apparently he didn’t actually walk thaat far- that’s 8 miles I’ve been reliably informed]. If you want to know my experience of travelling on the tube with Bob/ Rob> a self-confessed country bumpkin (a.k.a. my dad) then please let me know, I’m sure my biggest fan would be DELIGHTED.

Annie (ancarrot, petit-pain)

P.S. If you can say Angharad, or would like to try, feel free to call me that. If you’re unsure, call me whatever you want as I have a million nicknames as it is, what’s one more?