The truth is out there but so are the lies

Facebook’s recent announcement that they’re going to quit fact-checking popular posts on their site is yet more evidence of the move towards/degeneration into a post-truth media environment. Some might try to claim that it doesn’t matter that much anyway because "Facebook is a dying platform with an aging user base" and, yes, that's true to a point. But it’s still the world’s biggest social media platform with over 2 billion daily active users, which is more than YouTube, and three times as many as the wreckage Elon Musk has made of Twitter/X. So, it’s really concerning that the world’s biggest social media site is washing its hands of responsibility and essentially telling political liars that they’re now free to whip up hate on its platform. Fact-checking is difficult. It’s much more complicated to produce content that’s well researched and evidence-based than to just write whatever you want regardless of the truth. And it’s even more complicated to try to differentiate between reliable and deceptive content when people are uploading literally millions of posts per hour to your site. However the answer to such complications isn’t just to give up and let liars pollute political discourse with dangerous misinformation because it’s too complicated and expensive to take responsibility. That’s the same pathetically sickening approach taken by the private water companies, pumping billions of litres of raw sewage into our rivers and coastal waters because it’s easier and more profitable to release it into the environment than to invest in the infrastructure required to treat it. Allowing misinformation to spread unchecked isn’t just bad because it erodes the boundaries between truth and lies, it’s also dangerous. The summer riots in England last year were fuelled by a barrage of social media lies that sought to pin the blame on Muslims and immigrants for the Southport killings. Lies that were deliberately amplified on the toxic mess Elon Musk has turned Twitter into. Musk and other high-profile accounts on his site deliberately exacerbated the riots by amplifying lies about the Southport killings and the sentencing of rioters, and in recent weeks Musk has been busy trying to further destabilise British politics by amplifying hundreds of posts attacking the government, misrepresenting the meaning of parliamentary legislation, and slamming the British justice system. Facebook itself has been implicated in the spread of hate-mongering lies, from their role in amplifying the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar to their decision to continue allowing the Britain First hate mob to spread lies and glorify extreme-right terrorism on Facebook for years. Those of us who care about honesty and decency in public discourse are well aware that the problem goes a lot deeper than social media too. Consider the constant barrage of misinformation, conspiracy theories, and extreme-right politics that is GB News. It masquerades as a "news" channel, but it’s actually just the propaganda plaything of a handful of extreme-right billionaires who are happy to spend tens of millions per year on their project to debase and destabilise British political debate. There are other examples too. Scottish independence supporters will remember the BBC’s campaign of misinformation during the 2014 Independence referendum; human rights supporters will be all too aware of the British media’s slavish adherence to Israeli propaganda narratives over their brutal genocide in Gaza; and traditional Labour Party supporters will never forget the extraordinary campaign of lies and misinformation aimed at Jeremy Corbyn during his leadership of the party (Czech spy, Putin crony, dancing at the cenotaph, supporting terrorism, plotting a second Holocaust …etc, etc). If broadcasters and traditional media can’t be trusted, and social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter can’t be trusted, who can we turn to? Certainly not the Labour government. Sadly, Keir Starmer is not without form. By his own actions, he's shown that he lied his way into the Labour leadership with a load of pledges, policies, and promises that he never intended to keep. Trusting a liar like Starmer to sort out the scourge of online political lies would be just as absurd as expecting Boris Johnson to do a good job of maintaining standards in public life. It’s a dispiriting thing to admit, but we’re basically on our own. Social media companies are either washing their hands of responsibility (like Facebook) or deliberately amplifying the lies (like Twitter); standards in broadcasting and traditional media are so low that biased propaganda and outright lies are the norm. The problem, of course, is that many people simply don’t have the time, inclination, or critical thinking skills to separate the lies from the truth for themselves, and those of us who do seem to be in a dwindling minority. There are things we can do to support the truth and combat the lies, but unfortunately these actions are just drops in the ocean compared to the £billions that powerful people are prepared to spend on creating, propagating, and amplifying extreme-right politics, dangerous conspiracy theories, and outright lies. Here are a few for consideration: 1. Consider what are your most trusted sources of political commentary and support them, either through small donations, or by sharing their work. 2. Avoid sharing online misinformation, even if it’s to critique it, because as far as social media algorithms are concerned "a share is a share". Even if you’re sharing it to say how awful and dishonest it is, you’re still amplifying it. If you do insist on critiquing misinformation, use screenshots, don’t create even more links to the sources of the misinformation. 3. "Don't feed the trolls". Sometimes it's very tempting to respond to something outrageous. More often than not, it's pointless and achieves absolutely nothing. Maintain your equanimity and rise above it. 3. Use the block button to eliminate the sources of political lies from your online environments. From our Facebook/Twitter feeds to Google Chrome’s suggested links, there’s a constant effort to force feed us the output of extreme-right agitators and disreputable sources like GB News. 4. Don’t vote for political liars. 5. Consider diversifying your online environments by trying out new platforms (Substack and Bluesky seem to be 'rising stars') and try to spend time in the places where you’re fed less extreme-right bullshit and lies. 6. From a scientific, journalistic perspective, my advice is: ‘read the original sources of information’. Yes, it takes time and effort but we live in times where you have to go searching for the truth. 7. The days of altruism are gone and everything is transactional.To quote another old adage ‘follow the money’. Who is paying? Why are they paying? What are they hoping to gain? 8. Unsubscribe. I left Twitter/X as soon as Musk took over and I'm slowly disengaging myself from Facebook. I'm not yet ready to quit Facebook entirely but I'm having a severe prune of the sites I follow. But one day, I will flick the 'off' switch.

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda i bawb!

Yes, it's that time of year again when everyone seems to make predictions about and resolutions for the New Year. Nothing earth-shattering from me. I'm just going to take it one day at a time and focus on the simple pleasures of life.

I suppose, as we say goodbye to 2024, we can take some comfort that we saw the back of the Tory pack of scoundrels after we faced arguably the most important election for a generation. So take heart my friends. Push those shoulders back, lift those chins high and steady your hands for this is no time to lose your nerve. There is still plenty of work to be done and battles to be fought, for faint hearts and weak minds will never win the day. Please, please, please, Keir, resolve for 2025 to enthuse us with your vision and leave the moaning about the Tories and fiscal hardship to others. So, as we enter 2025 together remember....

''There may be troubles ahead
But as long. as there is music and moonlight and love and romance
Lets face those troubles and dance".

But we should not forget what is going on elsewhere in the world. We are not alone in facing huge issues and, compared with many, many (most?) others, our trials and tribulations are insignificant. Notwithstanding all of our local doom and gloom, there will be many good things about 2025 that we should not lose sight of. Here are a few from me: add your own to the list.

* The sun will rise and set every day.
* Most people will eat, laugh and love more than they are hungry, cry and hate.
* The natural world around us will continue to provide immense pleasure to those who take time to experience it.
* Many people will practice, and others receive, unsolicited random acts of kindness.
* Communities and organisations will continue to work together and make the lives of many immeasurably better.
* Most of us will continue to relish the companionship and support of our network of family and friends.
* Children will be born and received into the arms of loving parents.
* Most of us will still be around this time next year.
* Healthcare professionals will successfully treat millions of us for a wide variety of illnesses and diseases.
* Other public service professionals and employees will continue to keep us safe and contribute to our good standard standard of living.

Each of us can accomplish something worthwhile in 2025: let's resolve to give it a go. Blwyddyn Newydd Dda i bawb!

 

Barry Island? Been there, done that - long before Gavin and Stacey.

Barry Island? Been there, done that. Long before Gavin and Stacey were born. The finale of the eponymous series has prompted a lot of very fond memories of some happy times. It really is a case of you had to be there to fully understand what the Barry Island Experience was all about. 

My family has had a long association with Barry Island and the earliest photograph I can find is this one. I can't identify all of the people but my grandmother is holding my mother. Mam was born in 1925 and I reckon this photograph was taken in 1926. I think it's my Uncle Les to the front, with a young Aunty Min just in front of my nan. My grandfather is at the back to the right of my nan.

And the next one comes from July/August 1948 and that's me in a rather rustic pushchair, in front of what now houses "Nessa's Slots". That's my Aunty Marj and Uncle John looking after me.

To put a little context on what follows, my memories of this period extend from the early 1950's to the early 1960's, between when I was 5 or 6 up until my mid-teens, after which Barry Island fell off my radar.

In the times I am talking about, very few people in our village had a car and day-trips were unheard of. So, any trip to Barry Island was done in a bus and was generally in a group, associated with a chapel or a social club. It was not unheard of for people to join a chapel a few weeks before a trip so that they could be eligible for it! Of the clubs, the trip organised by the Green Fly was a trip of legend. Practically every child in the village was eligible and, perhaps, 30 or more coaches were needed to take them (plus adults, of course). From what I remember, every child had a small gift (sweets/ an orange) and some spending money (threepence, old money?). If you were lucky, and had multi-allegiances, you might get a trip to Barry Island two or three times a season.

Barry Island was only some 25 miles from the village and the journey probably took over an hour. And what a journey it was. Lots of singing and laughter, which got louder the closer we got to our destination. I can still remember key points: alongside Caerphilly Castle, down the infamous Nantgarw hill, passing under the bucket line for the pit there, along the River Taff at Taff's Well, looking to see if we could spot Castell Coch way up in the woods towering over the road and then through a stretch of open countryside to reach Wenvoe Hill. A notable place for two reasons: firstly, we passed the impressive TV transmitter tower and secondly, this is where we had a first glimpse of the sea. From there, it was just a short haul to the parking places on waste ground just to the side of the causeway to the Island. And then, it was a manic scramble to get to the beach as quickly as possible to pick a spot for the day. This wasn't as easy as it may sound as there were thousands, and I do mean thousands, of other people wanting to do exactly the same.

Barry Island (or, more accurately, Whitmore Bay on Barry Island) when the Valleys descended was absolutely rammed. Not quite standing room only, but every square foot of the sand would be occupied. And the density ebbed and flowed with the tide. It was not actually a traditional seaside resort as it was on the Bristol Channel, a stretch of water with the second highest tidal reach in the world. As such, the tide went out a long, long way and the water was very turbid, with sand, and coal dust from the various rivers into which effluent from the coal mines was discharged completely unregulated in those days. The water was so dirty that I was genuinely surprised when I first went into the sea at Ventnor on the Isle of Wight in 1970 and could actually see my feet! This never happened at Barry Island! I understand that there are still water quality problems there.

Traditionally, we stayed on the beach for most of the day, perhaps venturing up onto the promenade for an ice-cream (not that often as money was very tight). The day was finished by some time on the 'shows' at the Fun Fair. I say 'some time' but it was never for very long as there was never the money for extended stays and never enough for a ride on the ride of rides, the Scenic Railway. We had to make do with the cheaper, and much less exciting, rides.

And after all this, we headed back to bus and the reverse journey home. Again, with much singing and laughter at the beginning but which lessened as tiredness set in. It was always a slow slog going back up the hill at Nantgarw as it was so steep. On one memorable occasion, our aged coach (vintage Caerphilly Gray's?) could not make it up the hill and all the passengers had to get out, walk to the top and get back on again!

For completeness, I should add that there were a couple of times when we went to Barry Island by train, a steam train, of course. The journey was not quite straightforward as there was no direct line from the village to our destination. Get on the train at Bedwas, short trip down the line to Machen, a little shunting and then onto the spur line to Caerphilly, more shunting onto the Cardiff/Barry Docks line and we were off to the 'seaside'. One thing we looked forward to was the long, long tunnel at Cefn On, which grew shorter, the older we got until it morphed into reality at about 5 minutes. Another highlight (rather sad, really) was the steam train's graveyard that was the Barry scrapyard. Row upon row of old, rusting steam trains, amongst which we could occasionally make out one that we had 'spotted' at Newport station. At the end of steam, Dai Woodham bought hundreds of withdrawn steam engines from British railways for his scrap business at Barry. He intended to scrap them but delayed doing so while he focused on scrapping redundant railway wagons. As a result, railway preservation societies flocked to Barry to select locomotives to restore to operate their lines. Out of almost 300 engines sent to Barry, almost three quarters were rescued from the graveyard, and over half lived to steam again. And I think that statistic is fantastic.

That's it. Happy times and the sun seemed to shine each time we went.

Barry Island doesn't need Gavin and Stacey to make it memorable. 

To end on a bizarre note about Barry Island. The ashes of Fred West, the infamous serial killer, were scattered on Barry Island after his body had been cremated on 29th March 1995.

Have you ever wondered where words come from?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary there are generally around three thousand new words added to the English language each year. Have you ever stopped to wonder where on earth they come from? Who designs and manufactures them? Where is the word factory? Whilst engaged in festive preparations recently I've had plenty of opportunity to let my mind wander, and I think I may have come up with the answer to this important question. The mine from which most of these new words are hewed is none other than our old friend the Captcha Word Verification system.

Just think about it. You decide to leave comments on a fellow-bloggers' page, carefully compose a paragraph of almost Shakespearian quality and then it is lost to posterity because you type in "brutlok" instead of "brutlik" and are locked out. How many of those verification words have you ever seen before? Precisely. None. They are fresh off the production line. Captcha has reached an agreement with the powers that be whereby it gets these new words for word verification purposes before they are officially allocated meanings and sent out into general circulation.

Armed with this flash of inspiration, I have invented a new party game - indeed, a new meme (and if ever there was a word graduating from the Captcha Word Verification factory it is "meme"). The next three times you visit a site which uses word verification, make a note of the word. Then invent a meaning for the word and show its use in a sample sentence. Here is my entry based on word verifications I have encountered recently.

1. slyma: a small dribble of saliva (often secreted from the corner of the mouth)
"Robinson Grimshaw threw off his heavy coat and wiped the slyma from his grizzled chin"

2. kersim: a minute part of a larger object (mainly used in relation to food)
"Whilst in the past Amanda would settle down for the evening with a large pie, she now contents herself with just a kersim of pastry"

3. deriesse: the final statement in a long and contracted argument
"With a look of fury Roger spat out a perfect deriesse as he walked out of the door"

Play along if you want but I am afraid you will not find any word verifications on my blog to use. You will need to go somewhere else. With that deriesse, I will leave you.

House of Lords Reform? Not on Keir's Watch

 A while back, I said I'd put writing about politics on the back burner. This is still my intention  but Keir has pressed my buttons on this issue. One that I feel very strongly about and one I really though he would deliver on. Silly me. Time to express my frustrations.

Starmer’s U-turns - or betrayals to some of us - are coming thick and fast. It wasn’t too long ago that he was promising draconian measures for the House of Lords. In 2022 he vowed to abolish it and replace it with a fully elected upper chamber. Yet the Labour manifesto for this year’s general election contained only a promise to get rid of the remaining hereditary peers in parliament, impose a mandatory retirement age of 80 for life peers and hold a wider consultation on the future of the chamber. Only the first of these measures has made it into Labour’s legislative program for its first year in office. Everything else has been kicked into the long grass. Hands up everybody who is surprised by this. Pretty predictably, I see no hands in the air.

This is all very reminiscent of Tony Blair’s promise to abolish the Lords when he won his landslide victory in 1997. The pledge kept being watered down until what we ended up with was the removal of voting rights from most – but not all – hereditary peers and the transformation of the Lords into the unelected Palace of Patronage we have today. Blair and successive governments have continued to stuff the Lords with cronies, donors, and failed politicians who have been turfed out of office by the electorate. In any other country this would be denounced as corruption. In the UK it’s an integral part of the system of government.

Starmer gives every indication of following in this line of corrupt and self-interested British Prime Ministers who have had no intention of abolishing the Lords for two main reasons. Firstly, and most obviously, because the existence of the Lords gives the Prime Minister immense powers of patronage. The potential of a peerage is a useful means of encouraging wealthy donors to give money to the party and an even more useful bauble to dangle in front of party colleagues who might have issues in supporting a particular policy that the Prime Minister seeks to get through.

Secondly, as a chamber bereft of democratic legitimacy whose members owe their position entirely to the Prime Minister’s grace and favour, the Lords provides merely a token brake on the exercise of unfettered power by the Prime Minister. An elected upper chamber would possess democratic legitimacy independent of the Prime Minister and as such could act as a real check on the Prime Minister’s power. Starmer is not about to surrender an iota of the near absolute power he has spent the last few years scheming to get.

We can tell as much as Starmer’s first step is to – in his words – “rebalance” the Lords by stuffing yet more compliant Labour party hacks into an already bloated chamber. With his massive Commons majority, he could have forced through an act to reduce the number of life peers and bring their party affiliation more into balance with the voting habits of the electorate. But instead he’s chosen to pump even more hot air into an already over inflated balloon. He’s balancing an undemocratic pile of ordure by dumping more undemocratic crap on the side that favours him.

Thirty new Labour peers have been appointed to go and get their noses into the trough. One of these is the political reject, Thangam Debbonaire, who had been the Labour MP for Bristol West until the recent election when the voters of her constituency ditched her in favour of Carla Denyer of the Greens. Debbonaire has accepted the peerage despite previously denouncing the awarding of peerages to political cronies. The Greens had warned that Debbonaire would be given a seat in the Lords if she lost the election in her constituency, something she had angrily denied. Talking of political rejects, there are peerages for Sue Gray and Therese Coffey. Hardly political titans, either of them. Take a look at the justifications given in the official 'announcements' and you'll see that most, if not all, peerages are given to party hacks and acolytes. A reward for what has been rather than for what is to come for the country. 

Moving on to something else, it was reported over the weekend that Starmer and Labour ministers are resisting calls to block Elon Musk from donating millions to Nigel Farage and Reform UK. The Observer reports: “There are concerns at the heart of the government that a hurried attempt to introduce rules targeting a Musk donation could backfire and hand Farage the chance to claim that Reform UK was being sabotaged by the establishment.” 

And if you believe that you probably also believe that Thangam Debbonaire was shocked and amazed when Starmer offered her a peerage. I don’t believe for a single second that Starmer doesn’t want to ban Musk from donating millions to Reform because he’s afraid it might backfire. It has everything to do with Starmer not wanting scrutiny of the sources of Labour’s own donations, and overhaul of a system that permits Starmer and his allies to rake in the cash from private healthcare companies or property developers. Party before country as always. But let’s suppose it were true, this very Westminster type of complacency is infuriating, lazy, and reminiscent of the useless Remain campaign in 2016. You’d think by now people would have learned that the lying, fear-mongering and manipulative far right doesn’t play by the same ethical rules as democrats, has no sense of honourable conduct and sees fair play as weakness. Due to his complacency, Starmer is sleep walking us all into a buy out of democracy by the fascist enabling Elon Musk, and that is perhaps his greatest betrayal of all. A pox on all of their houses.

Learning Welsh with Owen and his parsnips

My linguistic journey with Welsh via Duolingo continues, with Owen and his surreal obsession with parsnips featuring regularly. Owen's world is very, very strange. He pops up randomly and adds some humour to an activity that I don’t find particularly easy. But it keeps me stimulated. Here’s a selection of what Owen gets up to. And, I'll admit, I didn’t get all of the exercises correct. Hwre i Owen a'i pannas.

War Horse and Mr Lewis the Milk

We went to watch War Horse at the Theater Royal in Plymouth last night and it was a lot better than I had anticipated. The technology of the puppets was amazing and the puppeteers were obviously at the top of their game. I won't give anything away about the plot but I will say that it was unexpectedly gritty and even macabre in some parts. Well worth going to.

As the plot unfolded around the exploits of a cavalry unit, it occured to me that I was probably in the minority in the audience as being one who actually knew someone who had been in the cavalry in World War 1. And that got me thinking about Lewis the Milk and I thought I'd repost something I'd written about him a few years ago. I think it's worth retelling, if only to revive a little of the history of my home village, Bedwas.

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I helped on Kenvyn Lewis's milk round for a number of years. It sounds positively Victorian now to say that I started doing this when I was around 10 and finished when I was about 15. At the beginning, it involved collecting eggs, milking cows by hand at his farm (the wonderfully named Llywynllynffa half way up Bedwas Mountain) filling and capping the bottles and going out on the van delivering all around Bedwas and Trethomas. Ada the Milk joined us for the deliveries and their's was the original hate/hate relationship. They couldn't stand each other and rubbed along, just short of braining each other with a pint of steri every day. Initially I just worked weekends but it soon included all of the school holidays. Things changed significantly when a semi-automatic milking system was installed on the farm and all the milk went off to Cambrian Dairies for processing, coming back ready bottled for us to deliver. I can't remember how much I was paid but two old shillings for a weekend (6am - 2pm each day) springs to mind. Child labour? It didn't seem like it at the time. It was something I always enjoyed and, for a while, I had the accolade of being known as Deri the Milk.

Watching War Horse sent me down memory lane about those times, particularly about Mr Lewis - I never called him by his Christian name as it wasn't the done thing at the time. He had a rather irascible manner but I always got on well with him and he was easy to work for. He was a born gossip and I learnt more about some of the people we delivered milk to than I should have and probably more than someone of my tender years should have been aware of! He was also a fount of knowledge about the history of Bedwas and I was a willing audience for his tales. He had lead a colourful life and he told me bits and pieces when he was in the mood. It's worth recounting what I can remember and what I've been able to piece together over the years.

The Lewis Family showing the patriarch, Wyndham Garnett, in the centre. Kenvyn Lewis is on the right of the back row. I have a feeling that this photograph was taken near the abattoir at the back of W.G's butchers' shop in Church Street, Bedwas.

Francis John Kenvyn Lewis, to give Mr Lewis his full name, became a second-lieutenant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, being commissioned in August 1914. He was ordered to France and fought on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, where he stayed for six months. He did tell me that he took part in a cavalry charge there but, at the time, I had no idea of the significance of this. He came though all that, plus Ypres and Passchendaele, and was finally invalided out with typhoid and put in hospital in Wandsworth. He next went with his regiment to Ireland. On 10th October 1918, intending to travel home from Ireland on leave, he boarded the RMS Leinster, which was sailing to Holyhead at 9 am. He went to his cabin, began to get sorted out, when the purser appeared with a telegram from the CO in Limerick, telling him to get back to base. So he disembarked. Sixteen miles out of Dublin, 43 miles west of Anglesey, the German submarine UB-123, which had sneaked around the Irish coast from Scotland, fired two torpedoes at the Leinster, which in a rough sea sank with the loss of 529 lives – most of them officers and other ranks from the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Mr Lewis often mentioned his good luck.

 After all these adventures and near misses, he was demobilised with the rank of captain, which he never seemed to refer to, at least to me. He became a JP and, as such, he had the dubious honour of being reputedly the last person to read the Riot Act - to striking miners in the early 1930s (my grandmother never forgave him for this). During WW2 he commanded the Bedwas Home Guard, which meant patrolling the railway bridges at the top of the village and taking up prime position in the saloon bar of The Church House Inn (the first place I ever had an underage pint). When Dad’s Army was first broadcast in the Sixties, someone (Mervin the Butcher was it?) told me that Arthur Lowe was Mr Lewis to a tee. On the milk round we used to stop for breakfast in Lui Rabiotti's Café in Trethomas and, every now and again, Mr Lewis, Mervyn  and Lui would exchange tales of their time in the Home Guard. And, yes, it did sound exactly like Dad's Army. Thank goodness the Rhymney Valley was not on Hitler's target list.

Mr Lewis's base was a small dairy farm on Bedwas Mountain called Llywynllynffa (I've always liked that name and we used it for our house in Westerham in Kent. We never did get our postman to pronounce it). As well as the normal outbuildings associated with agriculture, I remember the outside lavatory that had two wooden seats, side by side. I could never understand how or why two people would ever want to go and have a cosy defaecate like that, though it is true that even now ladies vanish into the toilets together and spend ages there. Doing what? No man knows. No man wants to know. No man needs to know.

Mr Lewis was married to the lovely Mrs Violet Lewis. She was a Woodruff from Machen, a family of iron foundry owners who had a mansion called The Vedw, which was already in a ruinous state by the 1960s. when I used to roam around it with friends. Mrs Lewis - never Violet or Vi - used to help us wash, fill and cap the milk bottles at Llywynllynffa but never came out delivering. The only other help on the farm was the very shy, almost invisible, farm labourer called John Burt, who lived in ramshackle corrugated tin shack at the top of the farm drive. He was very difficult to engage in any conversation and was always described as being "a bit twp". I don't know whether he was or just preferred to keep himself to himself.

Mr and Mrs Lewis had a tragic family life. Their first child, Richard, tipped a kettle over himself and died of burns after a pioneering skin graft treatment went wrong - or so my mother said (and she had a good memory for this sort of thing). Their other child, Rodney, had muscular dystrophy and died in his teens. I can just about remember him and the fact that Mr Lewis used to take Rodney upstairs to bed by carrying him on his back - again told to me by my mother. So that’s the First World War, reading the Riot Act, two children dead and then death by lung cancer. Not so lucky after all.

 

Mr Lewis was a chain smoker, a real chain smoker. His brand of choice was Kensitas and one of my regular chores as we went around was to buy his cigarettes for him. No proof of age necessary in those days. All I had to do was to say that "they are for Mr Lewis" and they went down his account. This was the time when cigarettes came with coupons and he was always saving up for something. The cabin of the milk van was always festooned with coupons and redemption books. To be fair, he always warned me of the evils of smoking and never offered me any. His illness meant that he had to sell the business (and he made sure that I was taken on by Dai Davies who took it over ....but that's a story for another time) and eventually killed him. I visited him once when he was on his deathbed, his chest wheezing and heaving and the oxygen tanks lying about the floor. I went to his funeral but only at the graveside in St Barrwg's in Bedwas. His family grave is not too far from where some of my forebears lie.

 Mrs Lewis lived on her own at Llywynllynffa for another twenty years or so. I say she lived on her own but she did have the shy cowherd to look after her. John Burt, or so my mother said (again), did all her shopping, tended to the garden and did all the odd jobs on the farm. In effect, he was her manservant. She died in Caerphilly Miners' Hospital. Thinking about it, it was a miracle that she wasn't more affected by depression after all she had been through during her married life (and the death of her beloved niece, Linda Woodruff, in a horse riding accident, in 1961 when she was only 12. I was in Bedwas Junior Mixed School with her). But she was always cheerful and lively. It was as if, blessedly not of a fractious disposition anyway, she'd deliberately cut herself off from her woes, which were never mentioned. But that's what people did back then, just got on with it. She deserves to be remembered.

William Kendall: A discovered life: Part 1 - The Beginning

Mrs P's great great grandmother, Mary Johns Cook, was born Mary Johns Williams in St Germans, Cornwall, about 10 miles from where we live. As part of my researches into her family, I came across the burial record for her younger sister, Catherine Elizabeth Kendall (nee Williams), who was Mrs P's great great great aunt.

As the entry below shows, she was buried in St German's graveyard on March 22nd 1919. And then the next entry in the register caught my eye.

This was an entry for William Kendall, also buried on March 22nd. What was intriguing about this entry were the notes added: 'Scots Guards South Africa, "Old Contemptible" France '14. Died in the Military Hospital, Devonport'. I did establish that William was, indeed, Catherine's son as it's always unsafe to assume any relationship until it's validated. Which makes him Mrs P’s First Cousin, three times removed!

So, mother and son were buried on the same day- a double tragedy for the family. But did they die on the same day. Their respective death certificates tell the story.

William died first, on 17th March 1919 at the Military Hospital in Devonport. The cause of death is given as influenza/pneumonia, sadly not uncommon in this era. His rank and profession details are interesting: Corporal in the 343rd Road Construction Company of the Royal Engineers and also Labourer with the County (presumably Cornwall) Council. These details could be useful later.

His mother, Elizabeth, died three days later, on 20th March, at home in St German’s. Her cause of death is given as ‘heart disease’. Her death has been described as ‘sudden’. Is it too fanciful to suggest that it was the shock of her son’s death that caused her own demise?

Fittingly, they were buried together in St German’s graveyard and both lie in a grave marked with an official Commonwealth War Grave’s Commission headstone. I would have thought that having son and mother buried in an official war grave is a unique occurrence.

It comes as no surprise, then, to see William’s name appearing on the St German’s War Memorial, although his rank is given as ‘Private’ whereas his headstone shows ‘Corporal. In my experience, it’s not unusual to come across small errors of fact like this as there was no prescribed way of gathering the information for those appearing on these memorials.

The information gathered so far suggests that William Kendall had quite a long military career, taking in the Second Boer War, an early entry into France in the First World War (as an ‘Old Contemptible’) and continued service until the end of the war. It’s going to be intriguing to see how much more of the detail of William’s life can be discovered. Let the next phase of research begin.......

Dw i’n dysgu siarad Cwmraeg - with Owen and Parsnips

Hopefully, an old dog will be able to learn a new trick.

All my adult life I’ve made excuses about why I didn’t speak Welsh, like “I didn’t learn it in school” or “my family didn’t speak Welsh” or “Welsh speakers are strange and come from North Wales where the sheep are”. I was a little embarrassed every time I was asked but the truth was the real reason I didn’t speak Welsh was that I had never bothered to learn. Even when I spent 3 years in Welsh-speaking Aberystwyth - a retrospective major regret.

Anyway, I’m trying to remedy this by setting out to learn, what has been described by my friend Bill, “the language of the angels”. Of course, he’s biased as his first language is Welsh (and he comes from North Wales so I won’t mention the sheep). It’s very early days but my aim is to reach a stage that, when people ask me at some point in the future if I can speak Welsh, I can take a deep breath and say, “Ydw, dwi’n siarad Cymraeg” – although I will always have to add that I’m learning.  I’m realistic about it. It could be a life-time journey but what a great journey it has been so far. It’s not easy. It’s challenging. It’s mentally stimulating. It’s enjoyable. And it's definitely not like English! Or French.

Although Welsh is a 'small language', there are quite a few useful resources on the internet dedicated to learners at all levels. For now,  I’m using a basic grammar text book, a mix of digital bits and pieces for vocabulary and pronounciation , a YouTube channel taught by a 'proper' teacher, and a Duolingo course that’s like a book but with more bells and whistles and jingles and jokes. It sounds a lot but, as most of it is done in bed in the early hours with ear plugs in, it's not that intrusive.

Welsh Duolingo has a few characters with iconic Welsh names. (Some of them are gender-neutral and this confuses me a lot.) Sadly, they don’t show up as cartoons but as totally unrelated, faceless characters in the sentences. Sigh, the woes of a small language. Nevertheless, what they do do is to go on with their daily lives. And you do learn about them. Unfortunately, because the course is designed to be repetitive, the things they do are quite mundane. Usually household chores and travelling around Wales.

With one exception: Owen.

Everyone who’s done any amount of Duolingo Welsh knows Owen. He’s probably a middle-aged man who is a terrible influence on everyone.

Because of his parsnips addiction.

He’s always eating parsnips or trying to get his hands on more. He would travel all around the world to get the best parsnips. And sometimes sell them too. People around him are under his malign influence. Some might even say, these must be very special plants. Either 'parsnips' is a euphemism for something stronger, or Welsh nightclubs are strange places where enterprising types like Owen sell root vegetables.

Duolingo isn't perfect (the audio pronunciation can be somewhat erratic) but it's cheap (there is a free version but that's full of ads) and its gaming approach encourages sticking at it. If for no other reason,  I'll do it for Owen and his parsnips.

And who could fail to love a language that has a word like 'llwgrwobrwyo'?

Dartmoor Walk: White Tor from Peter Tavy

 A good day was promised so it was a good chance to go up onto Dartmoor whilst we could. It's been relatively dry for a while now and we could walk without having to slosh around too much. In the event, it was quite dry. I;m not too sure how much longer we'll be able to end a walk dry shod.

We've already done roughly two thirds of this route previously, but in the opposite direction to the way we took this time. Starting outside the church in Peter Tavy, we followed the West Devon Way to the church at Mary Tavy and then took miners' track and footpaths to Hill End Bridge. From there, we headed across Cudliptown Down and up to White Tor. From the lofty heights of this tor, we dropped down to Stephen's Grave and rejoined the West Devon Way back to our starting point. It came in at 7.25 miles and I'd rate it at the top end of the moderate range, although some might question this as the ascent of White Tor certainly had its moments.

St Peter's at Peter Tavy was built in the 14th century, with an older church on this site from the 1180s and the named rectors going back to that date. It has been restored in the 1800s. It's a typical granite church on the western side of Dartmoor.

The church interior - lots of stained glass and some wonderfully colourful ceiling bosses.

 These Renaissance carvings started life as a very specially carved pew set, maybe placed in the south transept, maybe up near the chancel, then they were taken down in the nineteenth century and made into a tower screen (note the keyhole and cutting for a door). After that, they were once again disassembled and placed in the south transept.

A green window into another world. We only get a beguiling glimpse of the garden beyond but, in this instance, I think it's enough. I don't want to see more, no matter how tempting it might be, just in case the mystery is lost.

And across some fields and alongside the River Tavy, we come across the second church on our walk, St Mary's at Mary Tavy. We've been here many times but it's never been open for us to visit. That's why the church is in silhouette as what lies within is a mystery to me.

Heading out of the valley now and heading onto the moor. That's a sunlit Cox Tor to the right and Boulter's Tor looming on the left.

The 19th Century Miner’s Dry of Wheal Friendship Mine – where the wet clothes of miners would be dried prior to their next shift. 

The lane leading up to Horndon. We've never actually walked up here when it's been as dry as this. Normally, it's like the bed of a stream.

Isn't it nice to see a welcoming sign? This is a private woodland but the public are invited to enter. If only all Dartmoor landowners had that philosophy.

Looking along the Creason Leat, with the leat itself curving away. The undergrowth is still very lush. coming in from Horndon Lane alongside mine leat. Originally water from the leat would have been used to feed the south area of the Wheal Friendship complex in Mary Tavy. But nowadays the leat is one of two sources of water for the Mary Tavy power station (built in 1930’s). The leat feeds Wheal Bennetts reservoir before entering a 36in pipe and descending the 230 ft to the station to feed #1 plant at the power station.

The weir on the Tavy at Hill Bridge. The fish pass is on the right and the take-off for the Creason Leat is on the left. I like the way all the leaves are lined up like a brown strip.

Look very, very closely and you might just make out the finger post pointing us in the direction we wanted. Perhaps there should be a finer post pointing to the finger post to make certain that walkers do not miss the way.

That pile of rocks just off centre at the top marks the fort on White Tor. That's where we were heading. The vertical distance makes it look closer than it actually is. It was quite a slog getting to the top, through a fairly extensive field of granite clitter.

To the north-east, the sun is shining at the top of Tavy Cleave, the source of the River Tavy.

The army observation post at the top of White Tor. The tor is just on the edge of the Merrivale and Willsworthy military ranges and, when they are firing, the red flag of warning will be flying.

Looking roughly south, with a glistening strip of the sea in the distance.

Looking through the granite clitter surrounding White Tor, with Leeden Tor in the distance. We were there a few weeks ago.

This is a sorry tale of a young man called George Stephens who lived in nearby Peter Tavy around 300 years ago. He fell deeply in love with a young local girl, however either she did not return his advances or her parents deemed George not to be suitable and they never were together. As a result George was heartbroken and committed suicide by poisoning himself. Any death from suicide could not be buried in hallowed ground so George was buried on the edge of Dartmoor at this spot, hence Stephens Grave and the headstone above.

Not sure that closing the gate will be very effective at keeping the ticks out.

A fairly typical low level deciduous woodland on the edge of the moor. A mixture of trees and boulders of varying sizes.

The most moss covered boulder I've seen in a long while.