Welcome In Welsh

By David Kirtley

Fri, 26 Jul 2019
  • 1289 reads
5 comments
 

Welcome In Welsh

 

The hills are alive with the light of the sun.

The rain never came to Wales.

The mountains are growing, the sea is calling.

The kids are screaming in their child seats.

Leave the forests and plains of England behind.

Enter a new land of strange language and spellings.

Like a spell, the dry efficiency of England has gone.

The holiday land says welcome in Welsh.

 

A historical map with history in Welsh at Pembroke Castle;

But how will the English visitor read it?

Surely Welsh was rarely spoken in Pembroke over the Norman centuries.

 

Peace and Quiet.

Wife and son and daughter in law have gone shopping.

I hope they know where they are going in this strange land,

But at least for the moment there is peace and quiet.

 

 

Certificate 12
Poem
Holidays
Surreal
Talecatching
Reviews
Travel
Unclassified
Other Non-fiction
Historical Fiction
Humour
Nature
Miscellaneous
Journal
Autobiography

Comments

Submitted by David Kirtley on

This poem was actually written a year ago on 14/7/18. We have just been back to the same parts of Wales this year, so it seems like the right time to post last year's unposted poem.

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

South Pembrokeshire is called 'Little England beyond Wales', reflecting the effect of past invasion I think, and contrasting to the strongly Welsh north Pembrokeshire, or certainly as it has been.

Information posters usually have the history etc in both languages side by side, didn't that one? I often think the bilingual road signs ought to use a different typeface for the two languages, but maybe the English stands out if you don't understand the Welsh?? Rhiannon

 

Submitted by David Kirtley on

Thanks for commenting Rhiannon. I think, if I remember correctly, it might have been the big courtyard floormap of Wales in the middle ages with Norman held castles and Welsh ones, which I thought was strange that they did not show it in English too. Certainly after taking the tour of the castle I understood that Pembroke castle and area were in a sense not the real Wales at that time but a kind of colony of Normans and their subjects speaking French and later more English. Maybe there was another sign or map which had no English on it. My memory of that is becoming hazy now, but some such omission led me to make that comment.

Wales has done a good job to keep the Welsh language alive and it is good to see it on signs. It adds to the mystique of Wales for the English traveller.

Your name seems very Welsh too Rhiannon. Which part of Wales are you in?

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

There has been a lot of interest in encouraging the use of the language more and has given interest to schools using both languages. I grew up on the east side of Wales (Barry in the south, and Wrexham  in the north), but then had some time out in London, before my family moved back to the Cardiff area, but after university in Aberystwyth, I married and lived in the south of England for a long time, but more recently we have moved back to borderland, but the English side.I went to Welsh/bilingual primary school, though am a bit rusty in my fluency of it nowadays, but do use and read in it. Rhiannon

 

Submitted by David Kirtley on

Wales and England are not much separated these days or in the past, as your own history shows Rhiannon. A holiday into Wales certainly gives a change of feeling, and there is romance in its beauty.