POWYS-L Archives

Archiver > POWYS > 1999-08 > 0933874214


From: <>
Subject: Frongoch/Capel Celyn
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 13:30:14 EDT


In a message dated 8/4/99 6:34:30 PM, writes:

<< Capel Celyn >>

This is indeed a very emotive place. My first extended stay in Yr Hen Wlad
was summer of 1980. I was on a Merched y Wawr residential language course in
Bala, and those of us non-locals were boarded with Welsh-speaking families in
the 'bro' -- neighborhood. I was in Frongoch, a little village passed on the
left from Bala to go to the Tryweryn reservoir, staying on a farm RhydyDefaid
(Ford of the Sheep), owned (not tenanted) by John & Olwen Davies. (Theirs is
one of the few properties around their NOT owned by the Prices of Rhiwlas. I
didn't know it was Rhiwlas owned/sold the land to Liverpool Corp). The
Tryweryn River which runs OUT of the reservoir was the babble I heard under
my bedroom window, and it is seen again as the river crossed over on that
side of Bala.

As an Americanaes learning Welsh, I was at the time (20 yrs ago) somewhat an
exotic commodity and was often 'had to tea' during or after a day's events.
Meeting the men and women and families as I did I have valued far far more
than any language I learned that summer. It confirmed in my heart with
experience and related history, why I always felt 'different' and and had
come to identify that 'difference' with being Welsh. Y Pethe

One of my hosts was the retired postmistress of Capel Celyn (that was the
drowned town), whose first name right now escapes me, but she was a Roberts,
daughter of Bob Roberts Tai'r Felin. I think I already had a recording of his
'boothy folk music." the real thing! She must have been in her 70s when I
met her. I knew about the drowning of the towns, and all the futile efforts
of an entire country in trying to save the valley, efforts that counted for
nothing in the face of industrial capital from the Midlands. I think what
was real grit in the teeth, too, wasn't that the water was needed for
drinking, bathing, living, but for factory developement Miss Roberts said
with tears in her eyes, that she had never been back over that road, had
never been able to bring herself to see that huge body of water, not a drop
of which is consumed in Wales.

There are several things I have now to remind me of her, and that tragedy.
The recording of her father is one. Then there is 'lemon curd' or 'lemon
cheese' which I had never tasted identified as such (to Americans, it is the
filling in a lemon meringue pie, but used as a spread on its own). Finally
the celyn-as-holly motif around here, something to set off all the dragons
and daffodils. (Later that summer I lived in a house Ty Celyn while working
on restoration on Nant Gwrtheyrn.)

Celyn is also what I named my dear companion & service dog, now 15.


Searching for WILLIAMS and TROW
in Ceri and mayhap Mochdre, Montgomery

This thread: