Insufficiently Welsh (20 page)

–
YEW OR NON-YEW
–

I crossed the road to the churchyard of St Digain's. I knew what I was looking for. Tommy Cooper (yes, that really was his name), the gardener, was sitting on a grave and pointed the way. “It's over there,” he said. “You know originally there was no fuss about it at all.” He went on. “It was all covered with brambles and nettles in that corner but we've cleared them away now.”

I looked across at a large, but not specifically giant, yew tree.

“An expert told us that it was 4,000 years old, but other experts disputed that and came down to have a look. They decided it was 4,800 years old. And so they settled on 4,500.”

I walked over to the tree and then through it. The thing itself is a group of limbs now, as many ancient trees are. It looked as if it had sprouted from a stool or pollarded trunk. I was just guessing. Experts would undoubtedly point out that it was never “harvested” as a pollarded tree would have been. It was more probable that the central trunk had rotted away. It had lost its middle section. The two outer parts, continuing to thrive, had simply divided and branched out into separate trunks. Taken around the whole lot, it now measures more than 10m in circumference, which is part of the method for calculating the age.

Yew has the advantage of being able to fracture and split as branches become too heavy, without diseases infecting the whole of the tree. A gardener making hedges will tell you that fresh growth springs from any cut. As a result this ancient organism appeared to have spread like a splayed hand, and its dense, dark, tiny leaves now shaded a considerable bare patch of earth, grown into a slight mound from many centuries of steadily dropping needles. Evergreens shed dead leaves throughout the year, rather than in the autumn.

Tommy explained that, until they had been alerted to the potential age and status of the tree, the church had kept its oil tank in the middle of it. Rather too many dead branches were cleared away as it was “freshened up”, and the loss of these apparently prevented “dendrochronologists” from getting a really accurate measure of its age. But the Tree Council has now named it one of the “50 great trees of Britain”.

Viewed close up, the wood twisted and furled like rope. The bark was warm and red and, at the older intersections of the branches, the grain of the tree swirled like melted chocolate. Gazing into these whorls one appreciated the age of the thing. There was something thick, dense and knotty there.

Yew makes great hard furniture with wonderful colour. Otherwise you might have passed by without a second glance: just another yew in a churchyard. A few moments' meditation, however, under the canopy of this ancient living thing invites the making of connections. They say that yews are pagan trees, that they predate Christianity and have connections with ancient holy sites. Julius Caesar noted that the Gauls and other north Europeans committed suicide by taking poison from yews in order to escape his clutches. The oldest wooden object in the world is a spearhead made of yew, found near Clacton in Essex and estimated to be between 350,000 and 450,000 years old. Certainly these grave trees, a symbol of darkness in any churchyard, were part of the ancient world and its mysteries. They remain mysterious. But just the name is tantalising. The Latin countries call it a
Taxus
, but the word we use has some sort of old German origin. The Welsh for yew is
ywen
.

Was this particular great bush here some holy thing which predated the church itself? Was I standing under a tree which had begun to grow around the time that Stonehenge was being erected? Did later Christians simply employ pagan holy trees as sites for places of worship? There is a certificate celebrating the yew's 4,000 years, signed by David Bellamy. Others are more stingy. They assert it is only about 1,000 years old, which might mean that the early Welsh saints planted this tree themselves to dignify their place of worship. Either way, the Llangernyw Yew had seen some history. Nothing more spectacular, I sensed, than the steady passage of the seasons and the quiet pace of a rural enclave, but it invoked awe and contemplation and respect.

–
CONWY TWITTED
–

Once I stopped the bleeding I was left with a visible scar on the dome of my forehead. I found the camera crew and we filmed me trudging across the footbridge several times. “Does it show?” I asked Nick.

“What?”

“My wound.”

He looked at me and then played film back on the camera. “Yes,” he said.

We got hold of some pink, liquid make-up and dabbed it into the cut. I didn't feel this was good for it, but I imagined that make-up had to have some antiseptic precautions. Now, with what appeared to be a loathsome pink skin infection on my brow, we resumed filming and I wandered into Conwy itself.

Shut the gates, town council! Here was a walled town, with some of the finest medieval ramparts in Europe, with fine medieval gates at the quarters, and still a daily chaos of cars and buses pour in, taking a short-cut, the only cut to the bridges across the Conwy River.

Edward I would have done something about it. He was full of rules. He built the castle at the end of the thirteenth century to control the Welsh. Apparently, the fortress was originally whitewashed, which was difficult to imagine as we walked under its black and grey eminence now. Wales is believed to have more castles per square mile than anywhere else in the world. There are over 600 across the country. It is estimated Edward I spent £15,000 building this one in Conwy, the largest sum spent on any of his Welsh castles. No surprise, then, that it's regarded as one of the finest surviving medieval fortifications in Britain. They kept out the locals, who were only allowed in on market day. Perhaps the modern traffic is a revenge for that.

I found my dresser in a clock shop in the upper reaches of the town. It was simple enough, made of oak, with its lower areas enclosed by cupboards. Ken, the owner of the shop, could place it exactly. It came from Anglesey, he told me; so not exactly local-local, but certainly not from far away and definitely, with those cupboards underneath, from north Wales. You see there are distinct differences in Welsh dressers depending on where they were made. In north Wales they were more akin to a cupboard and the traditional image of a Welsh dresser. In the south they were more like a sideboard, while in mid Wales, some were ‘crooked', designed to fit into the small corners of workman's cottages. As a result some experts argue that the mid Wales dresser is the true ancestor of the modern fitted kitchen.

Ken pointed down to an empty space on the lower level between the doors to either side of his specimen. “It has a dog kennel here,” he said. I was sceptical but he was utterly convincing. “The farmer came in and his tea was on the table and his sheep dog was ordered in there, or that is what I have always been told,” he said.

The dresser had a lovely dark colour. How did they get that? I understood you had to be careful of modern furniture polishes and their chemical glazes.

“They used boot polish,” Ken told me. “My father kept this shop before me and I was often put to work as a child to polish the tables and it was always plain boot polish. That's what the ladies in the farms used. It made them darker.” We admired the colour for a moment. “If you had wanted to buy this dresser five years ago,” Ken explained, “it would have been a lot more. The highest price I have heard for a Welsh dresser was paid at an auction in Chester. It was in excess of £45,000.”

I was impressed. I have seen some lovely things, but that is lot for
a “China hutch”, as they call it in the States.

“I believe it was bought by a farmer up by Caernarfon way,”
Ken continued.

So it hadn't gone to some plutocrat collector in America. A valuable piece of local workmanship had gone back to the sort of place it was made for. Not only was it a lot to pay for a dresser, it was a lot of money for a farmer to have spare. The rich fields that I had passed through on my journey into the hinterland were still generating wealth then, for some at least.

I had fulfilled my quest, but I wasn't going to buy Ken's dresser. I had plenty of family dressers to cope with already. It seemed a perfectly reasonable price. After all, Welsh dressers or any other bits of Welsh furniture, unlike that swimming pool or fitted carpet or that holiday in Bali, represent a wholly moveable investment, don't they? It's a tangible lump you can leave to your children, just as long as they can get hold of a sturdy removal van and find a spare wall, preferably not too damp.

–
THIS IS THE END
–

After we had finished all my little trips and the television series was off being edited, I was asked to go to the Welsh BAFTAs 2013. A programme I had made a year earlier about a pilgrimage route from Holywell to St Davids had resulted in a nomination: “Best Presenter”. Well, well. We'll keep a welcome indeed. As it happens I was off in the South of France on a holiday racing boats and eating prawns but it was considered “politic” to return. After all, what would Welsh telly think if I was standoffish? I wasn't standoffish. I was honoured. I got on a plane and flew back to Bristol. I booked into a Cardiff hotel. I discovered I had lost my bow tie in customs and pinched the one my friend Rob was wearing. He arrived at the Millennium Centre with an open collar, but I had made the effort. I looked like a waiter. Yes, I looked the part. So did the Centre. There was a red carpet leading up to the revolving front door and ranged along it were a sprinkling of “media opportunities”: stringers with microphones at half-mast waiting to catch the “slebs”. I was almost inside and past the lot before
Buzz
, the Cardiff listing magazine, finally decided to hail me “for a few words”. Then BBC Wales decided they had better interview me too. This is the way. One begins and the others follow, dreading going back to their editor minus the scoop that I “dissed Michael Sheen” or whatever they thought I had told the BBC. Finally even S4C right down the other end decided they might as well interview me too.

“So Griff,” the interviewer began. “How do you feel about being up against a Welsh presenter?”

This was a difficult question, obviously. The other nominations were Huw Edwards and Aled Sam, S4C's own country and furnishings expert. But I felt bold enough to bat this one away.

“Well, er, the clue is in the name,” I began cautiously. “My name is Griffith Rhys Jones. I was born about half a mile from where we are standing. My mother was from the Rhondda, my father from Penylan. Every single one of my relatives, tracing back as far as
Who Do You Think You Are?
were able to go, were Welsh. I think I am Welsh.”

“Oh.” He stared me down. Not a flicker of distraction crossed his features. Instead, he stopped the recording. “Take it back,” he said to his cameraman. “Let's start again.” The cameraman fiddled a bit, wobbled his machine up to his shoulder and the microphone was thrust back in my face. “So, Griff, welcome to the BAFTAs,” the presenter chirruped anew. “What do you think your chances are against a
proper
Welsh presenter?”

They weren't good. Huw Edwards triumphed, deservedly. I went back to my cosmopolitan lifestyle the following morning. And I guess I do have to accept defeat. I am not a proper Welshman. I know. As I made my way through the splendours of Wales on my multi-journey, mini-odyssey, I realised that despite my inherited cupboards and my Aunty Megans and Gwens, despite my intimate knowledge of Pembrokeshire, and my natural affinity for Corgi dogs, I have missed something essential. I have not spent enough of my life in the Land of My Fathers. I have not absorbed the distinctions of the culture. There are nuances in the language I can never now understand, there are reactions to outsiders I can never share, there are cultural norms that I cannot embrace. I must always remain the outside Welshman, the backdoor Cambrian, the would-be boyo. Never mind. To the vast majority of people I met that didn't matter a jot. They were charming, friendly and warmly welcoming. During October, Arfon from Tacla Taid on Anglesey went to huge efforts to try to get me a Jones bailer, a particularly wonderful toy to go with my Massey Ferguson, on the basis of our few minutes together in his Land Rover series one. This warmth was typical. I saw wonders. I gobbled up the scenery, I ate well, slept well and I learnt a lot: from the ambitions of Edward I to the appetites of the dung beetle. What a country, what variety, what people. In the end I can say that I think I am rather privileged to be a dispossessed Welsh person and a perpetual outsider in Wales. As a result I need take nothing for granted. I still have a lot to master. Good.

–
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
–

Many people helped to get this book together, but I would particularly like to thank Christopher Bruce, Celyn Williams and Scott Dewey for their ideas, Tudor Evans, Nick Manley and Brian Murrell for their backchat, Cat Ledger for her ministrations, Sarah Broughton and Clare Byrne for their steadfastness, Richard Davies and Francesca Rhydderch at Parthian for their professionalism and Jo for her attention and support. And all the people we met and who put up with us too. Diolch yn fawr.

Parthian
The Old Surgery
Napier Street
Cardigan
SA43 1ED

www.parthianbooks.com

First published in 2014
© Griff Rhys Jones/Modern TV 2014
All Rights Reserved
ISBN 978-1-909844-74-2

Editor
Francesca Rhydderch

Photography
Scott Dewey

Design
Marc Jennings -
www.theundercard.co.uk

Published with the financial support of the Welsh Books Council

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A cataloguing record for this book is available from the British Library.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise be circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.