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In the last issue, this column excerpted a news item from the icwales website titled: “Cuddle up to cwtch, Wales' best loved word.” Here’s what that word means to WSCO member Joan Bash.
What fun for me to see Wales’ current best loved word! I sent the article to my sisters and aunt. I’ve known cwtch since I was knee-high to a duck – it was one of the Welsh words my mother used.
We would cwtch in the back seat of the old Chevy when it was cold and any time we’d have to squeeze together in a tight space.
My dad built a 3-foot long bench with a lid in the corner of our kitchen. We kept potatoes in it and used it for an extra seat. When my two sisters and I all had dates on the same night we’d say one got the living room, one, the front porch, and one, the cwtch corner. We did some cwtching!
Good memories.
Two years ago I used all my Welsh things and represented Wales at an “International Day” at my church. (picture and article in Sept. 2005 issue of DT) The minister has always kidded me about being Welsh and has said that he didn’t think we had to worry about being taken over by China – he thought we’d be taken over by the Welsh!
He used the following blessing, with a slightly different spelling of cwtch, at a recent confirmation:
“May God stride out before you on your journey through life and through prayer.
May Jesus, your playful brother, pace you in his holy way to the end.
May the Holy Spirit greet you at each corner and cwch you to her breast.”
Excerpted from the icwales website, an article from the Western Mail by Robin Turner, Aug. 23, 2007
WHEN the mighty Titanic set sail for New York on April 12, 1912, it carried a mixture of the world’s wealthiest basking in first class and poor immigrants packed into steerage.
And in third class were two of Wales’ top boxers, 28-year-old Dai Bowen and 26-year-old Les Williams, both from the Rhondda who had won lucrative contacts to fight America’s finest fighters.
Now their stories – and those of the ill-fated ship’s other “forgotten” Welsh passengers – are set to be told when an exhibition devoted to the iconic liner is due in Wales for the first time.
Donning their best jackets, Bowen and Williams proudly purchased their £16/2/0 “dream” tickets from the Dean and Dawson Tourist and Steamship Agency in Cardiff’s St Mary’s Street.
But just a few days later, at 11.40 pm on April 14, the liner considered so safe it only held 20 lifeboats instead of a possible 48, struck an Atlantic iceberg and sank in 2½ hours. A total of 1,572 passengers and crew died and just 705 were rescued.
The would-be Welsh boxing kings never got their chance to fight and were both drowned, Dai Bowen’s body never being found and Les Williams’s picked up by a ship in the area days later. His body was buried at sea.
More than 95 years later the organisers of the travelling Titanic Honour and Glory exhibition – in Swansea Museum from October 20 – want descendants of those who died or who survived the sinking of the Titanic to contact the museum.
Among those who died were Evan Davies, a 22-year-old collier and his pit colleague William Rogers, both from Pontardawe in the Swansea Valley, both looking for a new life in the US’s mining industry. And there was Robert William Leyshon, son of a Swansea solicitor who planned to join his brother John in business in New York. They all perished in the sinking. Two crew members from the Swansea area, CW Samuel and WC Foley, were also reported among the missing.
Museum events officer Roger Gale said yesterday he had already been in touch with the granddaughter of one of those who died in the sinking and a number of other South Wales relatives of those who had been on the Titanic. He said, “The ship held thousands of passengers all with interesting stories. One Welsh passenger, I won’t say who, was escaping a scandalous affair and planning a new life in America but sadly he never made it.”
Anyone with information on local people who were on board Titanic should contact Swansea Museum's exhibitions and events officer Roger Gale via roger.gale[at]swansea[dot]gov[dot]uk or on 01792 653763.
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Hanner y daith, cychwyn -- Getting started is half the journey
Gorau cam, cam cyntaf -- The first step is the best step