yn yr ardd (in the garden)
Page 10
From the Members
Carole Edwards Haley
In This Place was commissioned by the National Library of Wales to mark its centenary.
The author, Trevor Fishlock, described his splendid book at a seminar at the 2007 North American Festival of Wales. It is divided into two parts. The first section gives an excellent background of the history of Wales. The second section discusses the culture and the people of Wales. Both sections are accompanied by illustrations from manuscripts, books, paintings, photographs and diaries that are in the collections at the National Library.
The whole book is a delight whether describing the "Black Book of Carmarthen" compiled in 1250, the accomplishments of David Lloyd George, or the amazing feats of Miss Vulcana, legendary Welsh strongwoman. There is a helpful 2-page Chronology in the back of the book from c.589 (death of St. David) to 2006 (Senedd opens in Cardiff).
This is more than a coffee table book -- it is a treasure. This is truly a remarkable book and I have found it very difficult not to "gush" when I talk about it. It makes one proud to be Welsh!
Peggy Morgan Speakman
Mourning Redemption, by Sharon Marie Clarke, begins in the early 1900's with a young Welsh family aboard a ship headed for America. (Rhodri and Mari Evans and their three little boys, Morgan, Geriant and Dafydd). Mr. Evans, after a redundancy of work in Wales, decided to move to the United States for work in the mines in southwest Pennsylvania, just twenty miles from the West Virginia border. Company housing, or the Patch, as it was referred to, was readily available for the miners and their families.
Mrs. Evans befriends a new neighbor who had lost her parents to the Titanic disaster. The friendship that develops between the two women is forged strong through unfathomable sorrow that will affect each of their lives. Their healing comes from the unlikeliest source imaginable, the town outcast.
Mourning Redemption is a copulation of intriguing stories that transcends the decades of time, touching on events that are relevant in our world today. It is a small book, easy to read, only 150 pages. The author lived in Columbus, Ohio, at one time.
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Excerpts from Kilvert’s Diaries, Written by (Robert) Francis Kilvert, Curate to the Welsh Marches between Hereford and Hay-on-Wye; Curate of Clyro, Radnorshire; Vicar of Bredwardine, Herefordshire
June Day (1 June) 1872 - I went up to the Wern below Gwernfydden this afternoon to see if the bog beans were yet in flower. Since I looked for them a fortnight ago today and found none they have come and almost gone. But I found a few here and there standing with their feet in the water and with their delicate lace-like flowers shining like stars about the swamp. I think it is one of the loveliest flowers that grows, the exquisite fret and filigree work of the white lace blossom surrounded by the cluster of bright pink buds.
10 June 1878 - (at Three Cleeves, in southern Wales) The fern and foxgloves clothe the hillside down to the sandhills.
29 June 1872 - All around the lychgate and the churchyard wall the tall purple mallows are in flower and the banks and hedges about the village are full of them.
July Eve (30 June) 1875 – (at Tintern Abbey) The top of the walls was adorned with a perfect wild-flower garden of scarlet poppies, white roses, yellow stonecrop and purple mallows, which formed a low hedge along each side of the otherwise undefended footpath or thickness of the walls, and which climbed with profuse luxuriance over the ruins of the summit of the walls.
3 July 1872 – … a lane most beautiful and picturesque with its wild luxuriant growth of fern and wild roses and foxgloves. The foxgloves were wonderful. They grew on both sides of the lane, multitudes, multitudes in long and deep array … the air was full of sunshine and the honey scent of the charlock, and the hedges were luxuriant with the luscious sweetness of woodbine and the beauty of the stars of the deep red rose.
8 July 1872 - On the road I overtook a man gathering herbs. He had an armful of mugwort and the tall yellow flower spike of the agrimony … He said he always gathered herbs if he could find them when he was traveling and took them home to dry.
17 August 1872 - The sun shone hot and bright … upon the wild white marsh cotton and the purple heather and the bright green Osmunda ferns with their brown flower spikes … Above Pen y Llan a crowd of purple thistles stood in fatal and mischievous splendour among the waving oats.
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