After enjoying various New Year celebratory events with the family, I invited my best friend Marion to come with me to a Plygain Service at St. Maelog’s church in our village. This is a very old Welsh traditional service held completely through the medium of Welsh, as it was this evening. The “hymns” are chanted in harmony, with no accompaniment. The church was full as many groups had come from all over the island to take part. Each group was meant to give one rendition, but one or two broke the rule, even so, it was lovely to listen to them. Also a little girl sang a solo, for which everyone naturally clapped at the end, thus breaking the rule of no clapping, which everyone had kept until then! I was nice that my son and daughter in law, together with their friend Andrew, gave a performance at one stage. Some of the chants told the story from Jesus’ birth to his resurrection, so they had lots of verses!
Before the end, an invitation was given to anyone in the congregation to come forward if they wanted to give a rendition – this again being part of the old tradition. As it was getting quite late, no one went forward.
I had agreed to be part of a group on Anglesey, that would keep a daily dairy for the whole of 2012. These have to be handwritten. At the end of the year, they will the all be collected and placed in the Archives in Llangefni. It is hoped that these will then give a snapshot of life on Anglesey in 2012. Pat West, the principle of Oriel Ynys Môn, spends two days of each week working at the archives. I had a phone call from her, would I go that morning to the archives to be interviewed by S4C and BBC Wales to talk about the diary project. Thankfully, the crew were late arriving, so it gave Pat and me time to co-ordinate what each of us would say. In spite of it being a rather a rushed job, many of my acquaintances complimented me the next day on how they’d enjoyed the programmes.
I had a visit in January from Mair, a friend, who had gone to Durban in South Africa very soon after she had qualified as a nurse. Since we were brought up across the road to each other, we had very close friendship from childhood. Mair emigrated at least forty years ago but still speaks fluent Welsh, much to her credit.
We had loads to reminisce about, especially about the time I went to stay with her son, Dewi, in the outback of Durban a few years ago. I was terrified whilst there, as there were spiting cobras and black mambas in the garden even. Mair said they had built a huge airport there now almost up to Dewi’s garden! Here is a picture of a 6ft.mamba which they killed in the garden when I was there!
Our Archaeology class by Rhys Mwyn has restarted. This term Rhys is concentrating explaining each site in depth. Also, we have been working out where the various locations are on Anglesey using an Ordnance Survey map. This is in preparation for making field visits during the summer months. I have managed to arrange a similar evening class given by Rhys in Llanfaelog this term, which is now fully booked. The feedback from this is already very positive. It’s great to know that there are so many people interested in their local history, especially newcomers to the island.
