Channel View

I went to a Public Meeting last night. A very unusual thing for a middle aged manic depressive to do but it was more out of curiosity than anything. At the Gym last Friday I had been informed of this meeting, there was talk that the Council was going to shut our beloved leisure centre to build a school, possibly a welsh medium school at that! Talk about a conflict of interests! What do you mean you silly twonk, you haven't got any children? Ah yes but I am a language zealot and anything to further the cause of the indigenous language of the motherland or is that fatherland. I am convinced by now that the Council, Cardiff Council that is are trying to 'divide and conquer'. They feel obliged to provide Welsh medium education in the four wards namely Butetown, Canton, Grangetown and Riverside because there is a call and need for it along with English Medium education of which there is a much greater shortfall of places but once again here, like in Canton, the language is being used as a political football. When I arrived, there was a coiffured middle class lady handing out headphones to the local working class population with the instruction "In case somebody decides to speak in Welsh". I declined the offer but murmerings of discontent were spreading like wildfire, "bloody ridiculous" I heard. The people next to me actually moved over to be with their own as it appeared that I had shown my hand too early. 
I was there because I had been using the Gym for close to 25 years, in fact ever since I moved to Grangetown when it was known as the Jim Driscoll Centre. It was underused and underfunded and the Council took it over. And now the centre is earmarked as one of possible six sites under consideration for a new build primary school. I could tell from the impassioned questioning and the heated debate with the Council representative that this choice was not the popular one but talk about a 'sledgehammer' to crack a nut type of approach. There is a lot of distrust of the Welsh language and its middle class ways amongst the working class of this area. I know because the neighbour tells me so on a regular basis. So we have to be careful, swanning into an area and demanding welsh Medium education and getting the Council to do our dirty work for us. Does the word 'Tryweryn' mean nothing to these people? Sensitivity, diplomacy, tact, a win-win situation is what we are looking for, not the handing out of headphones to people who are rightfully angered by the lack of consultation, with the instruction "In case somebody decides to speak Welsh".