Coch Bach y Bala

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cymru/gogleddorllewin/hanes/pages/cochbach.shtml

 

 

 

 

 

 

After my absurd and ridiculous idea about a Welsh Army, I called in to see a former prisoner and inmate of the school that I had attended. He still lives in the town that incarcerated us within its education system. The picture above is not of the school but the former prison where the Welsh Folk Hero 'Coch Bach y Bala' escaped from in 1913. I had just finished reading a book about him and on my journey South, called by the graveyard where he is buried. He escaped from the above prison when he was 60 years of age. This was not his first escape but his third having spent most of his adult life in prison.  His nickname was the Welsh Houdini. I had not visited the graveyard before but had heard of the village so turned off on my route. I like to do these 'spur of the moment' things, mini adventures with a spiritual meaning. Coch Bach has become a hero to me because we have both spent time behind prison walls and he was like a Welsh Don Quixote, forever charging at windmills. It appears from reading his history that it was 'Give a dog a bad name' and that if there had been a robbery or burglary in the area then 'John Jones' was the first suspect that the police apprehended. The sentences were stiff in those days and he spent two seven year stretches in Dartmoor. Crimes against peoples' possessions were considered at the top of the heinous list. So all property is theft eh?  His previous was always taken into account. When the Judge announced the sentence he would rant and rail against the police and the authorities but once in prison would behave like a model prisoner and would be let out on licence (which was unusual) It appears that either he could not or would not stop goading the authorities and after his last escape in 1913, he was a free but feral man for six days. The son of a local (unpopular) landowner, Reginald Jones Bateman caught up with him on the Nantclwyd estate and shot him in the leg. The shock and loss of blood was too much for the 60 year old. John Jones is a folk hero to the Welsh 'Werin Datws' who have fought a war of insolence against the British Establishment for centuries.    

It was the only gravestone in Llanelidan churchyard that had flowers on it. 



Welsh Army

Readers of this 'Boutique Blog' can decide for themselves whether this particular post is a spoof or whether the Shark Fisherman of Wales does seriously believe in what he propounds here.

Yesterday as I travelled from Manchester into North Wales I couldn't tell where England stopped and Wales began. I missed the sign that told me and other pilgrims, that we were moving at speed from one country to another. I did notice a Welsh Dragon on a bridge and presumed that this was the border. It appears to be one land mass, Deeside fuses into Merseyside.  I had an idea, an idea that had its formation in my own life experience. I passed my old school yesterday. I looked over at the building and institution which oppressed me as a teenager. It was here every Wednesday afternoon that we would march up and down as members of the CCF. The Clwyd Cadet Force. We were required to bull our boots and have our Green uniform in impeccable order. Sometimes we would go on manoeuvers to Kinmel Camp near Bodelwyddan or to Sealand Ranges to fire guns, Lee Enfield 202s and SLR Machine Guns. I fired both these weapons as a 15 year old. I don't look back fondly on these experiences and as an adult I am very anti-military perhaps because of these experiences. I am anti-the British Army but in this post I will propound the argument for a 'Welsh Army'. If Scotland votes Yes on September 18th it will have a Scottish Army. In Wales, Independence is a far off, unrealistic, romantic dream but if a Welsh Army was created, then this utopia might become a reality. There are many thousands of 16-19 year olds out of work. Recruit them into the 'Welsh Army' for 3 years National Service. Now this would be a Welsh Army as opposed to a Regiment of the British Army. So it would be a Homeland Army and it would not get sucked into the Wars of Westminster. The sons and daughters of the geographical area known as Wales would not get involved in Iraq, Afghanistan or the Falklands. Their primary duty would be to March up and down similar to the French Foreign Legion above, singing songs in Welsh rather than French. We would then have a critical mass of young people who at least could sing in Welsh. Apparently you can brainwash people between the ages of 16 and 19, they will accept orders and if the orders are barked in Welsh rather than English there might be a chance that they will take the mantle and the social ownership and responsibility of the language once their period of National Service is over. Another major responsibility would be to attend the sentry boxes which will be sited on every single entry road into Wales. Travellers and tourists into Wales will be required to show their Passports. This act alone will remind people that they are travelling into an ancient and different culture to their own and they might have a little bit more respect for the areas that they drop their litter in, both literal and metaphorical. English is the language of the towns and cities in Wales. It is the language of commerce and capitalism, Welsh survives in the rural and country areas protected by hill, forest and woodland. If a critical mass of young people have been alienated by the language in school by not seeing the point in it, then 3 years of National Service where the language of Military Service will be Welsh, might just ease them into a different mind-set when they come to leave the 'Welsh Army' and enter the world of unemployment and badly paid work.    



Anhwylder Dau Begwn - red button theatre and film workers' co-operative

Anhwylder Dau Begwn - red button theatre and film workers' co-operative

Ode to the Bastard A487

 

Ode to the Bastard A487

 

An ambulance on every corner

sirens acting as traffic lights

cars on their roofs

100 yard skid marks

The Holy Trinity

The Villages of the Damned

Llanrhystud

Aberarth

Llanon with Taxis all down one side.

I'm going to buy a snow plough attachment

and I am going to take them all on a one way trip to the scrap yard

and I don't care whether they've got residents rights.

Police in unmarked cars

after the event.

Drivers going just damn too fast especially on hill-top corners.

Cofiwch Tryweryn?

I'll never forget it because I was stuck behind a Mansel Davies lorry chugging along full of food stuffs at 20mph.

Tractors, Caravans, Speedboats

"Patience is a virtue"

said the Ceredigion Council Spokesperson in a high visibility jacket just before being hit.

"F**K that! Do something you T**t.

Llanddeiniol has been renamed 'Dolur Rhydd'

Roads of Death

lead

to

Aberystwyth

but it won't stop em coming

mile after mile after mile

The Air Ambulance awaits.



Slow Burn!

It appears that Shark Fishing in Wales is a slow burn. It is a portal or resource that readers can turn to for some light or dark entertainment as the mood takes you. I have a core readership of between 16 and 21 for each post but what amazes me is that give it a month, the page views will have gone up to between 36 and 52 and I go back in the archive and some of the more racy and notorious posts have 300-400 page views. This alone makes me feel validated as a blog writer.

I have just been presented with a gift (See picture above) So I am not the only one that believes that I am an undiscovered Genius. My theory is that if I use the word Genius enough, then people will associate the word with me 'DAVID WILLIAMS' author of http://www.lulu.com/gb/en/shop/david-williams/genius-loci-poetry/paperback/product-21567917.html
My intention is to use the notebook above to map out my 'Magnum Opus'. Look if you've got Latin in your locker you've got to use it.
I have to approach my next play in a completely different fashion. I need a different process because my characters and stories run out of puff, my endings are poor. I will be writing the last play for the MA in Playwriting at Salford University in my Writer's Room.
http://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/writers-room.html
This is the most viewed Blog post on Shark Fishing in Wales which makes me think that there are a lot of writers out there who are interested in the process of other writers. I call myself a writer because if I don't, nobody else will. If you write, you are a writer.
If you are not writing, then you are not a writer at that precise moment. You are a prevaricator, a thinker about writing. If writing plays was easy, then everybody would be doing it. It is not easy, it is very difficult but it is the medium that appeals the most and if you crack it, I think it will give you the most satisfaction.
The M.A has actually dampened my ardour which is no reflection on the course. It has confirmed by workshop, seminar and Master-class how incredibly bloody difficult it is. Thinskins need not apply. In terms of self evaluation and thinking about process, I don't do subtlety very well and we are led to believe that audiences are very sophisticated. They don't want their Theatre and its message on a plate. They want to masticate and chew slowly over what is presented, discuss over a pinot grigio at the bar as to what the writer had in mind. F**k That! I want to punch the audience on the nose with my message. My message being one of 'Social Justice'. I was a teenager through the Punk Years, loved the angry music but didn't have the balls to wear the fashion. I am still angry having lived through 18 years of Thatcher & Major and 13 years of Blair and Brown and now 4 years of Clegg and Cameron. I want to write a 'F**k the Government play. In my new notebook I am going to have a go.      

Voyeur's Weekly

Welcome to your latest edition of Voyeur's Weekly. What is the cretin going to admit to this week? Why doesn't he turn Catholic and go to confessional?  Well Harry 'Heart on his Sleeve' would like to say to the Shark Fishing Nation that he has just returned from North West Wales twice in the last month and each time, it has been like an 'earthing'. I always thought that I would end up in a cave in Eryri, mumbling to myself in 'Wenglish'.  I ended up in a meeting in a place called Felinheli which is between Bangor and Caernarfon. The first time I approached via Beddgelert and Llanberis and this time I approached via Pwllheli and Porthmadog. I had a couple of hours to kill so I went in to Bangor Nye! A lady in a café said to me "I've lost my Welsh aye and people look at me gone off, you could speak to me now and I would understand what you said but I couldn't speak back to you, I only had two hours a week of Welsh in school, it's sad". She was very chatty "Look at all the shops that have shut, there's 17,000 people here in Bangor aye when the students have gone home and 25, 000 when they come back. I don't mind them but they are very noisy in the residential areas, they don't care about the locals when they are getting pissed"

I walked down to the Pier  and it was lovely.It stopped just short of Anglesey and I wondered why they had built it so far out. There were many benches either side of the pier and on each one was a name with a dedication. It was an education and rather sobering to see the names with the two dates and the dash in between. The dash of life.

 

Names of people who used to love the Pier but who no longer walk the earth and if you didn't know them then they are a name, two dates and a dash in between. It was 6.00pm and deathly calm on the Menai Strait. I have descendants who hail on my mother's side from Porthmadog and the Lleyn Peninsula and I do feel a connection to the area. It's perhaps the only Geographical part that I haven't lived in. I've done South East, North East and West. I wonder whether the North West beckons but like elsewhere there is no work aye!

 "The owners of the Vaynol Estate, the Assheton Smiths, owned most of the land in Y Felinheli and developed the Dinorwic Quarry in the late 18th century, They also built the harbour to export slate transported to the quay by the Dinorwic Railway, a narrow gauge railway that was subsequently replaced by the Padarn Railway. Industrial expansion gave Y Felinheli (Felin-hely, 1838) the alternative name Port Dinorwig or Port Dinorwic."    Wikipedia

I can't tell you what the meetings have been about, I am sworn to secrecy but I will give you a clue http://www.redbuttontheatre.co.uk

It's a long way to travel but I break my journey from Cardiff with a leisurely lay over in Aberystwyth by Sea. The journey from Aber via Machynlleth and Dollgellau to Penrhyndeudraeth takes you through some of the most stunning scenery in the UK. Both Porthmadog and Penygroes now have bypasses. It appears to have affected the former detrimentally but not the latter.

Well I have mentioned Wales in this Blog Post but not Sharks. I didn't see any from the Garth Pier but I'm sure they were out there somewhere.

Thank you for reading

Ch ch ch ch Changes!

I've got a feeling in my water. Change is on its way and I'm ready.

I haven't written a blog post for 5 days and that is a long time in the cut throat world of Welsh blogs. We are all trying to get your attention. You know the drill by now! You click on the video to get the 'toon' and then you carry on reading. I like how music provides an introduction to drama. You only need the opening, maybe 10 seconds in darkness, the auditorium hushes, lights up. Does expectation in the Theatre meet with Product? I have to say that recently much of what I have observed in live theatre has been a disappointment. Easy for me to say,  'the coward of the county' the man who won't venture out there and put his product on the table for peeps to criticize. There's a lot of bored reviewers out there waiting for blood. I wouldn't have seen these plays if they hadn't been part of the M.A programme that I have just completed the teaching element for. Now its the huge 12,000-14,000 word play and I have to say, I've lost me mojo. I was planning to adapt my real life tale of 'daring-do' 'Amsterdamned' into a play but I don't think it will fit easily into the 5 Act Structure. I have desperately wanted to experiment with form, anarchy, absurdism, agit-propoganda, in yer-face theatre, these are what tick the boxes for the Shark Fisherman of Wales. I don't know if I could watch another naturalistic play again. Every time I've bottled it, I've started with a screaming rant and I've run out of puff. I really don't know if I've got what it takes. I've reverted back to characters talking, dialogue, dualogue. I'm bored of the form.

I purchased for £1.99 in Cardiff's Oxfam bookshop this morning a copy of Ralph Waldo Emerson's 'Self Reliance & Other Essays' hoping that the great man can give me a shot in the arm with his words of wisdom. If you behave yourselves I might write a book review once I've read it but it was the title that got me. Self Reliance! I have to become self reliant now. Well into middle age I have been over reliant on friends and family, on the welfare state and the simple reason is lack of belief in myself. I have abrigated responsibility because I didn't have the self belief in the fact that I could be self reliant. As you may or may not be aware, I lost my freedom because I lost my mind. Freedom is not appreciated until you've lost it. Until you hear that cell door closing, night after night you won't know what a gift your freedom is. So I need to tread a fine line, I have a few responsibilities, a few commitments but not too many that will compromise my mental health (I hope). I digress. I need to write a 'State of the Nation' play and I'm not sure if I've got what it takes. I might never have this opportunity again. I'm not an academic, I couldn't write the heavy stuff. Change is on the way! Change is happening for all of us and in my case it can't come quick enough. 

Self Reliance, here I come.