FOR THE BENEFIT OF PHIL PARRY AT WALES EYE,
WHO CLEARLY NEEDS ME AND MY BLOG FOR INSPIRATION
It was a cold and dark January day threatening snow when (the late) Glyn Rowlands and I drove down to Lampeter in the vehicle I’d just carjacked. (Took me ages to get the bugger out, and then another ten minutes to get used to the disabled driver controls.) To break up the journey we set a couple of holiday cottages ablaze on the way down. At one point we got chased by cops but we forced their car into a hedge just outside of Llanrhystud. Oh, the fun we used to have in those days!
Arriving at Glandenys it was wonderful to see the stately pile look so warm and inviting. We were stopped at the gates by members of an elite unit of the Free Wales Army who, together with their dogs, were patrolling the grounds. We were escorted up to the main entrance and there he was, our host – Commandant Julian Cayo-Evans of the Free Wales Army, looking every inch the officer and the country gentleman.
We were ushered into the big dining room where everything was prepared for the ceremony: the roaring fire, the flickering candles casting their eerie shadows in a room full of invited dignitaries. There was the KGB representative, a man from the IRA Army Council, an imposing individual from ODESSA with an eye-patch (surely not Skorzeny!), a top capo from the Chicago Outfit, and assorted emissaries from Argentina and other countries that had a beef with England. In fact, there was very little space to move in that vast dining room. Additionally, there were of course many high-ranking FWA men.
Before the ceremony began there was the customary mingling, small talk, and exchanging of business cards. I found myself in a fascinating conversation with a charming fellow from the Orient. I’m not sure if he was trying to sell me a rubber plantation or offering me his sister in marriage. (The hand signals are very similar.) Whatever, not being sure what I’d end up with – and having no need for either – I smiled politely, declined his enticing offer, and insisted that we have a skinful next time he was in my neck of the woods.
All the while the drinks flowed, and before John Barleycorn could take his disruptive hold of the proceedings our host called for everyone’s attention. “Friends, comrades, even those of you who’ve just turned up for the booze, we are gathered here today to present our comrade Jac with his medals”. “Hooray” went the shout around the room, “Good old Jac” was heard echoing from the throng.
I stepped forward – careful not to trip over the entrails of the virgin we’d just sacrificed – and stood facing our Commandant. “Jac” said he, “you’ve been an absolute bastard lately, and to show our appreciation I am presenting you with these medals”. Well, I was overcome, tears welled up as I thanked Cayo and the assembled host . . . among which I could see the man I had previously been talking with, still making hand signals, only this time it looked as if he was propositioning me! But as I say, the gestures are easy to mis-read.
The ceremony over, we all got down to serious drinking. The man from the KGB jumped up onto the long dining table and did a Cossack dance before falling off onto the prostrate figure of a Salvation Army Colonel who’d overdone it on the single malt. Next it was the turn of the Papal legate to denounce, in Latin, the evils of drink, whilst emptying his second bottle of Sambuca. Everybody was having a great time, but then we noticed that the snow was now falling rather more heavily and so, despite Cayo’s insistence that we stay, Glyn and I grabbed a few bottles and staggered to the car for the trip home.
What a trip it was! First we knocked down a couple of old ladies on their way to chapel in Felinfach, then we hit a cow just outside Aberaeron! I know we shouldn’t have been in the field, but it was snowing and we were pissed. After that things got a bit better . . . though that cyclist in Aberarth was definitely asking for it. We got through Aberystwyth without hitting too many pedestrians and eventually reached home. What a day!
*
OK, maybe it wasn’t quite like that. But the day I got my medals was certainly a snowy Sunday, and Cayo and Glyn were definitely there, but after that it gets a little hazy. It was all a long time ago . . . but not too long that it can’t be twisted by a vindictive little bugger with an ignored blog who relies for readers on his fat friend at Llais y Sais and other contacts in the colonial media.
I cherish those medals; I wear them at Cilmeri and to old comrades’ funerals. They belong to a time when it looked, if only for a while, as if we Welsh had re-discovered our self-respect, and decided to stand up for ourselves. Sadly, that bright dawn of the 1960s was soon overtaken by the reaction to it, to the point where, today, people who really should know better believe that our sham devolution is some form of self-government. When in truth it is the antithesis of self-government; more decisions about Wales are taken in London today than ever before. And all the while, those who claim to love Wales refuse to challenge the system that is making us a minority in our own country.
And the medals, what were they for? That’s between me and men who are all dead. Better men than the despicable scribblers who denigrate and ridicule those who are unable to answer back. Vermin!
Swonzee, I was referring to the arrogance of the CIN site. This is based in Ceredigion, purports to be sending an important message regarding green issues to the local community, and yet totally ignores the first language of the overwhelming majority of the LOCAL people.
Course it does. It’s probably populated by Anglos attending the Uni and speaks to itself and to the goodlifers and other assorted anglo-green immigrants. The Welsh speakers among its audience are the compliant trendy sleepy heads who do not regard defending their own language,culture and identity as a priority yet will dash off to an “event” that serves up the latest on trend dogma e.g no fracking in my back yard.
E.Jenkins – Mae nifer fawr o bobl Abertawe yn siarad Cymraeg. 15% o 240,000 yw 36,000. Mwy nag unrhyw ddinas na thre na pentre yng ngweddill Cymru.
Gaz – O fewn dau ddiwrnod, ‘roedd nifer o bentrefwyr wedi pwyntio bys at Morris. Gwnaeth yr Heddlu wrthod eu credi!
S.B -Diolch am dy ateb. Oes gan Mr J rywbeth i’w ddweud fel ateb call all gyfranu mwy at y sgwrs ?
Don’t carp on about Parry’s inaccuracies – it’s nothing new: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/clydach-detective-bbc-damages-win-2311669
Perhaps you should ask him if there is any connection between the reputed £1 million the BBC had to pay out to libelled cops as a result of his programme and his subsequent boot……eerrrr….I mean switch from the BBC to becoming the self-appointed Senator McCarthy of Welsh blogging.
This CIN site has, of course, no Welsh on it whatsoever. The ignorance/arrogance is astounding.
Do you remember the Toxic Texan Energy Company ENRON that got planning permission to build the the Wind Turbines at the beautiful Cefn Croes in heartland Ceredigon? They went bust amid a disgusting saga of business deals being exposed. Another company actually built the Wind Turbines at Cefn Croes using the planning approval. At that time there was a character in Plaid Cyrmu’s inner echelons who had fallen out with his apologist friends.He leaked all the Minutes of the Plaid Cymru Group of Councillors then on Ceredigion County Council – Minutes that proved they’d held an unlawful Group meeting to decide to grant ENRON planning permission before the Planning Committee was convened. These Minutes were widely circulated at the time causing no embarrassment to Plaid Cymru’s thick skinned Councillors. They were also passed on to the appropriate Authority for legal action as pre-determination of planning and breaching sub-judice rules is a serious matter. The whole issue was then swept under the carpet as history. At that time Gareth Wardell MP (now ex MP) as Chair of the Welsh Committee in the Westminster Parliament conducted a scrutiny of Welsh Councils and firmly described Ceredigion as it was then as “the wild West of Wales” in Planning matters. With their new deceit over Fracking it looks as if nothing has changed there. The Leader of the Council is Plaid Cymru and a Geologist and she knows there is nothing to Frack for in Ceredigion,. So does Simon AM Leanne’s pet poodle. So why misrepresent the issue for cheap Kudos?
being anti fracking is fashionable among the metropolitan pink and nimby salons where much energy ( intellectual horse power? or horeshit ? ) is devoted to keeping large areas of countryside “clean” for leisure use only. Even indigenous residents are regarded as a nuisance and will be removed in due course. CCC have joined this bandwagon because it cost them nothing at the moment and they have done their bit. However farmers will be driven off the land slowly as land use will shift from agri to “other uses ” mostly run by assorted grant grabbers and other fellow travellers.
These journos and thousands like them would do well to get a transcript of a radio programme that went out a few minutes ago on Radio Cymru again focussing on people who had to migrate to Wales as evacuees during WW2. ( followed on from similar themed programme last week ) These people acquired varying degrees of fluency in Welsh, enabling them to engage in their local communities. It was heartening to hear that an earlier generation of migrants had integrated so easily, comparing favourably with today’s flock, the majority of whom do not regard the native culture as anything other than an irritant. Indeed one woman commented that the attitude of later arrivals offended her.
But evacuees were kids mostly boarded with local families, so they were thrust into the local community like it or lump it. No comparison really. Indeed you could even go as far as to say that the poor dears were forcibly removed from their own families and deprived of their native culture (assuming the English have any — LOL). The same technique has been used to ‘civilise’ native children in parts of the Empire. At least in this case it was only ‘for the duration’. An interesting piece of information nevertheless, wonder if there have been any serious studies?
You have a point, but these people interviewed were not forced to stay after 1945. Indeed one old boy said he could’nt bear the thought of going back to London ( ?) and elected to stay working on a farm and building his new life in darkest Sir Gar. The point I was making was quite simple – that you can go back 70 years and beyond and find that most migrants moved in and integrated. I knew people who moved onto farms in North Sir Gar and Dyffryn Teifi in 60’s who integrated. Now, they come in and expect everything around them to change to suit their needs.
Here’s the link to BBC Radio Cymru website, should enable you to replay content from this week and last week’s prog
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b051zy58
BBC Radio Cymru – Straeon Bob Lliw, Cymry, Ond Nid o Ddewis, Pennod 2
Dafis @ I had assumed the story was about WWII evacuees, but from the link you’ve given it seems to refer to a practice of 100 years ago. Nevertheless surely the point remains that there is no comparison between children placed with local families and adult in-migrants.
I was fascinated to know that in West Wales the Ceredigion County Council has declared itself to be the first Welsh Council as a “Fracking Free Authority” and that this declaration / policy was supported by all Politicians in that County. This is rather a disgraceful misrepresentation, as learned Geologists at the highest level, when asked privately, all say with a grin that there is absolutely no rock strata under all of Ceredigion that contains or bears anything to Frack for – no gas – no oil – no appropriate shale bands – no methane – nothing. It’s the totally wrong geology. Very old rocks that pre date the laying down of remains of plants and animals that are needed for hydrocarbons to develop.
It is not just a laughable gimmick – it is a confidence trick on the electorate. Seemingly they never checked the FACT that there is no appropriate rock strata anywhere under Ceredigion that is of interest to the Frackers? If they had checked and knew the FACTS then they are damned with ridicule. If they failed to check then they are lacking in credibility as just making policy on whims on the hoof to suck up to the “Greenies” who are as scary as UKIP to all the mainstream politicians these days.
Maybe these idiots should all just Frack Off.
They only pulling the same stunt that other politicians at all levels pull. Pick a subject that doesn’t matter and draw up a hard line policy – simples !! Come the day a real issue arises and you won’t see them for dust , or they come up with something so wrong you begin to question your own sanity !
Major problem with that county is that the Aber Uni “community” has a considerable influence through sheer weight of numbers, with many of them having come to the seaside to study and elected to stay.Now it’s hard to argue that they are a burden because a lot of them are salaried, some sell their academic output outside of Wales, while students are a separate funding issue, but they can distort the indigenous values by imposing shipping in those values which relate better to middle England.
http://caredig.blogspot.com/
Off topic, but FFS
Sounds like you have another ex-journo happy to use questionable “information” and “analysis” in the name of “freedom”. I suspect that all these boyos come out of the “write first, confirm later ( if needed) school” which works well in the Anglo Brit community where truth is not allowed to get in the way of a good story ! Boy you have certainly got under their flabby skins !
clock reset
Actually it was The BBC and a outside police force who uncovered the corruption by Inspector Stuart Lewis way before Elfyn LLoyd MP ever raised our case. Since my release he has indeed spoken out and I appriciate him have the balls to do so when some politicians say nothing.
My last comment on here was a bit over the top however Phil Parry did play a significant part in helping me get released regardless of what you all may think of him and did feel angry in that regard. I guess I could and should have conducted myself in a better manner.
There is another case involving Lewis which has been sent back to the Court of Appeal because of his dodgy practises but we all know even if another miscarriage of justice is proven Lewis will not get done for his Actions.
I am writing a book on all Lewis miscarriage of justice cases then you will all see what a corrupt cop he was and the powers that be did know what he was up too watch this space.
OK, fair enough. I’ve done you no harm, you’ve done me no harm; let’s reset the clock and leave it at that.
you are a poisonous fuckwit and Phil Parry helped secure my release
Good for him. But what he did for you has no relevance here. In fact, he seems to be trying to get me banged up. Ironic that, isn’t it?
Let me clarify my position. If your hero stops telling lies about me; if your hero stops getting his fat friend on the Western Mail to publish lies about me; if your hero stops urging the police to arrest me; then I’ll stop defending myself, because that’s ALL I’m doing.
And while I’m very sorry for what happened to you, it does not give you the right to come on here calling a complete stranger, who’s done you no harm, “a poisonous fuckwit”. Don’t come back.
So did many others who supported your cause, including many of us “fuckwit” nationalists
There are good Nationalists and bad and I have many nationalist friends not bad since Im a tory and im grateful for all people who supported me I would do the same for any one regardless of there political beliefs and help them I don’t discriminate against anyone.
It was Elfyn Llwyd MP who exposed the fabricated evidence by DI Lewis of South Wales Police in the Philip Saunders murder case that led to the quashed conviction of Michael O’Brien.
It’s true that Phil Parry, was the journalist ran with the story, but it was Elfyn who raised the issue, and even used the threat of parliamentary privilege over the findings of Operation Resolute. A poisonous fuckwit is three prisoners who like to boast false criminal prowess inside a cell in Canton custody suite that allows bent coppers to embellish subsequent testimony.
The example highlighted by Michael O’Brien does show, however, that journalists like Phil Parry are attracted to attention seeking false deluded mouth-offs as a way of generating copy, and this is likely to be the source of the Protic allegations against Jac. DI’s in North Wales Police, however, do not embellish the word of deluded attention seekers in order to make an arrest.
Where’s Mr O’Brien’s response to this comment ? I was not aware that he had been dull enough to go mouthing off inside the pig pen, what was that all about ? Was Parry aware of such antics ?
I have responded to this comment below and why hide behind anonymous at least I have the balls to use my own name.
possibly the only good thing the lying bastard ever did. He’s now doing what the system did to you for years, except he hasn’t yet got anyone locked up.
You should ask him what made him go so bad, that he harbours such an irrational hatred for anybody who dares to stand up against the British establishment – which curiously, he did in your case.
Split personality ? hatred of a language and its speakers ? Pretty toxic from my point of view , and like old Alwyn above says we were all in favour of getting you guys justice,Parry was in a position to get the old publicity machine going in your favour. I suppose we should appeal to his better side, if only we could find it !
Anybody remember Chris Rees and Lyndsay Thomas (?)- ( or Roberts) In Swansea Univ in the 50’s same time as me. They were ardent Welsh Nationalists and had quite a following at Swansea- did you know what happened to them?
Age is must playing tricks with your memory Jac. A virgin in West Wales indeed ha ha ha.
you obviously not seen some of them. That’s how they’ll stay till a blind English tourist ( or Jac & his pal ) gets desparate !
This is rubbish – I know ‘cos I was there – it was a small chapel in Corris where you and Glyn the bomb got your medals, not a stately pile in Llanrhysdyd -stop showing off Jac! – If I remember rightly you got the bronze medal for raising 2 bob for the mission in Africa, Glyn got a silver medal for raising 10/- and I got a Gold medal because my rich Dad gave me a £1 note for the cause! – Or are you thinking about that unfortunate event in Llanrhystyd Baptist Chapel where you and Glyn got the water board out over the baptistery before the missionary medal awarding ceremony began?
Damn you and your memory!
Missions in Africa and waterboarding. Pishton is going to have a field day!
I’d like to see your face when all this is read out in court (only joking) 😉
Apparently Wales Eye has gone behind a paywall. A convenient trick to disguise its lack of visitors
I can address that problem for you – free of charge. It may be laid out a bit differently but it’ll all be there for you. Just let me know what ‘paywalled’ page you want to read & I’m sure I can oblige 😉
Jac will give you my e-mail address.
I well remember the inspirational sixties in terms of Welsh fringe patriotic politics and its great true characters.
Then along came “Mab y Mans” Dafydd Iwan who plaguerised many Irish songs and made big money from them. One great example is his “Esgair Llyn” which was once the “Fields of Athenry”. A major con trick. He has been like Leanne Wood and others – betrayers. Another “Mab y Mans” was Ieuan Whinger Jones. It all went downhill fast when they dumped Wigley over a Curry hosted by the Llanelli Hairy Melon.Bones. Sadly Wigley through old age and health never fought back and we are now left with Leanne Wood “queen cwtching up” to all the English “Greens” and trendy English settler lefties. What’s left for Wales?
If you can remember it, then you weren’t there’ says Jac. My recall of D Iwan differs from yours – he was an activist, pacifist but willing to act in defence of language and culture, taking jail on the chin. Having some “talent / ability” he also made a living out of it, and I can’t decry that when so many of my contemporaries went to work in civil service, local government, academia and other organs of the British state turning into “weekend rebels” with the security of income guaranteed by their enemy ! . The fact that D Iwan used Irish or C&W tunes doesn’t differ much from many others in that trade, so no need to get het up about him in particular.
There is room to criticise many of his political contemporaries, notably Daf El, who loves the ermine despite protesting his motives ! Got his rebel phase out of his system and proceeded to prop up the establishment in return for a nice financial reward. The newer generation of leadership is so feeble it doesn’t merit much mention at all so eager they are to please the in migrants and trendy salon thinkers while ignoring the social degeneration of the country they purport to represent.
Would not surprise me to see a Plaid leader opening the new Tesco in Aber !!
Talking of Dafydd Iwan . . . when I was in Coleg Harlech (1971 – 1973) I used to spend a lot of time in the local pubs, a few of them were owned by a bloke called Hopkins from Aberdar (or his wife) and in the Castle there was a barman who regaled me one night with the tale of how him and his mates had attacked Dafydd Iwan and somebody else. Confused by this, for the barman was a Welsh-speaking local, I asked him why they’d done it. The answer was a confused diatribe against ‘Welshie troublemakers’. An attitude he had picked up from the media and the local opinion-formers from the Lodge and the golf club. A powerful reminder of what we are up against.
As you say, the 60s generation – especially language activists – was largely bought off in the way such movements always are. A comparable case would be Canada, where the federal government’s response to the unrest in Quebec in the 1960s was to introduce the Language Act, which made Canada officially bilingual . . . and opened up ten of thousands of comfortable government jobs, with good pensions, to the French-speaking middle class. A classic example of (attempted) ‘decapitation’ to remove a leadership level.
I was bought off in about 1970, when I was paid a shilling by Gilbert Hall of the Royal Lion Hotel in Dolgellau to sing God Save the Queen whilst Dafydd Iwan was protesting outside the Midland Bank.
I can’t remember what the protest was about.
I only knew the first line of the Queen so I sung that,
DI started singing Hen Wlad against me,the words of which I knew, so I sang along with him!
Having been paid that makes me a professional singer,so I am a professional singer who has sung with DI – so why don’t I have a series on S4C?
It was a good job you were annoying the pacifists of CyIG and not Cayo, Coslett and the boys. Though it raises an interesting point.
When it comes to showing ‘loyalty’ Welsh people have to resort to English songs like GSTQ or ‘Rule Britannia’; and symbols like the union jack, which does not even recognise Wales. Perhaps the closest thing we have to a ‘Welsh’ symbol of Britishness is those ridiculous feathers favoured by the WRU, which aren’t even British in origin.
It is revealing that no Welsh person ever sat down to pen a memorable paean to the Anglo-German monarchy in London, or penned an ode to Wales having been annexed by England. Something we should remember, and employ to our advantage.
Last week we managed to launch a surface to air missile from the tribal areas around Penrhiwfer and bought down a coalition fighter jet which made an emergency landing at the government airbase in the vale.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-31127603
Mrs Owen denies all knowledge of our terrorist cell, but then she’s a cracking actress.
http://vimeo.com/57844818
Using seagulls as suicide bombers? They may be a bloody nuisance but I really don’t think that was ethical. Bang goes any cooperation with the Greens to start with.
Is the base of the medal on the left made of slate? Real Welsh slate?
Pishton should investigate Louie Knight of Aberystwyth.
Jac, have you ever considered writing a book about 1960’s Wales?
If former football hooligans can make six figure sums from their semi-literate memoirs there must be a few bob in it for you.
You could dedicate it to Parry and Shipton.
But we’re talking about the ’60s, and as the saying goes, ‘If you can remember it, then you weren’t there’. Or was that Woodstock?
What is the reasoning behind the Malteses cross in relation to Cymru?
It’s all very arcane, and unless you were there . . .
an attempt to appeal to Neath RFC fans who might have created a competing band of rebellious types !!
Magnificent!
What we need now is a meme with Stan Parry and Oliver Shipton getting into another fine mess! I will see if I can knock one up.
Given time I’m sure they’ll oblige.
A virgin? In Ceredigion? Unlikely.
Ah, but mind you, this was going back a bit. And the term ‘virgin’ was, how shall I put this, ‘elastic’.