Day 64: Wirral to Wales

Not sorry to leave the Wirral. Fortunately as soon as I crossed the Welsh border there was a warm welcome in the hillside in the form of an American style diner where I had a great breakfast.

How odd to be in Britain and not to be able to understand a single word being spoken around me. North Wales is the place where English is the second language!

When I first met my husband to be, we went to Wales for a week so I could meet his Welsh family. We stayed in a small guest house in Rhyl where the landlord put us up in the attic in two adjacent rooms with a lot of nudging and winking! Well it was 1975 and sex before marriage was called living in sin! The Welsh family were, and still are, delightful people. Welsh is their first language too. My husband’s cousin taught Russian and French in a secondary school through the medium of Welsh. Imagine that.

Wales is a bilingual country. Welsh is the oldest language in Britain dating back 4,000 years but due to the population shifts and the industrial revolution, and the fact that it was deliberately suppressed in the 19^th century when schools were ordered to beat children for using it, fewer people spoke it.  

Since 1999 it is compulsory to learn Welsh in school up to the age of 16, which is a good thing as it is part of their heritage and culture. Not so easy for tourists who haven’t a hope in hell of being able to pronounce the places we are visiting.

So how was Rhyl? The Blackpool of North Wales? It was certainly as I remembered it. Acres of caravan parks and holiday camps.

My unruly SatNav keeps trying to pull me off the coast road and persuade me to travel on inland motorways. What does she not understand about being part of a road trip called ‘On the Edge Around the Coast’? If I had obeyed her command to ‘do a U turn,’ ‘in 400 yards turn left and left again,’ I would have missed the spectacle of another thing that looks as though it too ignored its navigation aid.

A massive ship The Duke of Lancaster is beached in Flintshire, close to a fabric and craft centre called Abakhan. In the past Wales was closed for business on Sundays. You couldn’t even get a drink in some counties. Today that was not the case. Abakhan was doing a roaring trade.

Meet Keith Howard who is on security here. He is gets bored standing around watching people shopping, and his mind turns to idea generation. I asked Keith about the ship stranded on the shoreline.

At this point in my narrative I claim intellectual copyright on this day Sunday 3^rd July 2016 in the name of Keith Howard for his stunning and creative idea in relation to The Duke of Lancaster which I will be describing in the hopes that Flintshire Council, The Welsh Assembly and any sponsors pick it up and run with it.

The Idea....drum roll please.

The Biggest Ship in a Bottle in the World.

Keith said the ship was once used as a restaurant but again health and safety executive put paid to that on the good grounds that the ship was full of asbestos that can’t be removed. The ship is deemed dangerous and is quietly rusting away. I went to photograph it, so did dozens of other people. Keith’s idea is simple. It could be turned into a wondrous tourist attraction like the Horses at Falkirk in Scotland, by constructing a toughed Perspex bottle to enclose it. Like the Horses, it could have lighting installed to make it look great lit up at night, and in addition it could have some industrial fans around the base and scraps of paper or glitter which would turn it into a superb ‘snow globe’ for celebrations such as Wales winning the footie, or getting independence form Westminster. You get the idea? The Guiness book of records could get involved and it would be a major - safe from asbestos because of the ‘bottle’ – draw to the region. There used to be a busy market three days a week on adjacent land. If the idea were to be taken up, that could be reinstated bringing work to the area as well. It’s a win win. Now all Keith needs is an organisation to action it.

Phew.

A visit to Bodnant Gardens run by National Trust is a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon in the sunshine.

 

Unlike many National Trust properties it does what I have been advocating for years – it has gifts made by local artists rather than just the same old national trust shop central buying goods that you see everywhere else.

Finally Caernarfon on the Menai Strait directly opposite the island of Anglesey.

Caenarfon is a world heritage site, a walled city built round the impressive castle which is possibly the most famous of all the Welshcastles.

It was begun in 1283 by Edward 1^st not only as a military fortress, but also as the seat of Government and a palace. Inside the castle is the museum of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. Caenarfon castle is enormous and intimidating and almost overshadows the narrow streets. But Edward was not the first to set up a stronghold in the area. The Romans were there 1000 years earlier and the remains of their fort Segontium are still on the hills.

The Welsh Highland Railway, similar to The Jacobite in Fort William, is a steam train journey from Caenarfon to Porthmadog. If trains are not your thing, you can take a boat trip on the Menai Straits instead. I am beginning to sound horribly like the tourist board.

What I had remembered about Caenarfon was that 20 year old Prince Charles was invested as the 21^st Prince of Wales in front of the castle on July 1st 1969. He spent a term at Aberystwyth University to learn some Welsh to deliver his speech. I also remember that many Welsh were very unhappy about the ceremony and saw the investiture as a national humiliation.

It was a long time since breakfast in the American style diner and I needed a fuel stop before driving the last 20 miles to the sheep farm where I was to stay in a village with a name I can barely spell let alone pronounce.

Blackboys Inn is the oldest pub in the town and it served good food.

The village I am staying in tonight is Llanaelhaern. My hostess is a delightful lady called Megan Jones, the farmer’s mum, and she apologised to me for not speaking good English! She had made me a cake and poured me cup of tea seconds after I walked through the door. 

How marvellous.