I agree with him about that but is it enough? Towards the end of the documentary and after seeing something of home and school life in north Wales, Bethany Lewis, a fluent Welsh speaker, reflects on her experience and wonders aloud about what speaking Welsh actually means.
Until her visit to the Welsh heartland she had always thought of Welsh as the language of the classroom. In south Wales she prefers to speak English because it is the language of the home and she says there is little opportunity to speak it outside the school gates. I put this point to the education minister, Leighton Andrews, on the day the Assembly Government announced changes to its flagship language legislation, which, they said, would confirm that Welsh would have equal status with English.
Critics immediately weighed in saying it would do nothing of the sort. As always with the Welsh language the arguments had begun.
David Williams, who both presents and produces the programme, is a Welsh speaker. In this article he is expressing his own personal views. Programme just confirms what has been known for years. Rightly or wrongly the majority of us communicate and think through the medium of a world language, English. When you have universities in European states such as Holland now running courses in English what chance has a minority language got.
EU meetings are increasingly being conducted throught the medium of English. Given mobility how many of those who attend Welsh medium education from English speaking homes will also end up living not just in other parts of the UK but in a modern world other partsof Europe?
Perhaps your next programme should look for someone who went to Rhydfelin 20 years ago ,left at 16 to work in a manual occupation in the Rhondda and has hardly used Welsh since leaving school. Having a conversation in Welsh with them would be an interesting experience. There is also the real danger that whilst Welsh continues to decline as an everyday language in its heartland it becomes the language not just of the classroom but also of an elite which dominates senior posts in the public sector, the media and devolved politics.
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This site uses cookies to improve your experience. By using this site you agree to receiving cookies under our Cookie Policy. Back to search results. Welsh not. He despairs about how he can teach when half the school are regularly absent.
Rain, snow and heat all keep children at home because many had to walk some miles to get there. So, too, does hay making, crop sowing and harvesting, local fairs and chapel meetings. Some children go three or four months without turning up.
Many simply say when they do eventually attend that they were needed at home. The inspection reports the school received were scathing and a copy of each one was handwritten into the logbook by Llewellyn. This in itself cannot have been a pleasant task. They question his physical ability to run a school alone. At first, I thought this meant more staff were needed but the second reference to this implies that he is not fit or healthy enough.
I picture an ill man. The reports also question why some pupils are not there on inspection day, implying that they are being kept away so as not to affect the exam results. Arithmetic and sewing are the only subjects that seem ok, perhaps because they did not require English-language skills. The School Board comes in for criticism too. More needs to be done about absenteeism and Llewellyn needs an assistant. There are no inkwells. I magine a frosty relationship between Llewellyn and the board that empoys him.
Eventually one Summer holiday he resigns. Perhaps he had no choice. But after ploughing my way through pages or so of his handwritten laments, I feel rather sorry for him and have forgotten how he used the Welsh Not. Maybe the picture in my head of a bent, elderly and frustrated teacher working to the ends of his wits is wrong.
Maybe he took out his frustrations on the children and was vicious and bad tempered with them. The possibility of my sense of him being wrong is why the sympathy I developed should not shape the analysis. But it did shape my emotional experience of doing the research. For this, he was presented with the Welsh Not. The letter does not record what the punishment was. Such humorous stories of confusion were not uncommon in recollections of the Welsh Not.
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