eyelift

Seicoddaearyddiaeth (Psychogeography) in South Pembrokeshire.  

All is not as it seems. It may not even be true.

My rumination started in the contrast between taverns above and below the Landsker Line. To the North, some were proudly "very Welsh"; to the South [the "Little England Beyond Wales"  since the 13th Century], with one exception run by a local cattle farmer, many were populated by The Rodneys, whom the famer knew of well, just as my father had in Portsmouth Dockyard. "The Rodneys" perhaps a Naval expression for the Officer Class, would have been known in Portsmouth and Pembroke.

Among the Rodneys were The Grabbers ["Can I grab a skinny caramel latte?"; "Can I grab this house for my exclusive use on Vrbo?"; Land Grabbers and f... the locals]. Almost entire villages proudly display holiday let adverts. No threat to the Language of Heaven here; it's south of The Line. Perhaps the language could have offered a line of resistance as it does more successfully than may be acknowledged yng Ngogledd Cymru. A relief however to meet a real local person, whatever the language.

The Grabbers seem to have tried to recreate South Pembrokeshire in the image of Cornwall. Not the real ancient Kingdom of Kernow, but a sanitised playground that has stolen its soul, just as it has here. I read later of strong genetic links between the people of the Little England Beyond Wales and those of the English West Country, dating back to the Norman settlements of 900+ years ago. Ancient history seems to permeate the very sod of the earth ("Sod the Earth" say the Grabbers in their paramilitary Range Rovers).

In the unashamedly Anglophone lands south of the Landsker Line, every step, every word, was interrupted by an inner voice saying "Dechreuwch bob sgwrs yn y Gymraeg" (begin every conversation in Welsh). Unashamedly and ashamed simultaneously, as a new Siaradwr Cymraeg, I found myself engaging people on the coastal path in conversation, in a confident Saesneg, with little anxiety for which language I should be speaking. Glad however to have the chance to share the history of Cymraeg with some passing Belgians.

On occasion I met and exchanged greetings with a Welsh speaker on the path, who, while vindicating my thoughts, also exemplified their identity as Other, strangers in their own land, just as Walloon means Foreigner in Belgium, as does Valais/Wallis in Switzerland (surely time to change the name Wales, and reassert Cymru, knowing these connotations).

Across a field between two beaches, an electric fence goes alongside the Llwybr Cyhoeddus (public footpath).  It's there to keep the tourists and the cattle apart, but I wondered if it's also there to separate Real Pembrokeshire from the Playground of The Grabbers. The farmer publican wondered too, as I enjoyed crisp Felinfoel bitter from the comfort of sitting on a tractor tyre in his pub garden.