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to see an old friend and longtime contributor to Countryfire magazine when I was editor, Julie Brominex. And she lives deep in the woods with her partner in the most magical place.
i have ever come to stay she's granted me a little cabin beside a stream you can hear the stream down below me amongst the most incredible spread of flowering wild garlic and the smell and the like little starbursts of flowers white flowers and this garlicky smell amongst and dog's mercury and there's a cabin right beside the stream and she and her partner have this well she's going to take me for a tour around here and we're also going to talk about
Well, deep in the Welsh countryside to talk about the power of the Welsh language and why it's important and its names for landscape features and the landscape itself. So, well, welcome to the podcast. I'm Fergus, I'm the host, and I can't wait to show you around here. Let's go and meet Julie. Julie, firstly, thank you very much for inviting me here. I'm blown away.
This is magical. How long have you lived here? 14 years now. 14 years in a little valley where you've kind of constructed, or we can see across the river, a hexagonal cabin maybe.
yeah so Rob built that just from scrap wood and it's turned into a I suppose it's like a summer cabin so we really enjoy sleeping down there when it's very hot even in the worst heat waves it's fairly cool down here beside this beautiful clear clean stream which i'm also delighted to see as well it's the most magical place i think i've said this to you already but the most magical place i've ever visited and this is pretty off grid aren't we
Yeah, we're completely off-grid and it all happened very serendipitously. So when I moved in, I was still working at the Centre for Alternative Technology. Which is close to here, isn't it? Very close. 20 minutes walk away. and got quite fed up of moving from rented accommodation to rented accommodation. And it had never occurred to me that I could just actually move into a caravan because I'd never stayed anywhere long enough to grow vegetables or...
had any sense of ownership about, I don't know, what colour to paint the walls or whatever, which are all quite trivial things, but I knew I was never going to be able to afford to buy a property and a caravan suddenly seemed like a perfect option. So...
Everyone said, well, that's great. You can easily find the caravan, but you'll never find anywhere to put it. And the first person I asked said, oh, yes, I've got a bit of land. Really? That's the thing. I think that's what puts people off is this sort of sense. I know. Nobody would let me do that. But you asked somebody in the valley here and they had a bit of land. Yeah, he'd just taken two ash trees from it.
rotavated it taking the brambles out and he'd just been thinking what should i do with this little patch i might put pigs on it and then i turned up yeah yeah And so you brought a little caravan down here. I've seen your caravan. It's the most delightful sunflower yellow. It is. Not a huge place. It's tiny. It's one of those 1960s touring caravans. So it's about three metres by two metres.
And there's two of you living there. There's two of us. So when I moved in, I was single. And then within a few months, I wasn't. You had a gorgeous property. You were landed gentry by then. Well, it's...
It's just really serendipitous. I like to... follow my heart rather than any logic and obviously doesn't make any sense at all to move into a tiny caravan that you're then able to share with someone well but it's worked out beautifully you say that because yeah you say that we've walked up from the stream we've walked up a maze of paths around these beautiful fully constructed.
Ex-vegbeds. Yes. You've gone down the veg route, but decided to buy flowers and herbs and whatever is living here. It's just magical. It is magical. And I'm really glad the veg didn't work because I've never enjoyed gardening. i know it's supposed to be living the dream growing your own food approach to living off the land no i felt a responsibility to give it a go
But as you can see, if you look up, we've got woodland on both sides. So in the bottom of the valley, we have a stream running down the valley here. And we've got some larch growing on the hillside. Very close to us. But we're like in a glade almost. We're in a glade. It is exactly like being in a glade. Oh, here goes a bit of jet. Well, that's OK. Occasionally, that's the... Oh, here we go.
There might be another one. There's usually more than one. They go in pairs. They're mating. Are they mating in the summer years? It's spring for jets. So when we've got... probably more light at this time of year than at any other time of year because we've got the sun back it kind of tends to go down in november and come up in mid-february so we've got the sun but we're also in the But we're also in the position where not all the leaves have come out on the broadleaf yet.
So that gives us a bit more light. Whereas midsummer, where you think we might have enough light to grow vegetables. Is it quite dark here? It's really dark. And how do you find that? I love it. I don't mind at all. I don't suffer from a lack of sunshine. In fact, winter is my favourite month.
anyway so I'm not someone who particularly enjoys the heat and in summer here I'm really I don't like to travel in summer I don't like to go anywhere in summer I just like to be here and I'm in the best possible place because it's so cool Down by the stream. The stream will never get warm. But I think what makes up for it, for me, the stream is a really fast, white, rapid stream and it's lots of bubbles.
It's full of white water, really, and so it's almost like a light source, it feels. Yeah, music and light. Yeah, it feels like when it's dark all around, the stream is just this constant source of... life and light. The stream is crystal clear and it's got these lovely slate-like rocks as its bed and it's got some trout in it and obviously lots of insect life.
That's kind of magical. It's really magical. I'm going to say hard to find. It just should be common for everybody to walk down to their local river and see those wren blasting off there. Yeah. No, you're right, it is a magical place and I'm really glad that you've tuned into that. And I still feel it every single day. I've been here 14 years and I can't stop just...
I'm taking photographs constantly because I can't believe I live in such a beautiful place. It's really magical. That's amazing. So you've never taken it for granted? Never. I suppose it's quite... Never. What do you do for power here? So we're off the grid and that's fine because we have quite a low impact. And we've only got this tiny space and...
Which is fine. I just don't have much stuff. I don't really enjoy... You don't have a fridge, do you? Don't have a fridge, no. You've got a very cold stream. We've got a very cold stream. We've got such a cold stream that we can use that as a fridge in the summer. But that...
Very, very bad heatwave. I think it was two years ago. I didn't even bother putting the butter in the bucket, in the fridge that day. I just left it in the caravan cupboard. We don't have a fridge in there, but it's kind of lined with metal and there's some ventilation in the back. because of all the shade, because of all the trees the butter didn't melt. It was obviously really soft.
But in that intense heat... Yeah, it was unbearable. It seemed to be really horrible for everybody. But here is probably as good a place as any in the cool and the shade to escape the worst of that. So we definitely don't need a fridge. The butter's a kind of barometer. Yes, okay, yes. I don't have a phone. I've got a laptop, obviously, because I write. But we're pretty... Do you power that off solo or something? We've got... So I've got quite a few backup battery packs now, and because Rob...
still goes to work in an office, he will go and plug them in and charge them up there. Or our neighbours will charge them for us, which is really nice. So you can power your laptop off a battery? Yes. I've got two spare batteries. work for a couple of days here without having to go out anywhere. I think being a non-hot weather person, winter has always been special to me. I like the
It's always when I prefer to go walking for a start, because you can just walk and walk without getting too hot and bothered. Also, there aren't the crowds, there aren't the biting insects, there aren't the nettles, there aren't the, you know, the brambles are kind of in check a little bit, so for all those practical reasons.
But also I just like the quality of light. I find much more magical in winter. Lower lights. I really love it. Yeah, the subtleties and nuances and the reflective quality. And if you buy water, it seems to kind of swallow. the small amount of light there is and then kind of almost just reflect it back. It's just really subtle. I'm very passionate about the Welsh language and
keeping it alive and relevant and part of every day. I mean, give me your thoughts on Welsh language and where you stand on. Because it does cause a bit of sort of discontent at times with some people. It does. It does. I think it was a really slowly evolving realisation for me because obviously I'm English. I'm from Shrewsbury. Am I fig?
just across the border. And so, no, it was a very slowly evolving realisation, which began at a very early age, I think. So I think most people who holiday in Wales or Cymru as children pick up. Everybody as a child is looking out the car window going, Arav! Yes, yeah. Arav! So those first Welsh words. Kwaizanathai. Did I say it right? Say it again.
It's services. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah. So all of those words we kind of pick up. And so we're aware of them. And I had a really particular potent moment when I was about four because we used to go on holiday to towing. Which isn't too far from here. It's really close to here. It's about 50, 10 miles away. Maybe not even that, actually. And I was about four, walking down the street, holding my dad's hand, and I just remember seeing these.
these older women just chatting in their front gardens and they were just chatting in a language that I didn't understand and I didn't even know at that point that there were things, such things as other languages. So I was really fascinated. I remember my dad at the time saying that they were...
speaking Welsh and so that obviously struck a chord of me back then and I'd always made an effort to learn some kind of Welsh even when I was at university again in Aberystwyth but I took the opportunity to just pick up a few bits of words and if people were offering lessons I'd go along but I was a terrible terrible student so I didn't really apply myself to anything so it was always very
Kind of a bit here and there. What were you studying? You were studying Welsh. I know. I was studying art. I was a terrible art student. And then I studied. Aren't you supposed to be a terrible art student? Yes. Aren't you supposed to be a sort of enfant terrible in Welsh though? What's Welsh for enfant terrible? Plenty of Natalie.
And then I studied teacher training qualification there, primary school teaching. And so as a qualified teacher then I couldn't then teach in Wales because I didn't speak Welsh. I was always aware of the importance of the language and supportive of that. And I was incrementally learning more Welsh, but at the same time I was pretty allergic to evening classes because I'm, I don't know.
Quite an early bird, I suppose, so my brain switches off after six o'clock anyway. I don't really like textbooks and grammar. cds in the car oh my god no i've never had a car either so oh yes okay yeah don't drive cds on the bike cds on the bike in the bus no definitely not for me i suppose a big change for me came when i
I went away, did a lot of travelling, came back to Wales, came back to a teaching job at the Centre for Alternative Technology. And at that point, I was very much aware of how important it was because I was teaching. vast range of pupils, students, trainee teachers, liaising with exam boards, curriculum writers, officials and so I was very aware of the importance of Welsh but at the same time I was so so busy.
I didn't really have the amount of time required to really absorb any more learning so I was already beginning to feel guilty about it I think because at one time I could see. and what it was on the other side, I wasn't really giving myself the opportunity to kind of increase my understanding. And then there came a point when redundancies were up for grabs at the Centre for Alternative Technology due to financial crisis.
And I thought, this is my opportunity to leave and do something. I loved my teaching job. I absolutely loved it. But at the same time, I did want to do something quieter. And it was a really opportunity to think, right, I'm going to leave. I think I'll be a writer. Yeah, that's a bold move. It was a bold move.
Well, it did work out. It did work out. And what happened was I thought, well, Wales Coast Path has just opened, so I'll walk the Wales Coast Path and then I'll come back. I'll finish it by Christmas and then I'll decide what I'm going to write.
800 miles of it. 800 miles. Well, 1,027 miles because I also want the office dyke path to link the two miles to go. Oh, okay. That's good. So you did get the full circle. Yes. And you wrote a book about it. I wrote a book about it. Of course I did in the end. It's called The Edge of Cymru. And it was while I was walking that I suddenly realised all of the things that I'd been worried about.
but subconsciously they were just beginning to rise to the surface in the way that things do when you suddenly find yourself with thinking time because I'd been so busy at work I hadn't really been able to kind of... address any of those thoughts before you know those underlying feelings of uneasiness so after work on a Friday night we'd always go down to the pub
And there'd be a crowd of English-speaking environmentalists in one bar. And in the other bar, there'd be the local Welsh speakers. And that just seemed very wrong to me. But again, it was never really knowing how to... address that and then as I was walking around the edge of Wales the Wales coast path I was trying to learn my Welsh because I'd been on an intensive language course having quit my job with the time before setting off on the walk
And I naively thought, great, I can speak Welsh now. I'll walk around the edge of Wales and speak Welsh to people. And of course, that didn't happen. And it was quite a shocking realisation, really, to see. What a perilous state the language is in. Oh, just a bird kill here. Yeah, I think it's... Lots of bird kills on the podcast. This is a wood pigeon. Yeah. What would have killed that then? Well, either a sparrowhawk.
Or, I mean, there are goshawks. There are goshawks in these woods. Lots of big birds to have been here. Yeah, definitely. Wow. So there you were walking around Wales, but not totally confident in your Welsh. Not totally confident.
But confident enough to speak to people and then finding that people are either switching back to English. Golden saxifrage. Oh, it's beautiful, isn't it? That's amazing. Yeah. What a lovely clump of... I mean, it's not like a golden flower of petals and things. It's just a sort of... clump a cushion of yeah golden and green mixed together lovely really bright it's lovely it's a lovely path and this is is this a
public footpaths or is it? No it isn't so we're in woods that belong to the scouts but the scouts have recently teamed up with Coithale which are a local wood user group so we've got scout activities happening here. And also koi flail who bring disadvantaged groups into the woods. It's koi wood, isn't it? Koi is the wood, yep. Flail is local, so local wood users. So I'm hoping as we go around you're going to just teach the lessons and me a few. Yes.
of the basics for landscape but yeah let's hear a little bit more about the discovery so I realised how fragile the Welsh language was and I'd realised that through teaching as well so as I was travelling in South Wales particularly I was discovering that the disparity as well and how complex. Oh no. Oh my goodness. We found a dead pied flycatcher.
Oh, what on earth would have... Oh my goodness. It's been dead a while. Not too long, though. Male pied flycatcher. I've got it in my hands. I can't believe it. I've never... Why would that... What's happened here? Hit by a... Hit by a sparrowhawk. Maybe, but they're not killed. No. Looks like it's just peacefully gone to sleep. Unknown what's happened to that poor bird. I hope it's not an environmental thing that it's just sort of starved or something.
I can't feel it. I know, sure. I mean, it is pretty cold at the moment, isn't it? Yeah. So there can't be as many insects out as it would. Actually, we have seen other pied-by-catchers. Yeah. I can't tell what's done it in. Yeah. I mean, last year, the scouts...
made a lot of bird boxes and put them in the woods so we'll see them as we're going down the paths and they put them up really late in the season last year but then Dave Anning from the RSPB came and did a survey and most of the boxes were occupied despite being so late That was good news. But I suppose to cut the long story short, I found it very difficult to have conversations. Partly that was because of my ineptitude as a Welsh learner.
But also the state, the perilous state that it's been in, and the reason why people don't encourage you necessarily as a learner to just go ahead and speak Welsh, in some areas. In some areas they do, it's more... you get more instant encouragement. But so many people have been indoctrinated over the years.
into thinking that Welsh, their own native language is a second-class language. Even Welsh people. Even Welsh people. And that it's something that they're... Some people are almost slightly ashamed of, and that's a legacy of...
Well, it's a legacy of all kinds of things. It goes back to Edward I's colonisation. When the Welsh were repelled. And his castles in which the Welsh were evicted and English settlers were... were brought into the towns etc and that goes right back to the 13th century and then more recently and more famously of course there's what's called the treachery of the blue books when there was a an english-led examination of the state of education in wales
And the resulting report said that the Welsh language was responsible for all kinds of negative aspects of culture and that it was hindering people's development as a result of that. And people caught speaking Welsh at schools were severely reprimanded and made to wear this block of wood around their necks. And punishment for speaking Welsh in the schools carried on, although it officially died out.
In the beginning of the 20th century, it carried on in some areas well into the 20th century. Well into the 20th century, people being punished for speaking Welsh. And the legacy of that in areas like Mcuntliffe is people's Welsh-speaking parents quite often chose to send their Welsh-speaking children to an English language school because it was considered a better thing for people to do.
At the same time, as a result of industrialisation in some areas, like southern, more populated South Wales, Welsh was disappearing because of industrialisation. But as a result of... immigration into the coal mining areas from other parts of from other parts of britain so the welsh language was disappearing in that respect but by now of course those people who live in south wales fiercely
patriotically welsh yes and the very suggestion that uh that welsh language i think some people take it on upon themselves to feel that they're not welsh enough if they don't speak welsh and so they will patriotically almost defend their right not to speak Welsh. And so there's a lot of complexities within Wales itself regarding the Welsh language. And then that's exacerbated by a kind of a soft kind of colonisation.
which continues to this day with lots of English people like me moving to Wales because we love it and it's beautiful and then there's that kind of degradation of culture and language in that respect too and that's really interesting I think because it's it's kind of like positive in many ways people are coming because they appreciate this wonderful landscape and culture and they often bring a lot of energy and a lot of ideas and at the same time
There's this kind of, like, push and pull, and so it's really, really difficult, really interesting, really complex issues going on. Yeah, so fascinating.
very proficient speaker of Welsh now I'm pretty good but I'm definitely not fluent and I have that kind of annoying ability to speak better than I understand so I can plunge into a conversation and then not really understand the response and get into real trouble but um are you writing welsh quite often sometimes writing welsh but i'm definitely not proficient enough to do that without lots of checks and editing by somebody else so i wrote a book called the edge of cymru in which i
used Welsh place names throughout and it was a continuity of the thinking that I'd been doing with writing all those articles for Countrywell magazine. So as my consciousness developed, I started, well I think when I began I was using English place names. And then the more I discovered, I started using Welsh place names and put the English in brackets.
And then for the book, I thought, no, I'm just going to go the whole hog and just use Welsh place names. But it was a real incremental journey into arriving at that decision. And that began... step by step of the way really so I thought well obviously it's towing rather than towing that's a very easy thing to do because they're so similar anyway in Welsh and English and so that's the obvious choice to make
And then you get a bit further around the coast and there's Fjongorl and there's only one name for that, that's fine. And then it's Fairbourn and then, oh, there isn't a Welsh name for Fairbourn because it was developed by an English industrialist and there never was a Welsh name in the beginning.
Interesting. So what did you do there? Did you come up with one? No, I left it as a fair one. Right, okay, that seems fair. Yeah, and then I got to Barmouth, and there's Barmouth, and there's Abermau, and also Abermo, so there's two Welsh names with Barmouth. And I was getting more and more...
as I went round as to what the best course of action was. And in the end, I spoke to the Welsh Language Commission to see if they had any advice. And they did. They were very, very supportive, but they were also very realistic and they didn't want me to overwhelm my potential readership.
So we came up with an idea of using just Welsh place names for the topographical features and also... places in Wales but sticking to the English names for organisations and people so that it wasn't too overwhelming but the reason why I really wanted to do it I suppose there were lots of reasons and the more Welsh I spoke the more attuned I was to people's pain, Welsh language speakers' pain, at their language disappearing.
I figured that the one thing that people can do something about is place names, because even if you're not any good at learning a language, and a lot of people aren't at all, I happen to really enjoy it. I'm not very proficient once we get to a certain level. I'm really good at jumping in and having a... go and getting
getting to a certain level and then it kind of beat us out. These people appreciate it. They do. Everywhere appreciates if you give the language a go. And we're always oppressed by our own insecurities that sound silly. But actually, native speakers always appreciate the effort.
It's true and it's a really important humbling experience I think for English people who have never been in a position where they've had to learn another language. I think it is always really appreciated. But I figured with place names it was something that...
everybody could do. It doesn't take any effort to read a place name off a page. It's much easier than actually trying to learn the language. Well, I agree with you to an extent, but with Welsh names. And also with Banai, and I'm not going to say that, but Brachyniog. Yes. Because Monmouthshire Gwent has not particularly, there's not a lot of Welsh speakers comparative to, I'm going to ask you where the strongholds of Welshness are.
There was quite a lot of opposition, as I'm sure you're aware, to the people who'd called their businesses Brecon Beacons. People who thought it would put off English visitors because it was too difficult to say. But Banai is... I mean, I'm bastardising it slightly, but it's not that hard to say. And I quite like the word Banai. I live in the Banai.
Yeah, exactly. It's like the Shortenall Arbor. You live near Mack. Yeah, that's right. I live near Abba. And not too far from Dole. What would you say to comfort those? People who are worried. It's going to affect my business or it's going to put people off. I know. Are there legitimate concerns? Of course. All concerns are always legitimate. And I think... It's really important to have those discussions and hear people's sorrow and anger.
And I think unless you do have those discussions and see where they've originated from, we'll never be able to understand each other if we're just fighting. We need to at least understand each other's upset and the root of that before we can progress.
I suppose on the positive side of that, since the place, I'm reluctant to say name change, because it isn't a name change. Banaprakainiog's been used in the Welsh language for far longer. That's a really good point, actually. I think that's the point that's not made. strongly enough, is that it's not a name change. The name change was to call it Brecon Beacons. And I suppose if you look at, I mean, purely in statistical terms, you've got Unusmon, Anglesey and Gwynedd.
and parts of Kayabhavn. Errari is Snowdonia. That's the sort of heart of Gwynedd. That's the heart of Gwynedd. That's kind of the national park area is Errari. Errwydva is Snowdon itself. That's right, yeah. Those areas are the more, they're the strongholds of the Welsh language, but tied up within that is the culture. And I suppose you could go a bit further and say it's the op-land farming communities that...
where the real language has its beating heart. Carmarthenshire, Ceredigian. Yeah, definitely parts of Ceredigian. I suppose any of the rural communities, but you have to be really careful saying that because the rural communities are also kind of like...
hotspots where people who want to come and retire to Wales kind of like zone in on as well and so you've got to kind of there's always a kind of inward and outward migration and so the language is being learned at schools now but then you still have a bit of a an exodus of young Welsh language speakers who go and seek opportunities elsewhere and at the same time you've got a big influx of people coming in to Wales.
And I'm not just talking about economic migrants and refugees, because Wales has got a historic record of welcoming people, anybody needing asylum with open arms, and I'm really, really proud of that. but also of course it's been a top destination.
in a positive way for people to choose to retire to because they love the country so much. And I think that has to be remembered and celebrated. It can't just be seen in a negative way. Is there a bit of conflict there? There is a conflict and it's a quiet conflict. I think it's very passive.
Because you don't... Because at the same time, lots of people that move into the area are really, really keen to uphold Welsh... um culture and language ironically but they're not in a position to be able to do it and they can't see it as well it's not visible to them because Speaking from personal experience, I have never ever experienced people switching from English to Welsh. I was going to ask you that. Oh my god, who's such a terrible story? This is being put to me.
dozens if not hundreds of times by readers of the magazine friends family and i've never experienced this i've been too i'm an inveterate visitor of pubs yeah and um I've never ever experienced it. What I have experienced is going into a pub and everyone speaking Welsh. Exactly. And not...
They didn't change from English as I walked in. No, but they will change from Welsh to English to accommodate you. Yes, I found that. But what I can say, and it's really sad, and it's another thing that has kind of bolstered.
my enthusiasm for speaking about welsh is that well like we were just saying the opposite is true so i used to go into pubs in town and if there were any conversations in Camarai going on naturally they would then change to English to accommodate, to politely accommodate a newcomer.
And now I barely hear Welsh spoken at all in the beginning because there's a balance of people who are more confident speaking English than Welsh. And so Welsh is barely ever spoken at all in the pubs in the first place. And so then if people move into the area... They're not aware that even there is an alternative culture. I mean, the Welsh language culture isn't necessarily evident to any newcomers to the area, but...
If you listen to Radio Cymru or you watch S-Pedwarek, you wouldn't know that there was an English language culture in the area. S-Pedwarek, S-4C. S-4C, yeah. So we watched a programme about the Dovey Valley. And we recognised everything in it and nothing in it. It was wonderful. It was like you were saying about feeling somewhere completely different. And this is somewhere where we've lived.
But there was the farming communities, there's people, there's really thriving things like the male voice choirs is an obvious example. Everything attached to the farming communities, so agricultural shows and people going to the Royal Welsh. There's the Isleedd Foddai, which are the...
Cultural competitions. We still have bards. Yes. And the bardic tradition. Yeah, the bardic tradition. Having read George Borough. Yes. Who wandered Wales in the 1950s, isn't he? He's an Englishman who spoke Welsh. He did. I think you're probably a modern George Borough.
wandering whales and i think i think you are though i think this is like updating updating i quite like the idea of being being as eccentric as him yes it's a brilliant book actually it is it's really great really fun yeah i quite i like george worry because he can laugh at himself yes yeah he's He's got enough, but he's also just, he speaks something like 14 languages. I know, I know. He wandered round Wales, as you did, and he discovered, I mean, it was...
He discovered people still wearing the traditional Welsh dress. Yes, that's right. And the Merthyr pits, ironworks and coalfields aflame at night. Oh yeah, he captured the industrialisation really, really well actually. talked about he went in search of um like fourth fifth century bards he did so the bardic tradition has changed obviously so because people wealthy households no longer employ their own bards to um to praise them which is a shame i mean at the praising yourself thing
by hiring somebody. I'm open to offers, but it's a shame that that doesn't sort of... That is that patronage of the arts, which... It is. I mean, I'm not really into aristocracy so much, but... Another podcast, but let's... As you can tell, we can definitely do that one sometime. Talking about the Bardic culture, so obviously poetry is still incredibly strong, so not just in the formal sense of that there are formal poetry competitions, which are most visible, I suppose, in the Ice Stead Foddy.
But I'm reading a really interesting, exceptionally excellent book, which I recommend to all your readers, by Carwin Graves at the moment, for anybody who wants to understand these issues in a bit more. detail and his book is called Tier which means land but it's written in English and he describes all the different kinds of Welsh landscapes and also how they've been farmed and so he's doing a very difficult job.
of uniting the ecological aspects and being very honest about the state of ecological collapse that we're in. with the positive aspects of farming and how the two can be united and can work very well together. But one of the things I was just reading when you arrived this morning...
was about the poetry within the farming community. Just another military plane going over. Yeah, just another one. A huge sort of transporter going over. The growly presence of the modern world in this untouched valley. It probably has been touched, but it doesn't feel touched. It feels very wild. So yes, you're talking about that. So I think he said something like how poetry is one and the same time completely central. and also completely normal.
to the farming community. And to give an example, he was actually... Even today? Even today. And so he was talking to a farmer in Welsh about the frith pasture, I think. Frith, yes. Explain what frith... Ah, well, this is... I'm going to be talking, because it's a sort of... landscape on the upper but you explain what so free in this it's difficult thing to it's a habitat which has a whole range of habitats within it so i suppose in its simplest form it's the area between the moorlands the high
moorlands and then the farmed lower lands but carwin graves describes it much better than i do and it's a transitional it's kind of a transitional zone it's kind of like bracken rocks crags grub few trees here and there and it's been found to actually although it's kind of almost seen as a kind of neglected landscape but it is part of the farming heritage and it also is much more habitat rich
We've kind of taken it for granted, I think, but the RSPB have recently found that it harbours a lot more species. than even things like woodland, which is surprising. Yes, that's so interesting. We've got all this urge to plant trees, which is a good urge. It's a good urge, but not always appropriate. And so it's that right tree, right place kind of thing. But yeah, so carving graves.
was talking to a farmer about Freve and the farmer just suddenly gave an example of St Genève poetry. We just dropped it into the conversation and we don't really do that in English but it wasn't. No, no. It's really inherent still collapse as well. orange tip butterfly oh lovely just flitting through yeah just the time of year for them and i hate to miss a single one yeah that's lovely um my final question is yes i like
Now this may be a very Alan Partridge trite question, but there's this myth that the Inuit have hundreds of different words for snow. Wales does have many different words for mountain, crag and hill. Can we go through some of them? Because it's fun to...
Well, it's really serendipitous that you've just asked me this question, because again, in this wonderful book I've been reading by Calvin Graves, I was just arriving at the section where he talks about munnith, which is mountain. And I'd always wondered, and I think I've written about it in some of my Countryfile articles.
I mean, there's even that film, isn't there? The Englishman that went up a hill and came down a mountain. Because a lot of areas are called maneth, which we just loosely translate into the word mountain. And I'd always wondered... well obviously there's a definitely a different way of kind of like coming to that conclusion of calling it a money and calving graves thinks
they are areas where there is good visibility all around and you can maybe see an estuary and they're all kind of open landed areas so the height isn't necessarily the important thing in the word for mountain oh that's really really interesting isn't it down there yeah so then there's brin the brin means hill and it's the simplest term there's pen which is head pen is head or top top okay uh there is
Ah, there's another, I think it's more of a slope. I'm not sure now. I know it's kind of a hilly, slopey area. The worst, when you look at it, it looks more slopey. Yes, it does. I'm wondering if there's any kind of... If it means any type of habitat or whether it just refers to the gradient, I'm not sure. There is graig. Graig, yeah, so that means rock. Rock, okay.
Yeah. So you got off to see Penicraig. Penicraig, so top of the rock. Top of the rock. That's just great. And then you have Pennebrin, head of the hill. Pennebrin, head of the hill.
There's also, if we're talking, I've just been writing about wolves. I was saying that one of my main inspirations for using Welsh place names was a kind of consciousness and a reason to kind of promote the language and using place names as the... is the least we can do in order to kind of raise awareness of the Welsh language but the other reason which is often quoted and I've only just experienced really myself is because it's what you referred to earlier about
how the names actually reveal the story about the landscape types. And I've just been writing about wolves this weekend to follow up on a wolf sighting I made when walking in Italy recently. And it was suggested to me that I visit one of the many places in Wales which have wolves in the place name. And I looked further into this and found that there are more than 200 place names in Wales which reference wolves. What's Welsh for?
Wolf. So wolf is blithe. Blithe. Blathiad are wolves. Blathiad. So that's the plural, Blathiad. I just love the way the Welsh plurals work. It's gorgeous, isn't it? It's really lovely. But there are cumblathiad, there is... Cum is... Valley, yeah. Coy de Blavia, which is wolf wood. Wolf wood. That's pheasant. Foss-a-blithe, which is wolf ditch. Foss. It's like the Foss Way. Yeah. Well, it's Raymond. I'm just sort of
There seems to be a lot of overlap. There is a lot of overlap, there is. And I think even frid, which we know is to be a very, very particular Welsh term, apparently it came from Anglo-Saxon English kind of frisk. Right, OK. That's one possibility.
The rabbit god in Worship Down. Oh, is it? Yeah, but not Flee. It's spelt the same. Gosh, fantastic. So knowing the place names then... about wolves and realising how many places in Wales there were with wolf in the place name just completely animated the landscape for me it just repopulated the landscape with wolves which obviously haven't been here for centuries so that was a real kind of like graphic illustration to me of how
important it is to use local place names. And in that case, that means Welsh place names. Are there Welsh names for beaver in the landscape? Things like that. Avanc is Welsh for beaver. I don't know if there's any Avanc. There probably are. There's the Avanc of Flangos, the monster of... Of Plungus Lake. Yeah, that's right. That's a beaver, isn't it? And also there's... Ah, yeah, so... Yeah, Llinavank. Is it actually called Llinavank? I'm thinking...
Not far from here. So that's the story about a big Welsh water monster as well. But now it's the modern word for beaver. This is really fascinating. Well, look, there's another podcast. There is. We'll do one soon. Julie, we're back in your magical encampment. Well, it's not encampment. This is your home. This is a wonderful... embracing place and i'm really looking forward to spending as i see an arrow stuck into the yes that's one of the scouts
You've not seen ghosts, have you? Anyway, that's one for a special group of listeners. Just thank you so much for having me here and for that insight into... Welsh language, Welsh culture. And the wind, what's wind in Welsh? Gwynt. Gwynt. The Gwynt. Gwynt Mawr. Yeah, Gwynt Mawr. Ty'n holl o croeso. Diolch yn fawr i ti. So it's welcome. You're very welcome. Thank you very much. Diolch yn fawr. Yep.
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step whatever floats your boat there are nine parks across both counties and plenty more across the whole nation with pet friendly options too so there's something for everyone plus every park has flexible holiday home ownership options to suit different budgets and needs wayresorts.co.uk to find out more. So that was a fascinating chat and a lovely exploration of the secret valley where Julie lives.
I just found it wonderful to see people living unorthodox lives off-grid and being happy and successful at it. I've tried it. It didn't work for me so well, but that's another story, or perhaps a series of podcasts one day when I'm ready to talk about it. Anyway, that evening, I got to stay in the cabin by the stream, and it was one of the best, most restful sleeps I've ever had, being lulled by the ripples of the water outside. A bit chilly, but it was heaven.
Julie, I will be back whenever I need a little escape and a bit of contentment in the wild. You can find out more about Julie's love of Wales and its landscape and language in her brilliant book, The Edge of Cymru, published by Seren Books. It's terrific. And I mean, just a wonderful travel log as well as all this sort of lovely exploration of culture and language that we talked about. And don't forget, we'd love to receive your emails and social media posts.
about anything you've discovered on the podcast or in the great wild outdoors. You can find us on BBC Countryfire magazine's Instagram and Facebook pages. You can email me and the team at editor at countryfire.com. Talking about Countryfire magazine, you can get a free copy if you've never seen it. Head to try.countryfire.com forward slash podcast and you'll receive...
A free copy, you can download it and enjoy the lovely magazine. Another different way of exploring the countryside to the podcast, but just as good. That's it for this week. Hope you enjoyed the episode. We'll be back next week for another adventure in the great outdoors. This episode of the podcast was produced by Jack Bateman and Lewis Dobbs. The theme tune was written and performed by Blair Dunmore. Thanks for listening and goodbye for now.
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