UK - HEREFORDSHIRE

2016  JUNE

HEREFORD and THE WELSH MARCHES

The Saxon and Viking newcomers in Mercia fought the Celts in Wales for possession of land as they pushed further west and the town of Hereford was captured and destroyed by one group or the other several times between about 600 and 900 AD.

Later, after the Norman invasion the Welsh continued to resist occupation of their land and to raid Norman controlled areas.    So the latter built a chain of many castles from Chester in the North to Gloucester in the South, including one at Hereford where they also built a Cathedral.   The area between the Castles and the hills to the west became known as the Welsh Marches.

Fighting continued for many years even after King Edward 1 had won a war against the Welsh Prince Llewellyn and declared his son to be the new Prince of Wales.     That wasn't enough to secure a permanent peace and 200 years later another welshman named Owain Glyndwr declared he was the true Prince of Wales and captured many of the castles.      He was finally defeated by the Norman Earl of Northumberland and his son Hotspur.

Hereford was also an important city in the later Wars of the Roses and the English Civil War so it has a very long history apparent in many of the old buildings and streets in the city centre today.

Once the fighting declined people in and around Hereford were able to spend more time on peaceful pursuits such as farming and cattle breeding.

By 1800 AD this had resulted in a type of cattle known as "Herefords" being especially prized for their hardiness and the high quality of their meat. They became very well known and popular in other countries too and are now farmed in over 50 different countries with more than 5 million of them in existence.

HAY ON WYE

My route to Hereford from Rhandir Mwyn by-passed a town called Hay on Wye.    I remembered the town is well known for having very many bookshops and when I referred to Google after arriving at the new campsite I found the annual Hay Festival was being held from 26 May to 5 June.

So the next day I visited the Festival and arranged to attend some of the events for all the days still left.    So I haven't done any cycling yet - but I have had to do quite a lot of walking - from the car parks to the Festival Grounds and from one event to another.

The Festival takes place in a number of very large cuboid marquees inside which there are banks and banks of seats in tiers accommodating up to perhaps 600 people. The size does vary with some being limited to perhaps 100 people but there must be thousands attending the Festival each day.

There is a programme of events, mostly related to books of one sort or another but also including some stage and other performances - for example yesterday a group from the Welsh Male Voice Choir gathered in the public area outside a refreshment stall and entertained passers by with some wonderful singing.

Many events take place simultaneously and its impossible to attend them all. Some are free but most require an entrance fee - some are talks by a single speaker and others are interviews of a well-known person, usually an author, by a well-known journalist followed by the speaker going to the Festival bookshop and signing copies of his or her latest book.

It is impossible to attend them all and I had to miss two I would have liked to hear - one by Martin Brown who is the illustrator of the "Horrible Histories" books (no spare seats) - and the other by Lucy Hawking who presented her latest story entitled "George and the Blue Moon".

Jane and Katie will remember Lucy is the daughter of Stephen Hawking and the time I read to them the first story in the series about George's father who disappeared into a Black Hole but was eventually reconstituted as a result of the Hole's "Hawking Radiation" - as postulated in a much more scientific paper by Stephen.

The timing to attend that just didn't work out because it started too close to the end of another event.    But, remembering the reading in Melbourne I did go to the bookshop afterwards.    Lucy said I looked a little older than the average age of her readers but happily signed a copy of her new book when I asked her to inscribe it "To Jane and Katie" - I'll send it to OZ after getting back home.

Other events I attended on Thursday and Friday were:

"Richard Shirrif talks to Nik Gowing" - Richard Shirrif was a soldier who commanded a tank corps in the Desert War and rose to become a General in the British Army later appointed as "Deputy Supreme Allied Commander" of NATO in Europe. He disagreed with David Cameron's Defence Policy, was threatened with a Court Martial for making that disagreement public, and then resigned.

Essentially his argument is based on his view that since Russia has already occupied Georgia and Crimea, is likely soon to occupy parts of Ukraine and has ambitions to occupy the small Baltic states on its borders who are members of NATO.      He argues member countries of NATO would not be willing to use Nuclear weapons to stop such an occupation and that NATO's conventional forces in the region are too weak to be an effective deterrent.

In retirement he has written a novel about these concerns entitled "2017 - War with Russia". By adopting this form he has been able to publicise his views whilst avoiding prosecution under the Official Secrets Act.      I look forward to reading the copy of his book he signed for me after a brief conversation.      

(2017 Note written at end February and after reading the novel  - Clearly the moves described by Shirrif were planned before his resignation as the military deployments described in the novel have since been made by Russia installing Nuclear Weapons in Kaliningrad and the West posting conventional forces to Poland and the Baltic States.        Lets hope the confrontation and war described in the novel are avoided in real life.)    

"The World at One" - is a daily current affairs programme broadcast by the BBC being produced at Hay for the duration of the festival. I was in the audience yesterday and found the experience interesting - watching the presenter - "Martha Kearney" - sat at her desk with a microphone nearby and another in front of a guest's chair. Production assistants ran to-and-fro throughout the proceedings bringing in papers they placed on her desk or whispering in her ear.

The broadcast began as the time-pips ended when Martha read from a paper script the normal introductory remarks and was then silent as some-one else in some other studio (probably in London) read the News and then started anew from another script when he had finished.

That pattern was repeated several times as she said a few words and other journalists in other places made reports - eg one was from Paris about the flooding of the River Seine - or as she played recordings with others made before the programme began.

We could hear the entire programme as it was broadcast and had we not been there would have thought it was all taking place in one studio - meticulous timing was required.

Then there was a ten-minute interview with Tom Fletcher who was UK Ambassador to Lebanon between 2011 and 2015.  He commented on many aspects of the situation with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and all the rest.

"How English became English" - Simon Horobin (Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford) - This was a less satisfactory session from my point of view, partly because the marquee was almost full when I was able to get there so I was sat right at the back and high up near the roof - it was hot and stuffy - and partly because the sound system was not so good as in other sessions and he spoke rather softly.

But he made some interesting points - such as the Oxford English Dictionariy's "Word of the Year" for 2015 was a smiley face! This illustrated his observations about the dynamic nature of language and how successive generations usually try unsuccessfully to establish an "Authoritative Grammar and Vocabulary" in an attempt to "fix for ever" the "proper" way of expressing themselves.

His own view was that language should be used in a way that accurately conveyed meaning without ambiguity and a lot of freedom should be allowed as long as speech or the written word satisfied that criterion.

Again, I was pleased to have a few words as the professor signed my copy of his book.

A Reflection - one of my reflections was how youthful the General, the Diplomat and the Professor looked. None of them could have been a lot more than half my own age - perhaps I am getting old even though I don't feel like that!

It is now just after 1:00 pm Saturday and I must soon leave to attend the event I have chosen today -

"Kissinger: The Idealist, 1923-1968" - Niall Ferguson, Professor of History at Harvard. I shall be interested to see Fergusson in person because I have enjoyed a couple of his books and am also quite interested in Kissinger who played such a central part in Cold War negotiations. But I glanced at the book in the bookshop and don't think I'll bother with getting a signed copy - it costs £35 and is so dense I fear it would just gather dust on a shelf if I did.

Tomorrow I have booked to attend: The Europe Debate - Nik Gowing, Simon Schama, Gillian Tett and Guests. It will be interesting to hear how these people regard the forthcoming Referendum that has been heating up in recent days as Lies, Counter Lies and Personality Attacks have been given more prominence than facts and sound reasoning in this historically important vote that might see the end of 1,000 years of English History as an independent nation.      (2017 Note - The debate was uninformative and uninteresting being merely a regurgitation of the assertions made by the unsuccessful Leave Campaign with Simon Schama talking down to the audience in a very arrogant and patronising way).

A FEW CYCLE RIDES

Most of my time near Hereford was spent at the Hay festival but I did get in some riding after it ended.

The campsite office at Tarrington had a useful little folio describing local routes and I tried several of those which were mostly along little used backroads and through very rural but somewhat hilly countryside.