#National Library of Wales

[lionofchaeronea]

King Arthur. Illustration by an unknown artist from a 15th century Welsh manuscript of Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae). Now in the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. Photo credit: National Library of Wales.

[vox-anglosphere]

The romantic ruins of Tintern Abbey have inspired poets & painters.

[queerwelsh]

Abertawe! Swansea! 🦢

Starting in one week - 3 sessions exploring LGBTQ+ clips, films, music and TV shows in the Welsh Broadcast Archive (National Library Wales) 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

100% free, with refreshments, you can come to 1, 2 or 3 of the sessions ☕️

In Elysium Gallery & Bar, Swansea, at 5:30pm on the 10th, 17th and 29th of October!

-

Yn dechrau mewn 1 wythnos - 3 sesiwn yn archwilio clipiau, ffilmiau, cerddoriaeth a rhaglenni teledu LHDCT+ o'r Archif Ddarlledu Cymru (Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru) 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

100% Am ddim, gyda the a choffi, ac mae croeso i chi dod i 1, 2 neu 3 o'r sesiynau ☕️

Yn Elysium, Abertawe, am 5:30yh ar y 10fed, 17eg a 29ain o Hydref

(Bydd y sesiynau'n ddwyieithog)

Dewch yn llu!

[expo63]

Signal boost.

Also signal boosting that these deep cuts and closures to heritage, the arts and wider public services are happening all over the UK right now. Just a few news stories on the many examples:

Birmingham council approves biggest budget cuts in local authority history

‘A national emergency’: UK theatres fear closure after more local funding cuts: Windsor and Maidenhead scraps cultural budget in wake of similar moves in Suffolk, Bristol, Nottingham and Birmingham

Nottingham budget cuts: Full list of services being cut as £53m axed from budget

Budget cuts mean city faces ‘cultural deprivation’

Councils warn of cuts to neighbourhood services

UK charities warn of ‘devastating’ council cuts to women’s services

Save local services: Council pressures explained

Arts and theatres face £60m council cuts

Inside Arts Council England’s devastating cuts

The Damage Caused by a Decade of Arts Funding Cuts

A decade of austerity: core funding reduced by 63 per cent

Special report: Funding cuts and weak economy send UK’s visual arts into crisis

Save the arts, resist the cuts: Equity Northern Ireland

Please help the National Museum Of Wales

Please sign the petition!!!!

[diemelusine]

Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, the Ladies of Llangollen (1819) by Susan Murray Tait. National Library of Wales.

[rayeshistoryhouse]

Alexander the Great entering Italy on his famed horse, Bucephalus

Flemish, c. 1450-1500

rayeshistory.com

[reimenaashelyee]

New Alexander Comic update!! 🐏

The Queen seeks advice from the Egyptian priest, and he's got some interesting ideas...

A webcomic about the life and legends of Alexander the Great. 👁‍🗨 About the comic 📕 Read from the beginning 🛍 Get the print or ebook edition of Book 1

Historical footnotes under the cut:

... Time flies when one isn't paying attention, doesn't it? (or rather, when one had a final semester of postgrad, two out-of-state weekend festivals and a flu to deal with)

I am just going to give up on consistent updates for the time being in favour of updating whenever I have something new. @_@ The next two months and a half are going to be another whirlwind of activity. Some of the relevant pieces of those two months:

I will be tabling at Emerald Hill Comics Festival in South Melbourne on September 15, 11 am to 4 pm. More info about the festival on Squishface Studios' instagram. As for me, I will be selling my usual wares: Seance Tea Party, My Aunt is a Monster, and Alexander Book 1.

I am currently working on completing the script of Book 2 in preparation for a 2 week long group residency (Comic Art Workshop). If you can believe it, I have been struggling through the script for this Book since late 2019, as the story for this Book is structurally challenging aka it's above my skill level. Things are slowly starting to look up though, which means I am more confident about proceeding with updates.

Footnotes:

The serpentine dalliances referenced are:

Peniarth MS 481 30r (National Library of Wales)

Andreas Boscoli, Olympias, Mother of Alexander, Visited by Zeus in the Guise of a Serpent (Art Institute of Chicago)

BNF Fr. 50 120v (Bibliothèque nationale de France)

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Would you mind talking about the vibes in Aberystwyth? Like the university and the town and all that jazz?

Vibes: immaculate

I'm out of date on the uni now - this September marks twenty years since I first went, so there will be differences by now. But I did find it a very good uni in terms of student life and facilities, both academic and otherwise. Many good clubs and societies, a lively SU, etc

HOWEVER the town is fantastic. It's a bit of an odd one, in that the character changes dramatically between term-time and holidays - students make up something like two thirds of the population, so it's much quieter and much Welsher once they've all gone home. But even with the students, it's something like 13,000 people? Small - you can walk across it in half an hour, like. Which means it's big enough to have all the shops you need and a truly astonishing number of pubs, but small enough to still retain its Victorian seaside resort charm

Oh yeah, okay, it has:

TWO BEACHES! One is grit sand/shingle, the other is powder sand

A pier with MANY STARLING MURMURATIONS

The remains of a CASTLE

The National Library of Wales (respectful silence)

An IRON AGE HILLFORT which you can walk to

A Victorian funicular that still works which is a CLIFF RAILWAY

A CAMERA OBSCURA on said cliff and also frisbee golf. Why they thought frisbees and windy clifftops were a perfect pairing I do not know

DELIGHTFUL WOODS

There's technically TWO Cinemas but one is the Arts Centre (so shows a mix of blockbuster releases and art house things with intermittent reliability) and the other is a one-screen wonder that can only show films for about two weeks at a time, it's great

WALES COASTAL PATH ACCESS did you know you can walk the entire coast of Wales?

A STEAM TRAIN (sit on the left of the way out, the right on the way back)

Limited chain stores! Most shops in town are local-owned, and usually Welsh speaking

Also a bit of a hippy vibe, albeit not as much as Machynlleth up the road

Over fifty pubs and clubs. This is an unfeasible number for the population size

[aithusarosekiller]

Apparently it's meant to be common knowledge in my family that there is a bust of my great great grandfather in the national library of wales???

In nearly 18 years of life I have not been told this

[thunderstruck9]

Claudia Williams (British, 1933-2024), Self Portrait with Gwilym, c.1968. Acrylic on board, 61.5 x 41 cm. Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru / The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth

[lionofchaeronea]

Still Life of Fruit in a Basket, a Pineapple Alongside and Wine Bottle and Glass Behind, George Frederick Harris, 1901

[invisibleicewands]

‘Theatre changed my life,’ says Michael Sheen. ‘Now my passion is for helping others’

Theatre can change lives. And I should know. It’s changed my life more than I’d ever have imagined. Back in 2011, a play called The Passion took over the streets of my hometown of Port Talbot. And I haven’t been the same since.

Perhaps the perception of actors before a play is that we’ll learn a few lines, try on a few costumes... break a leg. But with The Passion, I went all in like never before.

I also met the people doing vital work in the community I grew up in, helping vulnerable people who need it the most, often at make-or-break moments. Being at this coalface of community opened my eyes.

This patchwork of people holding society together with the thinnest of threads, going over and above each and every day to help people in almost every aspect of their lives.

I saw then – and I continue to see – kind-hearted, warm, tolerant people helping out their fellow humans to bring communities together. These are the people who make our nation what it is.

The good deeds that these people did – from giving young carers a night off to go bowling, to setting up the only grief counselling service in the area – generally worked under fragile funding and often were under-appreciated by the wider community.

I knew then that I had to devote as much time and energy as I could to helping, however I could.

In the decade and a half since The Passion, I’ve started projects around homelessness, high-cost credit, care, and local journalism. And for the past 18 months, these have come under the banner of a movement known as Mab Gwalia.

Mab Gwalia believes that opportunity should not only be available to those who can afford it. The ambition is to build a movement that makes change.

We support people and projects which work in three ways: projects creating opportunity and fighting for fairness; projects rooted in communities, helping people directly; and projects that work in new and ambitious ways to deliver change.

My work on The Passion made me realise there’s so many people out there doing this. And Mab Gwalia has supported as many of them as we can.

This has included: Army veterans in Merthyr Tydfil. Autism support for children in Rhondda Cynon Taf. Food growing in Pembrokeshire. Opportunities for women in Swansea who’ve suffered knock-back after knock-back. Community skills hubs in Rhyl.

Theatre changed my life. Now I want the spark it set off in me to do the same for others.

My ancestor, Nanny Blower, the lion tamer

My great-great grandmother was called Mary Ann-North. Or Nanny Blower, as we know her.

She left Wales for New York in 1896 where she became, wait for it, an elephant and lion tamer for the Bostock and Wombwell Circus. Fast forward to today and young people in the Upper Neath Valleys don’t have to run away to join the circus. Organised Kaos comes to them.

Kaos stands for “keeping adolescents off the streets” and that’s what they do. I first met them on The Passion (riding BMXs through fire – them, not me) and now Mab Gwalia has helped fund their work.

Manics band drum up £15,000 for drama study

“Libraries gave us power” – the opening lyrics to Wales’ second national anthem, A Design For Life.

The Manic Street Preachers wrote a version of the song for The Passion, performing it at The Last Supper in the Seaside Social & Labour Club… before being arrested and hauled off stage for the show’s added drama.

The band is working with Mab Gwalia to fund a drama scholarship, providing financial support to students who need it. Since 2021, 11 students have received up to £15,000 each academic year.

We’ve just committed to another three years. The students tell us it gives them a chance to believe. The arts should be for everyone.

Mothers Matter, like my mum and partner Anna

My mum’s going through a tough time as my dad is living with Alzheimer’s. It’s a lot to take. I’m thankful every day for how my partner Anna is with our daughters.

It’s an understatement, but mothers matter. That’s the name of an organisation Mab Gwalia has supported. Mothers Matter helps mums suffering from loneliness and isolation through support, counselling, wellbeing hubs and workshops. Mothers in South Wales don’t have to do it alone.

We give a voice to working class writers

A summer reading recommendation: Only Here, Only Now by Tom Newlands. It’s Cora’s story – a teenage girl with ADHD finding her way through life in the early 90s in post-industrial Scotland. She’ll change the way you think about neurodivergence. It’s an unforgettable debut novel.

Tom was part of A Writing Chance, a project I developed alongside the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, New Writing North and Northumbria University. The Office for National Statistics says nearly half all authors are from the most privileged backgrounds.

So we’re trying to redress that balance. To turn up voices not always heard. Tom was one of the first group – 11 writers who received bursaries and mentoring with industry leaders including regular writer of this column, Ros Wynne-Jones.

You can hear their stories in the BBC Sounds podcast Margins to Mainstream with Michael Sheen. Now, 16 more writers are on board. Think of the stories to come.

My debut at the ‘brilliant Welsh party’

With origins dating from 1176, the National Eisteddfod is Europe’s largest cultural festival. A celebration of Welsh language culture with performances and competitions in everything from composition to cynghanedd (a type of Welsh poetry). And, last weekend, in Pontypridd, I made my debut on the maes (site or field).

My four-year-old daughter now refers to it as “that brilliant Welsh party” which neatly describes the atmosphere. On stage, the actress Sian Phillips said the sounds of words in Welsh “echoed with the language”.

I felt those echoes all day. Spoken in the park by families. Performed by young actors. Sung with emotion by choirs. It was a beautiful thing.

Homeless World Cup a beautiful game

Next month, the Homeless World Cup takes place in Seoul, South Korea. Bringing the tournament to Cardiff in 2019, seeing 500 players with experience of homelessness represent their nation on the football field, was something I’ll never forget.

If you can’t wait until then, watch The Beautiful Game on Netflix. Keep an eye on Callum Scott Howells, a brilliant young Welsh actor who I directed in BBC drama The Way (available on iPlayer).

Nye NHS vision seen on world stage

I’ve spent much of this year playing the man who had the vision and valour to create the National Health Service. Nye was theatre at its most far-reaching.

There were sold-out runs in the National Theatre in London, the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff. And cinema screenings were viewed by people all over the world.

On the night we filmed the NT Live screening, NHS workers from around the country were invited to be in the audience. They knew that at that moment, a global audience was learning about our welfare state and the man who was behind it.

My dad came along one night. He was just a little kid when Bevan’s idea became reality. Soon there’ll be very few left who can remember what life was like before the NHS.

Let’s hope it stays that way. Can the new government come up with a progressive policy that inspires a story which packs them in 75 years on? We can but dream.

[queerwelsh]

I'm co-hosting these LGBTQ+ sessions with the Welsh Broadcast Archive (of the National Library of Wales) in Carmarthen, sharing LGBTQ+ TV shows, films, documentaries, clips and more from their archives!

On Tuesday the 20th of August, we will be focusing on trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming representation.

On the 27th of August, we will be focusing on Pride, ahead of Carmarthen Pride on the 31st of August.

There will be Welsh, English, bilingual and multilingual content.

These sessions are completely free, there will be tea, coffee and snacks - just come along!

[justforbooks]

Richard Woodman

Writer who drew on his own experience at sea in a series of novels and historical works about the British merchant navy

“The end was anticlimax. We slipped home unnoticed. Britain turned no hair at our arrival, as just as she has turned no hair at our extinction.” When Richard Woodman published Voyage East in 1988, he knew that the mercantile world depicted within it, which he had joined aged 16, was gone.

The first-person novel – which never reads like fiction – describes the voyage of a cargo liner carrying goods and passengers from Liverpool to Singapore, Hong Kong, Kobe and Shanghai in the mid-1960s. There is a moment, off the coast of Borneo, when the captain sees a vessel with half a dozen grey aluminium boxes on her foredeck: “What the devil are they?” he asks the pilot. “‘They’re containers, Captain,’ the Pilot replied, and no one on the bridge heard the sentence of death pronounced upon us.”

Woodman, who has died aged 80, became the memorialist of the merchant fleets. Between 2008 and 2016 he wrote the history of the British merchant navy in five volumes, followed by A Low Set of Blackguards, a two-volume history (2016-17) of the East India Company.

His outstanding contribution came through his three second world war convoy histories: Arctic Convoys (1994), Malta Convoys (2000) and The Real Cruel Sea (2005). These are works of passion, based on experience and scrupulous research.

The loss of life among merchant seamen was proportionately greater than in any of the armed services and the recognition they received far less. From the beginning of the war a seafarer’s pay was stopped the minute his ship was sunk. “Time spent fighting for his life on a float or lifeboat was an unpaid excursion,” wrote Woodman.

While Winston Churchill acknowledged the crucial importance of the Battle of the Atlantic to national survival, it was not until 2012 that those who had served in the Arctic convoys, and had taken the highest casualties of all, were retrospectively honoured.

Born in north London, Richard was the elder son of Rosalie (nee Cann) and Douglas Woodman, a civil service administrator. Though he was far from the sea, his imagination was captured by the works of Arthur Ransome, Daniel Defoe, RM Ballantyne and Alan Villiers, and his enthusiasm nurtured by Sea Scout membership.

He was the youngest member of the Sea Scout crew that sailed the ex-German yawl Nordwind in the 1960 Tall Ships race and, despite failing all but two of his O-levels, he was accepted as an indentured apprentice with the Alfred Holt (Blue Funnel) line in 1960.

His first long trip to Australia came as a midshipman on the SS Glenarty, returning via the US: “I had been round the world before I would have been allowed inside a British pub.” Life on board ship took place in an uncompromising, all-male environment: the almost compulsory swearing, drinking and sexist banter encouraged the development of “a carapace behind which we hid our private selves”.

Woodman responded eagerly to the hands-on education in seamanship and navigation, developed his writing and sketching through the log-keeping and read his way through the excellent ships’ libraries provided by the Marine Society. He completed his four-year apprenticeship and gained his second mate’s certificate. He was, however, in love and hated saying goodbye to his girlfriend, Christine Hite, an art student, for many months at a time.

He left Blue Funnel in the mid-1960s and went to work for the Ocean Weather Service, where he discovered how vicious the North Atlantic winter weather systems could be – and how pitilessly an ex-second world war corvette would roll. Fortunately it was not long before a temporary position became available with Trinity House, the corporation charged with the maintenance of navigation marks around England, Wales and the Channel Islands.

The position became permanent; he and Christine married in 1969 and settled in Harwich, Essex, near the Trinity House east coast depot, and he served the corporation for most of the rest of his life.

The work at sea was varied, challenging, sometimes dangerous. Precise navigation, seamanship and attention to detail were essential qualities, but Woodman also found time to write. His first novel, The Eye of the Fleet, was published in 1981. This introduced a series of 14 adventures featuring the young Nathaniel Drinkwater, a hero somewhat in the Horatio Hornblower mode but bearing the unmistakable stamp of a writer who was also a sailor.

Despite his professional career being in motorised vessels, Woodman loved traditional gaff-rigged yachts, particularly his own Kestrel and then Andromeda, in which he and Christine explored the east coast rivers and beyond. The action of his nautical novels often turns on neat, seamanlike manoeuvres as well as including varied and closely observed seascapes.

His productivity was astonishing. He often wrote two or three novels a year and soon added non-fiction to his output. When he became captain of Trinity House Vessel Patricia, he achieved this by having two desks, one from which he could conduct official business, the other hidden behind a door, with a page from the work in progress always ready in the typewriter.

Meanwhile, in his job he was extremely focused, conscientious and painstaking. Although some remember him as being of the “old school”, Jill Kernick, the first woman in almost 500 years to work at sea for Trinity House, credits him with helping her break through traditional barriers in the early 80s.

In 1997 Woodman retired to write full time, but was soon elected a Younger Brother of Trinity House, and then an Elder Brother, the first time a former employee was accorded this honour. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2003 but there was no let-up in his work rate. His last completed novel, A River in Borneo (2022), harks back to 60s Indonesia but sets its final scene in a Colchester hospice.

He is survived by Christine and their children, Abigail and Edward, and grandson, Arlo.

🔔 Richard Martin Woodman, master mariner and author, born 10 March 1944; died 2 October 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[queenie-says-free-palestine]

helpful links to support palestine - this could save lives.

decolonize palestine - extremely helpful website which helps debunk myths, answers faqs, and provides other helpful resources

middle east eye - provides news about palestine, especially concerning the conflict

human rights watch - provides reports about the human rights situation in palestine/israel

palestine remembered - preserves the memory of what palestine was like before the nakba

bbc the key questions - link to an article addressing key questions abt the conflict

palestine is - website w a resource library and learning modules to correct misrepresentation of the conflict

history.com - link to an article detailing the nakba

al-shabaka - somewhat of a think tank dedicated to palestine

electronic intifada - online chicago-based news publication providing a palestinian perspective on the conflict

adalah justice project - an israeli organization trying to protect the human rights of palestinians living under occupation

imeu fundraiser - shares stories of the palestinian struggle for freedom

medical aid for palestinians - british charity that advocates for palestinians' rights to health and dignity (donate here)

palestine children’s relief fund - an organization that locates free medical care in the united states and europe for children in the middle east (esp palestinians) who dont have access to good healthcare

addameer - non government organization that helps support palestinians who are imprisoned in israel, provides free legal aid to political prisoners, advocates their rights, and works to "end torture and other violations of prisoners' rights through monitoring, legal procedures and solidarity campaigns"

muslim aid - uk based islamic non government organisation that works to support people suffering through poverty, war, or natural disasters using emergency relief and sustainable programmes. prominently offer their help in the palestinian territories

palestine red crescent - humanitarian organization that provide hospitals, emergency medicine and ambulance services, and primary health care centers in the west bank and gaza strip

gaza mutual aid collective - fundraising group for gaza (their patreon to donate is here)

united nations relief and works agency for palestine refugees in the near east - un agency that supports the relief and human development of palestinian refugees (the only un agency that helps a specific nationality of refugees)

palestine solidarity campaign - activist organization in england and wales that arranges protests and boycotts israeli goods

help with a click - all you have to do is go to the link and click. its completely free, but every click helps deliver support to palestinian families

[llyfrenfys]

Followers- Dw i angen eich help / I need your help

This is a post I've been sitting on for a while and it's time I finally write it to let you all know how I am, where I'm at and the progress of Prosiect Llyfr Enfys.

So, as I alluded to in previous posts, I had a health scare at the end of May which landed me in the hospital. I've spent June recovering from that and dealing with a few life changes as well (which I will talk about later).

Unfortunately, me and my partner had to deal with an unexpected bill of £200 this month which had to come directly out of my savings and is a huge chunk of it.

I've been doing research in preparation for hopefully doing a Masters at Aberystwyth in September on the topic of LGBTQ+ Welsh terminology before the 20th Century. My undergraduate dissertation was on the topic of 20th-21st Century LGBTQ+ Welsh terminology (which is currently unmarked due to the marking boycott). Hopefully after graduation I can share it with you. But my research into older terminology means needing to travel to different archives and libraries in Wales, which at the minute, I just can't afford. The closest place would be Bangor, but I have no money to spare at the minute and Prosiect Llyfr Enfys is not funded by any scheme or grant- it's currently all funded by myself.

For the first time in my life, I've been considering using a food bank. We're not quite at that stage yet, but it's precarious. It's another unexpected bill away from a critical situation.

Currently, my monthly expenses for anything related to the dictionary totals around £40 (subscriptions to archives, libraries, genealogy research tools) which have been instrumental in my work. For example, I couldn't have written my articles for Hanes LHDT+ Cymru without access to ancestry sites or online newspaper archives. This does not include other expenses such as bus tickets to get to the National Library of Wales when I need to, or costs of purchasing dictionaries in order to source them in my work.

All of this is to say that i need your help:

I have a patreon which I will be posting in next in July- if you enjoy Prosiect Llyfr Enfys and want to help keep it going, please consider subscribing today by clicking the link above or in my bio. The lowest tier is affordable and if you have the cash to spare, will enable me to keep on working on the project. If you want to make a one-time donation, I'm considering enabling tips on tumblr for those who would prefer that.

If enough people are able to subscribe to keep the project going, I can start to make some concrete plans for a trip to Bangor and share my journey with you all and involve you in the trip. If I'm unable to raise enough funds, I will have to make the decision to pause the project until after my Master's. I do not currently have a publisher, which is also a big factor in that decision, if I need to make it.

All your support is greatly appreciated- if you cannot donate, please share this post.

As ever, huge huge diolch yn fawr to everyone who has supported the project so far- with your help, we can get this dictionary published to help benefit the whole Welsh LGBTQ+ community and beyond.