Insufficiently Welsh

by Griff Rhys Jones

  Perhaps it was just my family. I had used Jan Morris as my guide to Welsh obsessions. I had been ticking them off. She mentioned Welsh dogs, and extreme Welsh weather, Welsh doctors (and my family were mainly doctors or, at least, aspiring doctors) education (that’s how they became doctors), mining, rugby, even Welsh nude-bathing, but she left out a Welsh obsession with furniture. In my family, you never inherited money, you inherited huge immovable lumps of oak.

  “Ah, that’s the court cupboard from your Nain’s side,” I was told about the yellow oak chest-on-chest with the diamond bone escutcheons. It stood in the corner of the living room. I have it now. (It’s handsome but no more a “court cupboard” than my Habitat coffee table.)

  I cherish my uncle’s “Prince of Wales” cupboard too. “He will want you to have that,” my Aunty Megan said to me confidentially, some 30 years ago, with a slight touch of envy in her voice. It was one of the family’s group-owned possessions. But I was the one with the family’s group-owned pretentions. It would need a “good home”. It’s in my hallway and it is glass-fronted and surmounted by “feathers”; though I doubt that they have anything to do with the Prince of Wales. They are just carved feathers.

  They do come from way back, though, like “the coffer”. This is a sturdy, black, immensely heavy, five-foot high trunk, with ogee-arched panelling, and a top section that is split and hinged into doors. It was where the gin-and-tonic glasses were stashed in my childhood. It was passed on to me only a short while ago, via my sister, and now sits in my brother’s garage, waiting for me to find the space to accommodate its massive bulk.

  The black oak dresser with the dodgy plate rack (“It’s not authentic. It was cobbled up from another piece”), the long-case clock and the chairs (“That came from Nain”) are all part of the Jones’ estate. But I know that most of them originated up north here somewhere, because that’s where Nain and Taid (grandmother and father) hailed from.

  It wasn’t just my family though. Throughout Welsh history, furniture – especially the dresser – was a significant investment, often forming part of a dowry. The National Museum of Wales sums up its importance: “A Welsh dresser is like a personal museum, a place to display old and new, side by side. Things are added and changed, others stay the same through the generations. Each dresser tells the story of its owners.”

  Hm. A never-ending story, too. But clearly there was nothing of the kind in Llandudno. I would have to go further into the backwoods in search of furniture-fixated farming folk.

  – BIKER KILLJOY –

  Up by the icy-blue lido, to the east of Llandudno, I hitched a lift aboard a passing motorcycle and we roared off up the valley in search of wood.

  It was great. This is well-known biker country. I was aware of that because of the many little yellow signs on the roadside that warned me to be aware. “Think bike,” they said – not really a happy congruence. It’s visceral not cerebral. You can see the point. Empty roads swoop like a switchback. I had joined a convoy of Triumphs. We set off to the fairground.

  When you ride pillion, don’t lean counter to the centrifugal force, otherwise your gravitational weight will press the bike further over in the bends. Don’t put your hand on your partner’s bum, either. This much I knew. I hung on wherever I could, leaned into the surges, and we roared off. Pillion is an intimate seating arrangement, but I find it mentally upsetting. I don’t like the notion that you really must hold on tight to prevent yourself flying away to your death. Half of me wonders what would happen if I didn’t. Or couldn’t.

  I did though. It’s a self-preservation thing. They dropped me off without incident in the depths of old Denbighshire. It was an enjoyable ride. I was grateful.

  But that night, walking into the hills, I stood in a glorious late afternoon sun, with the silhouetted humpback of the great tomb of Snowdon fading into blue in the west and at that moment another (unconnected) motorcycle took a road far up the valley to the south. It roared down alongside the river heading for the coast. It was miles away, but we were completely aware of it. Its whining engine reached a painful, jarring, tooth-numbing crescendo, totally audible to the entire region, before coming to another bend, changing down and starting all over again.

  On and on it went. Fading a little as it took a dip and then re-emerging with aching clarity. I had to stand, wait and listen while it reduced the valley and destroyed my evening. We wanted to record a lovely, soothing erudite and mawkish piece to camera. So, yes, I was self-interested and, yes, I was partial. But I stood waiting with the cameraman while this monstrous machine rented the evening air for ten minutes. I thought bike. I was aware of bike. And yes, I hated the bloody thing.

  – OAK TREE –

  Simon’s house was filled with wooden objects. I noticed the heavy oak dining table and the curve-backed wooden chairs. There were wooden sculptures in the garden, wooden bowls on the mantelpieces, wooden kitchen cupboards and wooden benches against the wall. He probably ate with wooden spoons and drove a wooden car.

  Simon has eight children, all of whom, boy or girl, have been taught wood-craft and entered competitions with him. Simon himself organised a yearly festival of wood skills called “Woodfest”, including felling, lopping, chopping and carving as well as standard carpentry. He ran a business making green oak buildings. In fact, when we had finished he gave me a pintle as a present.

  It’s an oak nail; made to be knocked into a hole, to hold a joint between beams. Slightly tapered and about eight inches long, it had been cut to shape by hand and it had a satisfying heft. It was an object that everybody would have once taken for granted. Carpentry is becoming a specialised and rare skill. I felt absurdly privileged to be given a whittled stick.

  Simon and I were off to look at an asset standing in a field. It was an oak tree. There are 43,000 hectares of oak tree in Wales and 223,000 in Great Britain, accounting for nearly 10 percent of all trees in the country. The English may have hearts of oak like their ships, but we Welsh go one better. We have balls of oak. We have holy trees, magic trees and haunted trees. The word “druid” means “man of the oak”. Some claim it derives from the Greek word drus (oak). And Wales has a lot of wild and dramatic woods clothing its upland regions.

  Looking about in Conwy, one can easily imagine the great wild wood that it is said once covered the whole of Britain. In the prehistoric period this was got out of the way. It has been estimated that most of this was done by the end of the Iron Age, before the birth of Christ, in the first few thousand years of human occupation after the ice age. What is not clear is how they did it. People once assumed that they used fire. But anybody familiar with oak knows that it does not burn easily, hence its use in buildings.

  After that, woods, spinneys, copses, closes and thickets thrived on “difficult” ground. Our ancestors needed wood for their fuel and their buildings and they harvested, guarded and cultivated their woodland, particularly in steep, boggy or infertile areas – like Welsh valley hillsides.

  This is difficult for a conservationist to say, but almost any building might be reproduced or rebuilt in the space of 12 months, whilst a great oak tree spends 200 years growing, 200 years in its prime and 200 years dying. Ancient trees are the most irreplaceable of objects in our landscape.

  And yet, before we get overly romantic about them and start talking of sustainability and green issues, we should also remember that they also serve themselves. Trees reproduce like buggery. There are more of them now than there were in Roman times. Today 12 percent of the country’s landmass is covered with forests, accounting for 3,000,000 hectares, 300,000 of which are in Wales.

  Oak is the stuff that made the furniture that was part of the Welsh farmhouse. I needed to get closer to that and that was where Simon was taking me. But not too close.

  – WOOD CHOPPER –

  Simon opened a gate and led me into a field of cows. I am nervous around cattle, having read lurid accounts
of moo-cows losing it on public footpaths, but Simon pushed on, a chainsaw and various bottles of oil in his hands. I followed cautiously. He had given me a couple of steel wedges and a sledgehammer.

  “Don’t mind this lot,” he said, almost barging the cattle out of the way. “They get anxious if you separate them from the calves, but there aren’t any calves here.”

  The cows, however, were distinctly curious. I hurried nervously after him and they followed, towards the centre of the pasture where a skeletal giant stood grey and gaunt against a blue late summer sky. This oak was clearly dead. Not a leaf on it. We frequently see oaks and especially freestanding oaks with a little die-back in their crowns. This is not a new, imported Euro-disease. Shakespeare talks of “stag-headed oaks”. But it might mean that the tree is ailing. A mature oak drinks 50 gallons of water a day.

  Simon laid down his saw and started inspecting his quarry. He needed to get it to fall where he wanted, and this was a massive trunk with a splayed head of twisted open branches.

  Large oak trees are common in this region of Wales, and one of the largest oak trees in the United Kingdom was to be found in Chirk, near Wrexham. It dated back 1,200 years but was toppled in April 2013 by 60-mile-an-hour winds.

  Simon pointed to a tussock amongst many tussocks. “The top will come down here,” he said decisively, and walked away. These were the complicated logistics of his job. And he had to deal with these inquisitive cows too. I felt for them. I thought cows were sedentary, ruminant, indifferent: the embodiment of calm placidity. This lot shouldered each other aside to get closer to the action. Some began sniffing at the discarded diesel can. Others inspected the sledgehammer.

  “They’ll all get out of the way once I start up the saw,” Simon said confidently.

  All around us, rich fields were baking in the sun. Expensive fields too. Some were fetching 12,000 pounds an acre. These valleys had always been a wealthy farming area. Funnily enough it was not an area of great rainfall, lying as it did in the shadow of the great ranges of Snowdonia. In fact, Colwyn Bay regularly holds the title for the hottest place in Wales due to the warm winds that develop over Snowdon. But the region still supports mixed farming. As a result there are bushy hedges and verdant woods, crops of maize corn and wheat and, of course, cows.

  Simon started his chainsaw – his precision tool. The cows jumped a bit, but they certainly didn’t run away. After an initial mild lowing, and an orchestrated shuffle, they regrouped quickly.

  Simon was indeed a tree-surgeon. I was expecting a steady, contemplative, approach. After all, the camera was running. Surely he would cut a bit, stand, scratch his head and contemplate, but he moved quickly, like a man in a hurry.

  With several quick swings, he sliced off “the buttresses”. These are the rounded corners at the base of the trunk where it splays off to meet the big roots. The chainsaw sliced like a scalpel. One cut in, like a cheese, one cut down, and parabolic sections fell away. He quickly showed me how the rotten soft wood of the external surface was only a few inches deep. This was a good sign. It meant that the heart-wood was solid. And then he was off again.

  Several heifers began a detailed and concentrated examination of the discarded wood. Meanwhile Simon was busying himself around the back of the tree, on the up-side, away from the fall path, cutting out a wedge, which was similarly discarded. This was followed by a single deep cut into the middle of the gouged bit. I was invited to step forward and make my contribution. The two steel wedges were already rammed into the cut.

  “Go on, then.”

  I knocked them home with the sledgehammer.

  “I think that will probably be enough,” Simon said. “Sometimes I need to do more, but we have set up the tension. That should do the work for us.”

  He now worked out of my vision at the front. I was tempted to step forward but too close an inspection on that side might be a little foolhardy. This was his magic bit. Only the sound of the saw kept the cows at a respectful distance. After a few deft strokes he was back and now ready for the final blow.

  “OK?” he said.

  I nodded. I was fine.

  He leaned in, sawed for a few seconds and stood back. There was no creak. There was no shudder. The great trunk simply toppled, as if of its own volition, but, in fact, pushed over by the “tension” set up by those two small wedges in the stern cut.

  Most of the cows stood back attentively in a row just beyond the fall-line. A lone black steer seemed to realise it was a little too close, paused and then shimmied nonchalantly away at the last moment.

  The tree hit the field with a cracking roar. It scattered rotten branches and bark like a wreck. There was a pause. The cows looked on and then, jostling each other out of the way in their eagerness, came forward to sniff its carcass and taste its bark. This was distinctly odd. The tree was the same tree that had until a few moments ago been standing upright in their field. None of them seemed to have any interest in it then.

  Close up, the upper branches were white and rotten. I could easily break off big limbs with a twist of the wrist. Yet the core of the trunk was sound. It would make wide planks and heavy timber after seasoning. Now it had to be stored and dried for two years before it could properly be used. The rest, at the top, could go for kindling or bark mulch. The forestry industry is important in Wales; it contributes more than £340 million per annum to the Welsh economy.

  “So tell me Simon, how much is this tree worth?” I asked.

  “In its current state?” He looked it up and down, as if estimating the amount of useable timber that might be extracted. “About £2,000.”

  The tree had probably been growing for about three hundred years.

  – UP YOUR DOUGLAS FIR –

  I was surprised by the value of our felled oak. I thought it would have been worth more. But there was still work to be done and a long time to wait before it could become useable. This is one of the reasons why forestry people can’t be bothered with broadleafed trees. Oaks, ash, elm, beech – our native species – all take time to grow. The quick return comes with pine, and the best way to get that return is to plant soft wood like a crop and the way to do that is to plant it in serried ranks and the effect of this is to make a series of ugly slab-like wodges on the landscape.

  When a group of celebrities recently stepped forward to prevent the selling off of “our” forests, I suspect they imagined they were saving mighty beeches and oaks. In fact they were largely preserving a curious system of state-backed, redundant monoculture, introduced after the First World War. The submarine blockade stopped cargoes of wood reaching Britain. The country needed pit-props and matches. So in the 1920s a government institution was formed that planted geometric, dark plantations across our uplands. These woods are not just aesthetically intrusive, they are environmentally destructive too, producing acid water run-off and destroying natural habitat. Had they planted mixed woodlands in well-planned batches that clothed the hills, the tourist industry and the spiritual good of everybody would have benefited greatly. And we would have had supplies of renewable strong timber. Now they don’t know what to do with much of their pulp-chipboard stuff.

  On the side of a steep hill where a landowner had planted a stand of Douglas fir to provide emergency pit-props for an industry that no longer needs such things, an ex-marine has finally found another use for them. He has built a tree-top training circuit.

  The towering pines stand on a steep slope. Douglas firs are known for their height; indeed the tallest tree in Wales used to be a Douglas fir standing at 60 metres tall in a forest in Powys. I climbed a ladder and got myself up onto a platform. A series of interlinking bridges, ropes and beams took a level route away through the uniform field of trunks. The first platform was not very high. This was cunning. It gave a false sense of limited insecurity.

  Having been strapped into a safety harness (with a line on my back attached to a wire, to hold
me from falling a few feet, no great distance anyway), I clumsily followed a bunch of twelve year olds as they scampered across the beam, swung out on a rope and skipped across a swinging, battened bridge. They went at agitated lemur speed. I was the sloth. I clambered after them, hanging on to every handhold with a steely grip, and very slowly wobbling across a prostrate log. It was a small circuit and it brought me back to where I had started. Not too demanding. This was clever.

  It was just a test: a mere trial. The real course set off in another direction altogether. Any guidance I might have got from those in front of me disappeared with a giggle and a patter of training shoes somewhere in the gloom of the trunks ahead. I turned. The boy following me was looking resigned. He couldn’t overtake. He was doomed to follow a terrified old man who had lost his sense of balance. He had to wait as this feeble, cautious, cowardly, cack-handed, hesitant, weak-kneed crock wobbled his way across the course.

  It was ghastly. I knew I was tied on. I knew that a slip would have merely resulted in an uncomfortable wallop to an undignified trussing, but my brain didn’t appreciate that. Each step felt entirely wrong. And there were some complicated steps.

  There was the row of hanging tyres. I had to place each foot in one loosely dangling tyre after another and step across. There was the slack rope, with just two dangling bits of string with which to support myself. There was the straight narrow beam that I had to cross like a tightrope. There was the row of free swinging logs. These were in the horizontal position, and then, wait a minute, the row of free swinging logs in the vertical position. And then… How long was this course?

  There were an estimated 86,000,000 visits to woodlands in Wales in 2011, and walking was the main activity undertaken by these visitors. None of them walked as slowly as me and I began to realise that the obstacles ahead stretched away to the crack of doom, somewhere on the other side of the plantation. Each stage was taking me about 10 minutes.