Insufficiently Welsh

by Griff Rhys Jones

  I was impressed. I have seen some lovely things, but that is lot for

  a “China hutch”, as they call it in the States.

  “I believe it was bought by a farmer up by Caernarfon way,”

  Ken continued.

  So it hadn’t gone to some plutocrat collector in America. A valuable piece of local workmanship had gone back to the sort of place it was made for. Not only was it a lot to pay for a dresser, it was a lot of money for a farmer to have spare. The rich fields that I had passed through on my journey into the hinterland were still generating wealth then, for some at least.

  I had fulfilled my quest, but I wasn’t going to buy Ken’s dresser. I had plenty of family dressers to cope with already. It seemed a perfectly reasonable price. After all, Welsh dressers or any other bits of Welsh furniture, unlike that swimming pool or fitted carpet or that holiday in Bali, represent a wholly moveable investment, don’t they? It’s a tangible lump you can leave to your children, just as long as they can get hold of a sturdy removal van and find a spare wall, preferably not too damp.

  – THIS IS THE END –

  After we had finished all my little trips and the television series was off being edited, I was asked to go to the Welsh BAFTAs 2013. A programme I had made a year earlier about a pilgrimage route from Holywell to St Davids had resulted in a nomination: “Best Presenter”. Well, well. We’ll keep a welcome indeed. As it happens I was off in the South of France on a holiday racing boats and eating prawns but it was considered “politic” to return. After all, what would Welsh telly think if I was standoffish? I wasn’t standoffish. I was honoured. I got on a plane and flew back to Bristol. I booked into a Cardiff hotel. I discovered I had lost my bow tie in customs and pinched the one my friend Rob was wearing. He arrived at the Millennium Centre with an open collar, but I had made the effort. I looked like a waiter. Yes, I looked the part. So did the Centre. There was a red carpet leading up to the revolving front door and ranged along it were a sprinkling of “media opportunities”: stringers with microphones at half-mast waiting to catch the “slebs”. I was almost inside and past the lot before Buzz, the Cardiff listing magazine, finally decided to hail me “for a few words”. Then BBC Wales decided they had better interview me too. This is the way. One begins and the others follow, dreading going back to their editor minus the scoop that I “dissed Michael Sheen” or whatever they thought I had told the BBC. Finally even S4C right down the other end decided they might as well interview me too.

  “So Griff,” the interviewer began. “How do you feel about being up against a Welsh presenter?”

  This was a difficult question, obviously. The other nominations were Huw Edwards and Aled Sam, S4C’s own country and furnishings expert. But I felt bold enough to bat this one away.

  “Well, er, the clue is in the name,” I began cautiously. “My name is Griffith Rhys Jones. I was born about half a mile from where we are standing. My mother was from the Rhondda, my father from Penylan. Every single one of my relatives, tracing back as far as Who Do You Think You Are? were able to go, were Welsh. I think I am Welsh.”

  “Oh.” He stared me down. Not a flicker of distraction crossed his features. Instead, he stopped the recording. “Take it back,” he said to his cameraman. “Let’s start again.” The cameraman fiddled a bit, wobbled his machine up to his shoulder and the microphone was thrust back in my face. “So, Griff, welcome to the BAFTAs,” the presenter chirruped anew. “What do you think your chances are against a proper Welsh presenter?”

  They weren’t good. Huw Edwards triumphed, deservedly. I went back to my cosmopolitan lifestyle the following morning. And I guess I do have to accept defeat. I am not a proper Welshman. I know. As I made my way through the splendours of Wales on my multi-journey, mini-odyssey, I realised that despite my inherited cupboards and my Aunty Megans and Gwens, despite my intimate knowledge of Pembrokeshire, and my natural affinity for Corgi dogs, I have missed something essential. I have not spent enough of my life in the Land of My Fathers. I have not absorbed the distinctions of the culture. There are nuances in the language I can never now understand, there are reactions to outsiders I can never share, there are cultural norms that I cannot embrace. I must always remain the outside Welshman, the backdoor Cambrian, the would-be boyo. Never mind. To the vast majority of people I met that didn’t matter a jot. They were charming, friendly and warmly welcoming. During October, Arfon from Tacla Taid on Anglesey went to huge efforts to try to get me a Jones bailer, a particularly wonderful toy to go with my Massey Ferguson, on the basis of our few minutes together in his Land Rover series one. This warmth was typical. I saw wonders. I gobbled up the scenery, I ate well, slept well and I learnt a lot: from the ambitions of Edward I to the appetites of the dung beetle. What a country, what variety, what people. In the end I can say that I think I am rather privileged to be a dispossessed Welsh person and a perpetual outsider in Wales. As a result I need take nothing for granted. I still have a lot to master. Good.

  – ACKNOWLEDGEMENT –

  Many people helped to get this book together, but I would particularly like to thank Christopher Bruce, Celyn Williams and Scott Dewey for their ideas, Tudor Evans, Nick Manley and Brian Murrell for their backchat, Cat Ledger for her ministrations, Sarah Broughton and Clare Byrne for their steadfastness, Richard Davies and Francesca Rhydderch at Parthian for their professionalism and Jo for her attention and support. And all the people we met and who put up with us too. Diolch yn fawr.

  Parthian

  The Old Surgery

  Napier Street

  Cardigan

  SA43 1ED

  www.parthianbooks.com

  First published in 2014

  © Griff Rhys Jones/Modern TV 2014

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN 978-1-909844-74-2

  Editor

  Francesca Rhydderch

  Photography

  Scott Dewey

  Design

  Marc Jennings - www.theundercard.co.uk

  Published with the financial support of the Welsh Books Council

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A cataloguing record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise be circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.