You have to admire the jaunty way the idea of drowning a north Wales village was first broached by the London establishment. This is a newspaper report from 1887 – …
The Chicken Farmer Who Trolled Wales
Lloyd George called it “foul garbage”. Meetings were held throughout Wales to denounce it. Newspapers printed angry letters and speculated about the identity of the mysterious author; known only as …
The Welsh Military Remembrance Machine
When Welsh farmer and poet Ellis Humphrey Evans lay injured on a battlefield in Flanders, he must have known he was about to die. As the life drained from his …
Eisteddfod: The Filth and the Fury
The National Eisteddfod; it’s that thing you see on BBC Wales Today once a year. It lasts around 40 seconds – you see footage of people in wellies walking past …
Car Gwyllt: The Story of the North Wales Coasters
The best thing about work, is going home – especially if that involves hurtling down a mountain on a homemade toboggan thingy. This is what workers at the Craig Ddu …
Monkey Shot For Reading Welsh Newspaper
You know what it’s like. You’re a C19th explorer, searching through the wilds of Borneo when you come across an orangutan reading a newspaper. So you shoot it. And then …
Art Ponce Slags Off Wrexham Hunchback
It’s 1876 and some art critic from The Spectator magazine has been sent from their London office to cover an exhibition in a scary and far-off land called…Wrexham. This was …
Scotch Cattle: The Welsh Mob Who Took No Bull
These days we understand how it works. We realise that we’re all just individual nodes of productivity. That we’re paid for what we’re worth – and that’s not much. We …
Knocking the hats off politicians, Newtown style
Here’s an example of how Welsh people used to treat politicians they didn’t much like. It involves a man called Pryce Pryce-Jones who became extremely wealthy in the C19th from …
The Llandrillo Camel Ripper
What is it with the people of Llandrillo – why do they hate camels so much? Because if you’re a camel and you’re thinking of touring north Wales, this village, …
The Mold Riots: The Summer of ‘69
There are some bits of Welsh history that are best left alone – that shouldn’t be scratched. Because knowing what happened to your parents’ grandparents is only liable to make …