The Maid of Cefn Ydfa This is the story of Ann Maddocks, the Maid of Cefn Ydfa, her forlorn love for the bard Wil Hopcyn remembered forever in a folk song we all know so well. Cefn Ydfa was an impressive residence in the Llynfi Valley about six miles north of Bridgend where in the…
Category: Blog
La Supreme Sagesse and the Brotherhood of Strangers
The Massif de la Clape rises above the Mediterranean outside Narbonne in the south of France. It is a beautiful wilderness, 17 km long and 8 km wide, perfect for rugged walking and cycling. The name comes from the local Occitan word Clapas – meaning a pile of stone. Rather unkind if you ask me…
Tenuta Contessa Chiara
We have returned from a magical holiday in Piemonte in northern Italy. I promised the owners Alessandro and Andrea that I would put a link here on my website in case anyone is interested in a perfect Italian villa holiday. Alessandro is in the process of changing his web hosting service so once that has been done…
A Bit of Needle
This is taken from the Cambrian Newspaper in 1856. It deals with an extraordinary operation necessitated by a most singular accident. It involved a young Irishman who was, as they say, larking about with some young country women. He grabbed a buxom girl who was engaged in seamstress work and hugged her.But as he pressed…
Bedside Manners
The story comes from Hanmer in Flintshire in the seventeenth century and concerns Elinor Evans who was a maidservant. She had injured her ankle and a surgeon named William Jones was called. She had financial assistance from her friends and neighbours to pay for treatment. It cost 30 shillings. You can judge for yourself whether she got…
Wales is Weird
It won’t come as a surprise to you to learn that Wales is one of the strangest countries in the world. And it is official – paranormal investigators say so. We are surrounded by the unexplained. The message is clear. If you want to be puzzled and bewildered then come to Wales. The place is…
The Holy Grail
Did you know that the Holy Grail, used by Christ at the Last Supper and then later to gather His blood from the Cross, is in a secret bank vault in Wales? Trust me, Indiana Jones got it spectacularly wrong. The story is quite straightforward.The Grail was brought to Glastonbury by Joseph of Arimathea and closely…
Rotten Rabbit
Here is another small item from the pages of the Cambrian newspaper published in Swansea throughout most of the nineteenth century July 1875 You will be pleased to learn that the Inspectors of Nuisances for the Swansea urban Sanitary Authority buried the creature in the rubbish heaps near the Old Infirmary. It was a rabbit…
The Extraordinary Child
Let us consider the great Monsieur Chouville. A showman without a doubt, determined to bring thrills to the eager public of Swansea, starved as they had been of top-quality and spectacular entertainment. This was June 1858. There was no need for a large and grainy TV screen displaying inaccurate weather forecasts to the discerning crowds in Castle…
Bloody Welsh History – Swansea now available!
I am pleased to be able to announce that my latest volume, Bloody Welsh History – Swansea is now available. It is a fine looking book – for which I take no responsibility whatsoever. It is available in bookshops and of course from Amazon where you can get a Kindle version too. Or you can…