One of my favourite scenes in movie history is in Zulu where the brave Welsh defenders of Rourke’s Drift face off the Zulu hordes and sing ‘Men of Harlech’ in defiance. Then the Zulus line up on a hill top and sing a song of tribute to ‘brave warriors’. On the downside it probably didn’t happen.

Whilst versions of ‘Men of Harlech’ had been going around since the mid Victorian days and even a lyric sheet similar to the one sang by Ivor Emanuel in the film ‘could’ possibly have been on the lips of the largely Welsh regiment, for sure the Zulu song was definitely right out. The brilliant Yorkshire composer John Barry had basically reused one of his old guitar based instrumental pieces from his ‘John Barry 7’ days , a jazzy beat combo gigging around the clubs and coffee bars of Leeds and York, and called it ‘Zulu Stomp’ . Continue reading “Sing Your Troubles Away”

I always wondered why Scotland was dead keen on independence and yet Wales much less so. Maybe it was because the Scots had North Sea oil, although by a strange angle of the border as it met the sea, England seemed to grab most of it. But all this time Wales had something much more valuable, more popular and certainly far tastier. Welsh Cakes. And at Bridgwater fair this week -as every year – people were queueing round the block for them. If only the Welsh had realised the economy goldmine they had on their griddles! Continue reading “Never Forget Your Welsh Cakes”

I made good time all the way from Scotland. 8 hours including breaks. Get to Bridgwater, standstill. Stuck in traffic, depot closed. Why is Bridgwater so very bad for gridlock? Well, we’re the victims of our own history. It’s the medieval shape of the town centre that’s still there today and every bit of modern transport technology has simply been added on and within years has been overtaken by development to render it obsolete.

Continue reading “Knock It Down and Start Again”

‘Twinning’ wasn’t something I did as a kid. Unless you count moving to Wales. But I’m not sure that building a massive council estate on a quaint old Anglesey fishing village, filling it with the advance legions of the English working class and then fighting running battles with the displaced Welsh counts. Even my attempt to replicate 300 Spartans-no not the Lycra shorts- by developing a shield wall to prevent the hail of building site debris being hoyed at us, didn’t really work. Well, cardboard isn’t really a defensive shield material to be honest.

Continue reading “Twinning – Are We Looking Too Far Afield?”

I’ve been to a few music festivals in my time and I’ve always thought that Bridgwater should have one. We’ve got Somer rock, a festival of tribute bands, which is brilliant, and we’ve had the Newt Beer festival, where the beer came first (but it means I probably can’t remember the bands) and for a while we had the Quayside Festival, which came out of the Big Bash, when we put a stage either end of Castle Street and had some alternative indie, soul, reggae, punk bands on organised by the Art Centre.

Continue reading “I Wanna Festival a Festival of my own”