Welsh Journals

'WESTERN HOLIDAY' EVAN HUGHES bynowishould have been in Rhydlewis where I had planned to have my tea. But because of my inability to read the simplest of maps, I had strayed into a maze of West Wales lanes. Before me was a pat- terned expanse of rural greens and browns. The only building in sight was a white-washed farmhouse many miles distant. The thought of walking thus far only made my mouth drier. Then, to my left I noticed whisps of smoke coming over the tops of the trees. In less than two minutes I was knocking at a cottage door. It was opened slowly and deliberately by a tall, stooping man dressed in black. He kept one hand on the latch as he examined me. He didn't talk a lot at first. He listened patiently as I told him how I'd lost my way and was wondering about a place to have tea and something to eat. ? ? He took plenty of time to make up his mind as if his age had slowed down everything about him. Then he broke into one of my sentences and said: 'Come in.' I had tea with bread and butter and home-made jam on a little round table covered with a white cloth. The more I saw of the prophet-like old man in black, the more he reminded me of Caradoc Evans. It was then I realised that I was in the heart of Caradoc Evans' country. It was of men like my host that he had written. He had sat in kitchens like this one. He might have been sitting in the very chair I was in. But if he was Caradoc the Great to me with his biblical style and his over-large Celtic characters, he had horrified the native Cardis. The strip-tease act had gone too far for them. I remembered how they had quickly closed their ranks when his first book had appeared. I recalled the organised festivals of hate against the too-articulate, ultra-truthful, shame-making Carodoc. If he had not prodded there wouldn't have been such a nasty smell, they said. So I decided the wisest thing for me to do was to keep off Caradoc when the old man came to sit with me after I had finished my tea. 'You may be wondering why I'm dressed in my Sunday suit today,' he said to me in Welsh. I nodded.