Welsh Journals

Testament CLIFF GORDON I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, lunacy and war Gingsberg's Howl AS WALES is NOT a country but an emotion, it isn't easy to analyse what one feels about it. In view of the fact that we are a people who have a healthy respect and even admiration for 'hypocrisy', opinion must be tailored for the audience. But, in this Magazine, loyally bought and even read by a few Gallophiles, perhaps one can risk ad lib thinking. Those of you who know me, and there are many who regret it, will know that I am, as a comedian and writer, a professional Welshman, an alcoholic (who has been on a very uncomfortable wagon since February nth my birthday and year of birth coincides with that of King Farouk .) author of Choir Practice and discoverer of nothing more profound than Shirley Bassey. I am currently 'staying' in Horton Hospital, Epsom. A very nice, albeit English mental hospital. Wales is, of course, as generously represented here as in any other expression of the more liberal Arts. As far as I can make out without access to statistics, Wales seems to have less people mentally ill pro rata than England. I think the main cause is that it doesn't show so easily in the Principality, you'd have to be very odd to cause concern in some of the villages I know and love. Also there is the hypocrisy factor how many are locked up in the back bedroom ? We've got some Welsh nurses, male and female, here, who have lived in England long enough to be painfully conscious of their superior command of the language and by and large are a bit of a pain in the neck. I know Whitchurch Hospital, Cardiff, and it is a very good one indeed except for the fact that there seemed to be a plague of non- conformist ministers wistfully visiting the patients and a very