Welsh Journals

KIL TANNER TELLS THE TALE Evan Evans ~Pbil Oatmer, I862 — I950 On February the sixteenth Phil Tanner was eighty-eight and as he first opened his eyes on Oxwich Bay that morning, the chorus of a long-forgotten ballad broke out from the deep recesses of his wonderful peasant memory. Verse after verse came bounding forth as so many others had done, during the two or three years past. The day was a day of letters and telegrams and visitors in the evening George Nicholas came up from Llangenydd and was just leaving as Evan Evans and I arrived. Phil enjoyed life greatly and his great pleasure was in passing on that joy to others. He welcomed us, respectable middle-aged schoolmaster and doctor, with his sprightly, so you've come couple of satans that you are," and then a seeming solemn quotation from the Bible, in perfect context, which that phenomenal memory could always present without any effort or fore-warning at all Constant interruptions had marred the return of the complete song-