Welsh Journals

Search over 450 titles and 1.2 million pages

up energy for another hard night. A walk through Gower just now has a bleak splendour few people bother to come to see. The hedges and fields are faded, but the tender green of the winter corn, the russet of the bracken and the red-brown of freshly turned furrows stand out all the more vividly. The pearl-grey cliffs and the deserted brown beaches are thrown into unfamiliar relief by the sun shining low across the water. But the days of January are lengthening by a cock's stride. The catkins are on the hazel, the first primroses are in the banks and lambs are already in some fields. We can forget for the moment that there may be hard, churchyard days still ahead. March will test you," the old people say, April will try, May will see whether you live or die." Personally, I think that if you survive the New Year's Village Parties, you're good for at least another twelve months. The Gower Reel IT is OVER TEN YEARS since Phil Tanner, who preserved so many folk-songs and folk-dances, went to his last rest. The centenary of his birth will be on February 16, 1962 and it would be appropriate that it should be marked in some suitable fashion. In the third issue of Gower," a meeting at Parkmill was reported at which the Gower Reel was revived by old Phil. Although his legs were too old to do the stepping himself, he demonstrated from his chair and accompanied the dancers with his famous mouth-music." By now, the Gower Reel and other Gower dances have become quite re-established. This year's National Festival of the Welsh Folk Dance Society was held in Gower-in Pontarddulais. The Gower Society's adult group gave an exhibition and in the competitive section, the Society's Junior group won third prize in a competition of high standard. Miss Jeanette Maund (who is headmistress of Rhosili Primary School) trained the folk-dancers and holds two sessions every month, in Swansea, for all who are interested.