My Personal Thanks to the Welsh

The Island that the Romans called Britannia has been invaded several times. The inhabitants became Romanized and spoke Latin for about 300 years. Then came the waves of Germanic conquerors. Jutes. Frisians. Saxons. And Angles. That last bunch is where we get the name for the place: Angle-land - England. They called the natives of the place they were invading "weelas" or something like that. It meant "strangers" in their Germanic languages. Funny how the home town team gets the name "strangers." Their home became known an Wales.

They retreated as far west as the island would allow them and tried for centuries to keep to themselves and preserve their language pristine and quite different from other Angle-ish (English) words and phrases. If you look at Welsh, it looks a lot like the made-up elf words and phrases in Tolkein and Paolini and other stuff like that. Their tiny towns have incredibly long names sometimes. "Puddleby on the Marsh." Stuff like that. And if you try to read the old Welsh language you'll probably just have to smile and shake your head. It's being taught in British universities today so that it doesn't become a dead language. But it practically is dead already.

But you'll see the Welsh everywhere, their particular talents and contributions making them standouts in the English-speaking world which they've so unwillingly joined. Their choirs, particularly male choruses, are world famous and have entertained the queen many times. There was an example of that, I think, in How Green Was My Valley. Their original melodies and old folk songs are capable of giving peace to the heart and relaxation to the neck. All Through the Night, is on a Tabernacle Choir album called Love is Spoken Here. I first heard it one Sunday night in about 1960 when an RM sat down at the piano in the Nashville Branch and played it. I did what I often did when wonderful music entered my vicinity. I just stood by him and listened. I thought it was the most wonderful thing I'd ever heard.

My wife-du-jour in the nineties exposed me to a number of movies I might otherwise have missed. In the case of some of them, it might have been just as well. But one night we watched a 1987 film called "Empire of the Sun," by Spielberg. Late thirties. A rich, spoiled English boy living in China with his government-employed parents, is taken in the Rolls to the Cathedral where, unwillingly, all the little boys line up and practice the Welsh lullaby Suo-Gan. Coming home, they see that the Japanese invasion has gotten to their city. The servants desert him, steel his home's possessions, and start running with everyone else. He tries to live on the street, but is not successful. An American crook (John Malkovich) takes him in and gives him sporadic care. They're all caught and live the rest of the war in a concentration camp where neglect, disease, and deliberate abuse gradually whittle their numbers away. By 1945, Japan knows it's losing and turns to teenage kids to fly bomb-laden planes with plenty of gas on board into American shipping, hoping to destroy enough American naval tonnage to prevent the invasion. Jim is in his early teens now, himself. He looks at kids a lot like himself as they go through the tea ceremony, climb into their planes, and fly away. As they are singing their departure song, he is moved by their impending sacrifice. He raises his right hand in a proper British salute (palm out) and mixes Suo-Gan with their tune. The Japanese commandant watches all the boys, including the English boy, with visible sadness. Again, as before, I'm taken unawares by beautiful Welsh music which will haunt me for the rest of my life. That piece is also on the Tabernacle Choir Album Love is Spoken Here.

Have you seen Zulu? I'm talking about the 1960 version about the January 1879 defense of Rorke's Drift in Africa. Before their last charge, thousands of Zulus begin singing a song of impending doom. It's primarily in the bass and baritone range. A British lieutenant named Chard approaches a soldier - A Welsh Soldier - and asks him his opinion of the choir which is about to descend on them and wipe them out. The young man answers, "Well, they've got some fine bass-baritones, mind, but they've got no top tenors, that's for sure." The officer asks him to start some singing to lift the spirits of the men who by now number less that 100 and are facing thousands. The Welshman closes his eyes, picks out a couple of notes around which to build the familiar tune, and begins singing a grand old Welsh piece: Men of Harlech. You can find it on a Charlotte Church disc. I've got it. It's thrilling. When the final rush of Zulus comes, the men patiently wait for their numbered commands like well-trained British soldiers. Michael Caine, who looks about 18 in this film, bellows "At one hundred yards (so they'll know how to set the rear sights on their Martini-Henry rifles) - First Rank - Fire!" As those boys go down on their knees to reload, he says, "Second Rank - Fire!" Then "Third rank - Fire!" By that time, the front rank has reloaded, so he goes through all the ranks again. And again and again.

I wonder how many other times I've been inspired by Welsh music.

And they can speak beautifully, too! Richard Burton, a welsh actor, reads all the names of the boys who were awarded the Victoria Cross for that action in the film Zulu. Everyone loved Richard Burton's voice. It was such an icon of sound that Bill Murray imitated it in his comedy Scrooged.

Though sometimes his political foe, no less a leader than Winston Churchill said of an early twentieth century Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, "David could talk the birds off the trees." See the spelling of that middle name, Lloyd? Yep. Very Welsh.

So they may have been called "the strangers" and been chased off their own land, but the Welsh have continued to inspire and excel for many centuries. Pretty wonderful folks.