| The Warky 2020Euro Report: A Welsh interlude (A) 12:22 - Jun 27 with 568 views | Warkystache |
When I was a kid, we owned a holiday cottage near Llanberis in North Wales.
It was a proper Welsh cottage, stone and oak, stream in the bottom of the garden that I fell into a few times while fishing for minnows, rope swing that flew high over a bed of nettles and which would creak dangerously when swung on, adding a delicious element of 'Indiana Jones'-like peril to proceedings.
Snowdon was on our doorstep and we climbed it, Dad and I, every which way, even the difficult Crib Goch and the slightly less difficult Pig Track, scrambling amongst the scree, Dad remembering a work colleague who died falling from the same path in wet weather in 1983, telling grisly tales of how the mountain rescue team 'picked up all the bits' left. Drinking cans of warm pop on the summit in celebration, remembering to take the empty tins back with us so as not to litter.
The beauty of the Menai Straits, days spent idling round bookshops in Beaumaris and the haunted chill of the old jail, with its' working scaffolds and dank cells. Idyllic days. True, the North Welsh were renowned for burning English second homes but we never encountered any ill-feeling. It's said that the South is friendlier and less puritanical (pubs didn't open on a Sunday locally back then in 1985) but the North was equally as amenable and had better landscapes.
I remembered this as Tel, back in the local for a 'swift 'arf' as he put it, before our trip to the Indian, scoffed as the Welsh conceded their second goal and said, patronisingly "Taffs'r'out then, bleedin' knar their place now dunn'ey?". It was a strange atmosphere in the pub. People who'd clamoured to watch the earlier games sat indifferently, supping pints and noshing bowls of chips, the occasional belch or inconsequential piss-take interrupting the low volume of the commentary as Robbie Savage became disillusioned in the co-commentators seat. No-one's really bothered about the Welsh. It's not like the Scots, whose monthly protestations about independence and who people think get a better deal from the union than the English do; it's just a lesser country.
Tel's view of Wales is largely that of most kids who grew up watching Ivor the Engine. Serene, dull, funny accents. His attempt at imitating a Welsh accent owed more to Calcutta than Caernarvon. He couldn't believe I'd holidayed there as a kid, happily, until Dad sold the cottage in 1987 to finance our extension at home. "Wot, ackchully 'olidayed in bleedin' Taffland?" he said, as though it was Burkina Faso. He reflected on this bombshell. "Bleedin' ell mate. Deprived or what? Did'yer dad never 'ear of Spain or summink?". He was dumbstruck by tales of pubs shut on a Sunday and having to walk two miles through the old slate mines to get a morning paper and a loaf.
It was great though, I told him. My classmates, back at school in September and being asked to tell the class what they'd done in their summer holidays, told grim tales of campsites in the Dordogne, of basic toilets and locals laughing at parental attempts at pidgin french and sunburn and being bit by mossies. Mine were all more interesting; walks in the wilderness, cups of tea with people who still communicated in their national language, which sounded phlegmy and guttural and yet lilting at the same time, crabbing at low tide in the Menai's.
We continued the conversation in the curry house, over the poppadoms and chutneys and bowls of raw onion. Tel's childhood holidays fell into two distinct categories: Seaside in England, seaside in Spain when his dad bought the second newsagents and started 'makin''. Days spent in amusements in England or in tea houses eating buttered scones and eyeing up the local talent. Days in Spain spent getting burnt and eyeing up the topless talent on the beaches in the Costas. "Saw a bird once, must've bin like late teens she was, completely nakid on the beach, laying frontwards like, then she turned over when she fought no-one's lookin' and, well, there was me on me front an 'all, diggin' a pit wiv me knob". His affaires, mostly with younger girls when he was seventeen and they barely legal, were recounted with a bonhomie that made me suspect exaggeration. Still, they were boastful and shameless, just as these sort of tales should be.
"Nah, the Welsh. Never gottem" he admitted as we tackled the Vindaloo. "Don't mean I don't like'em or 'ave nuffing against 'em though". One of his regulars in the shop was Welsh. My money was on him being called Taff. "Nah, Les. Big Les from Pontypridd. Noo 'is 'orses, used ter give us tips. Big smoker, liked 'is Dun'ills did Les. Dead now. Cancer. Must be twelve years ago. Wot was 'is wife's name?" Here he broke off to spoon a mess of Vindaloo, rice and mango chutney into his mouth. "Freda. That was it. Came from Gants 'ill. Dunno 'ow they met".
We left at ten to go back down the pub for brandy and to meet Mrs Tel, who was this week dressed in black jeans, french crop top and Adidas trainers with her leather jacket. She's growing her hair again. She looked elfin, like Chrissy Hynde. She greeted me with a kiss and I got a lungful of her Anais Anais. She had a diet coke on draught with ice and a slice. Tel left the straw in, which she immediately took out and put on the table where it slowly dribbled brown bubbles from the end. We chatted. Tel told her about my childhood in Wales. "They lost ternight, dinn'ay?" she said, distracted by the idle chatter of the telly showing the Euro highlights. She'd been to Wales as well, once, back in the late seventies, on holiday in Llandudno with a friend. Their car broke down on the way, overheated. They met an Italian waiter. That was it. It lacked the sexual frisson of Tel's tales, but it was a charming tale of seventies retrospective. "Nah pubs opened on a Sundee" she recalled and I nodded, affirming this was still true in the 80's. Tel just smirked and tittered. But we had another common thread. Welsh holidays.
They dropped me at home with Tel barking orders for Tuesday night. Meet at five, quick chinese at his and then down the local for the England match by eight. I nodded in affirmation and he relaxed. "Be better than the Welsh anyway" was his parting shot. I'm not so sure. But we live in hope, don't we? |  |
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| The Warky 2020Euro Report: A Welsh interlude (A) on 12:30 - Jun 27 with 533 views | Beckets |
Good luck Tuesday, bearing in mind the England game kicks off at 5 |  | | |
| The Warky 2020Euro Report: A Welsh interlude (A) on 12:41 - Jun 27 with 509 views | Warkystache |
| The Warky 2020Euro Report: A Welsh interlude (A) on 12:30 - Jun 27 by Beckets |
Good luck Tuesday, bearing in mind the England game kicks off at 5 |
Thanks mate - better call Tel...... | |
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