Wales Feed

Wales and the Women's Institute

2012-09-13T15:26:49+00:00

The Women's Institute (WI) is the largest women's volunteer organisation in the UK. The movement originated in Canada in 1897, but crossed the Atlantic in the early 20th century. You may, however, be unaware that the British organisation began in 1915 on Anglesey, north Wales.

The WI in Canada was founded by farmers Janet and Erland Lee, inspired by a speech by Adelaide Hoodless at a Farmer's Institute meeting at Stoney Creek, Ontario. The fledgling movement brought together women from diverse, often isolated communities, and helped them learn skills such as home economics, childcare and farming.

The WI in Britain was originally intended to revitalise rural communities and to encourage women to become involved in growing and preserving food during World War One. It began after the Agricultural Organisation Society's secretary, John Nugent Harris, appointed a Canadian, Madge Watt, to establish Women's Institutes across the UK.

The first WI meeting took place on 16 September 1915 in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, the Anglesey village perhaps best known for having the longest place name in Europe. By the end of the following year there were 40 WIs across the UK.

The first Women's Institute meeting, Llanfair PG, 1915

Since those early days the WI has grown to become the largest women's voluntary organisation in the UK. There are now over 200,000 members in more than 6,500 WIs, offering women the chance to learn new skills, take part in a range of activities and campaign on issues important to them and their communities.

The headquarters of the WI are in London, but a Cardiff office, WFWI-Wales, opened in 1980. Today, there are 13 Women's Institute federations across Wales, and nearly 600 individual institutes from Aberaeron to Ystradowen, including the original one in Llanfair PG.

The secret life of Bletchley code-breaker Mair Russell Jones

2011-11-01T10:29:10+00:00

BBC Wales News reports on the incredible secret life of 94-four-year-old Mair Russell Jones.

Mair Russell Jones remembers her code-breaking days at Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes

For over 50 years Mair kept quiet about her wartime work which helped to hasten the end of World War Two by anything up to four years.

Mair features in a BBC Wales Documentary on the unsung heroes of the Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS). One of an elite group of code breakers, Mair was selected to serve at Bletchley Park.

In 1941, Mair from Pontycymmer, was an ordinary 23-year-old, studying for a degree in music, Welsh and German at Cardiff University. She had a boyfriend and harboured ambitions to become a teacher or professional pianist.

One day Mair felt a tap on the shoulder from a gentleman who'd noted her ability with languages and puzzles. Remembering the event, Mair said:

"He told me he was from the Foreign Office - and so I've always just said I worked for the Foreign Office during the war - but of course he was really from MI6."
"He said he'd heard I was very good with languages and puzzles, and would I like to try out for a top-secret project.

"A few of us went on the train up to Bletchley, had an interview and did some tests, and the next thing I knew I was in a hut miles away from home, trying to interpret Enigma cyphers."

Read the full account of Mair's code-breaking days at Bletchley Park on the BBC Wales News website.

Code Breakers: Bletchley Park's Lost Heroes can be seen on the BBC iPlayer until Saturday 5 November 2011

The Llanddona Witches

2011-08-11T10:30:38+00:00

The legend of the Llanddona Witches might not be the best known of Welsh legends but it is one that has a clear origin - well, as clear as you are going to find at this distance in time.

Llanddona beach (image by Kristofer Williams)

According to the legend a boatload of men and women, all with Irish accents, was washed up on the coast of Anglesey, in Red Wharf Bay. The boat was without sail or oars and was sinking fast when it finally made shore. The locals were afraid and tried to drive the survivors back into the sea but one woman leapt ashore and struck the sand with a stick - her wand, perhaps? Fresh water immediately gushed out from the spot and the locals, simple fishermen and their families, fell back in horror.

An agreement was quickly reached. Whether it was prompted by fear or good fellowship, by expectation of plenty or by sheer apathy, is not known. But the local people from Llanddona agreed to let the witches - if that was what they were - to remain, provided they made their settlement outside the village. It was a terrible mistake.

The newcomers made themselves homes outside the village of Llanddona and quickly established themselves as a powerful force in the region. They bullied the villagers, lorded it around the place, and paid for no goods in the shops or from the farmers fields, simply taking what they wanted.

They put charms and spells on farms and on animals and charged to have them removed. The men - wearing distinctive red neckties - became renowned across north Wales as smugglers.

When the customs officers got too close, the men would, according to the legend, release swarms of deadly black flies from their neckties. And the forces of authority fled, leaving the men to carry on with their criminal activities.

There are dozens of stories about the Llanddona Witches. Bella Fawr and Siani Bwt were two of the most famous. Siani Bwt (meaning Short Betty) was apparently less than four feet high and, with two thumbs on her left hand, she had all the classic hallmarks of a witch.

So much for the legend. The date of their supposed arrival at Llanddona is hard to pin down. Some say it all happened at the beginning of the 17th century, others stating that it took place many years before or after.

However, visitors from the sea - usually unpleasant visitors - were, for many years, an occupational hazard for all those who lived on the Welsh coast. The Vikings, the Normans and, in particular, the Irish regularly attacked or invaded from the sea. Fear of the Irish remained long after the threat of the Vikings had diminished.

During the Civil War in the 1640s there was a constant threat of an Irish invasion when, in the imaginations of a largely Protestant Welsh and English population, the Catholic masses from across the Irish Sea might, at any moment, land to massacre and murder everyone in their beds. King Charles was widely suspected of Catholic beliefs, of plotting to bring back the Catholic religion, and the fear that he would invoke the Irish to help him in his fight was actively promoted by Parliament.

If the legend does date from the 17th century, it is clear that fears of an Irish invasion lay behind its creation and its continued popularity.

There is another possibility, however. It was 1736 before the Witch Laws were repealed and that led to a situation where people who had previously turned to the state in cases of supposed witchcraft now took the law into their own hands. Actually, what quickly began to happen was nothing new. It had been going on for years.

In distant parts of the kingdom - like the east coast of Anglesey - where the forces of law and order were often scattered and ineffective, it was invariably left to village elders to make judgements or to make decisions about issues that affected the local people.

Witches had always been feared and hated - it was a prejudice that continued unabated until well into the 19th century. The powers of darkness were never far away for a superstitious and largely uneducated people. And in coastal communities where the success of the local fishing fleet or the viability of the lobster and crab pots depended as much on luck as judgement, their power was seen as a threat to the whole community.

One way of dealing with people suspected of being witches was to cast them adrift in an open boat without food or water, sails or oars. Arguably, here we have the basis of the legend of the Llanddona Witches.

They might have been real people, suspected of witchcraft, and the legend was simply a retelling of events - with a little bit of embellishment here and there. Or the story might have been invented as a warning not to accept witches - or any strangers, for that matter, into your tight-knit and vulnerable community.

Whichever version you believe, one thing is clear. The legend of the Llanddona Witches remains one of the great Welsh fables.

Wartime evacuees' special 70th anniversary reunion

2011-08-04T12:59:54+00:00

This week saw a very special reunion at Iscoyd Park near Wrexham. Five women, all in their late 80s, gathered in north Wales to celebrate the 70th anniversary of their evacuation to the stately home during World War Two.

Catherine Fisher, Sheenagh Bradbury, Sonia Vanular, Marguerite McGuire and Eleanor Roscoe

The women were all students at St Godric's Secretarial College in Hampstead. In 1941 they were the first evacuees to Iscoyd Park. The park was also requisitioned for use as a hospital for the US forces in 1942.

The stately home, located between Whitchurch and Wrexham was used as a 1,500-bed hospital for US forces during World War Two.

Prisoner of war camp

There was a small compound for trusted German prisoners enclosed in the parkland, some of whom acted as orderlies in the hospital.

The five women were met by Philip Godsal and his son and daughter-in-law who currently live at Iscoyd, and treated to lunch and a tour around Iscoyd Park.

Phil and Susie Godsal, far left, welcome (l-r) Marguerite McGuire, Sonia Vanular, Catherine Fisher, Eleanor Roscoe and Sheenagh Bradbury to Iscoyd Park

Sonia Vanular, who had travelled from the south of France especially for the reunion said:

"We were then shown around the house by Mr Godsal - we all found it fascinating to see how the house had changed. Some remembered it better than others!

"Looking back 70 years later we realise how lucky we were to have lived in such a splendid house in beautiful surroundings while bombs were falling in London."

Iscoyd Park recently featured in the BBC Wales history series Hidden Houses Of Wales, in which Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen discovers some of Wales' finest houses. You can watch the programme on the BBC iPlayer until Monday.

Sarah Siddons, tragic actress

2011-07-04T14:52:49+00:00

Sarah Siddons was the most renowned actress of 18th century Britain. Her performances at Drury Lane and Covent Garden - particularly her portrayal of Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth - were so powerful that audiences swooned and often had to be helped out of the theatre in various stages of distress. In the words of essayist William Hazlitt, Sarah Siddons "was tragedy personified."

And yet what many people do not realize is the fact that this incomparable tragedienne was born in Wales, in the little market town of Brecon. The date was 5 July 1755, and the place of birth was a room above a small tavern in High Street.

These days the place of her birth is known as The Sarah Siddons Inn and the pub sign, now proudly displayed outside the door, is a replica detail of Sir Joshua Reynolds' famous 1784 painting of the actress. When she was born here, however, the pub was called The Shoulder of Mutton, a tiny place that stood in the shadow of the much larger and grander St Mary's Church tower.

Sarah was the daughter of the actor-manager Roger Kemble, a man who travelled the country with his small troop of actors - a dozen at the most - entertaining people in the courtyards of country inns or market squares in a way of life that was not far removed from that of Shakespeare's strolling players over a century before.

Actors would each play several roles and while their performances were wildly applauded and greatly looked forward to, the travelling companies were certainly not regarded as respectable. Don't put your daughter on the stage, Mr Kemble, was a piece of advice that might have been given to Roger Kemble. It was advice he chose to ignore.

Acting was in the blood - Sarah's grandmother was the famous actress Fanny Kemble - and the lure of the footlights was too great, for both father and daughter. As a young child, Sarah was regularly appearing in her father's stage shows. By the time she was a teenager she was an experienced performer.

Legend has it that the handsome actor William Siddons, a member of Kemble's troop, proposed to Sarah during one performance at The Bell Inn at Brecon. Whether or not that is true, the announcement caused dismay to her parents who had intended her to marry someone of "greater quality" and Sarah was sent off to work as maid to Lady Greathead. It was a short engagement but it does show the social status of actresses at this time - and also the social connections of the Kemble family.

Realising that Sarah was serious, her parents relented and she returned to the company and duly married William. They had seven children, five of them dying young, but the marriage was not a success and eventually culminated in an informal separation.

Acting was more important for Sarah than marriage. After a false start when David Garrick booked her to appear at Drury Lane - she did not impress and the manager had to write to tell her that her services were not required - Sarah spent six years touring the provinces in what would now be called rep shows. She returned to the London theatre in 1782 in Garrick's adaptation of The Fatal Marriage. She was an instant success.

Over the next 20 years Sarah Siddons became the toast of Drury Lane. Her tall, beautiful figure and stunning good looks made her ideal for the role of Lady Macbeth, a part where she was easily and effortlessly able to show the vicious nature and passion of the woman who led Macbeth to his doom. Her personal favourite role, however, was not the evil Lady Macbeth but Queen Catherine in Shakespeare's little-known play Henry VIII.

Sarah Siddons was the most famous actress of her day, at a time when the job of actress was at last beginning to become respectable. She held soirées or receptions where the rich and famous - men such as the Duke of Wellington, Edmund Burke and Samuel Johnson - regularly attended.

In 1802 Sarah left Drury Lane for Covent Garden, appearing there to more huge acclaim for a further 10 years. During her years on the stage it was recorded that "Siddons Fever" gripped the theatre going world, a form of mass hysteria with which many modern audiences may relate. Joshua Reynolds painted a famous portrait of her, even signing his name across the hem of her dress on the painting. It could not go on forever, of course, and on 29 June 1812, at the age of 57 years, Sarah retired.

During her farewell performance in Macbeth the audience was so moved that they simply refused to allow the play to continue after the sleepwalking scene where Lady Macbeth makes her final appearance. In desperation, the curtain was closed, only to re-open a few minutes later with Sarah in her day clothes, sitting centre stage.

She made an emotional speech that lasted for nearly 10 minutes before quitting the stage - not quite for ever as the lure of fame and public adulation were too great, and she did relent to did make the occasional guest appearance over the next few years.

Sarah Siddons died on 8 June 1831, renowned and acclaimed as the greatest actress the world had ever seen. Over 5,000 people attended her funeral and internment at St Mary's Cemetery in Paddington. These days there are statues to her, streets named after her and, of course, that pub in Brecon.

In 1952 the Sarah Siddons Award was created, thus imitating a fictional award of the same name that had originally been mentioned in the film All About Eve. The award is given each year by the Sarah Siddons Society for outstanding performance in the dramatic arts.

Perhaps the most interesting commemoration of the great actress, however, was the naming of an electric locomotive after her. This came in 1923, on an engine built for the Metropolitan Railway - the engine still exists and still runs, the oldest working main line electric locomotive in Britain. Not bad for a young girl from Brecon!

Allen Raine, forgotten Welsh writer

2011-06-08T13:20:31+00:00

Allen Raine, the pen name of Anne Adaliza Puddicombe, was one of the best-selling authors of the late Victorian/early Edwardian age.

Her books sold millions of copies, not only across Wales but in the whole of Britain, and yet these days she is largely forgotten or ignored.

She was born Anne Adaliza Evans on 6 October 1836 in Newcastle Emlyn, the eldest child of a lawyer father and a mother who was a granddaughter of the noted Methodist preacher Daniel Rowland.

When Ada (as she was known in the family) was 13 she and her younger sister were sent to Cheltenham to be educated and trained by the Reverend Henry Solly. It was a common enough process in those days but the sudden and perhaps unexpected jolt to the senses of the two girls, taken from the rural idyll of Newcastle Emlyn and deposited in the middle of a modern, cosmopolitan town like Cheltenham can only be imagined.

It was something, however, that Ada thoroughly enjoyed and she threw herself into the experience. The Reverend Solly was a learned and worldly man - he knew Dickens while George Eliot and Bulwer Lytton were regular visitors to the house and area. It was certainly an intellectual and literary atmosphere in which to grow up and come of age.

After Cheltenham came a period of living in London and its suburbs - where, among other delights, she saw the fireworks on Primrose Hill to celebrate the end of the Crimean War. It could not last, however, and with more than a degree of disappointment Ada returned to the family home at Newcastle Emlyn in 1856.

No matter how much she loved the Carmarthen and Cardigan area there was not the same sense of excitement as she had found in London.

Ada soon settled back into Welsh life, however, and spent the next 16 years in what now seems to have been something of a stagnant bubble. Then, in April 1872, when she was well over 30, she met and married Beynon Puddicombe, foreign correspondent for Smith Payne's Bank.

The couple settled down to married life at Addiscombe near Croydon but the life of a banker's wife did not suit Ada particularly well. She wanted more.

In 1894 she entered a competition at the National Eisteddfod for the best serial story, in English or Welsh, that was characteristic of Welsh life. Much to her surprise her story Ynysoer won the competition. The serial was duly published in the North Wales Observer but did not appear in book form until after her death when it appeared as Where Billows Roll.

Despite the fact that she was now living south of London, Ynysoer was set on the Cardiganshire coast, around Tresaith and Llangrannog, an area that was to be the setting for every one of her future books. To begin with, however, success as a novelist seemed to elude her.

Her second book, A Welsh Singer, was rejected by six different publishers before Hutchinson finally decided to take a chance with the unknown author who had now taken to calling herself Allen Raine - the name, she claimed, having come to her in a dream.

The reluctance of London publishers to accept the book has sometimes been seen as prejudice against Welsh characters and Welsh settings. Yet Ada was not going to change either her locations or her style.

She was a romantic novelist who loved to create good characters and tell an engaging story - exactly the qualities that the emerging middle classes were looking for in their literature. A Welsh Singer was an immediate success with the public and, like the rest of her books, sold in its thousands.

In February 1900, Beynon Puddicombe began showing signs of mental illness and he was forced to give up his work. He and Ada retired to Wales, to Bronmor, close to Tresaith in what is now Ceridigion.

Beynon died in 1906 and sadly, Ada had only two more years left to her, dying on 21 June 1908. She continued to write, enjoying good relations with the public and with the literary critics. As one of them felt obliged to write when reviewing Hearts of Wales:

"Allen Raine has from her cradle been used to looking at Welsh life, not with borrowed but with her own eyes, and it is this, as a writer of Welsh fiction - - - that gives her such an advantage over those who only know the country and its folk from tourist's descriptions or the experience gleaned from a brief holiday."

Allen Raine was a romantic novelist but her unequalled knowledge of Welsh life and Welsh society mark her down as an influential and distinctive writer who captured the essence of a country still trying to find its place in the modern world. She deserves far more recognition than has yet been accorded.

Catch up with Phil Carradice on the One Show

2011-04-14T09:30:35+00:00

BBC Wales History blogger Phil Carradice joined The One Show's roving reporter Angelica Bellto talk about last invasion of Britain in 1797. It took place in west Wales when 1,400 members of the French Légion Noire landed on the Pencaer Peninsula just outside Fishguard.

You can watch Phil's debut on The One Show on the player below. You'll need to scroll the time bar to 16 minutes and 20 seconds into the programme.

If you'd like to read about the last invasion of Britain, take a look at Phil's article on the BBC Wales History blog.

Sarah Jacobs: the fasting girl

2011-03-14T09:12:53+00:00

At the end of the 19th century she was known as the Welsh Fasting Girl and regarded as a miracle: the little 12-year-old who had not eaten for over two years.

In an age where spirituality clashed with the new teachings of science, she was an undoubted phenomenon, but whether or not her "miracle" was of her own making or something that was forced on her by manipulative parents remains unclear.

However you view it, the story of Sarah Jacobs is one of fascinating and tragic proportions. In the end she was killed by her own fame, a fame that, to begin with at least, she seemed more than eager to grasp.

Sarah Jacobs was born on 12 May 1857 on a farm just outside the village of Llanfihangel-ar-Arth in Carmarthenshire. Her parents, Evan and Hannah Jacobs, held respectable positions in this rural community, Evan having been a deacon in the local chapel. At the age of nine Sarah fell ill with convulsions of some type.

As she recovered she was allowed to sleep in her parents bedroom, a warm and comfortable environment compared to the loft where she would otherwise have spent her days. There was no denying that lying in bed all day, composing poems and reading the Bible, was far preferable to looking after the animals on the farm.

Spoiled and cosseted, she began to refuse food. She was genuinely religious but whether her refusal to eat had spiritual undertones or was simply the machinations of a manipulative anorexic has never been clear.

She was a self-possessed and bright child and, whatever the cause, she soon began to see the value in what she was doing. Perhaps her parents encouraged her in what was clearly a deception that fooled virtually everybody. Evan and Hannah later claimed that their daughter had had no food whatsoever from 10 October 1867 until her death two years later in December 1869.

As the fasting went on Sarah became something of a local celebrity, with people from the village wondering at her refusal to either eat or drink. And so it might have remained if the local vicar had not written to the newspapers about this amazing miracle that was occurring in his parish.

Sarah's fame was assured almost overnight. Soon people were coming from far afield, from the English cities as well as Wales, catching the train to Pencader and walking over two miles to the farm to stand gazing in wonder at this young girl who was defying the laws of nature. They brought gifts and money for her, dropping their sovereigns onto the bedspread as she lay, surrounded by flowers, reading and quoting the Bible.

Everyone marvelled at her appearance, one visitor remarking: "Her eyes shone like pearls, as alert as my own - - - She had rosy cheeks and looked like a lilly amongst thorns."

To live for over two years without food or water is, clearly, impossible but in the Victorian Age people really believed they were witnessing a miracle. How Sarah got her food is not known.

Some believe her sister was feeding her, passing titbit's from her mouth whenever they kissed. Others are inclined to the view that Sarah fed herself, climbing out of bed when the rest of the house was asleep.

Her body would have become used to reduced amounts of food, and she had often refused to eat her lunch in the past. When at school she had asked her classmates not to tell anyone, her parents in particular.

With her case attracting more and more interest, the vicar and the medical profession decided to mount a watch over Sarah. This was to last for a fortnight. Evan Jacob agreed but the watch did not last both day and night and the findings were unclear.

As Sarah grew fatter and plumper, reaching full maturity despite her lack of food, people began to suspect fraud. Dr Phillips of Guy's Hospital decided to organise another vigil. Six nurses were brought in to mount a 24 hour watch on the girl.

And now Sarah's position became really untenable. If she had previously been able to slip out of bed to find food in the night, now it was impossible.

She could not admit to fraud or lying; pride or religious conviction, or even her undiagnosed medical condition, would not let her. And so she simply lay there, waiting to die, as the nurses watched and made notes in their diaries.

The experiment was cruel: the nurses were instructed not to treat or help, simply to mount a watch. If Sarah asked for food they were to give it but otherwise they were to do nothing. And, of course, she did not, and the tragedy was to be played out until the bitter end.

The Lancet, the main journal of the medical profession, later commented that practitioners everywhere should be "filled with feelings of shame and indignation."

After four or five days Sarah lapsed into semi-consciousness and on 12 December 1869 she died. The 'miracle' was over.

An autopsy was held at the Eagle Inn in the village and a sticky substance and the bones of a small bird or fish were found in Sarah's stomach. Clearly, she had eaten something.

More tragic, however, were the grooves found on her toes - as if she had been trying to open the cap of the stone water bottle that had been placed in her bed, a desperate attempt to get water.

Evan and Hannah Jacob were subsequently convicted of manslaughter and spent 12 and six months, respectively, in Swansea prison. No-one could prove that they had deliberately starved and, eventually, killed their daughter but they - like the medical profession, although the doctors and nurses were never prosecuted - were certainly guilty of doing nothing to protect her. Perhaps they really believed they were witnessing a miracle?

So, Sarah Jacobs? A genuine miracle or a cynical exercise in fraud?

Many people call her Wales' first anorexic - and there are certainly elements of that awful condition in her history. But above all, this is the tragic story of a young girl on the threshold of life, a young life that was, because of her own personality or because of pressure from outside, cut brutally short.

International Women's Day

2011-03-07T14:59:34+00:00

Tuesday 8 March 2011 is a highly significant date. This is a global centenary, marking the 100th anniversary of the establishment of International Women's Day (IWD).

This world-wide celebration of women's rights and, significantly, of the part that women play in society has been held since March 1911 although it is only fair to say that conferences, demonstrations and campaigns on the subject had been organised in a variety of different countries - most notably the USA - for several years before that date.

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries the focus of the day has ranged from simply marking and commemorating mutual respect between men and women to a celebration of women's achievements in fields such as politics and economics.

In the early days, however, there were marked and serious political overtones to IWD.

The early years of the 20th century saw rapid industrialisation in many countries and the working conditions of most of the women employed in factories and on the production lines gave cause for considerable concern.

At the 1910 Copenhagen Conference of Working Women, the German socialist Clara Zetkin proposed the idea of a special day to celebrate the social, political and economic achievements of women. She went on to suggest that celebrations take place on the same day every year and although the very first International Women's Day (IWD) was held on 19 March 1911, it soon became accepted that 8 March would, in future, be the special day.

That first year over a million people, mainly women but some men also, celebrated the day with marches and lectures, rallies and meetings being held in countries such as Germany, Austria, Denmark and Switzerland. The United Kingdom, in these early days, was noticeably silent and absent from the major celebrations.

The outbreak of World War One in 1914 did little to enhance the significance of the day. However, it was still marked wherever and whenever possible. Demonstrations in support of IWD were actually an important factor in the success of the 1917 Russian Revolution and Lenin, once he had come to power, declared the day a state holiday - even though nobody actually took time off from work until the 1960s.

International Women's Day soon became hugely influential and important in Russia and all of the countries of the old Soviet Block. In these states the day retained its social and political significance while in others, like Romania, it developed or changed into something rather like Mother's Day. In Italy men still present their partners with yellow flowers on 8 March.

The significance of the day, however, goes a lot deeper than presents of flowers and should never be forgotten. It is, after all, less than a 100 years since women in Britain were given the vote and these days it is all too easy to forget that for many years women, if not exactly second class citizens, certainly did not have the same rights and opportunities as men.

Wales has never been short of women who have demanded their rightful place in society, no matter how difficult it has been.

The idea of the Welsh 'Mam' is central to Welsh society as a whole while even the most cursory look at The Mabinogion will show that our legends and our history contain a wide range of notable and influential women. From the redoubtable Jemima Nicholas who helped defeat the French invaders in 1797 to Betsy Cadwalader who nursed alongside Florence Nightingale in the Crimea, Welsh women have often played a significant role in the memorable moments of our country.

Two Welsh women, in particular, seem to epitomize the ideals of the early organisers of International Women's Day. Annie Powell, who trained as a teacher, saw the poverty of the valleys first-hand when she worked in Trebanog and was determined to improve the lot of those she worked and lived alongside. Always socialist in outlook she quickly turned to Communism as the only way forward and made 13 attempts to get herself elected to the Council as a Communist. Finally, in 1955, she succeeded and spent 20 years serving on the Rhondda Council, becoming Britain's first Communist Mayor in 1979.

Elizabeth Andrews was born into a mining family at Hirwaun in 1882. One of 11 children, she was forced to leave school at the age of twelve to help out with the family but retained an active interest in women's rights and politics in general.

A member of the women's suffrage movement, when women were given the vote after the First World War she became one of four women organisers of the Labour Party. A tireless campaigner on the issues of health and education, she was constantly arguing for improved living conditions in the mining valleys.

In 1948 Elizabeth Andrews was awarded the OBE for her services as a JP and, more recently, was voted 100th in an on-line poll to discover the 100 greatest Welsh heroes of all time.

Both Annie Powell and Elizabeth Andrews were clearly women who were never going to take a back seat. The ideals of International Women's Day fit them exactly.

The way that the day itself has been organised has not always been without its critics. And sometimes there have been serious political and social fallouts. The London Borough of Tower Hamlets, for example, once closed its libraries to all men (staff and clients) on IWD, forcing any man who wished to use library facilities to journey elsewhere.

More seriously, in Iran in 2007 women (and men) who were planning a rally on the day, were attacked and beaten by police. Many women were flung into prison and forced to spend several weeks behind bars.

International Women's Day 2011 is a significant moment in history. The living and working conditions of women - and their status - have changed out of all proportion since that first special day back in 1911. And yet, in some parts of the world, women still have to endure oppression and brutality. Marking the day, in whatever way we can, might go some little way to making sure that, sooner or later, things are bound to change - all over the world.

BBC Cymru Wales is marking the centenary of International Women's Day in a special, one-off way. Every English language service will be presented by a woman on that day. The intention is to mark the anniversary and celebrate the role of women in contemporary Welsh life..

How public was the public house?

2011-02-04T09:05:47+00:00

It's a sad fact that the good, old fashioned public house was, for many years, far less public than most of us ever imagined.

Many Welsh pubs used to have 'Men Only' bars

Half of the population of Britain was actually banned from many of these establishments, purely on the grounds of gender, and of the other half a large proportion was excluded from certain parts of the building because of social class.

For a long time many Welsh pubs had 'Men Only' bars. Until as late as the 1970s women, if they came to the pub at all, were usually sat in the snug or the lounge.

They rarely entered the hallowed portals of the bar and their men folk - very few women ventured into the pub alone - would bring them drinks as the evening progressed. The men remained, resolutely, standing at the bar.

It had not always been like this. In the Victorian era you would often find women in public houses but these were not always the kind of girl you would be happy to take home to your mother!

Pubs like The Eagle in Cardiff - later, perhaps appropriately, re-named The Spread Eagle - doubled as brothels and many establishments were actually run by women. When you study the various directories of Welsh towns and villages in the 1880s and 1890s you find that, maybe, 40 or even 50% of them had women landlords.

There were famous characters in most Welsh towns, drunkards who regularly appeared in court on charges of being drunk and disorderly. Many of these were women and some, like Ellen Sweeney of Swansea had over 150 convictions. No sign of discrimination by gender there, then!

In the smaller towns and rural areas, however, the taboo against women in pubs remained firm and constant. Pubs often had a small hatch, perhaps at the rear of the building, where women might come to fill up a bottle or a jug but they rarely went inside.

Only as the swinging '60s progressed and the greater freedom of the Women's Lib movement began to smash down some of the prejudices of society did things really start to change.

There was also, for many years, a very clear social divide in the pubs. Working men used the bar; the 'better class of person' - the town doctor, solicitor or police sergeant - drank in the snug or lounge. And never the twain would meet.

Of course there was a charge of two pence extra on all drinks bought in the lounge but, for most members of the middle or even upper classes, that seemed to be preferable than drinking with your workers or servants.

Sometimes the working men in the bar had to face yet another form of discrimination. Many pubs expressly forbade the wearing of working clothes. Others allowed it in the early evening, for men on their way home from work, but if they wanted a drink after 9pm they had to be properly attired in jackets, shirts and trousers.

These days there is no sense of discrimination in our pubs. The law of the land would not allow it and, anyway, attitudes have changed out of all recognition.

The public house has evolved along with the rest of society and if it wants to survive it will have to continue to change, many times.

If you want to hear more about pubs in Wales tune in to Past Master on Sunday 6 February, 5.30pm on BBC Radio Wales, when Phil Carradice explores this unique British tradition.

Read Phil's earlier blog on the death of the British pub.

Women war veterans

2010-11-10T09:04:42+00:00

During World War Two, women across Britain were encouraged to do 'their bit' as part of the war effort.

Posters and campaigns were seen around the country asking women to "Join the Wrens and free a man for the fleet".

Members of the Women's Royal Navy Service (WRNS) were referred to fondly as 'Wrens' and they played a valuable role in both world wars, as well as in other conflicts throughout the 20th century.

Women were encouraged to join and to do jobs that had previously been done by men. Women joined in their thousands and by the end of World War Two over 74,000 women had been recruited to the service.

Margaret Street and Margaret Read are active members of the North Wales Branch of the Wrens Association.

Margaret Street and Margaret Read responded to the call, and even though the ladies are now in their nineties they have very clear memories of their time spent in the Wrens. You can read some memories of their wartime experiences below.

Margaret Street (left) and Margaret Read (right) in uniform

Both woman are members of the North Wales Branch of the Wrens Association which very recently received a grant from the Big Lottery Fund to help their members attend reunions in Liverpool, Caernarfon and Cambridge, among others.

To find out more about the Big Lottery Fund's Heroes Return 2 programme, call the helpline on 0845 00 00 121 or visit the website www.biglotteryfund.org.uk.

Margaret Street

It was the lure of crossing oceans that led Margaret Street who now lives in Prestatyn, north Wales, to join the Wrens.

Margaret Street in in Ceylon, now called Sri Lanka. Margaret is on the far right side of the middle row.

"All I wanted to do was go abroad and I thought joining the Wrens was the perfect answer to my wanderlust," says Margaret who signed up in 1944, aged 19.

She recalls her disappointment at being located just 10 miles from home:

"When I joined I went to a training establishment called Mill Hill in London from where they sent me back to Liverpool,"

Margaret Street

"I volunteered for overseas duties as a signalling watchkeeper, but if you were under 21 you had to have your parents' permission to go abroad. It took me six long months to persuade my parents to agree to that."

A few months later Margaret was drafted to Ceylon, or Sri Lanka, as it is known today.

The first officer described the posting as, "a completely different life - you'll have to work hard because there's a huge harbour there and a lot of signals going on all the time, but you can play hard. There's swimming, picnicing and barbecues."

To a 19-year old girl, this sounded too good to refuse. Margaret, along with six other Wrens, packed their bags and headed for Trincomalee.

"Trincomalee was hectic. By then the European war was over so they sent out ships from both the home fleet and the Mediterranean fleet to join the Far Eastern fleet ready to invade Japan.

"It was a huge harbour, one of the biggest in the world and the ships were absolutely crammed in and sending signals all the time to each other. You could almost walk from one ship to another it was so crowded," recalls Margaret.

Margaret was on duty when the signal came through that the atom bomb had fallen and VJ day (Victory in Japan) was announced.

"You could never believe what it was like; everyone was really excited. The sailors were throwing their hats in the air and we were given free drinks. All the local people as well as the sailors were all around the harbour cheering. When dusk came, all the ships were lit up and there were hundreds and thousands of fireworks going off - it was a wonderful experience," says Margaret.

But of course, VJ day meant that it was time for the Wrens to head back to Britain.

Along with thousands of other Wrens Margaret was demobbed in 1946, but she remains an active member of the Rhyl Wrens Branch.

Margaret Read

Margaret Read was 24 years old when she answered the call of duty. After signing up to the WRNS, the Women's Royal Navy Service, Margaret was sent to Blundellsands in Liverpool where she trained as a signal watchkeeper before being drafted to a new post at Machrihanish on the Mull of Kintyre in Scotland.

Communications team for the HMS Landrail in Machrihanish, Scotland. Margaret Read is in the second row, third from right. Photograph taken in 1943.

"I worked underground in a PCB - a protective communications building. I was a signal distributing watchkeeper or 'bunting tossers' as they were known. When we received messages we had to know whether it was confidential. It was then up to us to pass it on to the right people," says Margaret who, at 93 years old, is the oldest member of the Rhyl Wrens Branch.

Margaret Read

"I was on duty when VE Day was declared - it was night time and the armistice with Germany would be signed the next day. To celebrate, the battleships company, including the Wrens, were given permission to 'splice the mainbrace'," which meant they had permission to have a little drink.

"We all had a tot of rum. All the men had it regularly, but us Wrens had never had it before. We went across and all we had was our mugs. There was this big barrel which had big brass bands that shone and the officer of the day had a ladle and he gave us all a little.

"One of the Wren officers was there with some water - she didn't want a lot of tiddly Wrens!" laughs Margaret.

The Ladies of Llangollen

2010-07-06T15:21:04+00:00

Many of us may have heard about the Ladies of Llangollen. Maybe some of us will own a print or even one of the early Victorian fairings that depict the redoubtable pair. But not many of us will know the actual story of Lady Eleanor Charlotte Butler and the Honourable Sarah Ponsonby, the two ladies in question.

These two upper class women lived together for many years outside Llangollen and, despite their desire only for a peaceful and untroubled existence became, by the early years of the 19th century, something of a tourist attraction for the little north Wales town.

They fascinated the public and intrigued the imagination of many who wondered, in public and in private, about their relationship - was it sexual? Nobody, either then or now, has been able to find out.

Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby were both born in Ireland, to aristocratic and well-off families, and met in 1768 when they immediately became great friends.

In 1778, rather than be forced into arranged marriages that they did not want, Eleanor and Sarah scandalised polite society and ran away together.

They had tried to run away before and had been prevented by their families. This second attempt was more successful. For many weeks their "elopement" was the talk of both Dublin and London coffee shops and salons. The two women did not care. They were happy in each other's company.

Together, they sailed from Ireland to Milford Haven and then journeyed north, eventually arriving in the Vale of Llangollen, an area they considered to be one of the most beautiful pieces of countryside they had ever seen. Just outside Llangollen they found and, in 1780, bought a small house called Pen-y-Maes and settled down to life together.

They were, in the main, unsociable, took no notice of current fashions and wore basic, dark clothing at all times. The people of Llangollen accepted them and called them, simply, "The Ladies."

Despite the injunctions of their families Eleanor and Sarah refused to return to Ireland. They began to redesign their cottage in the Gothic style and renamed it Plas Newydd. They spent the next 50 years studying literature, learning languages and piecing together a huge collection of woodcarvings.

Eleanor kept a diary of their life together - a life that was, really, quite mundane and often boring.

However, for some reason, their story and their lifestyle caught the public imagination. Soon visitors, unknown and famous, were besieging Plas Newydd. People such as the poets Byron, Wordsworth and Shelley all came to talk and stare, as did the novelist Sir Walter Scott.

Lady Caroline Lamb, friend of Byron and, by strange coincidence, a distant relative of Sarah Ponsonby, also found time to visit, as did the formidable Duke of Wellington. Visitors often brought with them pieces of wood carving which the ladies promptly added to their collection.

The exact relationship between the two women will never be known. At the end of the day it hardly matters. They were the greatest of friends and that friendship helped to sustain them through many years of what were, at times, quite gruelling problems.

Finances were never easy for them. Despite having an annual income of under £300, their aristocratic backgrounds never quite disappeared and they insisted on maintaining a household that consisted of gardener, footman and several maids.

One of the maids was Mary Caryll, a woman who had served them before, in Ireland. This insistence on servants and standards led to not inconsiderable debts, something with which they battled all their lives.

The Ladies of Llangollen were, eventually, reconciled with their families but continued to live in north Wales. And the public continued to come. Eleanor died on 2 June 1829 while Sarah, 16 years younger than her friend, lived on, alone at Plas Newydd, until December 1832.

The house at Llangollen is now a museum. It is run by Denbighshire County Council and is one of the main tourist locations in the town.

Feel free to comment! If you want to have your say, on this or any other BBC blog, you will need to sign in to your BBC iD account. If you don't have a BBC iD account, you can register here - it'll allow you to contribute to a range of BBC sites and services using a single login.

Need some assistance? Read about BBC iD, or get some help with registering.

The witch and the warship

2010-05-26T07:31:12+00:00

When the matter is investigated it soon transpires that somebody - obviously with a keen eye to economy - has ordered fir wood to be used instead of oak for the launching ways, those stretches of planking along which any newly built ship is meant to slide until she reaches the water.

Fir is soft and, consequently, as the new hull took shape and as the ship grew heavier and heavier, the Caesar simply bedded herself into the wood. She couldn't have hit the water, even if she had wanted to!

To make matters even worse, the tallow used to grease the launching ways was of very poor quality.

For the people of Pembroke Dock, however, there was a much more sinister reason for the Caesar's failure to enter the water. A local woman called Betty Foggy, renowned in the area as a witch and spell caster, had tried to enter the dockyard to watch the launch.

It was customary at Pembroke Dock - and in most Royal dockyards - to throw open the gates and allow locals in to watch any launch. It was quite an occasion for the people of the town. In the middle years of Victorian Britain there was not much in the way of public entertainment, particularly in out-of-the-way places like Pembroke Dock, and the local people looked forward to such free treats.

However, when Betty Foggy tried to get in, an eagle-eyed policeman turned her away. "You can't come in," he said. "It would be unlucky." No matter how much she protested the policeman was adamant. There was to be no admission for Betty Foggy.

Dozens of people saw Betty turned away and, more importantly, heard her words. "Very well," she mumbled. "If I can't come in then there'll be no launch today."

Her curse seemed to work and before evening the story of the failed launch and Betty's supposed part in the affair was all around Pembroke Dock and nearby Pembroke. Betty Foggy had put a curse on the launch.

It was Sunday 7 August, when most people of the town were conveniently engaged in morning service, that the Caesar finally slid into the waters of the Cleddau River. For 17 days workmen had been quietly building huge wooden structures, known as camels, under the hull of the ship. Slowly but surely the Caesar's keel was raised up out of the fir wood into which it had sunk.

Never being the people to admit a mistake, the dockyard officials were quite sanguine in their explanations - "Betty has lifted her curse!" they declared.

The people of the town believed them and the story has gone down in Pembroke Dock folklore, the witch who cursed the launch of HMS "Caesar."

Need some assistance? Read about BBC iD, or get some help with registering.

The Welsh nightingale

2010-05-19T13:07:40+00:00

When she grew up, Betsi (real name Elizabeth) was a traveller of note, working as a servant and as a companion for various people, ships captains and titled ladies among them. Her work took her around the world several times - and this in an age when most working class men, let alone working class women, never travelled more than a dozen miles from their front doors! Not officially, a nurse,

Betsi's various jobs in all parts of the world involved her in nursing duties and, in particular, convinced her of the need for cleanliness as an aid to recovery from disease and illness.

The Crimean War broke out in 1854 and, thanks to the regular despatches of journalists like William Russell, it quickly became apparent that the campaign was appallingly organised. One of the worst injustices was the total lack of care for wounded and dying soldiers.

Learning that Florence Nightingale had been commissioned to provide a cadre or squad of suitable nurses, Betsi Cadwaladr applied to join the group.

However, Nightingale had already left for Scutari and Betsi was forced to join one of the subsequent parties organised by Mrs Herbert. When she reached Scutari and met Nightingale it was clearly a clash of personalities. Apart from anything else Betsi was working class, through and through - Florence Nightingale came from a much more privileged background. Kept waiting for several weeks, Betsi fumed and demanded to be sent to the front:-

"I did not like the name Nightingale," she later commented in a book on her life. "When I first learn a name I know by my feelings whether I shall like the person who bears it."

Clearly, then, Betsi and Florence Nightingale disliked each other from the first and Nightingale eventually washed her hands of this argumentative and truculent Welsh woman who, despite all advice, made her way to the front lines where she cared for the wounded and injured soldiers.

She cooked, cleaned and nursed, working twenty hours a day and sleeping, when she found the time, on the floor with seven other nurses. Inevitably such conditions took their toll on a woman who was already over seventy years of age.

When Nightingale visited the battlefront and saw the amazing work that Betsi had done, she changed her mind about a woman who she had previously considered only to be an irritant. She begged Betsi to stay on - after a little rest - but Betsi knew her limitations and returned home

The author Jane Williams wrote a book about Betsi's life and adventures but Betsi did not live to enjoy the fruits of fame. Worn out by her exertions in the Crimea, she died on July 17 1870 and was, for many years, something of a forgotten heroine - even though she was one of a mere handful of men or women who ever dared challenge the redoubtable Florence Nightingale.

Some belated degree of recognition came in 2009 when the Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board was created to include the six local health boards along the north Wales coast. This is the largest health board in Wales, employing over 18,000 staff. Somehow, you feel, Betsi would be proud.

Welsh witches

2010-03-25T09:31:08+00:00

"The term witch has meant many things to many people over the years," says Dr Kathleen Olsen of the University of Wales, Bangor. "But for most of the Middle Ages the word really meant the local healer, someone who made poultices and medicines and perhaps had charms or spells for healing cattle and other farm animals."

Be that as it may, the powers of darkness certainly had an appeal to some people. When, in the early years of the sixteenth century, Tangwlyst ferch Glyn was accused by the Bishop of St David's of living in sin, she fashioned a figure of the Bishop and called down a curse upon him. The Bishop fell ill but the affair fizzled out - the only known instance of a poppet doll being made and used in Wales.

Tangwlyst was lucky, a few years later witchcraft was a matter for the State. A statute in 1563 made witchcraft a capital offence and from that point on more and more people were called out as witches. Often this was little more than a handy way of labelling some unfortunate woman who was different from everybody else - or, sometimes, as a way of exacting revenge when the wise man or wise woman failed to cure an ache or heal a hurt animal.

"Witchcraft comes into the historical record in 1594," comments historian Richard Suggett, "when Gwen ferch Ellis from Bettws is indicted and subsequently executed for witchcraft. It's the first recorded instance of what, I suppose, you can call black witchcraft. She was a healer but for some reason she was persuaded by another woman, called Jane Conway, to leave a charm at Gloddaeth, the home of Sir Thomas Mostyn, a sworn enemy of Jane Conway."

Gwen was convicted of murder by witchcraft and duly hung. There were many other accusations of witchcraft - but proving them was another matter. Most of the women spent brief periods in prison before being released when the case against them collapsed. The National History Museum at St Fagans has a fascinating collection of witch related artefacts - including a bottle that is filled with pins.

"It would have contained urine," says Lisa Tallis of the museum, "urine from the victim. The idea of the pins was to cause the witch, who had put on the curse, to suffer excruciating pain and thereby break the spell." The laws against witches were repealed in 1736 but the very name witch still has the power to cause a shiver of apprehension and fear in many people - particularly on dark winter nights when the powers of darkness might just be wandering abroad!

Learn more about Welsh witches on Past Master, Sunday 28 March, 2pm, BBC Radio Wales

Do you have any local tales of witches? We'd love to hear from you. Leave a comment below.

If you want to add a comment to the Wales History blog (or any BBC blog) you will need to sign in to your BBC iD account. If you don't have an account, you can register here to set up a BBC iD account. Read about BBC iD.