大象传媒

One of the biggest problems the families struggled with wasn't the animals, and it wasn't the tough dawn to dusk work routine. It was the food. With limited supplies, generous helpings of offal, no supermarket to pop out to and every meal having to be prepared from scratch, Alisa and Catrin faced a tough challenge to keep their broods fed.

Part of the planning for Snowdonia 1890 included extensive research into 1890s food and cooking methods, and the problems modern day families might have coping with them. We employed nutritionist Dan Kings to advise about what the main difficulties might be and were told to warn the families that planning and portion control would be vital.

Alisa, in particular, had a real struggle on her hands. The Braddocks were strangers to portion control and two ravenous teenagers, Jordan and Jamie didn't help matters. As a result Alisa worried constantly that they were about to run out of food, and a few corking arguments ensued!

The finale of Black History Month celebrations will take place this Saturday 30 October, between 12pm and 6pm at the in Cardiff Bay.

In partnership with , the programme culminates with a packed day of live music, workshops, discussions and activities.

Contributors include Gareth Hicks reading 'Cymru Ddu' - Black Wales; Glenn Jordan, Reader in Cultural Studies in the Cardiff Centre for Creative and Cultural Industries on 'What is Black History and Why Does it Matter?'. Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas, AM will be providing the keynote speech for the evening.

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

Need some assistance? , or get some .

Jon Dee's passing away has got me thinking of funerals. His funeral takes place this week, and I'm sure it will be a fine one.

It's funny to think of a funeral as a fine one or a good one, but this has been important in the Welsh psyche for many, many decades. Of course, in the old days, when I was young, there was a definite format and structured style and arrangement.

Immediately, on a death, curtains were drawn in the house and, out of sympathy, in all the adjoining houses in the street. Relatives would visit with their condolences and if other family members, or friends that they were not talking to, arrived while they were there, then they went out through the back door and the new visitors would come in at the front door.

On the day of the funeral, the preacher would call at the house for the first service and if, in his oration, he had not managed to get everyone crying, or weeping or wailing, then he hadn't done his job.

Men gathered on the road outside the house and a hymn was sung before the funeral moved off. Men would walk in front of the hearse, many in bowler hats and with a strong air of mothballs about them, as the overcoats had their first trip out of the wardrobe for a couple of years, and the mourners would travel in the accompanying undertakers' car. It was always only men that attended funerals, whether it was a woman who had died or not.

At the graveside another hymn was sung and then, many mourners would return to the house for 'ham on plates' and refreshments. It was a great lifting of the spirit and a joyous lightening of the air when the curtains were, at last, opened.

One fellow I heard about from Cwmgors had a real love of funerals and he would look in the paper for details of one he might fancy. It was not unusual for him to go to three or four funerals a week. He'd often go back to the house for food as well, because the family was usually confused enough to believe he was a long forgotten cousin from 'the other side' of the family, so no-one asked close questions.

There can be confusion, because I, recently, went to the wrong post-funeral refreshments. I was on my first pint in the pub's gathering before I realised.

There can be great levity at such occasions too. I remember being at one funeral in Seven Sisters when, on the return from the cemetery, one fellow was stating that it was becoming a regular event for him. It was like having a Debenture Ticket at the Crematorium. He also said to his mate 鈥滻orrie, you're not looking too well to me, is it really worth you taking the walk back from the cemetery now?鈥�

Roy

Roy Noble is bringing his famous storytelling skills to a computer near you as part of the 大象传媒 First Click Campaign - aimed at encouraging people to take their first steps to getting online. If you know somebody who needs help to get online, call the free 大象传媒 First Click advice line on 08000 150950.

Great sadness this week. Jon Dee, who was the regular astrologer on my radio programme for twenty years, suddenly passed away. It was a great shock and a deep sadness because he had only recently moved to Bridgend and was setting up a publishing film.

Roy Noble with Jon Dee and Radio Wales colleague Kathryn Martin

His great gift was beyond just astrology. He had an impressive retentive memory and his reservoir of facts was beyond compare. When he came in to relate his cosmic surveying, it was the interlude of 'This day in history' that fired the imagination and interest. He always had so much more title-tattle to add to the subject.

For instance, did you know that the Battle of Waterloo was a very close run thing. It was touch and go until the Prussians arrived around about four o'clock of an afternoon to join in the fray. They were led by General Blucher, who was widely regarded as being off his head and was convinced, allegedly, that he had given birth to an elephant.

Further, would we have won if Napoleon had not had haemorrhoids? He was on pain killing drugs and had need of a lie-down during the fighting.

All these facts are an example of how Jon and I batted the points back and forth. It was a great shame that we changed the slot, and stopped having astrology on the programme. Jon was a great broadcaster, an author of several books and a man of lateral, colourful thinking. He will be deeply missed.

Roy

Roy Noble is bringing his famous storytelling skills to a computer near you as part of the 大象传媒 First Click Campaign - aimed at encouraging people to take their first steps to getting online. If you know somebody who needs help to get online, call the free 大象传媒 First Click advice line on 08000 150950.

When we think of America most of us will immediately conjure up an image of the Wild West, of cowboys and gunfighters and the US 7th Cavalry. What most people don't realise is that Wales and the USA are more intimately connected than might be supposed, particularly where soldiers and gunfighters are concerned.

Over 250,000 people left Wales for the USA during the 19th century, a small enough figure when compared to the four million who emigrated from Ireland, but it was still a significant number.

The majority of these Welsh immigrants, about 20% of them, settled around the Pennsylvania area. Others spread along the eastern seaboard. The more adventurous ones headed west, joining the wagon trains across the plains in search of new territory to farm.

One of these, John Rees of Merthyr Tydfil, took part in the war against Mexico in the late 1830s, the same war that saw the death of and the fall of the .

Rees was one of only 28 survivors when the Mexicans massacred the Texicans - as they were known - at . He was taken prisoner but was released at the end of the war and returned, briefly, to Wales where he took part in the Chartist march on Newport in 1839. He managed to escape justice, however, sailing back to the USA and eventually settling in California.

Another Welsh soldier in the American army was William Jones from Pencnwr Farm at Dinas. He emigrated to the States in 1870, working as a coachman in Chicago before joining the 7th Cavalry in 1876. He was with George Armstrong Custer's unit at in June that same year and was one of the 261 casualties.

Someone who might also have been a victim of Custer's folly at the Battle of Little Big Horn was Lord Dunraven whose ancestral home was at in Southerndown. Travelling in America he hunted for elk with no less a person than Buffalo Bill Cody on the prairies of the mid West and became friendly with General Phil Sheridan. As the Earl later commented:

"Colonel Custer invited me to join him on a punitive expedition against the Indians. Unluckily, as I thought, but fortunately as it turned out, I received the invitation too late. The whole outfit was wiped out."

The history of the American West is littered with stories of fearless lawmen and one of these was Welshman John T Morris, Sheriff of Collins County in Texas during the 1870s. In his most famous exploit he trailed an outlaw gang led by the notorious James Reed, a cattle rustler, bandit and husband of the infamous . He finally ran them to ground in Paris, Texas. While his posse surrounded the saloon where Reed and his gang were holed up, John Morris went inside and confronted the bandits.

Morris immediately challenged Reed and asked him to give himself up. Reed went for his gun but the Welsh Sheriff was faster on the draw. Within seconds Belle Starr's husband lay dead on the floor of the saloon.

Someone you might not automatically connect with the Wild West was the explorer Henry Morton Stanley. Originally from North Wales Stanley (real name John Rowlands) was a journalist and in 1867 journeyed to the West to interview Wild Bill Hickock. That same year he also rode with the US Cavalry in their campaigns against the Indians and reported on his adventures for The Weekly Missouri Democrat.

The most famous cowboys of Welsh descent were, of course, the James gang. Jesse and Frank James were originally Confederate guerrilla fighters during the Civil War, men who found that they could not give up the violent way of life once the war was over. They were decidedly not the "Robin Hood" figures depicted by American folk lore and, in fact, were vicious and violent killers who cut a swathe through the mid West in the years after the war. Jesse was the worst of the lot.

Although Jesse was born in Clay County, Missouri on 5 September 1847, his family originated in Pembrokeshire. Several of his descendents were Baptist ministers and his father even helped to found the in Liberty, Missouri. Jesse's career went a different way, however, before he was finally shot down and killed by his cousin, Bob Ford, on 3rd April 1882.

There were undoubtedly thousands of Welsh farmers and industrial workers who emigrated to the USA and settled in various parts of the States. They might never have achieved the fame of those mentioned above but they all contributed towards the creation and the development of the United States of America.

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

Need some assistance? , or get some .

Dinorwig quarry hospital in , Llanberis, is holding an open day on Tuesday 26 October, where you can see what would have happened to injured quarrymen in Victorian times.

The open day is from 11am to 4pm and there are guided tours at 11.30am and 3pm. It is otherwise shut during the winter season.

in this 大象传媒 North West Wales News article.

of the hospital on the 大象传媒 North West Wales News website.

Don't miss Snowdonia 1890, tonight, Monday 25 October, 7.30pm, 大象传媒 One Wales.

Say the words "American gangster" and your mind invariably turns to criminals like , or . But one of the most successful of all gangsters - perhaps because he lived to a ripe old age - was actually a man of Welsh descent.

His real name was Llewellyn Morris Humphreys and for many years, under the assumed name or nickname of Murray the Hump, he was one of the most powerful men in the whole Chicago underworld.

Murray the Hump's parents came from , a few miles outside Newtown, having been married in the Methodist chapel at Llanidloes. However, the final years of the nineteenth century were difficult for the small Welsh farming community and the young couple found it hard to make a living on their isolated hilltop farm.

As a result they decided to emigrate to America in the hope of "making it big" in the New World. Their son, Llewellyn Morris Humphreys, was born in their first American home on North Street, Chicago in the year 1899.

Conditions in Chicago were not much better than Carno and by the age of seven young Llewellyn had quit school and was making a living selling newspapers on the street corners. It was a rough and dangerous existence in a city where the newspaper sellers - and even the staff of the papers - fought with fists and baseball bats for the best pitches.

Luckily, Llewellyn found himself befriended by a local judge, Jack Murray, a man who took something of a benevolent and fatherly interest in the mischievous young boy.

He soon adopted the judge's name, Murray, instead of Llewellyn - which was probably just as well because nobody in Chicago could even begin to pronounce his real name anyway. And, of course, it let the other paper sellers know that he had powerful "protection."

Murray the Hump, as he became known because of his fondness for wearing fashionable camel-hair coats, quickly moved on, out of newspaper selling, into the world of gangsters and hit men. To begin with he worked as a hired gun - one of his early victims was apparently Capone's arch enemy Roger Touhy, blown apart by a shotgun blast shortly after his release from federal prison.

Forging his way up the ladder, Murray the Hump was one of the planners behind the infamous St Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929 when seven members of Bugsy Moran's gang were lined up against the wall of a garage in North Street, the very street where the Hump was born, and machine gunned to death. He was far too clever and too powerful to be involved in the killings himself but his was the hand that guided the machine gunners.

After that Murray the Hump was clearly destined for the top. He was the man who, when Prohibition was repealed in 1933, decided to channel the mobsters into the semi-respectable world of running bars, keeping saloons and distributing liquor.

He also became involved in controlling the unions and by the early 1950s the mob was making nearly $100,000 dollars a year under his careful and diligent management. The other interests of the mob, prostitution and gambling, the Hump kept to himself.

When Al Capone died in 1947 Murray the Hump succeeded him at the head of the organisation. The were clear that the Hump was a violent and vicious gangster but one who always preferred to use his brain rather than the machine gun.

He was, they declared, the gangster who introduced money laundering to the mob, investing money from crooked deals in what were otherwise legitimate businesses. He was the man, they said, who was responsible for the introduction of gambling to Las Vegas.

Violence was, however, a way of life for Murray the Hump. It is believed that he murdered the husband of his mistresses, stabbing him with an ice pick before divorcing his own wife, a Native American by the name of Mary, and then marrying the younger mistress.

Murray the Hump never forgot his Welsh roots, so much so that he had a real desire to see what the country was like. He visited Wales just once, in 1963, travelling to the land of his parents under an assumed name. He never had the chance to come again as, two years later, at the age of 66, he died suddenly at his Chicago home.

It was perhaps just as well for the Welsh gangster as the FBI had just issued a warrant for his arrest and with his violent and murderous past beginning to catch up with him he was certainly looking at a long spell behind bars - or maybe even the death penalty.

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

Need some assistance? , or get some .

If you're looking for half-term activities next week, there are a couple of Snowdonia 1890 inspired events taking place.

The National Slate Museum of Wales in Llanberis

Snowdonia 1890 Day

A fun 1890 themed workshops and events featuring Una the steam train in full steam, members of the Snowdonia 1890 supporting cast and slate splitting demonstrations. It takes place at the Tuesday 26 October, 11am-3pm.

The Big Pit museum will hosts two events next week

A Taste of 1890

Find out about life in 1890 in the mining communities of south Wales. , Blaenavon, Monday 25 October 25 and Friday 29 October, 12pm-4pm.

Don't miss the latest episode of Snowdonia 1890, tonight, Friday 22 October, 7.30pm on 大象传媒 One Wales.

Wales History visited the in September 2010. Based in Skewen, near Neath, this small museum, run by an enthusiastic group of volunteers had some exciting plans for expansion. Read the blog article.

One of the fire engines in the museum caught our eye, and it turned out to have quite a remarkable story. Today, on the 44th anniversary of the , it seems appropriate to tell the story of this Merryweather fire engine.

Nearly five years ago the museum had been contact by a man in New Ross in Ireland who wondered if the Welsh Area Fire Engine Restoration Society (WAFERS) could give him some information on a rusting, dilapidated fire engine that he had bought. It was just minutes from being broken up when the man bought bought the vehicle.

The Merryweather fire engine was rescued from an Irish scrap yard moment before it was to be cut up

The fire engine turned out to be an important find for Wales. Malcolm Evans, secretary of WAFERS, explains why a Welsh fire engine ended up in an Irish scrap yard:

"A lot of these fire engines are bought after their days in the service for pumping water, and this one was on a quay in one of the docks in New Ross where it was actually used for pumping water into the ships. And then it sent to the scrap yard."

It didn't take the WAFERS volunteers long to realise the engine had been one of the emergency vehicles sent to attend the Aberfan tragedy. The engine, a Merryweather Regent 3 (Park Royal) model had been based in Aberdare and the five-man crew that had raced to the village was one of the first vehicles to attend the scene.

A couple of volunteers from WAFERS went out to Ireland to take the fire engine back to Wales. It was in a terrible condition and even just getting the engine out of the scrap yard was problematic.

Malcolm Evans recalls: "It was just in among trees and bushes and overgrown thorns of blackberries and trying to get in and have a look at it.

"Because the wheels were locked they had to force and pull it out as best they could from the bushes. I think it took them about four or five hours. When it arrived back we looked at it and naturally we could see the terrible state it was in, not knowing that it would then take us four years to rebuild it."

Restoring the fire engine took nearly five years

The restoration of the fire engine required enormous amount of work. All the electrics required replacing. The hard wood had rotted and the metal was rusted. View a slideshow of the restoration of the Aberdare fire engine.

Ray Evans, Chairman of WAFERS, was a fireman for 27 years in Port Talbot and Neath. Evans was also one of the many fireman who formed part of the rescue effort during the Aberfan tragedy.

"You get sort of feeling for different machines and because it did attend that incident you know you do have a special feeling for it. I suppose the boys who actually worked on that machine would be surprised to see it now in the condition that it is in."

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

Need some assistance? , or get some .

'Ich bin ein Berliner': I am a Berliner. I hope that's right, because President Kennedy went slightly amiss with his podium cry. His declaration came out as 'I'm a Berlin doughnut', or so I'm led to believe.

Our annual visit to an autumnal European capital city with Aberdare Rotary Club went superbly well. Vienna in November last year was very imperial but very 'parky', so this year we went for the falling leaves of October.

Now, I don't mind cut-price airlines. In fact, I've always found them very efficient and courteous, but is interesting to see people trying to rush, but not blatantly so, to the aircraft to get a good seat. There is definitely an art to walking quickly across the tarmac and holding your elbows out in an arch to make yourself bigger so that anyone trying to pass you will have to curve in a wide detour.

The coach driver who picked us up at Sch枚nefeld Airport seemed very German in word and deed and he complained a lot about nuisance inefficient countries who were a burden on the EU and about too many immigrants. All the more amazing when he said he was from Albania.

Berlin turned out to be very impressive. A great deal had been been changed and built since unification and, even though the war damage was originally extensive, some of the famed landmarks were still there or had been rebuilt. The Brandenburg Gate still had that definite dramatic historical air that marked the great divide of East and West.

Checkpoint Charlie is now little more than a shed in the middle of the main road but it is such a magnet for tourists that the German authorities are thinking of re-opening Checkpoints Alpha and Bravo to meet demand. Of course the Berlin Wall, still there in a few tourist-attracting spots, holds its own poignancy of past division and death for many who tried to cross it.

The Reichstag is back to its brooding height and presence and the many museums on Museum Island are testament to German culture and art. Our visit to Potsdam, with memories of films like The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, with scenes of the famous bridge where spies were exchanged and the great house where the famed Potsdam Conference took place, all added to the ever-present feeling that you were walking in the steps of great historical moments.

As for the repast, well, we generally went native and ate German. We couldn't quite face the typical Berlin delicacy... pigs trotters, sauerkraut and potato mash, but the drink was very local. "Ein bier" was a frequent cry in the bierkellers.

My one disappointment was failing to find a touch of 1930s decadence. I was dying to enmesh myself in the entertainment of Cabaret in the company of a modern day Liza Minelli, just to test my resolve really. I mean, how can you, with a chapel deacon's clarity and purity, decry sin when you haven't encountered it at close quarters? Maybe next time, for the German capital city is back on song and worth a second visit.

The journey back was uneventful, except for the noise and whine from my suitcase as I rolled it down the road. Had that noise manifested itself at the airport, my suitcase would have been blown up for security's sake. As it turned out, it was only my beard clipper. For some reason it had turned itself on.

Thinking back, it was a close shave.

Roy

Roy Noble is bringing his famous storytelling skills to a computer near you as part of the 大象传媒 First Click campaign - aimed at encouraging people to take their first steps to getting online. If you know somebody who needs help to get online, call the free 大象传媒 First Click advice line on 08000 150950.

In the wake of the Easter Rising in Ireland in 1916, when Irish republicans, many of them members of the Irish Volunteer Army, seized the General Post Office in the centre of Dublin and held it for five days, the British government was frightened into the worst type of knee-jerk reaction.

Hasty courts martial saw the immediate execution of the rebellion's leaders; James Connelly was even taken to the firing squad strapped into a chair because he had been so badly wounded.

And then the government realised that they had a more significant problem - what were they to do with all the rest of the rebels? Many of the more senior surviving officers were sent to high security British prisons but 1,863 of the rank and file republicans, along with men such as Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith who had managed to play down and hide from the British their involvement in the uprising, found themselves incarcerated in an old whiskey distillery in north Wales.

This was Frongoch Prison Camp. Situated two miles to the west of Bala in Gwynedd, the Frongoch Distillery had been founded by R Lloyd Price in 1897, allegedly because of the purity of the water from the nearby river. However, by 1910 the enterprise had gone bankrupt and when war was declared against Germany in 1914 the old buildings were taken over as a prisoner of war camp. Several German prisoners died there and were buried in the village churchyard; their bodies were later disinterred and moved to other sites.

Following the Easter Rising it was decided that this remote location would be the ideal place to incarcerate the rebels. There were two parts to the camp. South Camp was located in the old distillery buildings, whereas North Camp was based in wooden huts a little higher up the hillside close to Capel Celyn. The two camps were connected by a road that passed a large field - here the first ever game of to be played in Wales took place when two teams of prisoners battled it out in the autumn of 1916.

Conditions at Frongoch were never easy. The old whiskey distillery buildings were bitterly cold at night, very hot during the day, and the prisoners - soon reduced to about 500 in number - were plagued by an infestation of rats.

The prisoners themselves kept order within the camp with the result that, to the later chagrin of the British government, what was created was, literally, a 'University of Revolution' where the ideals of independence and the discipline with which to create it were forged. Interestingly, not one escape attempt was ever recorded at Frongoch, even though prisoners sometimes carried the rifles of their guards (usually men too old to serve on the Western Front) when walking across the hills or between the two camps.

Although the camp was guarded by soldiers, many locals worked there, in the kitchens and barrack blocks, and came into regular contact with the Irishmen. They had much in common. As one prisoner later commented: "We marvelled at the fine national spirit of these men and their love for their native tongue."

Indeed, the General Council of prisoners soon added study of the Welsh language to the subjects that were taught, unofficially of course, to the inmates - subjects such as guerrilla warfare and military tactics.

Other activities included open air concerts, fancy dress parades, cross country walks or route marches and sporting events. It is recorded that Michael Collins won the 100-yard sprint in an athletics event held in August 1916. His time, it seems, was just under 11 seconds.

Although obviously hating the conditions in which they were held, many of the Irish prisoners soon grew to love the wild Welsh countryside around Frongoch. It was very similar to the hills of southern Ireland and must have caused more than a few degrees of homesickness in the minds and hearts of many.

The camp at Frongoch was closed and the Irish prisoners discharged in December 1916. It had been a short lived and misguided experiment where the ideals of Irish Republicanism were forged and hardened rather than broken down.

Yet it remains a fascinating and little-known moment in Welsh history. Nothing now remains of the old distillery or the prison camp. A school sits on the site and perhaps that is as it should be: looking towards the future rather than the past.

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

Need some assistance? , or get some .

at Swansea has been given a commemorative handkerchief from the 1893 Pontypridd Eisteddfod, which was found hidden in an abandoned house in Burma during World War Two.

Dewi Phillips found the handkerchief hidden inside a wall in Burma and brought it back to Wales

The remarkable souvenir was found by soldier, Dewi Phillips, and had remained in his house in Rhos near Swansea for decades.

Dewi Phillips died in 2000 at the age of 80, and the family had only just started going through the large number of souvenirs and mementos he had gathered when they found the Victorian handkerchief.

The handkerchief depicts the cremation in Llantrisant, near Cardiff, in 1893 of the radical activist, druid and surgeon Dr William Price.

Read more on this story on the 大象传媒 Wales News website.

As series producer of Snowdonia 1890, the last 12 months have been busy. I started the job in September 2009, with a simple but sweeping directive to send two brave families on an epic journey back in time, to live the tough everyday lives of Snowdonian smallholders.

Ceri Rowlands is series producer for Snowdonia 1890

Recreating the world of 1890 was a big ask. We started with pretty much a blank page but over the course of the next six months, the idea rapidly took shape.

The series development team had already found a suitable smallholding, Tal y Braich, just outside the village of Rhosgadfan near Caernarfon. Job done I thought. But a memorably rain-soaked site visit soon revealed that the property was a virtual ruin, with no running water supply or decent access road, and there was still the small matter of finding a second cottage nearby.

We quickly decided that our best option would be to renovate Tal y Braich and build a neighbouring cottage from scratch in the network of fields that made up the smallholding. That's easier said than done when you're dealing with a windswept, sodden mountainside in the depths of winter.

I thought it best to gloss over the worst of the detail when briefing our very capable set designer. The hysterical laughter that punctuated his conversation with me after his first site visit said it all. But, good egg that he is, he got on with it.

Add to this the challenge of finding a Victorian slate quarry, school, village shop and chapel, and you quickly realise the scale of the task that we'd taken on. If a structure or feature couldn't be sourced then it had to be built.

There was also the matter of finding period accurate livestock, sourcing heritage crops for the vegetable garden, researching and making period costumes, props and tools.

What and how much would families eat and drink? How should they behave? How do you build an authentic earth closet without polluting the water table? Cue more laughter from the long suffering set designer.

The list seemed never ending. Worse still, we were informed that we would also be shooting the series in high definition, so every detail, no matter how minute, had to be period accurate.

Finally, there was the important matter of finding and selecting our two brave families, not to mention populating a whole community in which they would live. They wouldn't be entering a different era so much as a whole new world.

Psychologists, nutritionists, historians and animal experts were all consulted to ensure that the selected families would be equipped to survive what would be a truly authentic experience.

The challenge we faced was immense, not helped by the worst winter in a decade, a location in which the wind could flatten a grown man, and me discovering I was pregnant.

While the production and build teams battled the elements, I grappled with morning sickness and a raft of health and safety regulations which would effectively bar me from the smallholding when lambing started.

But despite all the obstacles we did it and in March 2010 the cameras started rolling.

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

Need some assistance? , or get some .

A memorial to Swansea-born radio and television broadcaster and writer has been restored following an appeal by the (CPRW).

Broadcaster and author of books about the history and topography of Wales, Wynford Vaughan-Thomas.

The Welsh slate viewing platform near Machynlleth in Powys highlights 13 of Wales' highest peaks. Opened in 1990, it had fallen into disrepair and had been vandalised.

CPRW successfully raised 拢11,000 to repair the memorial which will be reopened by Montgomeryshire MP, Glynn Davies.

Vaughan-Thomas established a reputation as one of the 大象传媒's most respected correspondents. In this archive clip below from 1981, Michael Parkinson interviews him about his flight in a Lancaster Bomber over Berlin in 1943 as it completed an air raid.

Commenting on the dangerous journey, Vaughan-Thomas recalled: "I'll never forget coming up to Berlin. Literally it was surrounded by a bullring of searchlights ... and it was terrifying."

You can read more on the story in this 大象传媒 Mid Wales News article.

The CPRW have an audio file on the remarkable life of Wynford Vaughan-Thomas. You can (scroll down to the bottom of the page).

View more clips featuring Vaughan-Thomas in the Wales History archive section.

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

Need some assistance? , or get some .

Following the phenomenal success of the two Coal House series, 大象传媒 Cymru Wales has recently launched a new 'back in time' programme, Snowdonia 1890.

Snowdonia 1890 shows the hardship of tyddyn (small holding) life.

Produced by the same team that recreated life in Blaenavon in the 1920s and '40s, this new series will chart the trials and tribulations of two families in the slate-producing region of north Wales, in conditions as closely resembling the 1890s as possible.

Hard as it may be to believe, 1890 is only just over 100 years in the past, yet the differences between then and now are remarkable. There was no electricity and, in rural Wales, there were no gas supplies either. No television or radio, no motorcars or central heating - conditions were pretty primitive. Transport was by horse, if you were lucky - otherwise you walked.

Man had not yet taken to the skies, and ships had only just moved out of the era of sail. Machinery to work the slate and coal mines of the country were basic in the extreme, with most jobs being done by hard graft and by hand.

The year 1890 was a significant one for Wales. In February an explosion in the colliery at Llanerch near Pontypool killed no fewer than 176 miners, one of many such disasters to afflict south Wales. On 14 June that year David Lloyd George, later to become Wales' only prime minister, delivered his maiden speech in the House of Commons, while on 20 July Wales' first millionaire, David Davies of Llandinam, died. Only the previous year his huge new dock at Barry had opened for use.

A year later the first language census in the country revealed that 898,914 people (over the age of three) spoke Welsh. That represented 54% of the population and, of these, 30% were monoglot Welsh speaking. In the slate mining districts of north Wales those figures were considerably higher - 91% of people speaking Welsh, 69% having no English at all. Clearly, then, the effects of the new educational system and the use of deterrents such as the Welsh Not had only limited success (if success is the right word) in Snowdonia.

The slate-producing area of Snowdonia, where the series is set, offered men a combination of industry and agriculture for employment, with one occupation or job supplementing and adding to the other. Neither could really offer enough financial reward for people to survive by just one alone.

That meant that many of the men who worked in the slate quarries also ran small-holding farms. These were tiny affairs, perhaps only three or four acres in size, with fields divided up by dry stone walls. Here men, and their wives, kept cattle and sheep, bringing them down from the high grazing pastures in the winter, and tried to cultivate the unyielding land to produce extra vegetables like potatoes and beans to supplement their diet.

It was a hand to mouth existence. Work in the slate quarries was hard and dangerous but at least such work was plentiful. By 1890 there were nearly 100 such quarries in the Snowdonia area alone.

It was a situation that was replicated in many of the south Wales valleys where miners all had their gardens and vegetable plots. Open land was not so plentiful in the south so not many could run to small-holdings of three or four acres, but the need to add meat and vegetables to the diet meant that cultivating the earth and keeping a few chickens - or even pigs - was a common occurrence.

Children will experience school life in the 1890s.

By 1890 the British Empire was nearing its zenith. Britain was already the richest and most powerful country in the world but to the miners and farmers of Snowdonia there were more important issues than grabbing land in South Africa and India. For them it was a case of surviving from one day to the next - something that the two families in Snowdonia 1890 are about to discover for themselves.

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

Need some assistance? , or get some .

During World War Two nearly three million American soldiers and airmen were sent to Britain, most of them arriving in the years 1943 and 1944, prior to the D-Day landings in France.

General Dwight Eisenhower arrived in Tenby by train.

Wales housed more than its fair share of these exuberant and sometimes brash young men who were, in the opinion of many, "over paid, over sexed - and over here".

The "over sexed" comment was, perhaps, appropriate as there were over 70,000 GI brides in Britain by the end of the war. Even a small south Wales town like Barry produced no fewer than 56 of them!

There was virtually no part of Wales that did not see American troops and the constant children's cry of "Got any gum chum?" was heard on streets in towns as varied as Aberystwyth, Haverfordwest, Abergavenny, Swansea and Cardiff.

And it was not just chewing gum that the Yanks gave away - the Americans were incredibly generous, wherever they were stationed. As D-Day approached they happily presented the locals with cans of chicken, sides of beef or ham and tins of coffee, giving them out almost to anyone in need. For the people of Wales, who had been suffering from food rationing for several years, they were welcome gifts.

Barry, then an important port, became a huge hub for American servicemen, with over 40 ships eventually leaving the port to take part in the D-Day landings. They built a camp in the part of the town known as Highlight and used to take children from Cadoxton to picture shows, picking them up in their enormous six-wheeled army lorries. Never mind the cinema - for many of the Welsh children this journey was the highlight of the whole affair.

It was not all fun and games in Barry, however, and the ugly spectre of racism did rear its head on a number of occasions. Thompson Street in the town was eventually placed "out of bounds" after an American complained that he had seen a black soldier being served in one of the clubs in the area.

The club owners and the town council, well used to serving men of all races and colours - this was a dock area, after all - refused to ban black soldiers, and the American senior staff took exception and refused their soldiers permission to even walk down the street.

Mostly, however, relations between the Welsh and the Americans were much more cordial. Sometimes entertainment provided for the Americans was a little bizarre. As one Artillery Officer, stationed for a while in Denbigh, later recorded:

"Constant entertainment was provided in a public hall in the town or at a mental hospital on the outskirts."

The idea of holding a dance at a mental hospital seems now to be a strange one, but back in the 1940s these huge edifices were communities in their own right and the staff had, for years, organised their own entertainment. In Abergavenny things were a little more straightforward, as Christine Jones remembers:

"Abergavenny was full of Yanks, every night. They all wanted to know where the dances were being held. We used to have concerts every Sunday night in the Town Hall and there were dances every Saturday. In the Angel they used to have a place called a Doughnut Dugout."

Those who knew who and what to look for sometimes spotted famous faces. Rudolph Hess was regularly seen around the countryside, being driven out by his two armed guards, but he was a German and therefore nowhere near as interesting as some of the visiting Americans. Christine Jones was working as a telephone engineer:

"I went to Gilwern Hospital one day and was on this ladder against a pole. I was putting in the wire and walked by. James Cagney! I lodged in Abergavenny at the time and the children where I was staying said 'Why didn't you get his autograph?' But he hadn't seen me and just walked by with two soldiers each side. I never thought of it until I got home and the children asked."

Haverfordwest hosted an equally famous American, one Rocco Marchegiano, better known as world heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Marciano. Rocky was stationed in the area and while his boxing career only took off after the war, locals from the town still talk about fistfights between Rocky and his Welsh counterparts.

The nearby town of Pembroke Dock had an even more famous visitor when, on 1 April 1944, - later President of the USA but then Supreme Allied Commander - paid an unexpected visit to the American 110th Regiment in the town's Llanion Barracks.

Eisenhower arrived in Tenby by train and was then taken by fast military convoy, complete with howling sirens and motorbike outriders, to Pembroke Dock. Despite chilly, damp weather he climbed into the back of a jeep to address the men, promising to have a drink with them on the day they crossed the Rhine.

Famous visitors were one thing but for most American GIs the brief period they spent in Wales was an interlude before the real business of war began in earnest. It was an experience most of them never forgot.

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

Need some assistance? , or get some .

Who discovered America? It's a simple question and one that usually brings the standard response - Christopher Columbus. But here in Wales we have our own theory. And that theory says that America was actually discovered 300 years before Columbus sailed "the ocean blue" in 1492 - and more importantly, that it was discovered by a Welshman.

Mandan Indians used Bull Boats for transport and fishing that are identical to the Welsh coracle.

The man in question was Prince Madoc, the son of Owain Gwynedd, one of the greatest and most important rulers in the country, and while the legend cannot be corroborated there are many who believe it implicitly. Owain Gwynedd certainly existed, his reign being marred by long and hard-fought disputes with Henry II, king of England.

The story goes that in 1170 Owain died and, almost immediately, a violent and very bloody dispute arose between his 13 children regarding the succession. Madoc and his brother Rhirid were so upset and angered by events that they decided they wanted no further part in what was happening. Indeed, they wanted nothing more to do with their family or their homeland. They duly took ship from Rhos on Sea (Llandrillo) and sailed westwards to see what they could find.

What Prince Madoc found, so the legend runs, was America. He and his brother managed to cross the Atlantic and land on the shores of the New World. Madoc returned to Gwynedd for more men, then sailed off again, this time never to return. His sailors inter-married with a local Native American tribe and for years the rumour of Welsh speaking Native American tribes was widely believed. It is, of course, the stuff of legend but like all good legends it has at least a grain of truth about it.

As America was explored and colonised several Native American tribes were discovered, speaking a language that did actually sound quite like Welsh. That was not the only connection. The used Bull Boats for transport and fishing, vessels that were identical to the famous Welsh . It was all too good for storytellers and poets to ignore. The legend lasted well into the 19th century and even the explorers Lewis and Clark were instructed to keep their eyes open for these "Welsh speaking Indians" while they were trekking through the interior of the country.

The earliest reference to such a people can be found in a Welsh poem by Maredudd ap Rhys who lived and wrote in the years between 1450 and 1483. However, it was during the Elizabethan period that the story gathered momentum and grew.

There was a political agenda behind the spreading of the legend - it was a ploy, used to assert the right of England to the lands of the New World. Put quite simply, Welsh colonisation of America, many years before, was a convenient justification for Elizabethan settlement in a territory that had already been claimed by Spain.

Starting with in 1559, the story was embroidered and developed - the detail of the Welsh speaking tribe comes from this period. Even recognised experts in the field of navigation and exploration, men such as , consciously and deliberately wrote about the legend as if it were the absolute truth. Sadly, there is no absolute historical or archaeological proof - even Lewis and Clark were unable to find that - but it remains a great story, one that we in Wales have taken to our hearts.

Other people have not been quite as happy to believe the story of Prince Madoc. In 1953 the set up a plaque on the shores of Mobile Bay in Alabama. On the plaque it stated that it had been erected "In memory of Prince Madoc," who was in the opinion of the Daughters of the Revolution the original discoverer of America. The plaque did not last long and was soon removed by the Alabama Parks Department.

For Welsh men and women, however, the story of Madoc's discovery of America remains special - even if, in our heart of hearts, we know that it is probably not true. And as the saying goes, why let the truth get in the way of a good story?

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

Need some assistance? , or get some .

plays host to the annual Glamorgan Family Society fair tomorrow, Saturday 9 October from 10am.

Teams of local experts in both family and local history will be on hand to help with your questions.

There will be stalls selling old postcards, local and family history books, genealogical software, family tree charts, old maps and much more.

The Glamorgan Family History Society will be joined by other local and family history societies from Wales and south east England.

Contributors to the event include:

• Bridgend Branch
• Cardiff Branch
• Cynon Valley Branch
• Merthyr Tydfil Branch
• Pontypridd & Rhondda Branch
• Swansea Branch

Family History Societies

Local History Societies

• Aberdare Local History
• Llantrisant Local History
• Penygraig Local History

Archives & Libraries

Film Presentations & Folk Dancing

• Cwmclydach School - folk dancing Cwmclydach School - folk dancing (Cwmclydach School was destroyed in 1910 by floods that claimed the lives of two adults and four children).
• Mike Jones - Pontypridd & Rhondda Film Presentations
• People Remember - 100 yrs of The Rhondda
• Roots To Restoration (Powerhouse - Llwynypia)
• Visions of Old Pontypridd & Rhondda

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

Need some assistance? , or get some .

The identities of two Welsh families picked to take part in 大象传媒 Cymru Wales's new series set in Snowdonia 1890 have been revealed.

The Jones family from Denbigh and the Braddock family from Abergavenny have been chosen to travel back in time to 1890.

The two families commit to living as closely as they can to the 1890 way of life - where the men have to tackle back-breaking work at the local quarry while the women run the house, and the families work the land and run a smallholding to put food on the table.

The Jones family from Denbigh

The Jones family have a huge range of ages, from Heulwen, 75, right down to her grandson Jac - who at nine is the youngest entrant to the farmhouse, along with the Braddocks' daughter Leah.

Jac's sister Ela, 11, joins him in thinking there will be "nothing to do" without a computer, while Ela faces other issues as a vegetarian in a time where meat from a family's own animals was the staple food.

Their big brother Ben, 18, and parents David, a partner in a law firm, and Catrin, a tribunals officer, make up the rest of the Jones family.

The Braddock family from Abergavenny

The Braddocks are couple Mark and Alisa, and children Jamie, 19, Jordan, 16, Tommy, 13 and Leah.

Before entering the farmhouses which will be their homes for almost four weeks, the families were realistic about the hardships they could face.

"I thought it would be good to be out in a house where you've got no mod cons... to really get back to basics and bond as a family," said Alisa.

And Mark, a medical technician, was realistic about the hardship of the days he was about to face:

"If we don't have enough slate or make enough tiles, we don't get paid; so of course then if you don't get paid, you haven't got money to buy food for the family, so there's a different kind of pressure. Back then they had that worry - if they didn't work, they didn't eat!"

The families will be helped along by a host of local north Wales individuals, such as the butcher, the preacher and the teacher, who appear as 1890 versions of themselves.

Filmed mainly in Rhosgadfan on the slopes of Snowdonia, as well as other locations around the area, the landmark series starts on 大象传媒 One Wales on Monday 18 October, 7.30pm on 大象传媒 One Wales, and continues every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening for three weeks.

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

Need some assistance? , or get some .

A History of the World in 100 Objects tells two million years of history through 100 items from the 's collection.

The final 100th object, chosen by the British Museum, needs to be an object that tells the story of the ingenuity and the challenges that shape humanity in the 21st century.

A shortlist of five objects has been already compiled and will be revealed on A History Of The World - The Contenders, broadcast at 9am on 8, 9, 11, 12 and 13 October on Radio 4.

What would you choose as your 100th object?

Cult film director reluctantly suggests the computer.

"It has changed everybody's life," but adds, "when it goes wrong, when it breaks down you suddenly panic, you have nervous breakdowns and then you have to find the very youngest person in the room because they can always fix it better than you can."

Stephen Fry has suggested his 100th object.

Writer, presenter, actor and technophile suggests a surprising object for inclusion. Watch his suggestion here.

To let the programme makers and the British Museum know what you would choose as your 100th object, simply fill in a short comment form.

If you're looking for inspiration, we've had some great objects added to the Wales collection by both individuals and by museums. View the Welsh collection.

Non Political Club badge

Huw Daniel added a miners fortnight club badge. This badge was given to the children of the members of the Non Political Club in Ogmore on the occassion of the annual "Miners Fortnight" holiday to either Barry or Porthcawl.

Sinclair C5

The in Swansea has added the Sinclair C5, which was manufactured at the Hoover factory in Merthyr Tydfil. The brainchild of entrepreneur and inventor Sir Clive Sinclair, this battery-assisted tricycle with a top speed of 15 miles per hour became an object of popular and media ridicule.

A History Of The World In 100 Objects broadcasts Monday to Friday at 9.45am on Radio 4.

This autumn sees the start of a new landmark series called Snowdonia 1890 on 大象传媒 Cymru Wales.

You can watch a trailer about the programme below:

Filmed mainly in in Gwynedd, Snowdonia 1890 sees two specially selected families embark on an epic journey, as the men, women and children commit to living as closely as they can to a 19th century way of life.

The two families will swap their current comfortable lives for the austere existence of life as smallholders. Living in cramped cottages with no running water or electricity, the families will need to survive by keeping animals, working the land and selling home produce to supplement the wages of the men, who will be experiencing the harsh life of quarrymen.

The families will be helped along by a number of local north Wales residents, who appear as 1890 versions of themselves.

Llanfairfechan farmer Gareth Jones who can currently be seen in the television trailer, is central to the families' efforts to survive. "It was a huge ask of them," says Gareth, who farms Ty'n Llwyfan farm in Llanfairfechan, near Conwy.

"They came to it not having any experience with livestock whatsoever. And that in itself presented challenges, and then the added twist of doing it as they would have in 1890... I honestly didn't think they were going to last a day."

Snowdonia 1890 has been created by the makers of the popular living history series Coal House and Coal House At War. The series begins on Monday 18 October at 7.30pm on 大象传媒 One Wales, and continues every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening for three weeks.

On Sunday 17 October at 8pm on 大象传媒 One Wales, viewers get a chance to take a peek behind the scenes in a one hour special programme, Making of Snowdonia. The programme charts how the restoration of the farmhouses, the selection process and has interviews with the two families.

大象传媒 Wales History will also be featuring a number of blogs written by Snowdonia 1890 series producer Ceri Rowlands, who will shed light on the thinking behind the series.

The Snowdonia 1890 website is now launched and contains interviews, features and details of the series.

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

Need some assistance? , or get some .

A census taken in 2008 revealed that there were approximately 1.98 million Americans with a surname that had Welsh origins.

The star-spangled banner

Many of these, incidentally, were African Americans. There are hundreds of black Americans with names like Evans, Jones and Thomas and these are usually of Welsh origin. It comes from the old slave tradition of workers taking the names of their masters and would therefore seem to indicate that many of the plantation owners - or, at least, the overseers - were Welsh. Not exactly something we should boast or be unduly happy about.

But quite apart from people's names there are also lots of American towns and cities that are named after original settlements in Wales. Some of them are well known.

So we have in Maine, on Rhode Island, even in Massachusetts. Yet not many Welshmen and women realise that there are no fewer than 10 Cardiffs in the States. These can be found in , Colorado, Idaho, , , New Jersey, , , and Texas. That takes some imagining, doesn't it?

It's easy to see why immigrants to the USA should choose to name their new villages after places they knew and remembered in the old world. It meant a degree of security and familiarity in a strange and, in the early days at least, largely untamed land. When death and destruction could visit at any moment, in the shape of disease or famine, raiding war parties of Native Americans, even from Britain's traditional enemies like the French, it was important to keep some semblance of normality alive. It was something firm and tangible to hold onto.

In later years, once America had achieved independence from Britain and begun to develop as an industrial and economic power of major proportions, people from Wales continued to settle in the States. Many of these were coal and steel workers, eager to start a new and better life. And that is why many Welsh immigrants settled in areas of Pennsylvania.

Welsh settlement in Pennsylvania had been going on for many years, mind you. Thanks to the efforts of William Penn in the late 17th century, the Welsh Tract was created. This consisted of 40,000 acres of land in Pennsylvania, most of the settlers being Welsh Quakers. Welsh was the predominant language spoken in the region and this was reflected in the place names of many of the towns that soon grew up. Places such as Bryn Mawr, Lower and Upper Meirion, Radnor and Haverford still exist and remain proud of their Welsh origins.

There are so many other towns and cities with names of Welsh origin in America. Some of them have fascinating histories.

Malad City in Idaho, for example, was created in the mid 19th century as a Welsh Mormon Settlement. And five towns in Maryland were built between 1850 and 1942 to house Welsh quarry workers who had made the dangerous trip across the Atlantic to work in the local quarries.

Dozens of meet on regular basis in all parts of the USA. Along with the surnames of thousands of Americans and the names of their cities they are part of a strong and undying link between the USA and the old country from which so many early settlers came.

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

Need some assistance? , or get some .