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Slate strike's scars - 100 years on |
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The Pesda Roc concert, staged in Bethesda, was a celebration to mark the centenary of the strike.
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Earlier in 2003, local groups in Bethesda held a series of events to commemorate the strike, which has made the community a place of pilgrimage for trade unionists, and become an iconic image of Welsh industrial and social history.
There were male choir concerts, school performances, readings, and historical lectures. The keynote was the need to remember, but also to forgive. The words of the author Ernest Roberts, a historian of the strike, were quoted: “All we can do today is admire those who managed to hold out until the end, but let us not condemn those who failed to do so.”
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There was strong symbolism of the desire to heal the wounds of history in the fact that the current owners of the Penrhyn quarry, the McAlpine construction company, paid for the slate plaque to commemorate the strike, which was unveiled as part of the commemorations. The company also paid for the slate’s inscription by the Chief Bard Ieuan Wyn, which reads.
“Yn dlawd ac mewn dyledion - aeth ystyr
I Fethesda'r galon,
A byw yw co'r henfro hon
O'r helynt a'r treialon”.
A rough English translation might be:
“Impoverished, in debt – the meaning of it
went to Bethesda’s heart.
And in this community’s memory
the trouble and the trials live on.”
Words: Grahame Davies
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