Archaeology Talks

 This morning, I was whisked off to Brecon to give a talk about archaeology to a dementia group there.  I was talking about some of the digs I'd been on, and showing slides, and I had a few things to hand round, too, including my trowel!

The group meets at Kensington Baptist Church, near the Castle Hotel, which is a lovely modern building.  I gave the talk in the chapel part, and we had lunch in the hall (there's a proper kitchen - we had fish and chips).  All the people in the group were absolutely lovely, and told me all sorts of things about the local history of Brecon, and the farms they grew up in, and so on.  They asked interesting questions during the talk too.  I'd prepared quite a bit, but I was ready for the talk to go in several different directions, depending on what people were interested in.  In the end, it even included Martello Towers on the South Coast and the Wrexham Lager Brewery!  

Apparently there is another archaeologist who is one of the volunteers for the group, and she recently gave them a talk about Orkney and the archaeology up there (which is fascinating - I'm sorry I didn't get to meet her). 

So I had a lovely time - and I got a great compliment.  One of the ladies said that sometimes, speakers came and they couldn't wait for them to finish, but they wished I could have gone on for longer. 

So it was rather later than I had hoped when I got back to Hay, and I only caught the tail end of the Cusop Castle group meeting in the Swan.  Still, it was great to get back in touch with Denise Darbyshire again - who is doing research into the history of settlement in Cusop along with Peter Ford who lives across the road from me.

Next week, I'll be nice and early for the talk at Cusop Village Hall on the Herefordshire Hoard - the talk starts at 7.30pm and will be given by Tim Hoverd, the archaeologist from Herefordshire Council.  The group organising the dig at Cusop Castle this summer will be able to have a short meeting with him before the talk begins, and there will be a form available for anyone to sign if they are interested in being a volunteer on the dig.  Some people have already expressed an interest.  The dig is taking place at the beginning of June.  For further information, email the Cusop History Group.

Town of Culture Bid

 There's a new competition for a Town of Culture being launched by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.  The first winner will be in 2028.  This follows the success of the City of Culture programme.  There are three categories, for small, medium and large towns, and the cut off date to express an interest is 31st March.  After that, the short-listed towns will get £60,000 to develop a full bid.  The winning town will receive three million pounds to develop a cultural programme in 2028, with two runners up getting £250,000 each.

Hay has plenty of culture, so the Town Council are putting a bid forward.

If anyone would like to get involved, they should contact townclerk@haytowncouncil.gov.uk

Fiona Howard has already suggested Richard Booth: The Musical! 

Changes at The Chair

 The little art gallery on the Square is changing - into another bookshop!

The windows are presently obscured by painted flames, but behind the scenes, a specialist SF and fantasy bookshop is taking shape.  They've got to the stage of advertising for staff, with a note on the door.  If anyone is interested, they should contact Green Ink Bookshop for more details.

Hay Writers' Circle Poetry Competition

 Submissions for the 2026 Hay Writers' Circle poetry competition are now open.

Poems should be original, unpublished, a maximum of 40 lines in length, and on any theme.

The judge this year is Lesley Saunders, a prize winning author of several poetry collections, and translator of modern Portuguese poetry.

For full details, visit the website at www.haywriters.com

Closing date is 7th April. 

Holidays

 I shall be away for a few days, so no posts - I'm off singing science fiction folk songs (filk) in Norwich!

Citizen Scientists Testing the Waters

 An article in the Hereford Times has paid tribute to the over 500 citizen scientists who have been testing the waters of the River Wye for pollution levels over the past few years.  By now they have taken something like 50,000 samples!

It started with anglers from the Wye Salmon Association who were concerned about the water quality in the river, and expanded to other groups along the river like Friends of the River Wye and CPRE Herefordshire.

There is now a combined database available to view, created by one of the members of Friends of the River Wye, at WyeViz (the Wye Viz Wye Alliance Citizen Science dashboard).  100,000 people have visited the site so far.

Citizen scientists and their groups are also calling for the government to do more to clean up the river.  The main problem along the Wye is agricultural run-off.  A recent Welsh Government report (www.gov.wales on Control of Agricultural Pollution) says that only 41% of farmers are compliant with the environmental regulations, and they are visiting farms and sending out warning letters and enforcement notices, but there's still a lot more that could be done, if the funding and staffing levels were better.

The number of citizen scientists involved shows just how much local people love their river - and for every citizen scientist there are more people who love the river but can't get involved in that way.

From the article: "Andrew McRobb from CPRE Herefordshire said: “We started doing this monitoring because the agencies told us that they were lacking data. We’ve delivered data in spades and they need to act on it. Over five years of sterling work by volunteer citizen scientists has delivered evidence for the agencies and governments and led the way to the government funding a long overdue comprehensive Wye Catchment Plan. We can identify the problems, but only the government agencies can enforce the actions necessary to deliver real change”."

 

Forty Years of Wye Valley Beer

 Wye Valley Brewery marks its fortieth anniversary this year - that's a lot of pints of Butty Bach along the way!

Back in the 1990s, when I was an active member of CAMRA, we used to meet at the Barrels, the Wye Valley brew pub in Hereford.  We were among the first to see the pump clips for their new Dorothy Goodbody range.  Pete Amor wanted to show them to the ladies in the group, because he was slightly worried the artwork might be seen as a bit sexist - but we thought they were fine.  The beer was certainly fine.

Since then, the business has grown - brewing has moved to bigger premises, they've bought new pubs in the area, and they still hold their beer festival at the Barrels.  Founder Pete Amor retired, and his son Vernon took over.  Pete even made a little film, going round other independent breweries around the country, as a way of celebrating local breweries like his.

I regularly stock up with their bottled range, including Butty Bach and Wholesome Stout, from Londis.