Library Meeting, Part One - The Situation So Far

The Parish Hall was packed! This picture was taken by Mari Fforde, and more pictures of the evening can be found on the HOWLS Facebook page. Apparently the drop-in session which started at 3.30pm was well attended too. At least five Town Councillors were present, as well as Kirsty Williams the Assembly Member (and Education Minister). Councillor Graham Brown, portfolio holder for Powys County Council, was invited to attend, but was apparently "out of town". When a substitute representative was asked for, apparently "no-one was available".

Anita Wright, of HOWLS (Hay-on-Wye Library Supporters) opened the meeting by emphasising what a valuable service to the community the Library is. Behind her on the wall was a banner made by the children of Hay School, saying We Love Our Library. Leia, a pupil at Gwernyfed School, read out a passage from an Ali Smith book, talking about how essential libraries are.
Anita said that there are 325 supporters of Hay in touch by email, and more who use snail mail.

Fiona Howard, the Mayor, stood up to give the story so far on what the Town Council has been doing. The Town Council has been asked by the PCC (Powys County Council) to pay half the costs of the library. They began by saying this would be £18,000 but later, when a representative of the PCC met with the Town Council, this was revised down to £14,000, after town councillors noticed mistakes in the figures the PCC was presenting to them.
The problem is that it is not legally possible for the Town Council to grant £14,000 to a single organisation - they kept mentioning Section 137, but I'm not sure which Act this is part of. The PCC said it would be fine, but One Voice Wales, which gives legal advice to local councils, advised against it (Rob Golesworthy put it as "Don't touch it with a barge pole").
The Town Council put a proposal to the PCC - they would take on the Library building, so that other groups could also use it, as long as they could have some income for that from the car park takings. Takings from the car park already contribute towards the cost of the toilets in town. This was rejected by the PCC. They said that Hay could not have both the Library building and the Council Chambers.
It was argued that the Library could be used as a community centre, since the old community centre has been knocked down and there seems to be no sign of a new one materialising, (the land is going to be used for housing), but this was rejected.
Fiona said that, five years ago, it was possible for the Town Council to take on interesting projects to improve Hay, like the Gliss re-development, but now all their time is taken up in running the services that used to be run by the PCC, like the toilets and the Sports Pavilion. And the town councillors are volunteers, doing the job without financial reward, and without the sort of support given by a County Council with paid staff. It's too much to expect volunteers to do (and it's no surprise that they find it difficult to recruit new councillors).
The Library service is a statutory service - the County Council have to provide a "comprehensive and efficient" library service according to the 1964 Libraries and Museums Act - so the responsibility shouldn't be shunted onto the Town Council.

But, the PCC have said that they want to move the Library into the new school building (when that actually happens - the date they're claiming at the moment is 2018). However, they need to save money in this coming financial year, which means that the library hours will be cut from 1st April if nothing else is agreed. Some of the cost for the past few years has been borne by Hay Festival, but that is coming to an end this financial year as well. So they're talking about the library being open for only 6 hours a week.

Richard Greatrex, also of HOWLS, was there to give some facts. He described the proposed move of the library to the school as a red herring, and gave some details of the plans for the new school.
The current library building covers 161 square metres.
The space available for a library on the school plans covers 52 square meters.
But the Chief Librarian, when asked about this, said that the plans had been mis-labelled, and the room next to the one marked "Library" was actually the space intended for the library. This room was marked "Community" and was supposed to be the replacement for the community centre. Which means that all the groups who used to use the community centre would be expected to cram into the 52 square metre room, and the library would have a room of 106 square metres. Still substantially smaller than the present library. And inadequate provision for a community centre, too.
Richard said that 17,065 people visited Hay Library last year, and over 19,000 books were borrowed. That's a lot of footfall to be tramping through the school grounds and building, and he was dubious about how the school would deal with this.
However, the library is much more than a room full of books. What the law says is that the PCC has to maintain the library service, which means the staff, and the ability to have inter-library loans and everything else that goes with that. Even if the library is moved to the school, the PCC are not committing themselves to funding that, even though it is a statutory requirement.

The Swan Re-opens

The Swan has been closed for some time for refurbishments, and is due to re-open on Thursday 2nd February. As well as the refurbishments of the building, they have been changing the layout of the garden, with a herb kitchen garden shortly to be unveiled.
There's a new manager in charge - the one who upset a lot of local groups who were meeting at the Swan (including Stitch and Bitch and U3A) didn't stay for very long. This manager, Ronan Hunter, is looking for local links, according to WyeLocal. He's sourcing the bathroom toiletries from Myddfai Trading Company, which is quite local, works with challenged adults, and is cruelty-free, and has bought the artwork for the hotel from Lion Gallery in Hay. The new crockery has been handmade for the Swan by Pauline Patterson in Hay, and the coffee supplier is Black Mountain Roast, also based in Hay.
And on 10th March, they're hosting a Murder Mystery, performed by Murder on the Side.

A Throne of Books for King Richard?

Rhona Muirhead (who was a Town councillor for a while) is heading a project to create a statue of King Richard Booth. She's the sort of person who Gets Things Done, and the Chamber of Commerce are already interested.
Hay Castle has offered a site for a plinth, and they hope that it will become a tourist attraction in its own right, like the life-size figures of Churchill and Roosevelt on a bench in London.
The idea is to have the statue, in stone or bronze, possibly showing Richard seated on a Throne of Books.
There will, of course, need to be fund raising for the statue. One idea is that the title of each book in the statue would be clearly marked, and donors to the scheme could pay a small fee for the book title of their choice, the top 100 to be incorporated into the statue, including the publishing house - it is hoped that publishers will become sponsors. This would also give publicity to the town of Hay.

All this is in the early planning stages at the moment - they still need to apply for planning permission to site the statue, and have yet to commission a sculptor.

Don't Forget the Library Meeting!

Burns Night at the Baskie

There I am in Moriarty's Bar, wearing my plaid over my shoulder (George, who is really Scottish, came in his kilt!). We sang lots of traditional Scottish songs - Mairi's Wedding, The Skye Boat Song, Mingulay Boat Song, a musical version of My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose - and Robbie Burns' favourite song (allegedly!) Mull of Kintyre! I always choose a TV Theme of the Week - this week it was The Family Ness (a Scottish 1980s cartoon).
On the "Burn" theme, we had Ring of Fire and It's the Fire Brigade. There was accordian and fiddle music, and Ted Banjo played one of his standards, 500 Miles.
Bob performed Green Grow the Rashes Oh for the first time, and said he was considering adding it to his repertoire - he's avoided Burns in the past, because of the Scottish dialect.
There was lots of enthusiastic joining in, and quiet for the performers who were singing songs that couldn't be easily joined in with.
In short, it was a classic Baskerville session, on a Scottish theme!
Slainte!

Bridges, Not Walls

The inauguration of President Trump seems like a long way from Hay, but protests about some of the things he's said have been held across the world, including in Brecon, where about 50 people gathered to hang banners from Llanfaes Bridge. The slogan Bridges, Not Walls (or Pontydd nid Waliau) relates to Trump's assertion that he wants to build a wall between the United States and Mexico.

One of the organisers, Grenville Ham of the Green Party, said:
"This demonstration is show that we are more interested in building bridges rather than walls. This is an opportunity for people of all persuasions to come together and show that they do not believe in intolerance, division and hatred. Bridges Not Walls is a chance to say what you want, in your own words, but as part of a bigger collective project."

Goodbye, Chattels

Chattels giftshop, which has been next to the Buttermarket for many years, is having a closing down sale. There isn't much left, though there's still a pretty good selection of cards and wrapping paper, and some toys and gifts. I treated myself to a kazoo :)
It'll be interesting to see what sort of shop moves into the space.

Small Business Saturday

Beer Revolution has re-opened. They have four beers and one cider on draught, and the same extensive selection of bottled beers that they had up at the castle. And in better weather, they'll be opening up the Secret Garden at the back.

Ceilidh at Kinnersley Castle

And what a wonderful location!

There won't be a Burns Night Ceilidh in Hay this year so fans of Scottish tradition and men in kilts will have to go a little further afield!
The ceilidh will be held on Friday, January 27th from 8pm and it's a fundraiser for Michaelchurch Escley Primary School. Tickets in advance are available from Jules North on 07866 170360 and cost £15 for hot food, whisky on arrival and dancing till midnight with live band, Spindrift.

Greenpeace Meeting at the Globe

Upstairs in the Globe, building work is going on, so we met in the cafe downstairs, which was full for the event - one family had come from Hereford to find out more, and the organisers had come down from Builth Wells (though Janet is originally a Northern lass, and her husband Pete comes from Devon). They had come hoping to set up a new local group in Hay, so they wanted to explain what being an activist with Greenpeace is all about.
There are lots of ways to get involved: the usual signing petitions and writing to your MP, manning an information stall in the high street and, the sort of thing that gets Greenpeace onto the news - the Actions like occupying the roof of the Houses of Parliament or climbing up the Shard.
It was made very clear that anything a member does is their own personal responsibility. Greenpeace was originally set up partly by Quakers, so they felt that personal responsibility and non-violence were essential to the ethos of the organisation. Greenpeace holds regular training days for non-violent action - how to de-escalate encounters with police or security, or simply angry members of the public. They also hold training sessions for climbing (to get up the Shard or onto the roof of the Houses of Parliament) and boats, so that when they are planning an Action, there is a pool of trained people to draw from.
The main way Greenpeace communicates with members now is via their webpage - www.greenwire.greenpeace.org
This gives information on what local groups are doing, and the national campaigns, and there's a blog.
The issues they tackle tend to be global in nature - someone asked what the Greenpeace position was on badgers, and they don't really have one, though members of Greenpeace may also be involved in protecting badgers. Instead it's Saving the Arctic, Protecting Forests, Defending Oceans, and Tackling Climate Change.
Pete was involved in the climb onto the top of the Houses of Parliament in 2010, just before the Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change. The motive was to impress on MPs returning from their summer breaks how important the issue was, and to do this they practiced passing ladders over a wall, across a roof and up another roof in under three minutes, because of the armed police on the premises. One member of the group had a banner, and her job was to approach the police, when they appeared, proclaiming they were Greenpeace, and not to shoot!
Janet has gone further afield, when she was chosen as part of the international group that went to stay in the Amazon jungle with the Munduruku people to protest the building of a dam across one of the main tributaries of the Amazon river. That dam will not, now, be built, but others are planned in the area. Janet's story is told in the Greenpeace magazine Connect, which was being given out at the meeting.
They were also asked about the Greenpeace position on the Swansea tidal barrage, which they were in favour of - one member of the audience pointed out that people in Cornwall were very much against the barrage, because the stone to build it was coming from a Cornish quarry and would cause a lot of damage to the environment there. As someone else said, there's a lot of stone in South Wales - why couldn't it be built with that?
The idea was to start a local group in Hay, and quite a few people signed up for that - the first meeting will be at the Globe on 16th February, but before that, there is an Action planned in Hereford on Saturday 21st. They will be meeting outside WH Smiths around mid day to man an information table outside a national business which is involved in the palm oil trade - details to be revealed on Tuesday.
There were people in the audience who were already involved in activism on various topics - one man gave out postcards from the Campaign Against Arms Trade, to be sent off to MPs to protest about weapons being sold by the UK to Saudi Arabia.
Another chap is involved with the Candlight Cinema at the Globe. They show a film once a month made by independent film makers on thought provoking topics. The next one is on Thursday 26th January (cost £5) and is called One Track Heart: The Story of Krishna Das - the man who became the lead vocalist with the group Blue Oyster Cult, as well as being a world renowned spiritual teacher.

Knights Templar at Cusop

The Hay History Group went across the border to England for their meeting last night, in Cusop Village Hall. Despite the snow, the hall was packed.

Alan Nicholls and Mari Fforde started the meeting off with a bit of a double act - it was a bit like watching newsreaders chatting together as they read the news - "And what have you got for us now, Alan?"!
Alan has been doing a lot of research, and has a new book out (price £15.00) on Hay Parish. He has also managed to trace his own ancestry back to a Welsh Prince in around 900, though he will have to do more research to make sure those links are right!
One delightful piece of information he turned up was in a will held in Canterbury - people who owned land in more than one parish had to have their wills proved (and saved for posterity) at an office in Canterbury, and this 17th century Mr Watkins had left 20 shillings for the building of two bridges over the Dulas brook, one of which we had crossed to get to the hall that evening (obviously they've been rebuilt since!). This was the first mention he could find of the bridges, so he assumes that the brook was forded at those points before that.

Mari said that she hopes work on the Castle will begin around April, and will be going on until 2019. All the floorboards in the attic have been taken up so that the architects can see the joists and assess how strong they are, and she's also planning a large tapestry to hang in the area which will be the entrance hall. This is the part that was damaged by fire, and will be an open hall up to the roof in the rebuilding. There are 18 families who were associated with the Castle, and she wants to choose 9 of them to represent on the tapestry by their coats of arms, finishing off with Richard Booth's - the final choice may be down to which are the prettiest!
She also said she wanted to do a documentary about Matilda de Breose, which should be interesting. She thinks that Matilda was the power behind William de Breose, one of the most hated men on the Marches at the time after the massacre at Abergavenny Castle.

And then we came to the meat of the evening - a talk given by Gill McHattie on the Knights Templar. She was anxious to dispell some of the myths about the Templars - who were arrested throughout France on the same day by King Philip the Fair, an amazing level of organisation for the period, as they had no warning at all. It was King Philip who spread many of the rumours taken up enthusiastically by the likes of Dan Brown, and mostly wrung from the Knights themselves by torture. And the date of that mass round-up was Friday 13th 1307, hence the bad reputation Friday 13th has had ever since!
They were monastic knights, and their Rule was drawn up by St Bernard of Clairvaux, a keen advocate of the Crusades, the first Grand Master being one of Bernard's cousins, according to some recent research. The beginnings of the order are shrouded in mystery - the first documentation appears later, when they were already a major movement throughout Europe - but they attracted members of aristocratic families, who moved in the most important political circles of the time. And they became enormously wealthy, which provides a sufficient motive for King Philip to get rid of them, in France at least - and he had a tame Pope on hand in Avignon to issue whatever orders he wanted.
One Papal Bull, ordering Robert the Bruce to round up and torture Knights of the Order in Scotland, was returned. Twice. Robert had just been excommunicated by the Pope, so he didn't see why he should follow any Papal orders!

Gill McHattie has been doing research around Herefordshire, and showed slides of some of her findings (she's also written a book, copies of which were available on the night). Most people who know about the Templars know about Garway (by the way, she says the myth of there being 666 pigeon holes in the dovecote there is rubbish).
It was by no means the only site associated with the Templars, though - they also had a manor at Bosbury, close to the Bishop's Palace once occupied by St Thomas Cantilupe, the 13th century gatehouse of which survives as part of a farmhouse there. Unusually for the tomb of a bishop at that period, St Thomas's tomb in Hereford Cathedral has armed knights carved around it, who may possibly be Templars.
There was a circular chapel in Hereford itself, built on de Lacy land - the de Lacy family had strong ties to the Templars. The foundations were found during building work in the 19th century. Garway was originally a round church, too, to imitate the Holy Sephulcre in Jerusalem, though it was rebuilt in more conventional style by the Hospitallers when they took over. And the chapel at Ludlow Castle is round, too.
Elsewhere there are grave slabs, marked with a foliate cross, sometimes with the outline of a sword, and sometimes with the circular cross used by the Grand Master. No names were inscribed on the grave markers - the Knights were supposed to be known only to God.
And finally there was the mystery of the Grand Master's seal, showing two knights mounted on a single horse. Traditionally this has been claimed to show the vow of poverty that the Knights took when they joined the Order, but as Gill pointed out, in reality they would have been tripping over horses! Each knight had a battle trained horse, plus one or two riding horses, plus a horse for the squire, and baggage horses - and it's part of the Rule that the knights went from the first church service of the day to look after their horse! So maybe it was to show that the Knights fought practically, in the battles against the Saracens, and spiritually, as monks?
It was a fascinating talk, and I learned a lot about hidden corners of Herefordshire.

Greenpeace at the Globe

Some people from Greenpeace will be at the Globe at 4.30pm on Saturday, to talk about their campaigning experiences. Rick Guest walked from Herefordshire to London last year, dressed as Gandalf, to protest about fracking, and ended up at the Houses of Parliament, for instance. Others have run a high street stall giving information about environmental issues.

Going to see the Tempest

I had a wonderful day out on Tuesday! A friend was going on a coach trip to Stratford-on-Avon to see the Tempest, and invited me to come with her.
I've never been to the RSC before, and the Tempest is one of my favourite Shakespeare plays, so I jumped at the chance.
This meant an early start to drive into Hereford - the coach was waiting in the car park round the back of the football ground. We headed down to Ross to pick up some more passengers, and then across to Stratford, arriving around 11am. The coach stopped next to this charming little statue - Bottom and Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof, making music together, given by the State of Israel!

I took the picture through the coach window, which is why it looks a bit odd.

We were a little early to order lunch, but we had an extremely nice breakfast at Cafe Rouge on Sheep Street, just round the corner from the theatre.
The performance began at 1pm, and they were having the camera rehearsal for the following day's live broadcast, which was shown at Booths Cinema in Hay. We were up in the Gods, looking down on the stage, and though I noticed the camera moving around on a long arm, it wasn't intrusive. There was a school party just behind us, and they weren't a problem either - chatty while the lights were up, but very quiet during the play.
Though I'd never been to the RSC before, my sister had come with our school, back in the 1970s, and must have sat about where I was sitting on Tuesday. She suffered from vertigo, and had to go downstairs to stand at the back of the stalls, where she ended up explaining the play to a party of Americans. It was the highlight of her weekend - especially as she'd never seen Hamlet before!
We were looking down into a stage defined by ship's timbers - with the most incredible lighting effects when the action started. Ariel appeared on stage, but was also performing with motion capture, so that projected animations moved as he did, flying across the stage. At other points in the play, the stage was covered with flowers, mariners from the wrecked ship sank through the sea, Ariel was reminded of his imprisonment in a cleft tree, and trees appeared in the background, all done with the lighting.
It was a far cry from the production Susan had seen in her youth, with John Gielgud as Prospero and Margaret Leighton as Ariel, when the special effect denoting the sea was a long piece of material being shaken up and down across the stage! It was nice to see a picture of Margaret Leighton as Ariel from that production in the stairwell as we went downstairs after the show.
Simon Russell Beale, as Prospero, was not John Gielgud, but he did play a very good Falstaff in the TV production The Hollow Crown.
It was also interesting to see Simon Trinder as Trinculo, comic relief with Caliban - he also played Frannie Bliss the policeman in the TV production of Phil Rickman's novel Midwinter of the Spirit. Caliban was played by Joe Dixon, who had previously been the Chancellor of Gallifrey in the Doctor Who episode The End of Time! Stephano, the drunken butler following Caliban round the island, was Tony Jayawadema, who had previously been Tony in the film A Street Cat Named Bob, which I saw before Christmas - I think he was my favourite character in this production!
One of the Spirits had previously appeared at Bristol Old Vic in the production of Jane Eyre I saw last year, and Oscar Pearce, who played Antonio, Prospero's wicked brother, had a minor part in Captain America: The First Avenger! He did a good double act with Sebastian, the King of Naples' brother, played by Tom Turner.
It was a magical performance; the lighting and special effects were stunningly good, and it was a wonderful day out.
When the coach dropped us in Hereford, we drove home to Sibelius on the radio, and finished the day off with a meal out in Hay. Tomatitos was closed for the winter season - they're only opening towards the end of the week - and Kilvert's was closed for renovation, so we ended up at Red Indigo, for a very good curry.

Last Post

As I approached the war memorial this evening, I heard the unmistakable first notes of the Last Post played on a bugle.
The memorial was flanked by two British Legion flag bearers with their flags lowered to the ground, and a small group of people stood in a semi-circle with their heads bowed as the bugler played.
There was a moment's silence, another short bugle call, and the flags were lifted.

I don't know what they were commemorating, but it was quite an eerie scene, under the full moon.

Woodland Management

The strip of woodland along the River Wye, through which the Offa's Dyke Path goes, has a new owner, who has been getting down to some serious woodland management. There are piles of logs where trees have been thinned out, the brambles have been cleared, and the path has been widened in places - probably to allow access for the tracked machinery which has been down there (some sort of mini-digger, I think). It's still woodland though - they've only taken a few trees down - and they also did this:

Just right for a little sit down!

Chicken Factory in Clyro - Public Meeting

Back to the serious stuff:

Clyro Community Council have agreed to discuss the proposed chicken sheds on a farm in Clyro at a public meeting on Tuesday 10th January at 7pm in Clyro Village Hall. There has been a petition online, #CluckOff, which gained almost 800 signatures, against the building of the poultry unit.
Last May, the community council voted in favour of the planning application, based on the information they had available at the time. It seems that the application has changed, though.
According to the leaflet distributed by the #CluckOff campaigners, planning permission was applied for in 2009 originally. This was for one building to house 10,000 free range birds, which would be cleaned out every 56 days, with natural daylight and RSPCA monitoring.
This was never built, and the present application is for two buildings, each bigger than the one in the original plans, housing factory birds to produce fertilised eggs for use in the broiler industry. There would be about 22,300 hens and 1,700 cockerels. They would be under artificial lighting, and the chicken muck would be cleaned out only once a year. The chickens would also be killed at this time, and replaced with a fresh batch of 24,000 birds. There would be twice weekly egg collections, by HGV, and it's a busy and fast road they would be turning on and off.
Cargill Meats Europe, who are behind the scheme, say there is little demand for free range birds, and the original plan was unsustainable.
A consultant has been paid to speak against the planning proposal, but this is expensive, and they are looking for donations so that the consultant can speak at the planning meeting in Llandrindod Wells. This is being co-ordinated by James Lewis at Black Mountain View Caravan Park - right next to the proposed chicken sheds. He can be contacted on info@blackmountainview.co.uk
The Planning Officer is Gemma Bufton at Powys County Council, The Gwalia, Ithon Road, Llandrindod Wells, LD1 6AA.
Local County Councillors to contact are James Gibson-Watt of Glasbury ward, and Gareth Ratcliffe of Hay. Chris Davies, the MP for Brecon and Radnor, seems to be in favour of the scheme.
There is also a Twitter hashtag #cluckoff

Book Signing - With Morris Dancers!

Phil Rickman, writer of the Merrily Watkins series of supernatural mysteries set in Herefordshire, will be in Hay on Thursday 12th to sign his latest book at Murder and Mayhem between 12noon and 1pm.
There will also be mulled cider and apple juice available, and Morris dancing music!

New Location for Beer Revolution

Beer Revolution, which has been trading from the Cobbles up at the Castle, is moving to larger premises! The shop is closed at the moment as they make their move to 7, Market Street, but their beer is still available on-line.
People won't have to duck to get in the door now!

Some Good Library News

I wanted to start the New Year with some good news - so I was pleased to see that Hereford Library will be re-opening soon, thanks to an article in the Hereford Times. The temporary library in the Shire Hall will be closing on 21st January to move the books across, and the library building will re-open on 31st January.
Some building work has been done - there are now accessible public toilets, some new meeting rooms and a "refreshed" ground floor layout. And presumably, all trace of asbestos has been removed. More building work is planned in the future.

Meanwhile in Hay, there will be a public meeting about the future of Hay Library on 30th January - more details nearer the time!