Hereford - Banking and History Day

I had several things to do in Hereford on Saturday, some serious and some enjoyable.

I needed to go into Barclays Bank, to change pounds into Euros. I thought this would be a simple, basic transaction. Obviously, I was wrong.
The young lady behind the counter said that they didn't keep Euros in stock, so would have to order them in, and it would be Tuesday before they arrived. She added that there was a good place round the corner, near Marks and Spencers, that changed money.
I said that really wasn't the point. In the past, I would have been able to pop into my local branch, and it wouldn't have mattered that I had to wait a few days for the money to come in. Now, I had to take an hour's bus journey (costing £8.30), and would have to make another bus journey when the money arrived. I just wanted to make clear (and I hope she passed it on to the management) how inconvenient this was for Barclays customers.
The ladies at Tui, around the corner, were lovely, and changed my money straight away.

Then I went down to Castle Green, where Hereford History Day was in full swing. There was a Victorian funfair for the kids - basically a carousel and swingboats, with a stocks for people to stand in while other people threw wet sponges at them - a good idea on such a hot day! There was a Punch and Judy show, too. There were various food and drink stalls, and a tent where the musicians would be performing (nobody was performing while I was there). Local groups and charities had stalls, including Extinction Rebellion, who had decorated their stall with flowers. There were also craft stalls, and local history, including some interesting old aerial photos of Hereford. I was a bit disappointed that there seemed to be no re-enactors in evidence, though.

Moving Pizza

I noticed that the Ty Tan* art gallery (where Boz Books used to be) was hosting a pizza evening on Thursday, from 5.30pm to 9pm.
It seems that this is the regular pizza evening at the Table, relocated, and this will be the new regular venue.

*I must learn to do a little hat over the 'a'!

Town of the Week

A couple of researchers from BBC Radio Wales were going around town on Thursday. Next week, Hay is going to feature as Town of the Week on Wynne Evans' radio show. I didn't know who he was until they explained that he was the Go Compare opera singer! Each week they choose a different town - and they had plenty of material to choose from in Hay!
I did a short interview telling them about the history of the Cinema Bookshop, and as I was doing that a lady came up to listen. She told them she's been coming to Hay with her partner for about twenty five years from Formby near Liverpool - and she knows everyone! She was suggesting different people they might like to talk to, like Scarlet at the Blue Boar, and took them off to show them round! They also made sure that they had her phone number, because she was so entertaining that they wanted Wynne to interview her live on air!

Science Cafe - Deep Time

I saw the sign in the window of the Swan when I was on my way to Tai Chi at the Masonic Hall, and I thought it looked interesting.
Lawrence Matthews gave the talk to about nine of us in the room by the front door of the Swan (the same one we use for Stitch and Bitch).
The idea of the talk was to give us tools to envisage history and prehistory - and right back to the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago - so that we could have a better idea of the order things happened in, and how far back we were going. After all, 13.8 billion years is just a number - it's very hard to imagine that length of time.
So Lawrence suggested that we think of one year as one millimetre. He had written out a timeline on a roll of paper 2 metres long - and that took us from Now to Caesar Augustus and the birth of Christ. 2m is about the height of an adult human, so we could think of Queen Victoria sitting on our noses, while Augustus was getting his toga wrapped round our feet.
So that's 2,000 years and 2 metres - what about dinosaurs? On this scale, there they are in France, wearing berets and waving baguettes around. Or the formation of the earth? At the same scale, that takes us to the deserts of Mesopotamia (or modern Iraq). And what about the Big Bang? Well, we're right round the earth in Australia for that (with kangaroos flying out of the way as the Big Bang explodes!). There was also a vivid image of Hansel and Gretel in a VW camper van (to remind us we're in Germany) where the 12 different branches of life split off - insects, vertebrates, and so on.
As you can see, explaining it in that way certainly worked for me!

The Science Café meets on the fourth Tuesday of the month (though they may be changing it to a Monday if that suits more people). They are having a break over the summer, but will be starting up again in September.

"They Seek HIm Here...."

The weather was glorious over the weekend, so I took myself off for a walk, across the river and up the hill to Radnor's End, and then down the side lane as far as Tirmynach.
I took refuge by a field gate as a tractor came up the narrow lane, and when I looked down at my feet, I found these flowers - Scarlet Pimpernel.

I also got a lovely view across the valley to Mouse Castle:

Rhosgoch Gossip

Rhosgoch is a village not far from Hay, and I didn't know they had their own local newsletter until I picked up a couple of old copies the other day. All sorts of interesting things are going on in the villages around Hay, so here's a sample:

Last August's issue includes a report on the Bryngwyn WI outing to Berrington Hall, where they enjoyed the costume collection. The Young Farmers were taking part in a Rally - shearing, a wheelbarrow race, floral arrangements and a Generation Game competition, among others (they came 9th - Howey were the winners), and held their 75th year ball, hosted at Trewyrlod farm in Painscastle.
The Farm Focus column was talking about lambing, and the Local Interest Group had visits to the castle at Llandeilo Graban and Cefnige Mill.
There was a review of the River Café in Glasbury (very favourable, and they enjoyed the 'beach' by the River Wye). The Village Quire performed Songs for Silas at St. Mary's Church, New Radnor, and there was a snippet from Kilvert's Diary - the man who stole a pound of butter, and the Solitary of Llanbedr.
Erwood and Painscastle Churches have a column, as does Rhosgoch Chapel - the Pastor there had just brought out a book of his articles from the Rhosgoch Chapel News.
On the political front, there are articles from County Councillor James Gibson-Watt, AM Kirsty Williams and MP Chris Davies - Brexit was a theme here, with worries about what it would mean for local farmers.
A local healer talked about her work, and Mikey the dog reported on new arrivals at his farm, human, canine and two little pigs who made a break for freedom!
An ex-pupil of Rhosgoch school is making her name in the fashion industry, after attending Kingston School of Art, and the Rhosgoch and Painscastle Tots group had been having lots of fun at the village hall over the summer.

The October issue started with a description of life at Upper Pentre farm, Painscastle. The Young Farmers were talking about Painscastle Fete and Kington Show, and a tractor run, including a trophy for the best turned out tractor. There was a report on the Gladestry Summer Fair, which had the theme Gladestry in Wonderland. The Mad Hatter opened the fair, assisted by the Queen of Hearts and the White Queen and there was, of course, a Mad Hatter's Tea Party.
The Culinary Column reviewed The Granary in Hay, which they enjoyed, and the medical column dealt with neurological rehabilitation after a stroke.
The Local Interest Group visited the castle at Painscastle.
The three political columns were still very concerned about Brexit.
Following on from the August column, Mikey the dog reported that Gyp was tired of her nine puppies now, and homes were being found for them.
Meanwhile the Bryngwyn WI had been on a visit to Pwll y Wrach Wildlife Trust Reserve near Talgarth.
The Gardening Club reported on the Rhosgoch Flower and Vegetable Show.
There was a special Anniversary service at Painscastle Chapel, and a Sankey service (named after the great hymn composer Ira Sankey) at Rhosgoch Chapel.
Rhosgoch and Painscastle Tots Group had been out and about, cycling down the Riverside Path in Hay to the Warren, playing in Cusop playground and paddling in their wellies at Aberedw Rocks.

Recall Petition

The recall petition closed on Thursday. This is the mechanism by which constituents can petition for their MP to step down, thus forcing a by-election. It's quite a rare procedure, and the requirement is that 10% of the electorate must sign for the recall to go ahead. In Brecon and Radnor, this was 5,053 people. In the end, 10,005 people signed the petition, which is 19% of the electorate.
The Lib Dems have already been campaigning - I've had several leaflets from them - for their candidate Jane Dodds, who is the Lib Dem party leader in Wales, and there are discussions on Facebook suggesting that the Brexit Party might field a candidate.
So, at the moment, the Brecon and Radnor constituency does not have an MP - until the by-election happens.
I was quite surprised to see that Chris Davies intends to stand as the Conservative candidate in the by-election.
The Labour candidate is Tom Davies who is presently a Brecon town councillor.

South Korean Delegation

I was showing a customer where to find some books the other day, when a large party of young South Asian men came trooping up the stairs. Somewhere in the rear was town councillor Alan Powell, and he told me that they were a delegation from South Korea who had come to see what a Book Town is like. They were having a tour of the bookshops in town, followed by a talk at the Swan Hotel.
I thought it was nice that they were all wearing little badges with the Welsh and South Korean flags.

Sculpture on the Riverside Path

I finally got the chance to go down the riverside path, on a rare respite from the recent rain.
The evening sun was sparkling on the river, and the undergrowth was green and lush.
And there were two new wooden sculptures to find.
Here's the otter, a bit dark because he was under the trees:

And here's the hawk:

Running and Fund-raising

There was quite a crowd around the Granary when I went out on Saturday morning. Here are some of the runners queuing to get their numbers for the race between Hay and Kington:

I was on my way to Hay School for their first car boot sale since the new school was built. They don't have as much space to hold it as they used to when they had the playground and the field to spread out in - now there's only the school car park, but there were enough people there to have a good browse, and there was a tent at the end where the school was selling teas and coffees, and secondhand school uniforms. I met Huw, who was very pleased with a walking stick he'd just acquired, and I found a Thunderbird 3 model among the toys on another stall. The little boy asked for 20p but I gave him 50p. Now all I need is Thunderbird 5 to complete the set!

Meanwhile in the Buttermarket, Clyro School were having a jumble sale to raise money to build a Garden Laboratory. The idea is for the children to learn about science, nature, growing plants and our changing world in a practical way. The Garden Laboratory will include raised growing beds, a small forest garden and an open sided roofed area for classes to gather under shelter, but still outdoors. They will be able to undertake environmental experiments, conservation studies and learn natural crafts.
The fund raising will also, they hope, provide microscopes, insect study boxes, root viewing boxes, insect nets, hooks for drying flowers and seeds, soil sampling kits, craft tools and hand held garden equipment. There will be a water harvesting system (I think this is a posh term for a gutter, downpipe and water butt), and a weather station. The information from the weather station will be used back in the classrooms where the children can use maths, writing skills and ICT (whatever that is!) to report on the weather, sun and soil.
The whole project will cost around £6,000, and they have already had grants from Hay Cheese Market and Welsh Water, but they still have a lot of fund raising to do. The school is on Paypal, and if anyone is buying or selling on Ebay it is possible to donate to the Association of Friends of Clyro School via EbayCharity.

Cusop Medieval Day

I got quite excited about this, and started thinking about what I could wear from the Medieval costumes I have left - but it's on a Sunday, so I shall be at work.
I bet it'll be a great afternoon, though.

Car Boot Sale

There will be a Car Boot Sale at Hay School, starting at 10am on Saturday 15th June.
Pitches are £5, proceeds to the school.

I used to love the car boots at Hay School before the new school was built - they were organised by WyeLocal - so I'm hoping to find some bargains when I go down on Saturday morning.

Ken Smith, Retired Town Cryer

I was sorry to see, on the Hay Community Facebook page, that Ken Smith has died. He used to be the Town Cryer of Hay. When he retired from that position nine years ago, he was eighty years old. George Tofarides came through the auditions to become our present Town Cryer.
Ken's daughter Debra has posted on Facebook, and says that if anyone wants to make a donation in memory of him, they should donate to St. David's Hospice or St. Peter's Church in Glasbury.

Here he is, in full cry:

A Welsh Community Bank?

I usually listen to Radio Wales' Sunday Supplement on Sunday mornings, for news and current affairs from a Welsh point of view. This Sunday, there was a piece about all the bank closures that have happened across Wales, and a possible solution.
According to BBC News, 200 bank branches have closed across Wales. The Welsh Assembly are looking into the creation of a new bank, Banc Cambria, which would have local branches and provide current accounts for customers, business accounts, and mortgages, with an online presence in Welsh and English. The bank would be owned by its members.
Credit unions across Wales are cautious about this new idea, which could compete with them. There is a Credit Union in Hay, but I think it only opens one day a week - I remember looking into the possibility of banking with them and finding that I couldn't get to them when the branch was open, anyway.
Banc Cambria will need to obtain a banking license from the UK financial regulators, which may take two years.

Re/Wilding and Sustaining the Countryside - Powys and Herefordshire

There's a new environmental group in Hay - with a new Facebook page that is already up to 129 members since it started on 2nd June.
They're discussing how to improve biodiversity locally, with specific examples like what to do with the new pond at Birch Close (presently still owned and managed by Persimmon). There's also a long discussion about apex predators, including the feasibility of re-introducing wolves to the UK, and the nasty things ravens do to sheep. There's concern about the numbers of people visiting the Begwns, and the consequences for the ponds there, and other wildlife - the lack of curlews on the Begwns in recent years has been noted.
They're also talking about whether it's a good idea to feed birds in gardens at this time of year, and what will happen when farming subsidies are changed in the next few years. Another topic they're interested in is the cutting of grass verges to preserve wild flowers that are an important food source for bees and other insects.

On the same general theme, a friend gave me a newspaper clipping this week with an idea to help hedgehogs. It's not Hay-related, but could be of interest to anyone who wants a good home for their mascara wands when they've finished with them. (I have never owned a mascara wand in my life!)
The North East Wildlife and Animal Rescue Centre (the New Arc) in Aberdeen is using old mascara wands to groom baby hedgehogs, to replace the grooming they would have received from their parents in the wild. They are asking people to wash the wands with warm, soapy water, and send them to:
The New Arc
Nether Auquhadile
Auchnagati,
Ellon,
Aberdeenshire AB41 8UW

Black Mountains College

One of the stalls at the Festival this year was taken by Black Mountains College.
This is a group that is trying to start up a new college of further education locally, and they've now got to the stage where they can offer summer courses.
The residential courses will be held at Coleg Trefeca, and they are designed to help the participants to consider and prepare for climate change (this is from the blurb on the leaflet I picked up), "from scientific information to rural skills and artistic experiences".
So the courses are on:
the science of global warming, including a riverbank walk with an ecologist to look at soil carbon
A Short History of the Universe: from the Big Bang to the Anthropocene, with walks including archaeology and astronomy led by astronomer/archaeologist John Swann. He also has a very large telescope that students will be using as part of the course.
Good Food for Everyone Forever is led by Colin Tudge, a well known name in science writing, particularly on food and agriculture.
Dry Stone Walling and Writing is led by Whitney Brown, stone waller and folklorist, and local writer Owen Sheers, who is one of the people behind the original idea of the Black Mountains College. This is a very practical, hands-on course.
Then there's The Future of Bread, in which time will be spent milling flour and baking bread at Melin Talgarth Mill (who also do really good courses on bread making).
The Skeletons of the Land is based on the local geology, and students will also be making art.
And there's a Bronze Casting Workshop - this is the most expensive course, at £995, but you do end up with your own bronze sculpture, made over five days.

Swedish Embassy in Hay

When I went up to the Festival site last week, I noticed a big bright yellow coach parked by the main entrance. "Sweden" was painted on the side, in black, and I assumed that it was some sort of tourism thing, to encourage Festival visitors to think about having a holiday in Sweden. I'm sorry now that I didn't have a closer look.
According to the Brecon and Radnor Express, it was far more interesting than that - it was actually a roving Swedish Embassy! The Swedish ambassador, HE Torbjorn Sohlstrom, is touring the UK, and the bus is being used as exhibition space to showcase Swedish children's culture, with authors, illustrators and performers leading workshops for children and young people on the theme of children changing the world.
They also had Swedish food, like cinnamon rolls and lingonberry juice.
One of the visitors to the bus was Hay's Mayor, Trudy Stedman, who is also keen to involve children and young people in the work of Hay Council.

And, thinking of young people who are making a difference - Eighteen Rabbit Fairtrade shop have copies of Greta Thunberg's book No One is too Small to make a Difference. The book is £2.99, but they are giving away copies free to anyone local who is under eighteen - just ask at the counter. They say it's their contribution to encouraging a new generation of climate activists in Hay.
Greta Thunberg is, of course, the Swedish girl who started the School Strikes for the Climate movement, and has spoken to governments and other important gatherings all over Europe.

Cabbage Leaves and Dandelions

The Cabbage Leaf is an occasional magazine brought out by Botany and Other Stories, and the newest issue is all about dandelions.
In it, they discuss the recent school strikes for the climate, and the Drawing Room exhibition Black Snow, and talk about dandelions in fiction (Dandelion by Yasunari Kawabata, for instance), in Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, and the importance of dandelions in nature.
All that, and a lovely full page, full colour botanic illustration of a dandelion by Françoise Verger.

Ruskin Mill

There were lots of different stalls at the Hay Festival - Cats' Protection, RSPB, the Woodland Trust giving out saplings, and many more.
Facing the main entrance was a tent for meeting people, but when I went up on Friday there was a man working a pole lathe there, and more people making pottery and pressing leaves into the clay. Some pottery was for sale too.
This turned out to be people from Ruskin Mill in Nailsworth. They are a college for students with learning difficulties, and they seem to do a lot of practical, hands on, activities.
They also seem to put on a lot of music events and exhibitions.
Their website is at www.rmt.org

I'm a Beaver Believer!

The speaker for this talk was Ben Goldfarb, who was wearing a tshirt with a picture of a beaver on it, over the word "dam".
He's just written a book called Eager: The Surprising Secret Life of Beavers and Why they Matter.
When people think about environmental degradation, they often think of things like deforestation. They very rarely think about beavers and their dams. But beavers create wetlands, which are incredibly important for biodiversity, being spawning grounds for fish, watering holes for animals, and homes for birds and insects.
Ben Goldfarb did some of his research by looking at the journals of early explorers across North America, and comparing their descriptions of the land with later descriptions, when the beavers had been almost hunted out of existence. Beavers, he said, can be incredibly important in mitigating flooding - they slow the water down and spread it over flood plains, in contrast to human intervention in rivers which tends to make them into swift flowing channels that wash nutrients out to sea. In modern farmland, slowing down the water also makes the nitrates and other agricultural pollutants settle out of the water.
And they don't eat fish - CS Lewis has a lot to answer for, concerning the image of beavers that whole generations of children have grown up with. They are completely vegetarian. In areas where people are trying to re-introduce beavers, anglers are often opposed to the schemes for this reason.
The history of the beaver in the book is mostly about the United States, and Ben Goldfarb said that up until the Civil War just about every major event in US history had some link to the beaver. For instance, the Hudson Bay Company at one point wanted to make the North West of the US unattractive to settlers who would be competing with them in Canada - so they decided to make a "fur desert" by exterminating all the beavers. And it turns out that, when you make a fur desert, you also make a real desert as the land dries out. Beaver fur was in great demand to make hats at the time.
Before beaver fur became so sought after, beavers were hunted for their scent glands (you can tell the sex of a beaver by sniffing it - males smell like motor oil, females like old cheese, apparently), and castorium is still used in some perfumes and other products.
By about 1900, people across the US were realising that the destruction of the beavers had been a big mistake, and there were attempts to re-introduce beavers - including dropping them in remote areas by parachute! I think everyone in the audience was imagining them in little harnesses with little helmets on, though in fact they were inside crates which were constructed so that they opened when they landed.
And beavers are not that small. In length, they're similar to an otter "though they're in another weight class", he said.
One of the questions at the end was about how beavers interacted with otters, and Ben Goldfarb said that otters liked being around beavers because they could catch the fish in the beaver ponds, but sometimes they would kill the baby beavers, so the beavers weren't as keen to have otters around.
When they're being used as part of a flood mitigation scheme, humans have to regulate the flow of water by putting pipes through the beaver dams, so that the ponds stay at the right level. These are known as Beaver Deceivers!
There is a problem in that the best habitat for beavers is also the best habitat for humans, who moved in when the beavers were wiped out, so reintroduction has to balance the needs of human inhabitants and farm land alongside the beavers - but beavers are so beneficial to the environment, mitigating flooding, raising the water table, stopping nutrients from being washed out to sea, increasing biodiversity, and at far less cost than human management of the landscape to get the same results - that it's totally worth it.
And beavers are a "gateway drug" of re-introduction of species. After all, if you have beavers, then you might want to try lynx, and maybe even, one day, wolves!