New Bookshop Coming Soon

 

Harris's the baker's shop, in the middle of Castle Street, has been empty for quite a long time, with a brief period when it was selling woollen craft goods.  Now it seems a new bookshop will be making its home there.

Cofiwch Dryweryn

 

Hay has very little graffiti generally, but this slogan has just appeared above the bookshelves under Hay Bridge.

The original graffiti was painted on a wall overlooking a reservoir in Ceredigion, containing water intended for Liverpool - the making of the reservoir drowned the village of Treweryn, and the phrase means "Remember Tryweryn".  It has become a statement in support of Welsh nationalism.

I'm not sure why the graffiti artist thought that Hay Bridge was a good site for the slogan.

Festival Time

 

I went down to the Festival site yesterday, to soak up the atmosphere.  There were still lots of school groups around, and they seemed to be enjoying themselves.  Several wildlife and conservation charities were represented among the stalls, including WWF, Greenpeace and the RSPB - and the Woodland Trust is giving trees away again this year.  I also spotted Hay Deli's stall - I hope they do well.

Meanwhile around town food stalls have been going up in the Honesty Gardens, as usual.  There's also a Japanese food stall outside Belmont House and a Kurdish one opposite the Honesty Gardens entrance on Castle Street.  

The Herefordshire Wildlife Trust have a stall outside the Cinema Bookshop, and they're hosting Origin Pizza in the evenings.  Food stalls are going up in gardens along Brecon Road, too - as well as L'Arche selling notebooks with vintage covers and a vintage clothes stall in the garden at Cartref (I liked the fancy Mexican hats!)

Today (Saturday) there's a Craft Fair in the Buttermarket, too - and Hay Castle is open to the public.  They're also hosting Shakespeare performances as part of the Festival, on the lawn.

Re-Generate in Hereford

 It's several years now since I got a laptop, and got rid of the desktop computer I'd been using before - which is to say I got rid of the stack, and the keyboard and screen have been hanging around taking up space since then.  

A little while ago, I gave the keyboard to a friend who needed a new one, so that only left the screen to get rid of.

Yesterday I took it into Hereford, to the second-hand electrical shop on Eign Gate called Re-Generate.

What I hadn't realised was that I needed to show photo ID in order to sell them anything.  It seems obvious in hindsight, to prevent the sale of stolen goods, but fortunately they accepted my bus pass.

I got the grand total of £2 for the screen!  But at least it's out of the house now, and someone can make use of it.

The Festival buses are taking passengers to Hay from Hereford and as far away as Worcester, but I took the T14 as usual.  It seemed strange to be going out of Hay on a Festival day when most people are coming into Hay.

I've been looking for a while, and this time Cult Vintage actually had a kilt that would fit me - most kilts that turn up second hand are too small for me.  I put my £2 towards the total price of £12, which is a bargain for a proper wool kilt.

Themed Bunting

 

Tomato shaped bunting outside Tomatitos

Finding Hay: A Journey up Broad Street

 I was given a review copy of this new book by Rosie Hayles, published by Logaston Press - and I've really enjoyed reading it.

Rosie Hayles was one of the first booksellers I met in Hay who wasn't Richard Booth (I moved here to work for Richard).  At that time, she was running her bookshop at West House, and I bought one of the first books I got in Hay from her - The Flowers of Adonis by Rosemary Sutcliff, about the Athenian general Alkibiades.

She begins with the Normans, and the castle, and ends with Richard Booth creating a Booktown, coming right up to date.

She has taken for her focus the history of Broad Street, which she first came to in 1986, though she mentions other parts of Hay as well.  Over the centuries, it's been the route for invading English armies, the site of the cattle market, and there have been pubs and mills and garages and grocers' shops along its length (and an undertakers, and a gas showroom, and more).  

The tramway and railway ran between Broad Street and the river, and the gas works was at the lower end, which involves the business dealings of solicitor James Spencer of the Hay Railway Company in the nineteenth century. 

Another solicitor, Major Herbert Rowse Armstrong, had his office on Broad Street - the only solicitor to be hanged in British history.  Martin Beales, the solicitor who later used those same offices, and lived in Armstrong's house on Cusop Dingle, wrote a book arguing that he should not have been convicted, and there have been other books about the case.  

The road to the bridge over the River Wye runs between two historic pubs, the Black Swan and the Three Tuns (one now a holiday cottage and the other still a pub/restaurant) to one side.

She mentions several people I've known - I used to drink occasionally in the Three Tuns when it was run by the legendary Lucy Powell (and I have a friend who would always bring his own beer mug because he didn't trust her standards of cleanliness!), and I remember Bryan Wigington having his antiques at the chapel which has now become the Globe.

There were lots of details I didn't know, though - for instance the house where I live now was once the home of a baker called Potty Watkins!  And she has a lot of detail about the Cafe Royal (now Broad Street Book Centre and Rest for the Tyred) and the Hitchcox family who owned it.

I was also intrigued about the area where the Clock Tower now stands - which was once called The Tump.  When I first came to Hay with my husband, we were still thinking of ourselves as archaeologists, and when we looked at the local OS map for the distribution of prehistoric sites, we noticed a gap where Hay is.  We assumed that, if a prehistoric site had been here, it was probably the sacred grove of Hay's Welsh name, Y Gelli Gandryll - but maybe the tump was a prehistoric burial mound?  Whatever the truth, it is long gone now.

This is a great addition to the books of local history about Hay, and I heartily recommend it!

[Edited to add: now available in the Hay Festival Bookshop, and Broad Street Book Centre!]

Black Swan Window Broken Again!

 

Here we see the window on the side of the Black Swan holiday cottage being boarded up after a lorry hit it - again.

The Three Tuns on the other side of the road has a similar problem with the corner of their roof that gets slates knocked off it regularly as lorries swing round the corner.

It's a narrow junction, and it isn't helped by cars that park on the double yellow lines opposite the junction.

It would, perhaps, be better for Hay's historic buildings if big lorries were banned from using this route - this would mean them using the bridge at Glasbury to cross the river instead.

Crafts and Car Boot

 Hay School held a car boot in their little car park yesterday - several interesting plant stalls, and the usual mix of bric a brac, clothes, books and so on.  I picked up a Jim Butcher hardback I haven't read yet, which co-incidentally is the one just after the last one I read, in which the lead character, Harry Dresden, died.  However, in urban fantasy death is not necessarily the end for a character - and Harry returns in the new book with a new role.

Down at the other end of town, the Globe was holding a craft fair in the garden and inside.  There were ceramics, and soaps, and jewellery and knitted goods - and the Wye Waste It Collective was there with fancy head bands decorated with animal ears, and antlers and lots of jewellery.  All of the material used to make the head bands is recycled, except the glue to hold it together!

Inside I particularly liked one embroidery stall which had a closed wicker basket on the table with the sign "Adult Content Inside".  When I lifted the lid, there were all the embroideries where the mottos had rude words.  

I didn't feel able to splash out on an embroidery, but they were also selling fridge magnets with the same mottos, and I got the one that said "What (and I cannot stress this enough) the f**k"  Because it made me laugh.

New Phone

 I have finally succumbed to the inevitable, and bought a mobile phone.

I have owned a mobile phone before, but that was in 2002, when I needed it for my job as a holiday rep on the island of Kos.  Things have changed a bit since then!  (and as soon as the season was over, and I came back to the UK, I gave the phone to my mum).

This phone is larger than that early one, and flat, and I am learning how to swipe the touch screen.  I've even managed to link the phone to my laptop.

The lovely ladies at Communikate on the Craft Centre were very helpful.  I went in telling them to treat me like an idiot, because I knew nothing, and they were both very patient.  So I now have a Samsung, which my Young Man assured me is idiot proof!

(Not quite idiot proof - yesterday I phoned him by accident when I was trying to use the camera!)

May Fair

 When I was thinking about all the things that are happening in Hay over the next few weeks, I completely forgot the Hay Fair - until I walked past the fun fair when I went through the main car park yesterday afternoon.  

They're here until the 21st.

Platinum Jubilee

 It's all happening over the next few weeks!

As well as Hay Festival at one end of town and How The Light Gets In at the other, there will also be three days of celebrations for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee!  As well as the Festival bunting, there's a lot of red, white and blue bunting going up around town.

On Thursday 2nd June, from 7pm in the Memorial Car Park, there will be a Proms performance, choirs and a piper, and the lighting of a beacon.

On Friday 3rd June, there will be a bouncy castle at the recreation ground on Brecon Road, with barbeque, live music, and traditional games, with the Bowls Club, Football club, youth club and more.

On Saturday 4th June, there will be a Carnival Parade around Hay, starting at Cartref at 12.30, and finishing at the Memorial Car Park.  The theme is historical events of the last seventy years (and I'm afraid my mind went completely blank when I was trying to think of an appropriate costume to wear!).  The judging of the costumes will be followed by a community lunch - bring your own picnic, with extras provided by the town council.  There will also be live music.

These events are all free, apart from ice creams, food stalls and alcohol/drinks.

Market Garden Tour at Primrose Farm

 

Sounds like a lovely day out!

Globes

 

The window display from Botany and other Stories is of globes and constellations.

In the centre is a fascinating little cabinet that projects a picture of the moon through a glass plate onto the bottom of the box.

Unveiling the King

 I was up at the Honesty Gardens, just before 11am, for the ceremony of unveiling the statue of King Richard.

There was a pretty good crowd in the gardens, including Tim the Gardener, who had wandered in to look at the books, and came away with an Oxford edition of Studies of Dante.  I saw him sitting outside the takeaway next to the Haymakers later, reading it.

John the local film maker had his camera set up to record the event for posterity, and Kelvyn was there to sound a fanfare on his bugle.  The sculptor, who I think was called Penny Chandler? was also in the audience.

There were speeches - I think the first speaker is the new director of the Castle, and the second speaker was one of Richard Booth's Cabinet in the early days of Hay Independence.  He gave a brief outline of Richard's career and how he put Hay on the international map.  There was also a message from Hope Booth, who could not be present. 

I was so busy listening to the speeches that I missed the moment when the statue was unveiled!

A Gift of Beer

 I had a very pleasant lunch at Shepherds yesterday.  The bacon butty was very good, and so was the company - an old friend who was re-visiting Hay.

She has been living in Suffolk, and came bearing gifts - three bottles of Adnams ale!  I started drinking real ale when I lived in Norwich, many years ago, and one of the first breweries I was introduced to was Adnams, who have their brewery (and lighthouse!) in Southwold.  Whenever I have time when I go to Hereford, I stop into the Lichfield Vaults, where one of their regular beers is Adnams Broadside.

The beers I was given are Lighthouse, a light golden beer, Innovation IPA and, to my delight, Adnams Old Ale - I'd thought they stopped brewing it.  It's a dark brown mild-style beer, first brewed in 1890!  It even appears in a song from the Kipper Family, who come from Trunch in Norfolk and sing comic songs.  The chorus of Bald General Coote goes:

"He led his men with Courage Bold,

With Bullards Best and Adnams Old,

Napoleon brandy and Navy Rum

and now at last to the dregs we are come"  

I love the local breweries, like Wye Valley, and Lucky 7 which is brewed in Hay, but Adnams will always be one of my favourites.

Our Lady and the River Wye

 I met Father Richard in town this morning, walking his two standard poodles.  He's very excited about a project that will be happening later this year, and said that he had been mentioned in an article in the Daily Telegraph (I couldn't find it - but others may have better Google-fu).

On 15th August, the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady (celebrating the taking up to Heaven of the Virgin Mary at the time of her death), canoes will set off on a five day journey down the River Wye, taking a statue of the Virgin Mary with them.  Where they stop along the route, there will be choirs, and parties, and all the churches along the route have agreed to ring the church bells as the statue floats by.

When they approached Hereford Cathedral to ask them to ring the bells, they offered something even better - so there will be a procession from the river carrying the statue to the West End of the cathedral, and the statue will then be installed on the high altar for Choral Evensong, where it will stay overnight.

The purpose of the journey is to raise money to clean up the River Wye, as well as raising awareness.

Father Richard hopes it can bring people together, whether they have a Christian faith or not.

Updated to add: A kind friend brought me a clipping of the article in the Telegraph!  It appeared on Tuesday 3rd May, and is entitled "Friends of the UK's filthy rivers are left praying for a miracle".

Hay Writers' Circle Competition

 This time, it's non-fiction:

Local Elections

 According to Wales247 and Powys County Times, although there is a local election on Thursday, Hay polling station at the Bowling Club will not be open.  Gareth Ratcliffe is standing unopposed, so will automatically return to the County Council.

Gareth is one of seven councillors who are standing unopposed.  The others are mainly Welsh Conservatives and Independents, with one Plaid Cymru councillor.

There are also fewer seats on the County Council this time - 68 rather than 73 because of boundary changes, and 60 wards rather than 73, with eight of those returning more than one councillor.