The pre-season can be almost as anxious a time for footie fans as the actual season. Just witness the debacles at Wrexham and Plymouth, where the former's future remains in limbo as fans seek to buy out the club in the form of a Supporters' Trust and the latter causes much consternation amongst fans because their club has been bought by one Peter Ridsdale ( who notoriously took Leeds to the brink and repeated it with Cardiff City later) for the sum of £1........and one of the players probably lent him that! 
   Whereas last summer saw very precarious times for Cardiff City, when threats of bankruptcy and even administration eventually subsided and a glut of loan-signings arrived; this summer has been different, though just as hectic.
   New manager Malky Mackay has had to re-build virtually the entire team. 12 players left : Bothroyd and Burke out of contract, Chopra sold to Ipswich and numerous loanees, including the dire Bywater and Samuel, inconsistent Olofinjana and brilliant Bellamy.
   I believe Mackay will be a successful manager given time, but there's no way a plethora of new players are going to instantly gel into a team. He will instill team spirit and discipline, both seriously lacking under Jones.
   As well as that, I expect a very different approach, with the team not reliant on playing long balls to Bothroyd when in doubt. With the real possibility of Kenny Miller and Robert Earnshaw up front, there's no chance of these tactics anyway!
   Last year Mackay's Watford were prone to defensive lapses (see our 4-2 victory at home), but could be a devastating attacking force deploying pass-and-move football ( see our 4-1 defeat at Vicarage Road).
   Moreover, there are also opportunities for Plan B's and even Plan C's, unlike under Jones when we were lost without Jay Tweet ( the play-off Final v. Blackpool exemplifying this). Miller can operate as a lone striker and we have many promising midfielders like Gunnarsson, Cowie and Kiss who could make up a 5-man midfield. Joe Mason could step in and if we sign French striker Gestede then the days of SuperTub Parkin are numbered.
   Gestede could partner either Miller or Earnshaw as part of the classic Big Man-Little Man combo so beloved of Jones in his adherence to 4-4-2 whatever the circumstances.
   Fans frustrated or annoyed at pre-season results must remember we've had a lot of injuries and most players totally unfamiliar with each other. If I had to make a prediction, I'd say we will struggle to make an impact for the first two months as they adjust and familiarize.
   After that, I believe Miller will be one of the best signings ever for CCFC and Earnie will thrive. In the long term, youngsters Kiss and Mason will be revelations.
   Of course, there are still nagging doubts about both our keepers : fine shot-stoppers but suspect in the air and at left-back, because new signing Andrew Taylor is preferred as a winger and Naylor has been destroyed far too often in the past.
   At least MM is building a team for the future, with a combination of youth and experience and a new methodology which will require our defenders to change their games radically. He actually seems to have followed overseas players and Slovakian Under-21 captain Filip Kiss is one he has been observing for a year.
  I hope fans show patience. Ideally,we need an extra two weeks pre-season just for players to learn each others' names! If Bellamy can somehow thrash out a deal to leave Man. City and return where he wants to be, then our attack will be frightening.
   Imagine Bellers alongside Kenny and Earnie! Mind, we said that last season about Chops and Jay!

    My brother is a 'twitcher' who goes on holidays all over the world to spot birds and note rare species. For me , there are really only one set of birds worth seeing.........

                                               FOOTIE TWITCHER

Every day I study the table :
we do not move up or down,
we have never been this consistent;
it's like being a 'twitcher'
but watching cartoons of Adar Gleision.

0 points from 0 games played
and we are seventh, in alphabetical order.
My pinpoint binocular eye-balls
are focused on texts, websites
and messageboards for rumours.

It's as if I'm waiting for the birds
to return after a summer's migration
and it's an almost new flock this time ;
I'll have to learn their names.
White away plumage dangerously like the swan's.

In my head I learn the calls,
think up chants to fit them;
a homing pigeon called 'Earnie',
rare Slovakian breed named 'Kiss',
all part of the Bluebi

   Neighbours? Don't you love 'em! That strong sense of community in the Valleys ; the essence of 'chwarae teg'. Wel, joc mawr yw fe!
   We have had a nightmare month as a result of our neighbours, but it is nothing new.
   Many years ago I wrote the poem 'Once A Musical Nation' to satirize them. They objected to my wife's evening piano lessons and detested my son and daughter practising on cello, piano and violin. They decided to call in the Environmental Services department of our then Labour Council to measure sound levels. At one stage, they almost ran over my son, such was their fury!
   We received a letter from the Council warning us about 'Noise Pollution'. Beethoven, Bach, Faure, Elgar........all deemed as 'pollution' by our enlightened rulers!
   I complained to Liberty and to the Ombudsman. Our neighbours came round to talk directly to us and, to our utter amazement, the police arrived saying there had been reports of a 'disturbance'! At the time, the police seemed to respond with totally uncharacteristic haste. 
   Irony of ironies, my son later went on to play cello at a Charity Concert organised by the mother of the man next door. She gave him great praise. Noise pollution topped the bill and received loud applause.
   Fast forward some 15 years and the latest dispute is equally petty.
   We came home less than a month ago to a high bamboo fence , which they had erected in our garden, because they'd expected us to put up a high fence which had been in place before.
   My wife was livid that they'd done so without even asking and proceeded to take part of it down.
   They have been obsessed with a new fence they had put up and even told my 11 year-old to 'stop touching it!', when she was playing in the garden.
   We actually managed to come to an agreement and told them we'd pay for a lattice-fence to top theirs. They rejected it, there followed a heated discussion ,but eventually a compromise was agreed. Within minutes , the police arrived on the scene ready to charge us with 'criminal damage' and taking the viewpoint of our neighbours at every point made.
   Firstly, how can the police turn up so quickly over what is essentially a civil wrangle? Secondly, they must surely know someone, because it was soon obvious the officers weren't interested in our opinions at all, assuming the land was theirs and we had no right to remove their bamboo barrier.
   I have since learned that they did commit the civil offence of 'nuisance'. Had I known this at the time I would have argued our case more adamantly with the police.
   Twice after this they summoned the police, who reacted with ridiculous speed on both occasions. It seems our beloved neighbours were carrying out a systematic harrassment of us and lying to the police every time to bring them out. Yet, they were not challenged about wasting police time. One officer told me - 'It's very hard to prove.'  
   This is the reality of life in the Valleys. Sadly, the antithesis of solidarity and togetherness.
   Of course, there are great people around us and we have had neighbours in the past who have helped and supported us, as we have them. However, the actions of our neighbours leaves you with a bitter and cynical opinion of people generally.
   When Wordsworth referred to poetry as 'emotion recollected in tranquillity', I'm sure he didn't have this kind of poem in mind. It is a matter of revenge : poetry as missile not metaphor!



CRIMINAL FENCE


There are limits t bard language.
If I called ower neighbours BASTARDS
it’d an an insult t ev’ry child
ever born outa marriage.

There int words t describe ow I feel.
It should be summin like THATCHERS
or BLAIRS or maybe CAMERONS.
Wouldn wan t breathe theyer air.

It’s ard t bleeve, they called-a pleece
three times in a matter o weeks,
they lied through theyer razor teeth :
they must ave a bloody ot-line!

Domestics, drugs, robbrees an may’em
all goin on round town,
but they come in seconds
all coz of a fence.

We come ome an it woz there,
a Bamboo Curtain, over six foot,
builders done it while we woz out ;
my missis rippin, we took it down.

‘Criminal damage!’ sayz the officers,
‘we could arrest yew on the spot!’
So we paid ev’ry penny t them
CAMERONBLAIRTHATCHERS.

Thought we owned the fence-posts
an got a builder t remove em ;
agen the cops arrived like we wuz murderers,
talkin ‘theft’ arfta theyer lies on-a phone.

Third time it woz theyer builders
oo I tol wuz committin a civil offence;
when-a  las cop come, thought I’d carried out fantasies,
sleep-walked an throttled em in my sleep.

No, this wuz about ‘abusin the builders’.
If ‘abusin’ is such a crime,
they could arrest arf the population,
or make the whool countree a prison.

There are limits t bard language :
if I could really describe ower neighbours,
if I woz ever in-a dock
I think I’d call em VILE MURDOCHS!


  

   The rivers running through my life. The very first ones, Rheidol and Ystwyth and their meeting-point at Aberystwyth.   We would play for hours beside them on their gravelly beaches, skimming stones in competitions and even trying to catch fish with improvised rods made from sticks and string.

  Reaching the sea at Tanybwlch : storm-beach on whose huge boulders I'd leap playing 'Basques'.   I'd seen a film about the Basque people living in the mountains and always thought of them as agile mountain folk who could jump from rock to rock like mountain goats!

   Then on to Cambridge and the Cam a very different beast. Brown and slow and murky-mysterious and though I did swim in the designated area a few times, we mostly kept well away.

   It was for students and visitors to punt along, while we relished the outdoor pool adjacent to it. And its smaller sister, the Granta, was tea at Granchester with my mother busy quoting Rupert Brooke. But mostly it was swatting away pesky wasps. Now I think of Pink Floyd sampling its sounds and the fact that the great Syd Barrett could have passed close by, when I lived in that area.

   When we later moved into the countryside and further along the river, it became a place of contrasts : of lust and poetry. On the banks it was all kiss and touch with a local girl I'd met at a disco. But we were always open to prying eyes and one so-called friend would invariably sing -  'He was born with wandering hands!' at me in a Lee Marvin growl!

   Alone, I'd nestle in the long grass and delve into Eliot's 'Four Quartets', not caring a jot if I couldn't decipher them, letting the imagery seep into my subconscious. The river was usually sluggish here and one of its many tributaries passed through the house of the local Tory MP.

   Years later, when my wife and I lived in Rheinberg, W.Germany, the Rhine ran by the town, the most powerful river I'd ever encountered. We travelled north to see its many pleasure cruisers and south to see its weight of trade and vineyards high up on the hillsides.

   In the 70's the worst feature of the Rhine was its pollution and you could see why the Green Party soon became very popular there. There were jokes that you could light your cigarette on it and they were frighteningly close to the truth. Along one stretch were many channels designed to divert the chemical foam. This was the other side of W.Germany's prosperity : a total disregard for the environment.

   Born in the mountains, the level lands of northern Germany and East Anglia never felt like home. When we eventually settled in Merthyr, the Taf began to flow through my days. The many train journeys down to Cardiff would follow its course, past collieries at Abercynon and Merthyr Vale. There was the sheer force of its waters in flood , as well as its history like a black snake of liquid coal.

   During the 30 years and more we've lived here, the Taf has changed radically, becoming less prone to flooding and so much cleaner. Herons and kingfishers have returned in numbers and even cormorants at Radyr weir. Councils have become more fish-friendly, with most providing salmon-ladders for their long arduous journeys.

   It's a river of remarkable dichotomies from north to south. As a keen Geography  student at school I was always fascinated by their life-cycles and analogies with human growth. Considering the Taf Fechan at Pontsarn and the 'old age' river as it meanders towards Cardiff Bay brings back those lessons which caught my imagination then.




Journey of the Taf




It begins in the centre
of a mountain,
waters breaking.

Nobody can say
exactly where
I come from :
parents Earth and Water
and the midwife Air.
Soon Fire, the sun
and everything
I feed upon.

This place of summits
called a watershed :
tears as light
stings my eyes.

I am just a stream
a nant, a toddler
finding my way
downslope, over the edge
of my mother
and with my father's constant
push of rain.

One like many others
till I start to cut teeth,
to haul stones
to erode the bed
and banks into a gorge.

I'm moving quicker
with steeper gradient,
my veins pulse
with the thrust of water
like a salmon at the point
of a journey across the world.

Soldiers with back-packs
and booted outward-bounders.
fight against my movement,
believing it's a challenge.

The children who paddle
squeal, splash and fling
their stones, sound like
an echo in my bones.

The Sun, my teacher,
comes and goes
promising destinations
and then, dips down low;
so any season
I could be bellyfull
or parched to a trickle.

Sheep sip clear water
heads bowed as in prayer
to a lost mother ;
or they're dead weight,
blood mingling with light,
soon a veil of flies.

Winding and wending around
scarp and spur
I reach a sudden drop,
a ledge of resistant rock:
the descents of childhood
then youth when greys
and blues and browns
become a frothing white ;
into the devil's punchbowl
and a whirling might.
Here secret swimmers come
to shed their many skins
and exuberant leapers
plunge into a scream
and come out laughing.

I am joined by others.
by brothers and I'm 'Fawr'
to their 'Fechan',
they emerge on the scene
demanding confluences,
driving deep into chasms
before we're all lost
in a man-made lake :
they term it 'llyn'
but it is reservoir,
a store of water
we are schooled into
( even in most vivid reflections
we wear our grey uniforms ).

I straighten, I widen,
my girth held by bridges
and above are viaducts
which span into another age.
Rocky islets - trees and bushes
growing from them - bring doubts
as I begin to be fixed,
my route determined by walls
and a weir which parodies
the earlier waterfalls.

Now salmon struggle upstream,
as I welcome the many heron
whose measured wing-beats
are like the peace I strive for
and the returning colours
of the kingfishers diving
like winged rainbows.

All this, as I am dumping-place
for trolleys, cans and bottles
like some cess-pit of the past,
some cholera-infested slum.

My parents seem so far away :
mountains aloof, quarried or conifered
and clouds that drop their load
then move on. They call me Taff
but I much prefer my Welsh name
(it’s what I call myself
and sounds like a stone’s edge).

Sometimes I seem to slumber along
all controlled by sluice and gate ;
sometimes I’m far too busy
to notice those who gaze
like seagulls on the bars,
or those who cavort in heat ;
too busy with the flow, the downward trek.

I have too many shadows :
rail and trail, the once canal,
higher up the road obeys the curve.
Each shadow more purposeful
to traffic and trade;
I begin to wonder
why I move in such haste
and whether I will be
beyond it all, lost.

There are so many white weeds
hanging in the trees,
fluttering like flags of surrender
sometimes falling and filling
into tumours on my surface.

Just as cormorants are fishing
so I begin to sense the sea.
Silt accumulates in my bed,
slows me down after years
of scraping and scouring;
I begin to meander,
to waver across the floor,
the buildings start to ignore
my presence and there are outpourings
secretive and poisonous
which seep into my limbs.

Becoming sluggish, my murky waters
of blurred vision in the suburbs.
I try to remember stretching terraces
where the only vines were children
spreading tendrils of imagination.

The mud is gathering,
the flood-plain’s a resting-place
for birds on their journey south.
Anglers wade out to tempt
the fish with threaded flies.
I yawn into the city
past a parkland of lovers
and solitary office-workers,
I am broad and straight now
without the energy of gradient.

The grand stadium looms
as if it were a ship of state,
but finds no reflection.
I have almost forgotten
the distant mountains I came from,
the fact I am water at all.

‘Afon’ is a slow way of saying ,
it seems to suit me better
than the rip of ‘river’.
Already I can feel the saltiness
creep into my body
and seagulls’ mocking calls
hover then swoop all day.

At the Bay, I’m trained and tamed.
On calmer days feel stagnant;
when there’s a restless breeze
I begin to wave and voices
of my ancestors come back :
‘Once you were black, all thick
with dust like a collier’s throat.
Once this was flats of mud
where waders and dippers
would pick for worms.’

Now I am becalmed,
waiting for the gates to open,
where I will lose my name.
It is a different sun,
one that threatens to burn up,
to leave me dispersed
into the Channel and after.

A roof of slate, façade of glass,
the twirling pipes of a carousel
all bring back reminiscences
of pebbles carried, reflections borrowed,
stirrings under a waterfall.

It is night-time and the moon
is whole and crying out
like a barn-owl over moorland.
I must go and never know
what will become of me.

   I'm not going to tell anyone my greatest fear, but it's not the Bluebirds losing at Wembley to Swansea City.

   As a child , it was undoubtedly the dentist's surgery. Every visit there was horrific and I'm seemed to go far too often (no-one warned you about sweets then!). So much so, that one time I refused to open my mouth. They used to give tiny sweets to try to placate you, but nothing would unlock my jaw that time; until they brought in the 'heavy' in the form of a dentist straight out of the film 'Marathon Man', who yelled at me. My mouth shot open, but the phobia worsened.

   In those days there was no local anathesthetic and extraction by gas was even more akin to Medieval torture techniques. The building itself didn't help, as it was an ancient converted hotel on the front at Aberystwyth. There was an old-fashioned lift with an exposed shaft, modelled on the mining variety.

    The noise of drilling and stifled cries would echo down this shaft, reverberating through the rickety scaffolding of my young bones. Even before we reached the waiting-room I was a blubbering blob of sickly blancmange, with skin that could be easily punctured by any of the many weapons ready on the dentist's tray.

   Without painkillers, drilling into raw nerves was excrutiating agony. I would grip the chair, sweating and vowing one day to take revenge on the entire dental profession, who all seemed sadists.

   The gas attack was almost as unbearable. You were 'put under' for an extraction and came round , dazed and confused, standing over a sink with blood spewing from your mouth in an apparently unstoppable flow. Even years later in Merthyr, I believe I came close to death having swallowed too much novocaine.

   For many years now I've attended the same dentist, know him well and trust him. The fear has gone away and a visit to the hygienist is much worse, with all that scraping and scratching.

   I'm conscious that others aren't lucky enough to overcome phobias. My wife has a phobia of cats which prevents her from being in the same house as one. As a baby in Belfast, I'm sure a fierce feline jumped into her pram and scrabbed her tiny face.

   This was unfortunate one time when we decided to rescue an emaciated kitten on a journey past Pontsarn, north of Merthyr. My older daughter spotted the sad-looking creature by the roadside, nowhere near any habitation.

   I scooped it up and brought it into the car and my wife drove off. It then managed to break free from my clutches and my wife almost veered into a hedge in panic. She braked abruptly, saying something like - 'It's your choice, the cat or me!' Despite my daughter's pleas, we had to release the kitten down the road where there were houses.

   Several of my family have a fear of flying. I put this down to flights to and from Dublin on a cut-price airline overe a decade ago. I think the plane was operated by elastic bands and made of balsa wood, much like those many kits my brother made when I was young.

   These thoughts arose as a result of attending the Cwrs Haf in Glamorgan University last week. One inspirational tutor used toys and balls to get us using 'hwn' and 'hon'. One woman refused point-blank to handle a tennis-ball because her fear of it. I've heard of a fear of buttons and even pears, but not come across this........is it Henmanophobia?

   The next day we had a task where we had to use verbs like 'gwybod', 'dyfalu', 'credu' and 'meddwl' followed by 'taw' to explain various obscure phobias written in English on cards. I had 'hedonophobia' and managed to guess right. Obtuse ones like 'onomatophobia' emerged, and I wonder if there are others such as 'alliterophobia' and 'assonophobia'!

   In the end, most were probably coined by Thomas Hardy, who once came across a neologism which confounded him. He investigated it, only to find that he was quoted as the only source!


                                        INT GOIN OUT NO MORE!

I int goin out no more.
It int worth the risk.
This bloke ee got mugged in Merthyr
an it wuz on'y 8 in-a mornin!


I ewsed t travel t Cardiff on-a bus
till this driver on-a News
runs inta somebuddy's ouse,
loadsa passengers woz urt.


Int gonna visit my bro in London,
too many knifin's an yew bet
Al Quaeda will pull off a big one
now tha they ad Bin Laden.


Cancelled my oliday t Tenerife
arfta tha pooer woman got killed ,
ad er ead chopped off in a soopermarkit ;
ee come out carryin it like a shoppin bag!


Bin thinkin o all them Pit Bull attacks
an tha girl struck by lightnin........
mind, she woz in er own ome.
Think I'll jest stay in bed an moan.

   Ex-pupils pop up everywhere! One is often off his head around Merthyr bus-station, but always has time to slur a greeting. Another - in a band who should've made it , but are still trying - always stops for a brief exchange. At Teso's tills, the Post Office and in the occasional pub it's inevitable having taught in this town for 20 years.

   I wish I could remember names. They would have had to be totally 'beyond' or very gifted for me to recall them ; yet faces pose no problem. Ironically, when I was teaching I had no trouble with names at all.

   It's always great to hear from past pupils about their own writing. One recently contacted me through Facebook initially and expressed great enthusiasm for poetry-writing. This is unusual, as most tend to stop writing when they leave school.

   He expressed an interest in the 'industry'. I'd never thought of poetry like that really, as it has all the requirements for an old-fashioned craft (as Heaney would have it), yet also the inspirational dimension of a vocation ( to veer towards James Joyce). Sometimes the best poems arrive and we don't know where from : it might be explained as the subconscious surfacing. Certainly, I hope he keeps at it. I'd have done nothing else ( except maybe singing in a blues-rock band).

   I'm more than willing to give advice to any former pupils on their writing.Several times a month I see one of them, who was one of the most talented poets I ever taught. He now works for the Council and I've given up inviting him to our monthly Open Mic. nights at The Imp. As a poet he was strange though : he never acted on advice, never sought to change anything. Now he has given up writing I believe; a real shame.

   Two of my ex-pupils went on to play in bands which should've made it BIG. Both wrote the lyrics for many songs and this ability showed itself in their verse at school. Original Mind and Pink Assassin never became household names, yet should have been. Both wrote with intensity and never lapsed into cliche.

   One of my prize possessions is a letter sent by an ex-pupil many years after he'd left school and become a professional golfing coach.  It was full of praise and it's great to think that I could've had such an impact on someone. We shared a love for Heller's classic 'Catch 22', which helped. He was golf mad at school and I always remember the time he lost all his GCSE coursework just before the deadline, only to find it at the bottom of his golf bag!

   It seems incredible to think that I used to go to football matches at Ninian Park with 6th formers. I still see one regularly on the train home from our games and he's there with his son, carrying on the tradition.

   Others have emerged in less auspicious circumstances. One - also a Bluebird - returned to school to ask me to write a statement vindicating his good character, to be read out in court. He was accused of knifing someone at a nightclub down town and a 'calling card' had been found there incriminating him. He was a star in class and his own project work for English oral exams was especially interesting. One of them was in support of football hooliganism and included, as a prop, a Soul Crew 'calling card'!

   The following poem is about an encounter with a past pupil who I see often and talk about things, especially CCFC. I can fully empathise with his situation.

                                           BY-A RIVER

I sit by-a river,
it's runnin all day,
my arm's in a plaster,
off on sick pay.

Wish I woz-a river
goin to city an sea,
instead of a watcher
on a bench in misery.

'leven years we bin married,
got a lovely ome,
I give er ev'rythin
an we loved ower son.

We wuz schoolyard sweet'earts,
I'm a famlee man,
now I'm back with my parents,
weekends with my son.

The water is rushin
down t the weir,
wish I woz a salmon
on a long journey from yer.

I sit by-a river,
carn get er outa my ead,
ev'ry Saturdiy she's clubbin,
arfta someone t bed.

It wuz some kinda madness
when she tol me t go :
'I don' feel nothin no more,'
she sayz,' I wanna be alone.'

Seein my boy is like-a flow
always movin away from me,
always changin as ee grows,
while I'm burstin with self-pity.

   It has been a time of funerals and non-funerals ; by that I mean the death from cancer at the age of 62 of my friend, comrade , fellow Bluebird and namesake Mike J. Jenkins ( also from Heolgerrig) and that of my father, thirty years older, who never had a funeral at all.

   It's hard to explain to those outside the family, how I felt so much sadness at the death of a friend and so little at that of my father. In fact, I felt guilty at being so empty of emotions and many in my family felt the same.

   Mike died far too young. We used to teach together at Pen-y-dre High School in Merthyr and invented a third 'Mike Jenkins Science', to confound and eventually amuse pupils. As a non-driver, he often gave me a lift home and his company was invariably interesting and hilarious. He had a mind full of anecdotes and I recall how he told me about one teacher who'd lost it. She began to hallucinate one pupil who bugged her,seeing him in every lesson and Mike had once found her standing outside the classroom, staring at a light-bulb, unable to enter!

   At that time ( the 80's) he was prominent in the local Labour Party and ,indeed, ex-MP Ted Rowlands as well as present one Dai Harvard attended his funeral. The former's phone went off in the middle of the Rev. Protheroe's oration and Rowlands took ages frantically pressing buttons to turn it off, as if it were an alien device. Mike would've had a real laugh at that one!

   He was even in a Labour Party political broadcast then and the staff at Pen-y-dre teased him, calling him 'Mr Average'. Mike left the party totally disillusioned with the war in Iraq and Blair's wooing of big business and bankers alike.

   Our political differences had come to the fore in 1979 when, at the school's mock referendum on devolution Mike took a Kinnockite line and led the 'No' campaign. Myself and Peter Griffiths (later to become Head of Llanhari and Rhydfelin) led the 'Yes' campaign.

   Mike's views changed radically over the years and he became a staunch supporter of devolution. In conversation, he also backed those in Plaid Cymru who took a socialist, republican stance. Like me, only later on, he was very active in the anti-opencast movement in our village.

  In recent years I knew him very well from football. He was the kindest person and always offered lifts without wanting any remuneration. He stood to watch Cardiff City on the old Canton and in the new stadium. The fact he liked chanting and often joined in was hard to tally with the Christian soul conjured by the Reverend.

   Yet, there was never a hint of hypocrisy about the man: he was genuine , funny and generous, never pushing his undoubted faith on others. My last memory is his voice on the phone as I walked towards our mutual watering-hole before the Reading game. He was in his hospital bed and sounded perky, saying he was sorry he couldn't be there, but looking forward to the possibility of Wembley.

   If there are still bricks to be bought outside the ground, then we must get one for Mike. I know he'd be proud. 

   My father's rites were very different . He had supposedly left his body to medical science, so there was no funeral. However, it was discovered later that he'd changed his will and wished to be buried in the family plot in Barry. It was too late though, unless the remaining parts can be rounded up!

   He'd also changed his will to leave all his money to the NSPCC and the Alzheimer's Society. To anyone who knew him well, this had a dark irony.

   A serious family incident had caused our separation for over a decade and only my brother kept regular contact. My sister and I had no communication at all, though in recent years I would have met him again if he'd proferred a hand.

   Sadly, I've few positive memories and even these go back to the time when I was very young in Aber and are based on photos I've seen. What stands out from that time and the years following are traumatic occurences, like when he broke up my fishing-rod and threw it into the sea, driving home like a mad man and when he tore off all his clothes, except underpants, and stood on the kitchen table screaming and yelling at my mother.

   Of course, mental illness is extremely problematic. What was him and what was the illness? Certainly, he blamed everything he did on his nervous breakdown (before I was born) and upbringing.

   I wish I could remember him with more affection. Even a holiday together in Ireland when I was a teenager became more and more miserable , as he descended into anger, running out of money and phoning my grandmother to bail him out.

   His propensity for disaster would've made him endearing, had it not been for the maniacal outbursts which sometimes involved wielding a knife. He destroyed three marriages and numerous careers by fighting physically and verbally with bosses. As a Security Guard in Barry he used to sleep during night-shifts and was eventually caught out and dismissed when there was a fire on his watch!

   On this Father's Day I think of others I regard more as true fathers and regret we don't get to choose. I have learnt much from my own......by trying to do the opposite of what he's done! 



                                       LAST  GIFT

My father was never renowned for generosity,
presents he sent included a blank tape,
plastic cheese net, even a rusty can-opener
which had previously belonged to my grandfather.

So, we had enjoyed a family meal together
in the wake of his death at over ninety,
my brother said his legacy would pay
(it was the first and last time he'd treated me).

We didn't toast his memory
after a decade separate and no apologies,
though my brother had visited regularly
but more out of a sense of duty.

'Is this a death meal?' my daughter asked,
as we thought of his final benevolence,
his body donated to medical science,
just as he'd always given blood freely.

It was difficult to connect now
this man being dissected, avowed humanist,
with the father who so often lost his head
and spat out such vile hatred.

If I weren't an equal disbeliever
I'd like to address him in the after-life :
'Look, dad, that was the best gift you ever gave....
your organs.....for research.......wrapped in flesh.'

   Last Tuesday four Plaid Cymru AM's acted on their principles and boycotted the visit of E. Windsor to open the new session of our Senedd. They did so despite typical media sniping and acted by example, preferring instead to work in their constituencies while other AM's claiming to be republicans, such as Labour's John Griffiths and Plaid's Simon Thomas hadn't the resolve to make a stand.  

   The great English writer and socialist George Orwell used his experience of Buddhism to show that a socialist can only be worthy of that term if they live out their ideals ( the inner and outer life must be one). The four republicans who resisted the temptation to take the easy route and dress up as lickspittle imitations of Ascot-goers, are to be lauded.

   On that evening, I was glad to MC and read poetry at an event in the Bay attended by two of them, Bethan Jenkins and Leanne Wood. Both took alternative oaths of allegiance to the people of Cymru and expressed the hope that they could one day do so  in the Senedd  in parity with members of the N.Ireland Assembly, with its many republican members ; in a Wales pledged to a future of greater equality ,not the representatives of an aristocracy identified indelibly with Empire and war.

   Of course, there are striking differences between republicans. Some, like myself, want a socialist republic in Wales ( and Scotland, England and Ireland, for that matter). Others in Balchder Cymru even proposed a future Wales where the people could choose a Welsh monarchy : though where that would come from, I don't know! One questioner even asked what the new British national anthem would be if 'God Save the Queen' were to be replaced. Personally, I thought the very nature of Britishness was support for the Queen ( witness the Loyalists of the six counties).

   I'm sure my views are much closer to those of the Plaid Cymru AM's, though I do believe that fundamental societal change can only be brought about by revolution, hopefully a peaceful one of strikes and civil disobedience.

   However, the highlight of the whole event was undoubtedly the speech by Suzanne Campbell of Republic Wales, part of a UK-wide organisation which has only recently been launched here.  Ms. Campbell was a superb speaker, combining clarity with wit and hardly using notes at all. Her contribution stood out like a lighthouse above a series of barnacled buoys
( I'd spent some time staring at the sea beforehand). She joked about the Queen Mother living so long because 'pickled things are well preserved', included fascinating information and advocated a system similar to Ireland, which had produced great ambassadors like Mary Robinson. Indeed, as she spoke, you could imagine Ms. Campbell filling that role perfectly!

   Criticism of the monarchy is minimal in the media, so when it occurs it stands out. In 'The Guardian' this week writer and historian Sophia Deboick carved up the royal PR machine in a short article, showing how William and Kate have now completely abandoned the image of 'new generation' and reverted to type by advertising for housekeeper, butler, valet and dresser to serve them at their new home of Kensington Palace. This has received typically scant publicity and no doubt , in the public's mind, they remain the fairy-tale couple living simply in a cottage in Anglesey.

   For the following poem I used information provided by Republic at the CBayRday evening. The enormous powers of the monarch to appoint the Prime Minister, dissolve Parliament, dismiss the Government and withold assent to legislation passed by Parliament are all frighteningly real.


                            THE TALE OF KING CARLO

The Government, those Commoners,
pass a law abolishing the monarchy.

Documents revealed, after all these years,
the truth about the death of Di.

The King (once Carlo of Wales)
withholds royal assent. Legal.

The Commoners make loud noises,
Lords ( still there ) are woken up, grumbling.

People actually take to the streets
demanding that the King stands down.

There are 2 million demonstrators in London alone
( police estimate numbers at 2 thousand).

King Carlo consults his personal advisor,
an old English Oak at Sandringham.

Like Edward in 1910, he dissolves Parliament,
Commoners turned instantly into Aliens.

He appoints the English Oak as P.M.
at a ceremony in Westminster. Legal.

The tree flies a Union flag from its highest branch;
nothing new about a P.M. with a wooden brain!

Carlo declares war on Wales and Scotland,
as they rise up against him. Legal.

Armed forces pledge allegiance to their Commander in Chief,
rally to support the knighted Sir David Tree.

Subjects, at last, call themselves citizens,
in a land of Levellers, land of treason. 

   In the Hay Media Celebfest last week, our National Poet Gillian Clarke called for poets to speak out. So that's exactly what I am doing and saying , in relation to Wales, she got it wrong.

   I have enjoyed her work immensely for many years, both to read and to study with school pupils and she is a wonderful ambassador for Welsh poetry, who reads her work superbly and always conducts stimulating workshops. However, her statement at Hay was galling - 'In Wales,luckily, our Arts Council has cut some poeple's funding completely, but only failing organisations.'

   Her attack on the Arts Council of England, which has carried out savage attacks on many vital poetry bodies like the Poetry Book Society, was totally justified. However, just because poetry hasn't been seriously affected by the WAC's cuts, it doesn't mean the arts in general haven't.

   There is no way that the likes of Gwent Theatre, Theatr Powys and Spectacle can be described  as 'failing' and it's an insult to do so. If poetry's 'Writers On Tour' had suffered the cuts that Theatre in Education had to take from Smith and Capaldi's Council, then Gillian Clarke would be up in arms.

   Gwent Theatre has now ceased to exist and whole areas of Wales must depend on extortionate and unreliable alternatives or do without. It's not just the people who attended their many performances who feel the loss, but it's a tragedy for the countless school pupils who benefited from shows and workshops as they toured the Valleys and elsewhere.

   Figures alone can only approximate their worth. It's laughable to think that a mere £250,000 would have kept them going ; a fraction of Welsh Opera's budget. In 2009-10 they delivered 220 performances to 14,213 young people in various schools; 81 theatre workshops with over two and a half thousand participants and their Young People's Theatre put on 7 productions.

   Under any terms, this is successful not failing. It's an act of sheer philistinism by the Arts Council to axe Gwent, Powys and Spectacle. Gillian Clarke may represent poetry, but surely that doesn't stop her from seeing the wider picture ? Theatre in Education is just as vital as poetry workshops in schools.

   Moreover, the cuts are already impacting on poetry in other ways. As Swansea Council prepare to alter the whole nature of the Dylan Thomas Centre, its rolling programme of literary events (unique in Wales) will be sacrificed. Schools have so much less to spend and visiting authors and visits to Ty Newydd will be first to go.

   As public spending cuts reach more deeply, many organisations will stop schemes where authors read and run workshops. Cash-strapped universities will find it hard to deliver Creative Writing courses which aren't seen as lucrative and few writers will be invited to read there.

   I was proud of Clarke when she rejected an OBE, following Zephaniah, though not seeking to make an issue out of it. When she accepted the Queen's Medal for Poetry ( citing R.S.Thomas's acceptance as a justification ) she explained that she did so on behalf of all the poets of Wales.

   I'm certain there are many poets in Wales who, like me, would not want to be tainted by any association with the House of Windsor, that anachronistic, anti-democratic and money-wasting institution. There are many who would ask her to return their part of it, arguing instead for a forward-thinking Cymru with an elected President, who could, indeed be anybody, even a misguided poet!


                                  CHOIR ON THE ESCALATOR

The Male Voice Choir are singing
from the town centre escalator.

There is no up or down,
shoppers stopped mid-bargain.

'Sosban Fach' and 'Hallelujah',
'Aberystwyth' and 'Calon Lan'.

Someone shakes a bucket
in time with their tunes.

Once, there were fights and ructions
at Valleys choir competitions ;

now they are fully blazered
with badges of identity like medals.

It's music that's ascending, descending,
with steps made from bass and tenor.

Some youths mock from the top,
smoking and gobbing as girls pass.

In the place of 'Myfanwy', white wheat
of their heads sways with the rhythm.

   Schools which are run democratically by teachers and pupils, not the present mini-dictatorships of Heads. Schools where every pupil's achievements actually count for something and our unfair exam system is replaced by portfolios gathered through their entire school lives. Schools free from the paranoia and fear if inspections which create pointless and inordinate paper-work and , instead, where colleagues help and observe or you are visited by advisors (teachers on sabbaticals) who aid with resources and teacher exemplar lessons.

   All these I've advocated in more detail in previous blogs. Never more than today is the sheer absurdity of our examination system evident. The obsession with 'pass' and 'fail' is clearly not sustainable.

   With at least 35% of pupils branded failures at GCSE, how can that be any incentive for many to work at school? When they were initiated , GCSEs were supposed to be 'no failure' exams, without the A-C necessity. Now schools in deprived areas are lauded if their value added results are good. Yet even in many of these schools, up to 70% of the pupils do not get the magic grades. Such schools inevitably pour all resources into the borderline C-D pupils, often at the expense of others and staff are expected to take after-school classes and even study weekends, for no extra pay.

   Academics like Prof. David Reynolds (a WAG advisor on education) cannot see beyond the tip of his nose to actually question the viability of the system. In particular, the whole basis of learning and assessment must change, with an emphasis on group work rather than the individual.

   I say this not just out of an ideological belief in the spirit of co-operation alone - though that should be vital in fostering a caring and sharing society - but also with a strong pragmatism.

   Most, though not all, exams consist of the individual working in isolation, confronted by an exam paper they have been trained to cope with and have either learnt , or ignored, the necessary tricks to pass.

   Yet, in employment and life in general when are these skills of individual, solitary response required? As a writer perhaps,  but let's not pretend that exams ever gauge much in the way of creativity or imagination. Poetry, especially, is never examined.

   On the contrary, in most workplaces you have to co-operate with a group of people : take the lead maybe, take responsibility, agree to compromise and listen to others ; but not work individually with pen and paper.

   What happens at present with English Oral tests and Drama coursework should become commonplace. Group work has become an integral part of education over at least the last two decades, yet this is not reflected in the exam system.

   From my own experience, some of the very best work has been produced by such team efforts, with pupils supporting each other and imaginatively taking on roles to express views. At Key Stage 3, I recall one project where pupils in groups devised their own rock/pop/rap bands, with each a member ( not part of any National Curriculum, I'm proud to say). This led to interviews, reviews, lyrics and even, in some cases, cds and videos.

   Evidence towards the pupils' final portfolio of achievements could come in the form of tape or film, as well as the written word. Such projects are cross-curricular in the way Primaries used to approach 'themes' ( though they have never fully returned to this structure), with pupils making their own cds and designing stage sets and costumes.

   I'm not claiming what I did was unique. Teachers use group work in every subject and, as in English and Drama, pupils invariably have the power and choice to determine outcomes.

   What I'm proposing is, along with the abolition of a 'pass' and 'fail' culture, an elevation of group work when it comes to assessment. Working in groups can give less confident pupils the opportunity to thrive and each member can contribute according to their talents.

   The likes of Prof. Reynolds, who cannot see beyond one set of data to another, need to address the intrinsic failures of a system which condemns so many , making their entire school careers a waste of time.



                                    A POEM CANNOT BE GRADED

A poem cannot be graded :
it is not a 1 or an A*,
or even a 5 or a U.

It sticks its two fingers
up at all examiners,
ultimately refusing to be dissected.

Even if you put it on the wall
it will come alive after closing
and hare down corridors.

A poem can have no criteria
to box in assessement :
emerging like a dream embodied.

It can be googled for meaning,
caught  in the net and pinned;
but its words will grow new limbs,

so it jumps through open windows
into the rain, snow or sunlight,
tearing off itorm as it goes.s unif


  

   Merthyr Tudful is dying and being reborn at the same time. Perhaps it was always thus. In the heyday of the iron industry, when it was one of the  largest producers in the world, there were notorious slums like 'China' and cholera was rife, just as people poured in from the impoverished countryside.   Today there are examples of death and rebirth everywhere. Those of death are more familiar : the effects of the giant opencast coal mine at Ffos-y-fran and the impending environmental doom of the incinerator at Brig-y-cwm (unless it is stopped). More obviously are the many problems relating to poverty and unemployment, among them drugs , crime and serious health issues.

   Yet the rebirth cannot be underestimated : the old Town Hall will hopefully  be reinvented as an arts and training centre, the first ever Children's Literature Festival (bi-lingual, wrth cwrs) could well take place at the soon-to-be-launched Soar Theatre and there are a number of other projects, such as the Engine House in Dowlais, which bring so much hope to the young people of the town.

   Our latest guest reader at the Open Mic. at The Imp in Pontmorlais was author of 'Real Merthyr' Mario Basini, who bemoaned the fact that so much of the town, such as the famous 'Triangle' housing in Pentrebach and also Penydarren ironworks, had been destroyed by callous Councils. 

   While I agree with him,  we can't alter that. However, things can be done today and one must certainly be a comemorative monument at the site of the recently demolished Castle Cinema, where so much of the drama of the 1831 Rising happened. The brutal attack by the British army on unarmed workers who were fighting for their rights should be a focal point of our town's history. 

   Merthyr used to be synonymous with failure : the C5 built at Hoover factory ( a washing-tub on wheels!), the flights to USA fiasco of that same factory and the ski-slope with its snow-machine, which left a perfect runway for the hang-gliders by Troedyrhiw!

   Now, there's a vibrant creative arts department at Merthyr College, Soar's ambitious programme of events and a Town Hall where the rats will be piped away up the mountain by music and dance. A town realising its many talents!

   The greats of the past must not be forgotten either, as these can be an inspiration. I'd like to see 'viewing platforms' at various locations around town associated with these writers and historians, places where short biographies, photos and extracts should be displayed. Our museum at Cyfarthfa has done little to promote the town's rich heritage of writing, so people like Gwyn Alf Williams, Alun Rees, Glanmor Williams, Jack Jones, Glyn Jones and Leslie Norris should be celebrated and enjoyed  at these key points. Historical tours of the town could stop off at these places, like Dowlais for Gwyn Alf, the Morlais brook for Glyn Jones and Cyfarthfa Park for Leslie Norris.

   Which will it be, slow death or eventual rebirth? I feel the answer is, as ever, both. Economically , we will suffer disproportionately from the continuing recession with its cuts, unemployment, inflation and dwindling spending power. If the incinerator comes we will have pollution's most modern theme park: come and visit our landfill site, opencast and waste- burning for a day's spectacle on how to destroy the environment!

   Yet, long after Ffo-y-fran is either filled in and made into bare pastureland, or becomes a landfill mark II, I believe the Soar and Old Town Hall will be flourishing.  People have objected to the money spent on these projects and to that I'd reply - ' These places will grow, develop and become havens of hope.'


                                  FISH FOOT CLINIC

It's come t Merthyr at las,
we got one o them 'Fish Foot Clinics'
down town in a posh stewdio.

In-a local paper it boasts
'Probably the biggest in Merthyr'
(far as I know, int no other!).

An orready I yeard 'bout this bloke,
pissed arfta goin up-a Wyndham
(one of-a top 10 ardes pubs in-a land) ;

ee goes inta this Clinic
where there's all these women
avin theyer feet nibbled by tiny fish.

'I wan mine done!' ee demands,
'on'y make it fuckin piranhas,
not them poncy fish yew do ewse!

Aye, they cun feed off-of my tattoes.
On'y piranhas are ard enough
f'r a pair o feet like these.'

'Sorry sir,' sayz the manager, thinkin 999,
'we on'y got these ones,
Gara Rufa 're gentle as yew please.'

'No way!' ee replies,' I'll bugger off
up a Chinese Ealth Shop an ave
loadsa needles stuck in my balls!'