Club contact: Andrew Grant
andygrantrwg@yahoo.co.uk
February2025 – update
Two excellent meetings to start 2025
January Derek Johnson “ Crime Prevention”
Derek is the local Police Community Support Officer for Thornhill and Lisvane and as such is well known to several members. His personal preference is to walk around his area and to get to know in detail local people and events. As a PCSO he is most interested in Crime Prevention and spends a lot of time in communicating with people by talking, circulating published articles and face to face meetings. Today he spent some time on car theft deterrents explaining that modern cars have a huge problem with electronic security systems in that the remote keys can be copied from outside the houses and used to immediately drive off in the vehicles. He advocated the use of Faraday boxes and pockets to prevent the copying process. The practice in the current cold weather of starting the car and leaving it to warm up is causing some problems and should never be used. Any unknown people in the area should be politely challenged to determine their presence and any phone calls from unknown numbers should not be answered as Scammers are very active and please never reveal any bank details over the phone. Further problems can occur with ATMs with false fronts and cameras fitted and should be used with caution and of course bank account details should not be available on your mobile phones as they are often stolen.
A lot of topics were covered, and Derek wished for people to contact their PCSOs to keep them informed of the local situations. Further there are some publications which are routinely available and as John Bettles already receives a lot of these publications the Secretary will circulate these to all our members electronically, at least in the short term, for members to decide whether to get these documents routinely from their own areas.
February 2025 James Stewart
“The Forgotten Bard”
Today’s talk was given by James Stewart related to his book on Edward Evan of Ton Coch Farm, Cefnpennar. Edward Evan, who was born in Aberdare, was said to be the last druidic bard. Edward Evan of Ton Coch was a Welsh language poet, minister, farmer, carpenter, glazier, musician, neighbour, husband and father, and his long life spanned a period of intellectual and economic change during the massive industrialisation of the valleys in the following century. There no evidence that Evans himself thought he was the last druidic bard, but we believe that, as a musician, Evans was one of the last people to play a harp with strings made from horse hair.The original druids had died out, but the modern druids were resurrected through the efforts of Edward Williams of Cowbridge who needed to prove that the new druidic bard, Iolo Morganwg, was descended from the one of the oldest known druids. Williams turned to Edward Evans to prove that link.Evans was supposed to meet the reformed druids on the Garth Mountain, on the day he died in 1798. Morganwg and his followers were gathered on the Garth singing rebellious songs, watched by the militia and a magistrate.In August 2024, Mountain Ash Golf Club commemorated Edward Evan, (1716–1798), who was, according to Iolo Morganwg, the last of the ‘druidic bards’ of Wales. He was also a dissenting minister at Hen Dŷ Cwrdd in Trecynon from 1772 to 1796, and was one of those who handed on a radical tradition to the Chartists of the nineteenth century. The Mountain Ash Golf Club agreed to mount a blue commemorative plaque on its building because the farm that Edward Evan’s leased when he married is today the location of the golf course.
Please contact me for any further information at the e-mail address above or on 02920252422.
Although our membership is growing, we still have room for new people and I would be glad to hear from any interested parties. We meet on the second Thursday of each month at the Llanishen Golf Club in Cardiff at 10am for coffee before starting the meeting proper at 10.30am. Lunch is available at the club and the great majority of the members stay for this excellent value meal.
Please note the e-mail address above is not hyperlinked so please enter my address manually.
Andrew Grant (Secretary)