Letters to the editor

Not strictly letters to this editor but a rather amusing pair of letters nonetheless to the editor of the Western Mail:-

SIR –

I am a Welshman and proud of it and I sing the National Anthem with the best of them, but because I don’t speak the language, I feel no less a sense of national pride because of it.

Sadly, over the past few weeks, there have been a series of vitriolic letters in these columns ostensibly about tourist provision but clearly anti- English in terms of linguistics and people.

I’m sorry, but I feel ashamed of fellow Welshmen who feel that they must lambast the English devil for the troubles of the Welsh language, troubles which they exacerbate through their own intolerance.

My experience is that these so-called incomers (be they English or eastern European) who have “taken over” the tourism industry in the views of your correspondents, are sincere people who are here because they love Wales, its people and its environment.
The language is not forgotten. In several towns in my own mid-Powys where English prevails, tourists are regularly treated to choirs singing in Welsh and some visitors even seek out Welsh-language church services.

Take this much farther and I cannot see great waves of visitors flocking here just to hear but not understand the language of heaven.

Your correspondents want the National Eisteddfod put on the general visitor itinerary. I went there for the first time last year and did not feel welcome. I asked directions in English and was ignored, leaving me feeling lost – I know the effect it would have had on me had I been an English visitor encouraged to go there by tourist publicity.

Welshmen should unite under a multi-hued banner called “Welshness” and not try to exclude men like myself, the Welsh who express themselves through English. If the language were offered to me with a smile and not a threat (“you will not get a job if you don’t speak Welsh”) then there would be no need for those xenophobes who write with such a scowl in their pen.

ALAN DAVIES
Tremont Road, Llandrindod

SIR –

I totally sympathise with Alan Davies and his letter (July 12) complaining that the Welsh people do not show deference to their monoglot visitors from across the border.

I have had similar experiences when visiting countries in Europe.

I have entered shops in France where everyone was speaking English until I and my wife appeared, at which point all the people started to speak French.

The Germans are even worse, openly speaking their language in front of easily-influenced children who do not know better.

My wife and I have now decided only to speak our mother tongue in the privacy of our own house with the doors locked and the curtains drawn. We have also instructed our neighbours not to speak Welsh to our cat.

D MORRIS
Tresaith, Ceredigion