Roundabout

Incident

ONLY the tough- est Nationalists, Plaid Cymru's Storm Troopers, fought back at Cardiff Arms Park on Saturday when a sudden riot of plea- sure rolled around the ground. The meaningless, broadcast words 'Prince of Wales' swept the rest off their feet. This Nationalist was short and large- eyed; he had a face like a clever sponge.

When everyone round about had shouted for Pirie in the mile—a general UK loyalty, since there was no Welsh runner— he bellowed to the Australians : 'Beat that English ghost, boys. Leave him. That's lovely. All of you leave him.'

After the Prince announcement he said : 'They say Edward knew some Welsh, you know, not to mention bits of our history. Key phrases in our tongue was what they taught him : "I so enjoy the singing of your choirs"; "The Welsh are a warm and hospitable people. I shall soon come back." That sort of thing. They'll do the same for the boy : "I am happy to be in Wales for this my second thirty-six-hour visit this year. I feel I am one of you ' There was a coloured spectator in front of him who during the afternoon changed his hat three times. He started with a bright boater; when it rained he took this off and put on a kind of small brown stetson; when it grew really wet he pro- duced from his case a bag for a plastic mack which he split and put over his curls; then he reverted to the boater.

'Haven't you got a topper down there, so you can mark the occasion?' the sponge-faced Welsh- man asked. 'Don't you get the high drama of it all, old man? He's going to be presented to us at Caernarvon. We're going to get another present from the English. A bonus. Have you been to Caernarvon? A sad old place, very nice : just the spot for a bit of English magnanirnity.'„ The coloured man said 'No, l never been.' tie laughed, obviously embarrassedAy"Wharhe was ' going to say next. 'Excuse me, sir, in my country we have many, many princes. Have you ndtpr4ei already?'

'No prince,' replied the Welshman. 'We've had princes. Llywelyn one was called. This one's name is Charles; you realise that, do you? Charles. Llywelyn used to go through Wales like a torch. This boy is in Berkshire most of the time.'

He stared down at the field where the athletes and officials were drawn up in front of the Royal dais. 'How are the Welsh lads down there taking it?' he asked, shading his eyes. 'What did they do when they heard about the Prince?'

'Everyone down there looks very excited about it all,' the coloured man said.

'The English can get away with anything as long as they do it at the Arms Park; you know,' the Welshman said. He had come to the closing ceremony bareheaded, but for 'God Save the Queen he borrowed the coloured man's boater and put it on while, protractedly, he rolled a vile- looking cigarette: the operation was timed, probably after practice, to last as long as the anthem. 'The Welsh get soft when they come in here in a crowd. Beer and too much proximity weaken them. They forget they're a hill people, fighting men. They start singing in English and it's all over.'

'It's all over,' the coloured man cried. 'His Highness is into his car with no roof.'

'God, where's the rain?' said the Welshman.

Accident

COOL AND BLACK, the Prince Consort looked down from his shady cupola at the pink-checked bandsmen sweating in their serge as they played `Wiv' a Little bit of Luck.' A loudspeaker barked and hemmed and clucked waving its top-heavy head on its thin heron neck. The voice of a police superintendent announced hollowly that accidents happened to pedestrians : 'like this.' Policemen in athletic white overalls came springily running into the open. One of them put on a paper-seller's bag. Another rushed across to buy a paper from him and was narrowly and carefully missed by a fast black police Wolseley. Having bought his paper the second policeman started to read it as he crossed the street and with stop-watch timing he walked into a roaring motor-cycle.

`So you see, a very serious accident could have resulted,' explained the booming Superintendent, `involving death or serious injury.'

After the police came men with the flat feature- less caps and the flat featureless faces of car enthusiasts. The eyes lit up like headlamps as soon as they climbed into their long, low, souped-up cars. With screaming brakes and cursing exhausts, they went into an almost circus routine. They backed up to things so that they patted them. They straddled lines at top speed. They swerved in and out of a row of obstacles like footballers practising dribbling.

The Superintendent was at the rostrum again, 'The next scene you will see depicts . . .' A series of 'accidents' with cars and cycles followed. The hair-raising precision and laugh-raising team- work were more like the Keystone Cops than the etropolitan Police. Car doors were flung open just as cyclists came belting along, heads down. Two more cyclists carfying planks and sandbags lost their balance just as they were being overtaken by a fast car. A cyclist sneaked through 'a line de stationary traffic only to find that the lights had changed when he got to the head and was almost crushed against the lamp-post by a car. After each mishap, the policemen elaborately pantomimed chagrin, confusion or contusion, then grimly charged off for the next tableau.

The Superintendent handed the microphone over to a paratroop officer for a displaY 'of Army teamwork. 'You will see them coming from your left. Or, of course, in the case of some of you, from your right. . . .' With a maximum of noise and commotion two mortars were unloaded from a jeep and pointed threateningly in 'the direction of the Ddrchester Hotel. Finally the Superinten- dent gave the soldiers the thanks of, as he boomed it, 'one Safety Organisation to another.'