23 AUGUST 1935, Page 15

Welsh Genealogists

One advantage of the survival of this sort of local factory is the maintenance of inherited skill. This craftsman comes of a family of craftsmen and one at any rate of his descendants is in demand as a coach or adviser for similar mills in distant counties. The best blacksmith craftsman I know has •a family tradition of several hundred years. The chief experts in Norfolk thatching can trace their descent almost to the middle ages. The factory is in South Wales, and I think local crafts flourish more naturally in the extreme west of Britain than in any other place. Perhaps one reason is that " every Welshman is a genealogist," as one of their historians said.