SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
J. W. M. THOMPSON
One thing I admire the Welsh for at the moment is the thoroughness with which they have proved Doctor Johnson wrong about their country. 'Wales is so little different from England,' wrote the sometimes obtuse Doctor to Boswell in 1774, 'that it offers nothing to the speculation of the traveller.' If it was true then, which I don't believe for a moment, it has been demonstrably untrue in recent days. Having myself spent part of the past week as one of many travellers in Wales, I couldn't help noticing that we were all speculating for all we were worth about the differences between that country and England. Indeed, in a topsy-turvy way the goings-on at Caernarvon have done wonders for the growing Welsh taste for notions of national identity and separateness. The amiable young prince was no doubt seen by many as ideally qualified to knock on the head all that tiresome stuff about national- ism and Welshness and so on. He may yet do so: but it may also be that when the Welsh have grown used to him they will still respond to the extra flow of national adrenalin stimulated this week.
Perhaps only the tiny violent minority could undo all this. I suppose the respect- able nationalists had hoped more devoutly than anyone else that no one would be killed or maimed this week by some idiot with a bomb. The Welsh people I met around the country seemed in a mood to enjoy the jollifications and purr over the Prince of Wales as warmly as any gather- ing of the Women's Institute in the Home Counties; every village seemed to have its Ox Roast, Welsh Tea, Male Voice Choir Concert or other singular cultural event scheduled in honour of the occasion. And yet, inescapably, every conversation seemed to lead back to what I can only call the Welsh Question, prompted by the arguments about the propriety of the investiture itself, the unseemly noises off, the rigorous security precautions or the unusual deference sud- denly paid to Wales by London. Even with the faintly hilarious combination of the Duke of Norfolk and Lord Snowdon in charge, the grains of nationalist sand couldn't be oiled out of the works. But a surfeit of bombs could sicken people of the whole subject.
Ceremonial joy
It was most odd of the Poet Laureate, in his first ceremonial poem for a big royal occasion, to proclaim that for this investi- ture 'anxieties and feuds lie buried under a ceremonial joy.' He should have tried recit- ing that to the swarms of security men sent into Wales. I found the ceremonial joy (even on television) made rather tense viewing, after the run of preliminary bangs and that suicidal explosion on Tuesday morning. We easily forget how free we are as a rule of the worst lunacies of political violence, with nothing but sit-ins and such- like games to match the killing of the Kennedys or the street fights of Paris. The fact that the 'Free Wales Army' men were being sentenced in Swansea more or less as the investiture was taking place was another chance effect of discord. Even the smallest group of extremists, if they really are pre- pared to go to extremes, can cast a shadow over the most colourful pageantry.
But it was, of course, as pageants go a
stunning specimen of the genre. The Prince of Wales has already established himself as a young man cast in an interesting mould, compounding steadiness and sensitivity in agreeable proportions. And one warms to a prince who can work a reference to the Goons into a speech in so stagily solemn a setting, with all the attendant druidical earnestness and mediaeval peacockery of uniforms and heraldy. What he makes of his rum, anachronistic but undeniably contro- versial role will, I suspect be an interest- ing sideshow in what he somewhat ruefully termed 'the uncertain future'. All the same, thinking of those explosions, one was rather relieved when it was all over: as, I dare say, were the main participants.
Going it alone
For my part I don't presume any longer to judge on the sense or nonsense of the Welsh separatist cause. I imagine the great majority of the Welsh at the moment have no desire whatever to go it alone, but then neither they nor I nor the nationalists can have any clear idea of what an independent Wales would be like. It's too obscure a prospect. Even the courteous Welsh patriot who sends me Plaid Cymru literature and who addresses me as 'Annwyl Mr Thomp- son' (a disarming salutation) would perhaps acknowledge that there would be an ele- ment of hazard in total separation. Of course, if an overwhelming majority voted for it one would happily wish them luck and await developments with great interest. I can at least see much in favour of more independence of Westminster than is at pre- sent enjoyed. And I take it the Welsh are certainly a 'nation' in the usual senses of that disputed word. One could even argue that their overpowering claim to nation- hood lies simply in their having stayed put in their mountains for all these centuries. That moist and mountainous peninsula, so subtly but firmly different from England, would surely have bred a different people by now even if they hadn't happened to be ethnically different in any case.
Having just travelled right across the country again my impression is reinforced of a land which is blissfully uncrowded. very beautiful and stubbornly rural. The great irony is that the nationalists in their less rational moments seem to be yearning for separate status simply in order to change all this into a high-altitude Dagenham. They demand motorways. overspill, industry, air- ports. housing estates and all the other delights of modern England. If I were a Welshman my nationalist programme would be to refortify Offa's Dyke expressly to keep out. all that sort of thing. Then the Welsh • could live among their marvellous mountains and soft green hills, selling their water dear to the thirsty English and making them pay for coming to see and envy them in their green utopia. Thus could the last stand of the old British civilisation be made once more in the Cambrian fast- nesses.
Castle in the air
Of course I wouldn't wish to be controver- sial about Wales at a time like this. There is regrettably a rather severe tradition of English critical writing about Wales, per- haps originating in the time when the Welsh hanged all Englishmen on sight while the English demonstrated their superior civilisa- tion by merely cutting off the ears of any Welshman who strayed across their path. One history compiled in the thirteenth cen- tury went so far as to complain in the strongest possible terms that Welsh sexual promiscuity played havoc with the efficient operation of the principle of hereditary suc- cession. A certain tact is necessary between neighbours.
When you ponder it. the staging of an English prince's investiture in a fortress which perfectly symbolises the ancient sub- jugation of the Welsh people might seem an extraordinarily tactless thing to do. In the event the place itself justified its choice. I may say I have quite fallen for Caernarvon. There is in the Victoria and Albert museum an eighteenth century watercolour by William Pars which shows Caernarvon Castle floating like a vision above land and sea. As the light over the Menai Strait changes, the castle can be transmuted from the watercolourist's Arthurian dream into a grim and stony-faced military strongpoint, all in a matter of moments. But in any of its aspects it is a matchless setting for a splendid essay in mock feudalism such as it has seen this week.
This was apparent on television: but what the small screen could not convey was the perfection of scale of the scene. The town is ideal in size —very much a town, full of bustle and people, but stopping cleanly at the edges for the country to take over. Between the castle walls and the narrow streets with their jolly pubs and so - on you glimpse green fields and trees. Un- like a modern 'conurbation' it remains a town you can comfortably walk out of. an amenity which enhances rather than detracts from its own cheerful urbanity. By a charm- ing irony, the scene of the royal investiture looks like a perfect springboard for the romantic nonsense (or belated patriotism) that is stirring throughout the Celtic lands.
Previous page
