Immigrants in Wales
Antonia Martin
Goats in Wales used to be thought of as regimental mascots or animals pubs were named after, but they have long since become the badge of the immigrant — English-born, city-bred and ecology- conscious. There are rather a lot of goats in Wales these days.
One theory for the Principality's appeal is that its sparsely populated tracts hold out the promise of the new start that the old West offered to earlier generations without the inconvenience of crossing the water, but cheap (although no longer quite so cheap) property probably has more to do with it. Although the self-sufficiency boom collaps- ed a few years ago and potteries, craft shops and farm parks, those other dreamboats, have been knocked hard by the recession, there is no slackening in the flow of seekers after new lives. The rough demographic im- pressions supplied by goats are confirmed by more conventional sources. Figures from the Office of Population Censuses and Statistics disclose that in the last ten years, the population of Wales has grown faster than that of any other country in the British Isles. The trend, continuing in 1980 and 1981, shows no sign of slackening, with the rural counties of Powys (Brecon and Rad- nor) Gwynedd (Caernarvonshire) and Dyf- ed (Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire and Cardiganshire) overwhelmingly on the receiving end.
The impact on small Welsh-speaking communities is as far-reaching as that of the influx of overseas immigrants into the inner cities elsewhere in Britain. The primary school in the West Wales hamlet of Llangybi, built to cater for 120 children from Llangybi and five surrounding villages, now has 135 pupils, only 30 of whom come from indigenous Welsh- speaking families. This pattern is not at all exceptional.
In the neighbourhood of the small agricultural town of Lampeter (pop 1,972) on the banks of the Teifi, there are estimated to be about 2,000 immigrants, with a further 4,000 scattered over the rest of rural Ceredigion, the old county of Car- digan, where, up to 1971, the population had been in decline for a century. Im- migrants claim, justifiably, that they have rescued hundreds of smallholdings from dereliction, cultivated empty acres — nor- thern Dyfed is now said to produce a greater concentration of organic feed than any other part of the country — and in- troduced new enterprises to the rural economy. These are often professionally qualified people who have deliberately lowered their ambitions in favour of an im- proved quality of life or who have invested their redundancy money in a small farm or business: either way they are responsible for a welcome degree of low-key activity.
Another kind of immigrant is now put- ting in an appearance, still perhaps looking for paradise on a hill farm, but part of what one Welsh teacher described picturesquely as 'the exodus of escape', from a city, perhaps, or an incompatible partner or 'the system', and they are bringing their social problems, their aimlessness and their worklessness with them. One consequence is that Lampeter and neighbouring Llan- dyssul, with a jobless figure hovering bet- ween 21 and 24 per cent, have one of the highest unemployment rates in the UK. 'When you come into Lampeter on a Thurs- day, it's just like Katmandu around the social security office,' one farmer said.
'That's what I call a guide dog.' Nobody blames people on the dole for opting for the countryside rather than a dreary industrial area, but Lampeter is the last place anybody genuinely in search of work would expect to find it. The suspicion that this accounts to some degree for their town's attraction, coupled with the com- petition outsiders present for what few jobs might be going, riles the locals. Country people hate the 'hippiau', as they are known in Welsh, of whom there are many hundreds on squalid common land sites all over the place, though the latest rumour is that many of them are moving to Ireland. People are not too happy, either, with the alternative 'counter-culture' the immigrants have promoted — left-wing, pro-cannabis, much given to rock festivals, amateurish fringe theatre patronisingly brought to the villages and political demos. The anti- nuclear movement in Wales is largely fuel- led by immigrants and many local people resent their claim to represent Welsh opinion.
'The general feeling is: what the hell are they all doing coming down here?', the Lampeter farmer said. Some of the im- migrants must wonder this, too. Country life takes some handling if you are not used to it and by their own account a lot of them are bored out of their minds, victims of the Dyfed equivalent of Devon Depression, ennui compounded by greenery and grey cloud. Even the stock response, forming a rock group (now these are ten a penny) and promoting rock festivals, are hardly substitutes for a future, so one day they will move on. Others will take their places, showing up as a population increase in the statistics, but it is very much a roll-on, roll off increase and does nothing to solve the problem uppermost in people's minds in these parts, the attrition of the Welsh language. 'If people want to put down roots and learn the language, well and good,' rnY farmer friend said, 'but we don't want to be a stepping stone to somewhere else; you can bet if they've dug up their roots once, they'll do so again.' To be fair, many immigrants try to learn Welsh. A few even succeed, but most give up, foundering on the rocks of mutation and pronunciation. In the meantime, its decline in Dyfed continues: 52 per cent spoke it in 1971 compared with 46 per cent in 1981, the very period during which the population started to increase. All this Is despite crash courses for adults, a flYing squad of specialist teachers descending wherever Welsh is weakest and the educa- tion authority's aim that every child should be bilingual by eleven. A Bangor academic suggested recently that one way of savnI Welsh from a future as a 'museum language, spoken only for self-conscious ethnic or nationalistic reasons, was to refuse tenancies in Welsh-speaking areas to English people. Such a course would no doubt be denounced as racism. Ironically enough, had the language been a rare species of plant, conservative-minded Im- migrants would long ago have organised a demo to demand its protection.
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