Belittled
Sir: As another Englishman from the Home Counties who knows Cwmllynfell (MY wife's grandfather: Phil Jenkins — iron- monger between the wars), may I take issue with Peter Paterson (23 April)? Why spoil an interesting article on life as an evacuee by belittling (inaccurately) the Cwmllynfell of today? The hills are not 'smothered' with council houses, although some have been built in the village since Mr Paterson's time (and a good thing too). Plaid Cymru may write in English but this is a Welsh-speaking area and don't you believe otherwise. Villages like this have to adapt. Work must now be found elsewhere but a community existed here before the mines and the railway (this last a very temporary intru- sion) and will survive in the future sur- rounded, as it still is, by wild and beautiful countryside. If Mr Paterson doubts the continuing strength of Cwmllyfell's per- sonality and the vitality of its folklore, his `diminishing band of survivors' cannot in- clude my mother-in-law.
John Scarlett
6 Court Lane, London SE21
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