Welsh Society Member Honoured at National Eisteddfod
By EIFION WILLIAMS
VANCOUVER - Long-time Vancouver Welsh Society member John Pritchard has been accorded the signal honour of leading the Overseas Welsh contingent at the National Eisteddfod of Wales and giving a speech on their behalf.
The Ceremony of Welcome for the Overseas Welsh is held every year and is one of the most anticipated and watched events during Eisteddfod week. This year’s Eisteddfod was held at Y Faenol, near Bangor, and was presented live on BBC Wales television.
In his speech, presented in Welsh, John thanked Wales International and the Eisteddfod Committee for according him this unique honour. He said the importance of Wales International and its publication Yr Enfys to the Welsh away from home cannot be overestimated.
John said that his childhood dream was to stand on the Eisteddfod stage but when he realized he would not make it as a soloist or bard, he followed the poet Eifion Wyn’s dictum that it is worth it occasionally to go into exile (werth troi’n alltud ambell dro).
John then talked of his moving to Vancouver, which he described as the Pearl of the Pacific, and meeting his wife Llinos. He stressed the importance of the Vancouver Welsh Society and the Cambrian Hall in keeping alive a small part of Wales in Vancouver and the many Welsh visitors whom he and Llinos and the Society have welcomed to the city over the years. He added that five members of the Vancouver Welsh Society were present at the ceremony, among them his dear friend Gareth Prytherch, who is over 80 years old.
John thanked the National Eisteddfod on behalf of the Overseas Welsh for its peerless welcome and heart-warming kindness and for keeping alive its traditions and maintaining the bonds with the homeland. He told the audience that this year’s Overseas Welsh represented communities throughout Wales and over 20 countries.
He also expressed his feeling of being very much at home at the Eisteddfod, having been born in Bangor and receiving his college education there. He believed few regions in Wales had produced so many literary and cultural giants as this particular region, among them the poets R. Williams Parry and Gwilym R. Jones in the past, and musicians Bryn Terfel and Robert Arwyn today.
John ended his speech by saying “Thank you, a blessing on the Eisteddfod and peace.” (Diolch, bendith ar yr Eisteddfod a thangnefedd.)
John Pritchard was accorded his honour exactly 50 years after another prominent Welsh Society member, Angharad Lloyd Roberts, was chosen as Leader of the Overseas Welsh at the Pwllheli National Eisteddfod in 1955. And in 1982, well-known Vancouver educator Gwenfyl Jones received the honour at the Swansea National Eisteddfod. Next year’s Eisteddfod will again be held in Swansea.
John Pritchard’s speech, together with a translation by David Llewelyn Williams, can be read in the Vancouver Welsh Society’s newsletter The Cambrian News, which can be accessed on the Society’s website at: www.welshsociety.com.
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