Tuesday, May 30, 2006

10 years of shame: Queen's visit to Aberystwyth remebered

Outrage as Lee Trundle opens extension at Cardiff leisure centre

Imagine a leisure centre in Cardiff has had a bit of a facelift and for the opening they'd like a high profile personality. For some strange reason the manager happens to be a Jack and his mate has Lee Trundle's mobile number. What the hell, this is his big chance to be bezzy mates with the squeaky one, so he invites him along even though he knows damn well this will probaly piss off a lot of the staff at the leisure centre who are Cardiff City fans, not to mention the Cardiff public.

Of course this wouldn't happen, but ten years ago today, Derec Llwyd Morgan, the modern day Dic SiƓn Dafydd decided to invite the Queen of England to open a new extension at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. Of all the national institutions in Wales, the Library is probably the Welshest (if there's such a word), and it also happens to be located next to Neuadd Pantycelyn, the university halls of residence. This hall is probably the most radical and nationalist of all Welsh students halls - only one thing could happen!


The above are the back and front of a t-shirt produced by Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg to celebrate the day. The back has a montage of the headlines taken from different newspapers across the UK the following day. The protestors were condemed, but for the first time in decades the true views of the Welsh people were made public and aired around the world.

As there wasn't much happening on the web in those days, I can find very little bout it, apart from this from the BBC programme catalogue.

I missed all the fun as I'd just finished my two year course at Coleg Llandrillo and had just started my summer job working for in a local hotel for a bunch of royalists from south east England, but I was glued to the radio all day awaiting the revolution so to speak as my couisn was a first year student at Aber at the time and had been telling me for weeks what was planned. Another blogger called Rhys remembers being kept home for the day as a choir from his school was to perform for the Queen, but his and two other families kept their children at home.

Edit.

Dogfael, another Aber resident mentions how he spent the day at an alternative event in the town's famous Coop's pub, where a drag Queen was presented with flowers by a special young lady (see link below 'From posies to protests').

I've come across links to two articles, both from the Torygraph, so they will have a slighly different slant to this blog!
Protest halts Queen's visit
From posies to protests

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1 Comments:

Blogger ben said...

I only learnt about this today. Amusing indeed.

I'm sure the West of Wales has always been pro-republican/anti-monarchist. Such a sentiment is certainly spreading across Wales these days. Always nice to see. Wales is shedding the shackles of both monarchism, Westminster-rule and, interestingly, organised religion as well (according to 2011 census).

Wales is a true 21st century nation, regardless of what naysaying Englishmen think.

1/11/2015 2:21 pm  

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