7 Kids from the Valleys

Seven Kids from the Valleys - Part Seven of Seven

Martyn Richard Jones — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 22:22:00 GMT

7

Tell her she can't watch the news in Swahili, tell her it's bad for her eyes.
Tell her she can watch Super Ted and Fireman Sam.
Tell her she can stay up late and have cockles and dandelion and burdock for supper.

Tell her they're attacking us, with adverts.
Don't confuse her now, just explain.

Tell her we're only losing by a couple.
Tell her that Michael Owen or Ali G or Catherine Zeta Jones or Dawn French ... will come to save us in our hour of need, tell her it's not the same game, but that's not the point.

Don't tell her that her cousin went to play Rugby League.
Don't tell her how many of them have been rubbish.
Tell her that Rugby League is for ... nothing ...
Tell her they're mercenaries.

Tell her they're useless sellouts
Don't ... tell her nationalism is inherited, in the male chromosone, just like ... disability
Don't tell her about the family of the woman who married the man, with the black dog

Tell her you can't believe what you see on the replays - tell her the camera plays tricks
Tell her we punched their hooker by mistake - it was only an accident
Don't tell her anything about the secrets of the ruck - what secrets? Exactly!

Tell her, tell her about the Glyndwr, Bryn Mawr, Glen Miller, Ffynnon Taf, Glyn Taf, Glendower, Glyn Win, Glengettie, Grand Dower, duff, dorf and, doh! Tell her to be proud of Cymru - am Byth. Tell her about the family of dreadfully dull Druids, tell her their names, why not, tell her it's early days. Tell her there's dead bards and bad and dead and bard and worse. Did she read poems, hear the songs, see the art? Tell her she's got nothing to be ashamed of, nothing that it should cross her mind. Why should it?

Tell her we was robbed, tell her we gave them a right hiding, a trouncing, a proper seeing-to. Tell her they want their children skinny to make people sorry for the poor dabs. Tell her I'm not sorry for them, tell her I'm not very sorry for them. Tell her not to be sorry for them, tell her we're not the ones to be sorry for either, tell her they can talk nation and empire to us, we will understand. Still, tell her we can help them without feeling sorry. Helping is good, feeling sorry is pointless. You can tell her that.

Tell her about the old and the new, the poets and the royals. The "Ladies of Llangollen" and the "people's Princess". Tell her we're maudlin, cloyingly and horribly sentimental.

Tell her that Wales, as now in England, and pretty much like the USA, finds it very easy to lose the plot as a nation, as a people and as a purpose. Just remember the death of Princess Diana, accompanied as it was, to steal a line from Stewart Lee, by the "hysterical and over-emotional shrieking-grief of twats".

Tell her we're the welsh dragon in the velvet muppet, tell her it's the fog of Barry, tell her we won't stop teasing them till we're safe, tell her I laughed when I saw the dead beat, down beat, low beat, stopped beat, dropped beat .. beet of beetle beetery. Flecked orf! Tell her there are fabulous animals living in Grange Town now, rats as big as cats, cats as big as dogs, dogs as big as barges, barges as big as tips, tips as big as Everest.... tell her I wouldn't care if we stopped thinking, the world would love us, that is the only thing, tell her I don't care if the world remembers us, tell her we're better than all of them, tell her we're also the chosen people, living in God's own country. School holidays soon, well ? Tell her I was only joking. Tell her we will, we will, we will. Dai! Dai! Dewch!

Don't tell her that. She'll think we've gone mental.

Go on, just tell her we love her, forget the rest. Just tell her we love her.

Just don't tell her we have to do it all again next year, and the year after that. And so on and on, ad infinitum. Until the world freezes over, and leeks, daffodils, choirs, miners, spring lambs, green meadows, cockles, shrimps and lava bread, Mrs Welsh Jones, sweet peas, the mountain ash, the train to Cardiff, the chapel bell, the silver birch, the bubbling crystalline brook at the back of your great-Gran and Granpa's house, and the Greig mountain, are no more.

Part 1 - http://www.itsmarty.com/archive/2009/06/07/kids_valleys_1_7.aspx
Part 2 - http://www.itsmarty.com/archive/2009/06/07/kids_valleys_2_7.aspx
Part 3 - http://www.itsmarty.com/archive/2009/06/07/kids_valleys_3_7.aspx
Part 4 - http://www.itsmarty.com/archive/2009/06/07/kids_valleys_4_7.aspx
Part 5 - http://www.itsmarty.com/archive/2009/06/07/kids_valleys_5_7.aspx
Part 6 - http://www.itsmarty.com/archive/2009/06/07/kids_valleys_6_7.aspx
Part 7 - http://www.itsmarty.com/archive/2009/06/07/kids_valleys_7_7.aspx

Seven Kids from the Valleys - Part Six of Seven

Martyn Richard Jones — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 22:16:00 GMT

6

Don't tell her

Don't tell her the trouble about the reservoir

Tell her it's our water, they have no right - no, don't.
Tell her it's not the water for Liverpool and Birmingham.

Don't tell her anything about water.
Don't tell her about the home fires.
Don't tell her not to look at holiday homes.

Don't tell her it was like burning the house down.
Tell her it's an old museum site, a museum in a museum in a museum.

Don't tell her anything about holiday homes.
Don't tell her about the queues at the checkout at the Cwop
Tell her we'll be back home in no time.

Don't tell her anything she doesn't ask.
Don't tell her the game wasn't tidy.
Don't tell her anything. Not that it's rubbish.

Tell her we're making new mines in the Rhondda
Don't tell her about Senghenydd, Gresford, Wattstown or Aberfan.

Tell her we're building new towns in the old towns.
Don't tell her they died under stone, slurry and slag heaps.
Tell her we're not much good against falling rocks, fair do's.

Don't tell her that.
Don't tell her they killed the miners for their Realm.

Tell her, tell her they fleeced and murdered Celts, Asians, Africans, Europeans, Americans … the Workers, and the English … to make their Empire

Tell her to be glad and sorry.
Don't make her grizzle.
Tell her we need the Unions to keep us safe.

Tell her the capitalists want to drive us away.
Tell her they don't.
Tell her they want to drive us into Tiger Bay.

Tell her we run faster than them.
Don't tell her that.
Tell her that.

Tell her we're sturdy.
Tell her we're at liberty.

Tell her they don't understand anything except Eastenders and Who Wants to be a Millionaire.
Tell her we want Heddwch!

Tell her we're going down the Big Pit.

Seven Kids from the Valleys - Part Five of Seven

Martyn Richard Jones — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 22:06:00 GMT

5

Tell her we won, again

Tell her, Ryan Giggs is a hero

Tell her how big their mouths were

Tell her we didn't turn them back, but we turned them into us

Tell her we never give in

Tell her we should share these ancient lands.

Tell her ...

Seven Kids from the Valleys - Part Four of Seven

Martyn Richard Jones — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 21:51:00 GMT

4

Don't tell her who they are

Tell her something, tell her she looks like a petal

Tell her they're gypsies, they travel about

Tell her about the market in Ponty and the live chickens and horses and carts

Tell her they live in Swansea or Abergavenny or Over The Hill

Tell her this was their real home

Don't tell her home, not home, tell her they're not going away

Don't tell her they don't like lava bread

Tell her to be careful.

Don't tell her who used to live in this town.

No but don't tell her her great great grandfather used to live in this house

No but don't tell her sheep used to sleep in her doll's house.

Tell her not to be rude to the fairies.

Tell her not to be bothered.

Don't forget to tell her about chwarae-teg, fair play now

Don't tell her she can't have them in the house.

Tell her she should have plenty of friends, as well as family

Tell her for miles and miles all round the land is everyone's land

Tell her again this is our welsh land and their welsh land

Don't tell her they said it was a land of hills, coastline and sheep, without many people

Don't tell her I wouldn't have come if I'd known it was going to rain.

Tell her maybe we can share.

Don't tell her that we can't share.

Seven Kids from the Valleys - Part One of Seven

Martyn Richard Jones — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 21:28:00 GMT

1

Tell her it's the game, the only game that really matters.
Tell her it belongs to us.
Don't tell her it's only ours. We know people who say this are not right in the head.
Don't tell her that they'll tamp us. Not that it matters, it's only a game.
Tell her their team is far more shambolic than ours. Tell her it isn't a lie, that it's poetic license. Tell her it's humour. Tell her.

Tell her she'll have bara brith for tea. No, tell her she'll have burger and chips for supper.
Tell her to jump up and down on the settee. Tell we're not losing, and that Max told us it was just a problem with the sound.
Tell her the TV will fix itself, just bash it on the side mun!

Tell her we'll sing, Ogi! Ogi! Ogi!, Cwm Rhondda and You're all going home in a Caerphilly school bus.
Tell her to sing louder than the neighbours and their stupid bloody yappy bloody little bloody puppy.
Tell her to shout and sing even if we're losing by a thousand, especially if we are losing by a million, and the ref is a duffer, and a bit of a flighty one, and needs glasses.

No, don't tease her … we never lose, even when we lose .. fer'ages!

Tell her we will win; tell her we will always win, tell her we'll knock their bloody, bloody blocks off.
Even if we lose everything for a (very, very, very) long time.
Say we will, we will, we will.
Tell her we will rise again, come back again, get our wits about us, again.
Tell her we'll be fire breathing dragons again. No, don't tell her that. That's right mental that is.

Tell her something about the boys who played and the girls that made them.
Tell her they're the greatest in the game; whose game? Our game!
Tell her it's a story that the world will love to hear, over and over, and over and over, again and again.

Tell her Barry John, Gareth Edwards, Phil Bennett, JPR, and all their butties, will never go away.
Tell her she can make them come back again, tell her to switch the DVD on, tell her to get the beer from the fridge. We'll come back. By magic, by mountain magic, we'll make them come back again.

And, always to sing, even if she feels like a bag of nerves, even is she feels like dying. Dying for a glass of pop.

Seven Kids from the Valleys - Part Two of Seven

Martyn Richard Jones — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 21:28:00 GMT

2

Tell her this is a photo of Uncle Jack, Auntie Maude, John and me.
Tell her that her Uncle has a house in the Holy Land.
Don't tell her they also have a house in Dénia, as well.

Tell her they were honest traders.
Don't tell her there's a bwci-bo.
Tell her that her grandmother was honest, hard working and generous.

Don't tell her they said we were thieves, oh sod it! Tell her anyway.
Tell her she was brave and strong, a servant of a questionable God, a hero of a revolution that never happened, and a feminist deaf to her cause.

Tell her she taught me how to make bread, perfume from roses, and wine from water and blackberries.
Don't tell her what they did to the Irish, don't tell her about the potatoes, the guns, the black and tan nutters.

Tell her she's a Celt, go on! Tell her what they did to the Irish, Jews, Communists and Gypsies, the shy boys, the gay boys, the slow boys and girls, and everyone else the nasty people hated. Go on, tell … tell her.

Tell her more before she's older, tell her more when she is older.
Tell her there were people who lived on the other side of the tump.
Don't tell her, those people are now long gone.

Tell her they've gone to another Wales, sunny, warm, and far away, further away than even Aberystwyth.
Tell her that stories about people hating us are all fibs.
Tell her there are people who love us, just because.

Don't tell her to think of us and them.
Tell her about mining, pit ponies and canaries, tell her before she's older.
Tell her about how many mines that were closed before she's older.

Tell her it was before she was born, in the days when we beat Seland Newydd.
Don't tell her there's any question of losing to England.
Tell her we that love her, and we always will.

Tell her that her family all care for her.
Tell her that her Gran would love her to bits and give her a cwtch. Tell her that. Tell her.

Seven Kids from the Valleys - Part Three of Seven

Martyn Richard Jones — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 21:28:00 GMT

3

Don't tell her we're losing, tell her we're not winning, tell her we will win. Don't get her all in a frump.
Tell its early days yet. Tell her she can write to her Gran, friends can maybe come and visit.
Tell her it rains there, tell her it's warm there.

Tell her we're going on a trip, like an outing to Barry Island.
Tell her Wales is the land that the sky pixies gave us, gave everyone, that's why we must leave, because the sky pixies say so.
Don't tell her about Thatcher, Scargill, Tarzan, Jenkins, Hain … Unemployment, misery, coal dust, alienation, theft, exploitation … death

Tell her that her great great great great lots of great grans and granpas will watch over us

Don't tell her we left because it was rubbish, cold, wet and miserable. Even when she is homesick.
Tell her, of course tell her, tell her everyone was driven out and the country by poverty, by Thatcher, by nothing in particular. Tell her Wales is waiting for us to come home, if we want .

Don't tell her she belongs here, tell her she belongs everywhere.
Tell her of course she likes there but she'll like it there even more on the future.
Tell her it's not an adventure

Tell her no one will tease her.
Tell her she'll have new friends.
Tell her she can take her cat.

Don't tell her she can take all her friends. Tell her she's a special girl.
Tell her about Bethlehem, Nasareth, Manic Street Preachers and Cerys Mathews.
If you can shoot a rabbit, tell her, you can shoot a fascist too.