WHY WAIT UNTIL St VALENTINE'S DAY WHEN YOU CAN WISH YOUR LOVED ONE 'DWI'N DY GARU DI ' (I LOVE YOU) THIS WEEKEND?

In a earlier post I suggested those of a romantic disposition might wish to celebrate DIWRNOD SANTES DWYNWEN - St Dwynwen's Day, rather than wait for St Valentines Day in February.

As some may already know, it's the Welsh version of St Valentine's Day, St Dwynwen being a 5th century Welsh girl who devoted her life to the happiness of lovers. And it's a time a time for you to get down on one knee, recite love poetry, and as all true Welsh lovers know, exchange love spoons with your beloved....  

Or celebrate at a Santes Dwynwen Night Special at a landmark Wrexham pub and music venue that is set to re-open as a Welsh cultural centre and venue this weekend.

Saith Seren opening party weekend 27th & 28th January 2012

Friday night, (27^th January) sees the doors of the old Seven Stars pub in Chester Street thrown open to the public as it becomes Saith Seren (Welsh for Seven Stars) kicking off with live band Gwibdaith Hen Frân, a Welsh music act from Blaenau Ffestiniog providing the entertainment for this romantic night - the perfect place to take your beloved for a special night out!


Named Gwibdaith Hen Fran, for two main reasons, firstly, as a tribute to Jack the Crow - a crow rescued and nurtured, but unfortunately, a crow that one day flew against a wall and died.  Secondly, as a tribute to 'The Old Crow Medicine Show', an old-time bluegrass string band based in Nashville Tennessee, who greatly inspired the band. 

Another great inspiration is George Formby, a renowned ukulele player, with a comical style of writing and singing. The thrilling sound of the ukulele plays an important role in Gwibdaith Hen Fran's music. The band's attitude towards life in general is not to take it too seriously. The inspiration to write their songs has been spurned on by the old characters in the village with their never-ending stories, and personal experiences of the band members in their daily lives.


Seriously?..."Fun and a good crack is what we want, and that's what we try to achieve in our gigs and hope we've achieved this in our album" said Paul, the group's guitarists and singer. 

But you'd better hurry as tickets are selling quickly (available from Siop y Siswrn in the People’s Market and Saith Seren itself).

The opening party weekend, on the 27^th and 28^th January, celebrates the launch of not just a pub, but of a Welsh cultural centre offering a warm bi-lingual welcome to all, with Welsh food, real ale and language classes will all be on offer at the pub as well as meeting places upstairs.


Two local legends, former Wrexham FC player and manager Dixie McNeil and Spencer Harris, former Welsh learner of the year and a key player in Wrexham Supporters’ Trust, from Brynteg, and will both officially open the centre at midday on Saturday the 28th.

Saith Seren chair Marc Jones said: “Both Spencer and Dixie in their different ways are local heroes and, as well as promoting the Welsh language and culture in all aspects of Welsh life, Saith Seren is also about celebrating local achievement and pride in Wrecsam. Both Dixie and Spencer have done their bit in making our town somewhere to be proud of.

“That’s why we’re also delighted to have reached agreement to sell Wrexham Lager in the bar. The new lager brewery has been very supportive of our venture, has successfully taken on the big lager companies and that’s also something to celebrate.”


Asked how he would describe the taste of his new 4.0 per cent lager, Wrexham Lager's Mark Roberts, said: “It’s very, very good, and very similar to the taste of the old lager. We’re taking it back to the original of years ago. It’s brewed the proper way – no added chemicals - a real lager not a chemilager”.

On Saturday night another live band, the Wee Bag Band, from Denbigh will be playing in the bar. They described as a Pogues-like Irish band who are guaranteed to get people dancing.

Saith Seren is run by a cooperative that has succeeded in attracting members from across Wales and as far afield as San Fransisco. It has appointed Amanda Hughes, from Brymbo, to be the centre’s full-time manager and she will be in charge of staff and volunteers at the centre.

Besides serving Welsh food from its newly installed kitchen, real ale and Wrexham Lager customers will, in the coming months, be able to rent refurbished offices and hire out meeting rooms in the converted upstairs part of the building.


The intention is to provide a focus for Welsh speakers, learners and supporters of the language and culture in the centre, which is designed to be a permanent legacy of last year’s National Eisteddfod in Wrexham.




Marc Jones, who is also a local councillor, said: “The centre will provide a warm bilingual welcome for all. We intend to hold all sorts of events at Saith Seren, with regular live music by Welsh-language bands and also local bands. We also want to put on alternative entertainment, such as poetry, film and theatre, as well as offer a focus for the many hundreds of Welsh learners in the area.


"Sustainability is at the heart of our vision for Saith Seren, any profit made at the centre will be reinvested to provide community facilities, such as meeting space, training for local people, help with business start ups and financial support for local groups. We will also work with existing organisations to provide a bilingual local support network focused on creating opportunities for the local population.

“Six months ago, when the Eisteddfod finished, we made our first public appeal for people to join our cooperative. I don’t think anyone believed then that we would be opening so soon but here we are. I hope everyone comes to visit Saith Seren, which is one of Wrecsam’s landmark buildings, to join in the hwyl and see what we have on offer – whether it’s for a meal, an afternoon coffee or a pint.”

For more information on Saith Seren visit http://saithseren.com/

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THE COST OF COAL

September last year marked the 77^th anniversary of one of Britain’s worst mining accidents.  Every year the people gather at the Gresford Colliery Disaster Memorial to commemorate the tragedy and to remember the 266 who lost their lives back in 1934. Last year they also remembered the four miners killed at the Gleision Colliery near Swansea just a week earlier. Once again reminding us of the true cost of coal – disaster, death and disease. And once again another disaster where the mine managers and owners have come in for severe criticism over their actions.

Yet many forget this expensive human cost, forget these deadly consequences, even forget tragedies such as Gresford.  Given the scale of the event it surprised me just how few people know of it, and, how even fewer, remember it. How many have already forgotten the deaths at Gleision Colliery in South Wales last year?  Perhaps people will remember the happier outcome of the Chilean miners for longer.

Looking at the commemoration service and talking to Canon Griffiths made me want to know more, and there is a lot of information, but some of it is perhaps scattered so i have tried to gather the key points here and provide links to interesting pages for others to further investigate.

Lying just inside the Welsh Border, the North Wales coalfield stretches from Point of Ayr on the Flintshire coast down to the Shropshire border and even under the River Dee to Neston on the Wirral, which had its own coal-mines until 1927.

As records dating back to the 15^th century show, mining was of growing importance to North Wales since the latter part of the middle ages.  These show profits being made by the manors of Ewloe, Hopedale and Mostyn, in the then county of Flintshire, and, just a few miles south of Gresford, of Brymbo, in the then county of Denbighshire.  This is documented in a pamphlet issued by The National Coal Board in 1953 which uses “The Rise of the British Coal Industry” by Professor J.U. Nef as its source.

Professor Nef is able to cite that by 1593 the “port books” (probably of Mostyn) contain records of shipments from the Dee estuary which grew rapidly, he says, until the Civil War. He talks of mines in the North Wales coalfield being “of some importance as early as the reign of Henry VIII.  During  and after Elizabeth's reign mines were also worked up the valley of the Dee near Wrexham, and in various parts of the Lordship of Bromfield and Yale in Denbighshire” - although it wouldn't be until the 18th Century that mining for coal really took off.  By 1900 it was recorded there were over 12,500 miners producing three million tonnes a year. Despite all the mines mentioned above being within a few miles of Gresford, the mine at Gresford did not arrive until the early 20^th Century coinciding with the arrival of mechanisation – which meant that deep coal reserves could now be accessed. Henry Dennis (civil engineer, industrialist and founder of the Dennis Ruabon brick and tile works) and his son, Henry Dyke Dennis, began work on the new Gresfordmine in 1907. Four years later the two shafts were completed.

Both Dennis and Martin shafts were approximately 2,263 feet (690 metres) deep, 18 feet in diameter, about 50 yards apart.  The Dennis section extended over a mile underground, and mainly worked the Main and Brassey seams. The Brassey seam was virtually gas-free coal for commercial use, while the Main (six to seven feet thick) was very gassy, producing firedamp (mixture of gases but mostly methane, mixed with air) which is highly combustible. The first coal was brought to the surface in June 1911.

The worst disaster on the NorthWales coalfield took place in the early hours of Saturday 22 September 1934. At about 2 am, an explosion took place in the Dennis Section and, with the exception of one deputy and five men, all of the men working in that section lost their lives. The explosion was followed by a fire which spread into the main air intake.  The scale of the disaster was increased as many miners had doubled up their shifts on the Friday (21^st September) so they could attend the football match between Wrexham and Tranmere Rovers due to be played on the Saturday afternoon - consequently there were many more miners down the pit than normal.

Round the clock, throughout that weekend, rescue teams fought desperately to bring the fire under control, but to no avail. By the evening of the following day, the carbon monoxide readings in the Dennis Section clearly indicated that nobody could still be alive and, given the rescue operations had already claimed the lives of three members of the rescue brigade, it was decided that the mine would have to be sealed off at the top of the two shafts. Only eleven bodies were recovered of the 262 miners who were lost in the disaster.

Further explosions occurred underground in the days that followed and on Tuesday 25 September, a surface worker was killed by flying debris from the pit-head.

You can listen to three BBC news reports from the day of the disaster on 22 September 1934 and leading up to the sealing of the pit head. The BBC has quite extensive coverage In 1982 BBC Radio Wales interviewed two of the mere handful of survivors to coincide with the opening of the memorial. 

Newspaper coverage was extensive even global, just like the more recent Chilean disaster.  These digitized Australian newspapers show the level of media interest, covering the disaster, the attempted rescue, the further explosion and death of one of the rescuers, the putting of 2,500 miners on the dole, reflection on the tragedy, the attempt to reopen the mine in the following January, the awarding of the King Edward award for gallantry, the issuing of the summons, the charges with regard to the breaches of the Mines Act, the verdict on the company and its manager,

More recent media coverage may be found in a BBC2 Wales documentary broadcast to mark the 70^th anniversary, "The Terrible Price", tells the story of the disaster using archive film and radio reports with the recollections of eye-witnesses and survivors, and relatives of some of the victims. The harrowing tale of neglect by the mine owners who knew of the dangers of gas is told with a re-enactment of the inquiry into the disaster. Includes 30 extra minutes of material not shown on the television programme. The script is available to read on the director's website.  

The Court of Inquiry, which published its report in February 1937, condemned the lack of proper records at the mine, the lack of adequate ventilation, the careless manner in which shot firing was carried, the excessive hours worked by the men at Gresford, the lack of an air-lock over the upcast shaft, the inadequate training of the management and the inadequate supervision of safety standards by both management and unions. The mine was re-entered in 1935 and coal production was gradually resumed from January 1936.
  

After the pit finally closed in 1973, the relatives of those killed began a campaign for a permanent memorial. Nine years later the memorial was unveiled, dedicated on 26 November 1982, in the presence of the Prince and Princess of Wales and the surviving relatives. The memorial is the last remaining piece of the mechanism from the colliery, which serves as the memorial.  In 2000, as a final act of remembrance, the names of all those who lost their lives in the pit were added to the memorial. (It is just off the A483 - traveling towards Chester from the Wrexham direction, passing the exit for Gresford, if you were to look to your left as you go over the roundabout you would see it.

The names of the men are also recorded in Books of Remembrance which can be seen in Wrexham Public Library, All Saints Church in Gresford underneath the memorial picture and now online.

"Danger always lurks down below. In the extraction of coal, men contend against darkness, noxious gases and the immense pressure of rock and stone which overlie the coal seams."

So said  David Grenfel, MP for Gower, opening a debate in the House of Commons following the publication of Inquiry's findings.  He went on to refer to facts presented to the House by another member in an earlier debate on coal mining that in the previous 11 years more than 11,000 men had lost their lives in the hidden depths of our coal mines. He also cited the figure of nearly 2,000,000 persons who have been the victims of notifiable accidents in that same period.

Look at those figures again, two million injured and eleven thousand dead in just an eleven year period - and those figures do not recount the lives blighted and cut short by disease and illness.  The harsh reality is, despite the scale of the deaths and injuries in the headline disasters, we should always remember the hard lives of the miners, scarred and cut short in pursuit of "black gold".

No wonder ex-miners, like Canon David Griffiths, have mixed feelings at best about their experiences.

'TITANIC' LAGER RELAUNCHED AND NOW AVAILABLE IN GRESFORD (AND ALL GOOD HOSTELRIES THROUGHOUT NORTH WALES)

The lager that was sunk on the Titantic before the Titantic itself was sunk, the first British lager to be exported to Africa, Australia and even China, the lager that British soldiers in the Sudan sought refreshment with, whilst besieged with General Gordon in Khartoum in 1898 is back.

This was a brew that travelled the world, a British lager that was truly world class, a British lager with a history, a British lager with a proud heritage, almost lost for good, thanks to the bean counters of an industrial and multinational brewer, who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. How did blow such a great marketing opportunity whilst they were prepared to put millions behind the marketing of inferior brews.

Otto Isler and Ivan Levinstein, two German immigrants from Saxony established the Wrexham Lager Beer Company in 1881 and, a year later, started brewing lager in accordance with the Reinheitsgebot, which dictates that beer may contain only three ingredients: water, barley, and hops.  

(Courtesy Wrexham Museum)

Their brewery struggled to survive in the early years, but a chance meeting on the train to Liverpool between Ivan Levinstein and Robert Graesser, an industrialist with a chemical works in Acrefair. Graesser joined the brewery as he felt his mechanical refrigeration could cool the brewery's cellars. Even though now they started winning brewing prizes, the tied pub system ensured that there were few outlets in the town for Wrexham Lager. In 1892 the company went bust.

Graesser re-launched the Wrexham Lager Beer Company but still, faced poor sales, as people in Wrexham drank ale.

A chance event altered that. Graesser went to the USA on the steamship SS Baltic and took a supply of his own lager with him. It kept in excellent condition throughout the trip whilst competitiors' beers deteriorated and thus a ships' stores market was developed as other shipping lines took his lager. Wrexham Lager travelled well over water and the firm boomed and because of this ship trade, an export market began to develop in two big markets: the Empire and the Army. 

(Courtesy Wrexham Museum)

Despite this history it was abandoned by its multinational brewing owners Carlsberg-Tetley in 2000.

Now, it has been rescued and restored by local brew-master, and former brewing manager at Wrexham Lager, Ian Dale, to its former glory following the brew's 1970's recipe when the lager was at 4% strength (reduced to 3.2% after the merger with Carlsberg).

Ian Dale has teamed up with local businessmen John, Vaughan and Mark Roberts to set up a new micro-brewery in one of the old warehouses of the Roberts brothers' distribution firm, F Jones.

Together they formed a plan. Research was undertaken which resulted in a new German connection "We travelled to America and round Europe in search of the best equipment, but in the end we decided to go with a German family-run firm which are the oldest makers of [lager] brewing equipment in the world” said Mark Roberts talking of their conclusion to award the fitting out of the new brewery to Kaspar Schulz.

"We did our homework because it was an important decision to make" Mark says of their deliberations. Their German engineers have now completed the new micro-brewery and brewing the new Wrexham Lager has begun. 

Ian Dale finds it an exciting proposition to recreate Wrexham Lager following the brew's recipe from the 1970s. "They've gone for the best equipment possible, and the new plant is second to none. The fact that this plant is much smaller doesn't matter. We're going to start off slowly though, let the new plant bed in and get established."

Concentrating on delivering consistent quality, initially the lager will be available only in kegs, consequently only on-tap in local pubs for the time being.

Mark Roberts feels the new logo for the new Wrexham Lager encapsulates the town's history "We use the Welsh colours, have a dragon and also a football inside a rugby ball, as we do have a great tradition for rugby, be we didn't want to leave out the football fans," he explained, "Then we've got the gold for hopefully future success and the black for Wrexham's coal mining days".

From a marketing perspective it does look as if Carlsberg-Tetley and its predecessors Ind Coope and Allied Breweries missed a big trick here. Pure and premium lagers are big business and they had one of their own that they just ignored.

Unlike other lagers this isn’t just any old lager...

This isn’t just probably the best lager in the world...

This is Wrexham Lager – “feed me till I want no more”.