Illuminations: An Anthology of Welsh Short Prose

thereafter, she had chosen to live apart from the community, geographically and socially; she had a nice house built for herself on the slope of the hill beyond Bodiwan ². In a word, she kept herself apart, and she was to have no more influence on the life of Bala and the district of Penllyn. She was a prisoner of her own past.

As I watched her shopping along the High Street that morning in 1967, I was half-hoping that she had changed, that the severe formality had thawed and become more flexible, and that after the age of three score years and ten, time had brought her reconciliation with a past that I could only guess at; in a word, I hoped that she had matured and, as Pantycelyn ³ put it, that she had 'conquered and passed through the tempests of fire and water'. It may be that my guessing was all in vain, my interpretation wide of the mark; anyway, in just three words the old woman put me in my place and back into the only time in which she was able to comprehend my existence, back at the table of the European History class in Church House in 1932. Nothing had changed, and so it was 'Good morning, Lloyd'.

Bore Da, Lloyd (Gwasg Gwynedd, 1980)

Hafina Clwyd

I came up to London in September 1957, a young and innocent teacher full of confidence, energy, and ambition. There wasn't a white hair to my head nor any hint of crow's feet around my eyes. How are the mighty fallen! I had then a naive faith in human goodness and a healthy prejudice in favour of children. What I didn't know was that London children and the children of Dyffryn Clwyd were of different breeds, indeed, almost from different planets.

What worried me most was the thought that I shouldn't be able to speak English all day without breaking down, or drying up. As it turned out, I was surprised to find that there wasn't any need to have worried. I couldn't understand a word they said; this wasn't the English I had learned at school. It was an ideal situation: we didn't understand each other. If you have watched the television pro

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