Sunday Scrapbook Rambles

Exchanging e-mails with a friend from Maine and my college days, I was reminded of this story.

The photo is a detail from the building by the front entrance to Plas Telgarth in the village of Penal, Wales where we stayed for a week on our trip to the UK for an anniversary trip/adventure almost twenty years ago.

While there we attended a concert of a local male voice choir (mostly farmers in their "go to church" suits with the hands of folks well used to work). They were just back home from a series of concerts across the channel.
As we waited for the concert to start I was chatting with the choir's director who mentioned they would begin the program singing the anthem “With a Voice of Singing”, which I’ve sung and love. She, with a bit of a grin said “make sure you sing along”.

As the introduction was played I cleared my throat and did my best to remember the bass line.The choir began on the down beat, I was ready but stopped when … they sang in Welsh, a lovely language but one (it seemed to me) comprised mostly of double consonants with an occasional vowel thrown in for good measure. I glanced over at the director who was now smiling quite broadly and who (I think) winked at me.

The village of Penal impressed us a classic rural village filled with friendly and trusting folks. One morning as we strolled in the village an elderly lady greeted us, mentioned she had just opened the village’s church and encouraged us to go in for a visit. The Church of Saint Peter in Chains. Wonderful artifacts, beautiful stained glass, an active church, not a museum (though it well could have been), with nothing locked or behind a barrier. It was, according to our new friend, the site of the coronation of "the last true Prince of Wales".

We loved our visit though we never made it to Chepstow which I now know was the home of my mother’s family who, having emigrated to coastal New England, settled in Jonesport Maine. Since my mother’s family’s name was Church, I possibly may be related to the singer Charlotte Church who comes from Chepstow.

Ahh but I ramble. Thanks for your patience ... and the adventure, nostalgia and all, continues.