At the end of a long wet January our thoughts turn towards Spring. I was reminded of this by seeing snowdrops and emerging daffodils on my morning walk.
Daffodils are associated with St David’s Day in March, however, as a chorister we start to prepare for the day months ahead. This year there will be no public St David’s Day in Oxford, Covid has caused the cancellation of both our Celebration in The University Church and also the Welsh service in Jesus College Chapel. This sad news made me think about other happier Celebrations which I would like to share with you.
Firstly, from 2011 is the traditional song Hen Fenyw Fach Cydweli. The song begins with Lyn Davies telling the story of the sweet shop where ‘The dear old lady of Kidwelly. A seller of sweets is she, Counts out ten for a halfpenny. But always eleven for me.’
The day before the concert I had bought a large bag of ‘losin du’, ‘black sweets’, which Lyn handed to the audience. They were passed back until by the third row a ‘little old lady’ took the nearly full bag of sweets and put them in her enormous handbag. No persuasion from other audience members could release them!
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Oy0ZU6T_Bo0 >