Roy Noble
Blog posts in total 14
Posts
On the buses
In man's 'roaming about' development, horse-riding followed walking, coaches followed horses, trains followed coaches, bikes slipped in there somewhere, along came motor cars and then, my favourite group movement conveyance trundled out: the bus. Man oh man, my love affair with the bus goes b...
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
Our immediate world is under snow. Well, large tracts of the the Heads of the Valleys are anyway and, walking with Dylan one morning this week. I found the snow to be the noisiest I've ever known. The temperature was very low - minus 8 according to one pundit I met in the closed off corrie th...
Brass for Christmas
I wonder if the Llwydcoed Brass Band will tour the village on Christmas morning this year. I really hope they do. Elaine and I have been living here for 18 years and members of the band have always appeared at the gate at some time on the Blessed morning. Up until last year that is. They failed to make it in 2009 - not enough volunteers, the band committee said. It was a great pity because it's such a wonderful interlude. Funnily enough, the church Christmas songsters didn't make it last year either. It was all part of the festive season. The ad-hoc choir, quickly gathered-together church members, doing a tour of an evening, singing in the road, then adding a carol inside the house when they're invited in for mulled wine or a whisky and mince pie. Then, on Christmas morning, the unmistakeable sound of the local brass band taking us out to the gate to enjoy their good cheer in exchange for a contribution in the box for band funds and refreshments. They were all greatly missed last year. A magical moment occurred two or three years ago. We heard the band approaching and as they stopped at our gate to start a new carol. As they hit the first note, snowflakes began to fall. It was a Hollywood moment, though no film director could have planned it better. Tuba players (photo: Charlotte Griffin, Ty Cerdd) I've got a lot of time for brass bands. Their performances on stage can be rousing, colourful, inspiring and, on occasions very animated and theatrical. They have working class roots and they nurture youth. Any youngster showing interest is hugely encouraged and allowed to borrow an instrument until circumstances allow one to be purchased. I've spoken to members of many bands very often. The subject of musical snobbery is often discussed, the orchestra being at one 'posh' social level, the brass or silver band at another cloth-cap level altogether.Thankfully, things are so much better now with a blurring of the attainment, acceptance and musical excellence. I've learnt a lot too. Brass bands are divided into divisions and competition allows them to attain promotion. In many ways, they are like soccer teams and the bands in the lower division suffer from the temptations of transfer for their better players. A good player gets invited to join a band in a higher division and the band they leave are stuck in a lower division because some of their quality and expertise has gone. The Cynon Valley has been rich in banding. The Cwmaman Band was in the Premier Division, but loss of sponsorship, especially after the big benefactor, Tower Colliery, closed, hit them very hard indeed. Llwydcoed Band continue to carry the banner, so good luck to them. I'm visited often by committee members in search of contributions and raffle prizes and I'm pleased to support them. Continued success to them all. Wales has many great brass bands. I could mention half a dozen, but it's dangerous ground because I might miss one out. I will mention one though: Cory Band of the Rhondda. Last year I was privileged to compère their 125th anniversary concert in St David's Hall, Cardiff. They were then European champions and, within three weeks, they became world champions. It was a stupendous night, packed to the gunnels with dignitaries and composers, some from the north of England, which is a hot-bed area for banding. These bands carry the Welsh dragon everywhere and they take Wales to the world at the highest level. They deserve praise and support for honing this cultural field in the way they do. I'm not a great expert on band music, but I will readily be in their corner if required. I do hope Llwydcoed Band do the annual village tour on Christmas morning. They lift the spirit and, in their playing, they send forth the true Christmas message of goodwill to all. Roy Roy Noble is bringing his famous storytelling skills to a computer near you as part of the BBC First Click Campaign - aimed at encouraging people to take their first steps to getting online. If you know somebody who needs help to get online, call the free BBC First Click advice line on 08000 150950.
The Black Mountain
The Carmarthenshire Vans form the western reaches of the Brecon Beacons. The wild, high, open moorland that stretches on as far as Carreg Cennen Castle is the Black Mountain. This mountain is not as pretentious as the Black Mountains of Hay on Wye and the Welsh borderlands. Those hills gather together in the plural, but the Black Mountain that stands brooding above Brynaman is content enough to be singular. It is self confident as one. This area came to mind this week because I'm due to visit Bethlehem to open the village Christmas Fair. This is not Bethlehem, Judea, but Bethlehem, Carmarthenshire, which lies at the foot of the northern slopes of the Black Mountain, just above the magnificent flow of the Towy and its valley, heading downwards to Llandeilo, and upwards to Llandovery. The mountain has a dominant colour that has a clue in its name, although dark grey would be nearer the mark and, from a distance, that shade is widespread, nature having carried massive boulders and scree on an ancient ice-flow to dump them as soon as Swansea Bay was in view on the far horizon. This land is border country of another kind, marking the impressive ridge of carboniferous limestone that separates the coal measures of old industrial south Wales from the northern Old Red Sandstone that stretches under the agrarian quilt of fields that towards mid Wales. It's a funny thing, but fate has always decreed that I be drawn to limestone. I was born on the slopes of the Black Mountain, I had two teaching headships in Pontneddfechan and Llangattock, and I now live to the north of Aberdare, near the quarries of Penderyn and Cefn Coed. They are all on the band of limestone that circles the south Wales coalfield. The Black Mountain is wild, an open moorland where no trees grow, and when you walk there it exudes a clearly discernable feeling of being at one with the ancients. To the west are three cairns viewing the valley of the Cennen and the dramatic limestone ridge that firmly holds the famed castle. Carreg Cennen is a good name, a strong name. For me the mountain was a part of life. As a child I played my games there, I swam in Pwll Du Uchaf and Pwll Du Isaf, the Upper and Lower Black Pools. When the summers were good and reliable they turned up when they were expected, and I hiked to Carreg Lwyd, the grey stone, that formed the peak, carrying my ex-army haversack stuffed with dandelion and burdock pop and condensed milk sandwiches. In later year I did my courting there and on occasion, when sadness and loss beset the family, I walked the moorland just 'to let it'. Only the mountain saw the weeping and it allowed you your space and time to release that emotion. Oddly enough, in those days, if a man was seen regularly walking the mountain on his own, it got around the village that he was depressed. I don't know what modern lone day hikers would make of that. I have also been lost on the mountain. Well, not so much lost, as late, after the annual pilgrimage to Carreg Cennen Castle that was always undertaken by children on Whit Monday. I don't know where the tradition came from, but we all did it, from every village in the Amman Valley. It was our version of going to Mecca. John Salter, Tecwyn Thomas and I left it late to leave to the castle one year and by the time we got to the ridge of the mountain, the mist and darkness was upon us. My mother had already reported to the police that we were missing, but the good Lord proved again that he never works a three day week, for he placed a parked car on the Brynaman to Llangadog road, just where the road begins to dip towards the south. Mind you, it must have been a shock to that courting couple to be quietly sitting there, when suddenly, out of the mist and darkness come three vagabonds desperate for a lift. Just to put the record straight, he did marry her a few months later! The Black Mountain, my spiritual home and a place of the ancients, stretching down to Gwynfe, Bethlehem and Llyn y Fan Fach, of Lady of the Lake fame. It is a wild, rugged open moorland and the fact that it forms the Carmarthen Vans and the western reaches of the Brecon Beacons is true, but it is a place in its own right: proud, independent and quite unique. Roy Roy Noble is bringing his famous storytelling skills to a computer near you as part of the BBC First Click Campaign - aimed at encouraging people to take their first steps to getting online. If you know somebody who needs help to get online, call the free BBC First Click advice line on 08000 150950.
The art of culinary creation
A bon vivant I'm not. As far as cooking is concerned, I'm the capital P in pathetic. If Elaine is out I withdraw to my limits, opening a tin of tomato soup, with a chunk of bread and cheese, or dabbling at a scrambled egg and with much of the egg left stuck to the frying pan. This has all been pertinent this week, for cooking and indulging have both raised their heads. Twice a year I take part in 'A men's meal'. Peter Hain, the Shadow Secretary of State for Wales and his now retired political agent, Howard Davies, join me in treating our ladies. We go on rota for starters, main course and pudding and we gather in the home of whoever has his turn at the main dish. I was on starters and I was guided by the advice of cooking guru Angela Grey. I went for stuffed field mushrooms with leeks, garlic, butter, cream cheese, goat's cheese, nuts, cranberries and parsley all thrown in at various stages, before or after the singe in the oven. It was a resounding success, may I add, although huge dollops of wine coloured the opinion I have no doubt. There is a safeguard against stress too, in that, however lacking I am on this kind of artistic foody flair and creative and colourful adventure, Howard is worse. On each occasion we all feel that his wife made his course, but we can never prove it. He also has an innocent smile, one that would fox Interpol, which disarms us completely. His wife, also named Elaine, tutors him so well as to how he prepared the course that he sounds so convincing when he describes it. I also spoke this week, on the programme, to Michael Winner, the renowned film director who is now a fearsome food critic for the Sunday Times. He was a joy to speak to, surprisingly full of common sense, about food preparation and presentation. He had no time for artistic designs on plates; saucy squiggles immediately irritated him. He takes no prisoners in his write-ups and I don't know how he can be in a convivial photograph with restaurant or hotel owners and staff, and then lambast them in his report. I just take the coward's way out. When the waiter asks me if everything is all right, I usually reply: "Fine thank you," even it's not. I just don't go to the place again. Not the best policy at all, I suppose. I've had my moments, mind. I remember, in my education days on a scholarship visit to America, being hosted at a dinner party by a sophisticated lady in New York. She'd once been married to a Welshman who, in her words, was good for only one thing. Whatever, I didn't press her as to what his Celtic prowess was. In each individual cutlery arrangement on the table, there was a knife, fork,spoon and something that looked like a medical instrument. As it turned out, it was a scoop to get the marrow out of your lamb bone. It was a long night for me, I can tell you. Yuck! I also recall something similar in a restaurant in the south of France. Elaine and I didn't recognise anything on the menu, but we took a stab at it. Panic took hold when the waiter took away my knife and fork and, yes, another medical instrument turned up. I didn't recognise the shellfish when they arrived. Not oysters, not mussels, not cockles even, but something new and sinister. Elaine said: "Look, call the waiter, tell him you've made a mistake and change them, or you'll be up in the night." No, pride, cowardice and the need to avoid a fuss took over, so I ordered four pints of lager and a mountain of bread and I got into a rhythm of 'bread, shell fish, lager; bread, shell fish, lager; bread, shell fish, lager...' It worked a dream, and I wasn't up in the night. It's funny, Elaine and I think we are of peasant stock: bread and potatoes, simple fayre. Mind you, 'simple' can be great. Some of the best meals I've had have been at various rugby clubs, organised by outside caterers out of tureens, £15 a head. Actually, the best beef I've ever tasted was from an outside caterer at a carvery in Bettws Rugby Club, Ammanford. So there we go, I know my place...and it's usually fulsome. Roy Roy Noble is bringing his famous storytelling skills to a computer near you as part of the BBC First Click campaign - aimed at encouraging people to take their first steps to getting online. If you know somebody who needs help to get online, call the free BBC First Click advice line on 08000 150950.
Just face the music and dance
I was told once that I've got natural movement. The beat of the music could be matched by the beat of my heart. "You play it... and I'll sway it." This came home to me this week when I chatted, on air in my programme, to Gavin Henson about his progress in Strictly Come Dancing. My word, he's getting better. His quickstep was a vast improvement on his previous displays. His problem, up to then, according to the judges, was his inability to let himself go: he couldn't unleash his personality. For years I had this problem - my natural movement was caged in a body beset with too many shy genes. My grammar school days did not unleash my potential on the dance floor. They did try: in the sixth form, from September to December in preparation for the Christmas party, there were compulsory ballroom dancing lessons. We were frogmarched to the gymnasium, twice a week, for lessons in the waltz, the foxtrot, the cha cha cha, the tango and even the gay Gordon's. I quite liked the latter, for it was quite structured and easy and you changed partners without too many mishaps. The rest was a maelstrom of arms, legs and a back so stiff it would have doubled as a gravestone. Being allocated a partner was also a lottery. Boys would be lined against one set of wall-bars and the girls would be lined along the opposite bars. You could easily see which number in the row you were and, as you counted the girls to find who was opposite you, there was many a whispered groan of "Oh God, look who I've got," followed by a plea of "Go on, I'll give you half a crown if you change places with me". Actually, I had a load of luck, I was allocated Delia, an attractive girl from the upper sixth, so I was a toy-boy. She was great, but the downer was that I was only comfortable with her and at the sixth form Christmas party I was hopeless in dancing with others. The great things about those dancing lessons were the actual dancing teachers, who were the heads of PE for boys and girls. Mr Adams, for the boys, was in the autumn of his teaching career. He was 56. Miss Norman, head of PE for girls, was in the early spring of her teaching career. She was 24 and out of some glossy magazine. She was lovely and the great joy was that if, as a young lad of 16, 17 or 18, you couldn't do a dance, she'd come and help you and hold you close. I have to tell you, one dip and turn in the tango with Miss Norman could advance a boy's education by a leap of years. Roy and Elaine Noble dancing on their honeymoon Over the years I've had lots of lessons and, to be fair, I have loosened up. My wife Elaine and I attended lessons together and it did help, up the point that the tutors in the class suddenly took a contract on a P&O liner to South Africa and left us mid-cha cha cha. I can waltz, though, and I do like a jive, even though Elaine always says that the past landlord of the Gloucester Arms in Aberdare was the king of jive. He was better than me, even if he had to wear daps because of his bad feet. My last musical lunge at dancing was my New Year's resolution, a few years ago. I wanted to learn the Argentinean Tango. I was given lessons, in a hall in Tumble, filmed by Heno for S4C, by a very lithe lady from Llanelli. She was too good for me too powerful. Whenever she wrapped her leg tightly around my upper thigh it stopped all the blood getting to my ankles. I always ended up with nasty pins and needles. No, my body's beat being in tune with the beat of the music it may be, but only in the waltz I think. So, altogether now: "One two three, one two three..." Roy Roy Noble is bringing his famous storytelling skills to a computer near you as part of the BBC First Click Campaign - aimed at encouraging people to take their first steps to getting online. If you know somebody who needs help to get online, call the free BBC First Click advice line on 08000 150950.
Bouncing around history
So, how was it for you? I'm talking about Roy's First Click, which was on BBC Two Wales on Wednesday night at 7pm. I thought the programme was excellent, but then again I'm biased. It was all very encouraging for those of us who have, not so much been surfing the net, as gingerly dipping our toe...
'The Big Experiment'
They say that if you want to feel better about yourself, attend a reunion. There you'll see how rough the others of your age look. I'll have the chance this week when I attend my old college rugby club's 60th anniversary. Not that I was ever a gifted rugby player. I was, and still am, your definitive 'Second Team' man... or maybe the third team, if the blood flow wasn't reaching the Commonwealth regions of the body in any given week. Mind you, my old college, Cardiff Training College, or UWIC as it is now, was a strong PE college with a great tradition in rugby football. Players such as Clive Rowlands, Dewi Bebb and David Nash, all Welsh internationals, had preceded us and, years later, the likes of Gareth Edwards, JJ Williams and Ryan Jones were to grace the college teams. I was not a PE student, and the vice principal, Mr Eric Thomas, an upstanding gentleman in every way, did have problems with two sub-species of the student body: girls and non-PE types. In fact, he took us lesser mortals of the male wing aside and pleaded with us not to make the place untidy and unkempt. Considering Thomas Gilmour Nimrod and myself, he had a point. In fact, I was only to be chosen for the college rugby teams three times in the three years that I was there, on all occasions for the Third team may I add, and that was because there was a nasty bout of gastro-enteritis in the college and they were choosing anyone who could stay away from a toilet for at least four hours. Oddly enough, they were so short one week, I was made captain, and I scored a try. I've still got the blades of grass in a box at home now, just to prove it. It was in the winter of 1963, a winter so cold we could walk across, and play rugby, on a frozen solid Roath Lake for well over a month. For all my failings on the fields of battle, the students, God bless them, did elect me student president in our third year and I rewarded them at a conference of college student delegates at Manchester in 1963. It was the year of 'The Big Experiment'. It had been decided to allow girls to visit the boys' rooms, and vice versa, twice a week, for an hour and a half on a Wednesday evening and for two hours on a Sunday afternoon, on both occasions after a heavy meal. At the conference in Manchester, the delegate for Trinity College, Carmarthen, of all places, had spoken from the platform on the subject of the experimental visiting. He pleaded: "We in Carmarthen think it's all too much, all this visiting. We can't take it, so I move a resolution that we reduce the hours or stop it altogether." I was a galvanised coiled spring and I was on my feet in a flash with a counter resolution: "I move that the experiment is continued, Mr Chairman, with a a view to future assessment and a possible expansion." It was carried in a wild wave of enthusiasm, with whoops and cries of delight all around the conference hall. I was a hero, in Manchester... and back in Cardiff Training College. Roy Roy Noble is bringing his famous storytelling skills to a computer near you as part of the BBC First Click campaign - aimed at encouraging people to take their first steps to getting online. If you know somebody who needs help to get online, call the free BBC First Click advice line on 08000 150950.
Art for art's sake
I haven't raised an artist's brush with intent for years. As I look up at the bookshelf in my study, there are books that underline a promise to myself that I will get back to it. They have titles like Painting In Watercolour, Painting With Oils... or acrylics... or pastels... and even one entitled The Complete Artist. My past flirtation with art goes back to school days when it was one of my subjects at A level. I was reminded again of my interest last week, as I officially opened an art exhibition in St David's Church Hall in Fleur de Lys near Ystrad Mynach. I was definitely a B-grade artist with C-grade aspirations. I include a couple of my attempts at sketching for your consideration. The course consisted of three elements: architecture, still life and composition - or landscape scenes if you like. In the sixth form with me was Judith Williams, who lived in the shop on the corner near Amman Valley Grammar School. She was stupendous in art. What a natural talent. Although our teacher was Bryn Samways, of whom I had a very high regard, I also learnt a lot from Judith, especially in the use of light and shade to create solid forms. We worked mostly in powder paints but she could have taken on any medium with a delicate sweep of her brush and a sensuous flick of her blonde hair. On making my move to higher education, I ended up in Cardiff Training College, being hell-bent on a teaching career. The college was a cell of Spartan sporting warriors. Physical Education was the main religion and the place was awash with young men walking about in green tack-suits. The air was permanently filled with the niff of winter-green or industrial strength liniment. We, of the non PE wing, felt a wee bit intimidated. The fact that art was one of my main subjects, geography being the other, left me a little vulnerable in the macho pecking order. To add to my discomfort, I was the only boy in a class of 16. To be fair, I dug in, and was doing quite well until the entire class moved on to embroidery. That was it, I dropped art and replaced it with history. Years later, on a teaching course, I tried art again. There was a choice of still life or life drawing. Rumour was on the road that the model in the still life class had been sent from heaven... or Playboy magazine. Either way, the class was heavily over-subscribed. Just two had enlisted for the flower pots and fruit of the still life class, and 37 were queuing for Miss Cosmos in the life drawing group. In fact, we were so packed in that it was positively dangerous. You could have had your eye out from the pencil of the person sitting next to you. Life, however, is full of troughs and pot-holes. As we sat, in anticipation, for the model to make her breath-catching appearance, the door finally opened... and in walked a green track-suit, inhabited by one of the PE students from my past college. The air was a mixture of mass disappointment, hissed expletives and the familiar aroma of wintergreen. This time, history was not an option. My 2B Steadtler pencil and I were trapped. Roy Roy Noble is bringing his famous storytelling skills to a computer near you as part of the BBC First Click campaign - aimed at encouraging people to take their first steps to getting online. If you know somebody who needs help to get online, call the free BBC First Click advice line on 08000 150950.
The last chord... many times over
Crotchets and quavers came up in abundance this past week. Music was in the air. On the radio programme I mentioned that a German sausage producer plays Mozart and Beethoven while the sausages are being made. He swears that because of the lilting and uplifting ambience, the sausages are so muc...
A good Welsh funeral
Jon Dee's passing away has got me thinking of funerals. His funeral takes place this week, and I'm sure it will be a fine one. It's funny to think of a funeral as a fine one or a good one, but this has been important in the Welsh psyche for many, many decades. Of course, in the old days, when ...
Remembering Jon Dee
Great sadness this week. Jon Dee, who was the regular astrologer on my radio programme for twenty years, suddenly passed away. It was a great shock and a deep sadness because he had only recently moved to Bridgend and was setting up a publishing film. Roy Noble with Jon Dee and Radio Wales colleague Kathryn Martin His great gift was beyond just astrology. He had an impressive retentive memory and his reservoir of facts was beyond compare. When he came in to relate his cosmic surveying, it was the interlude of 'This day in history' that fired the imagination and interest. He always had so much more title-tattle to add to the subject. For instance, did you know that the Battle of Waterloo was a very close run thing. It was touch and go until the Prussians arrived around about four o'clock of an afternoon to join in the fray. They were led by General Blucher, who was widely regarded as being off his head and was convinced, allegedly, that he had given birth to an elephant. Further, would we have won if Napoleon had not had haemorrhoids? He was on pain killing drugs and had need of a lie-down during the fighting. All these facts are an example of how Jon and I batted the points back and forth. It was a great shame that we changed the slot, and stopped having astrology on the programme. Jon was a great broadcaster, an author of several books and a man of lateral, colourful thinking. He will be deeply missed. Roy Roy Noble is bringing his famous storytelling skills to a computer near you as part of the BBC First Click Campaign - aimed at encouraging people to take their first steps to getting online. If you know somebody who needs help to get online, call the free BBC First Click advice line on 08000 150950.
Berlin beer but no Cabaret
'Ich bin ein Berliner': I am a Berliner. I hope that's right, because President Kennedy went slightly amiss with his podium cry. His declaration came out as 'I'm a Berlin doughnut', or so I'm led to believe. Our annual visit to an autumnal European capital city with Aberdare Rotary Club went ...
Dog days
Dylan didn't come with any certificates, so we can't lay claim to a pedigree lineage. Noble Junior bought him, online, from a place in Lincolnshire. I suspect it was a puppy farm and although he was dubbed a Border Collie, I have to say his mother must have had the odd Friday night liaison with ...
