Recognition

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Well I was going to write something about tonight's Tagliatelle with Ragu Bolognese as the sauce was even better than it was yesterday - a double portion has left me in pasta torpor. But the news has caught me out: I'm proud to say that our adopted home of over four decades has been awarded UNESCO World Heritage status - the slate quarrying valleys of the area finally being recognised as globally significant, culturally and historically.

Many of us, professional and lay people alike have been saying as much for decades: finally the history of this area has been granted an equal footing with perhaps more immediately 'glamourous' sites throughout the world. As a consequence, we can promote ourselves to, and be taken more seriously by, the rest of the UK in particular. It's to be hoped that the political and class struggles that are inextricably entwined in our history are writ large in that promotion, placing the industry of slate extraction firmly within the context of industrial development, exploitation, strife and resolution.

The horror that was Y Streic Fawr that I posted about a couple of weeks ago needs to sit front and centre alongside the inevitable encomia to the industrial magnates that exploited their resources in all senses of the word, drawing on funds culled largely from inheritance, marriage or the proceeds of slavery. All said and done, the newly granted status is a welcome one and an affirmation of the importance of this part of Wales in the history of the developed world.

The rider to the rugged beauty that surrounds us is that came at a great cost to the indigenous population of the area, as well as to the many migrant workers drawn to the industry, in furthering the enrichment of a small number of already fabulously wealthy individuals, most of whom were ruthless in the pursuit and maintenance of their riches at the expense - often fatal - of those that extracted that very wealth from the earth for them. If this most important part of the story of the area is brought to a wider audience through the UNESCO listing, all to the good, and I salute it.

Comments

  1. Joe Stoner28 July 2021 at 20:58

    I agree mate! TOO fucking long in getting the recognition that Gwynedd deserves. I have, however, some reservations in that Pesda ALWAYS gets shat on and the suites & public sector parasites will cock it up!! Pesda supplied (I'll NOT use the Penrhyn name!!) 80% of the Welsh slate and Wales produced 80% of the World's slate! We roofed the world vis they had to re-open a Penygroes quarry to repair damage to San Fransican roofs after their last earth quake abt a decade ago!
    We need the traitorous Dr Daffyd Richards to lead the charge to get Pesda what it deserves!! I'll start ticking the old trout:)))

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