Cofiwch

As I've said, I've been going through Dad's collection of old Model Engineer magazines recently and one thing of note is that it often ran articles on a broader range of engineering subjects than simply building live steam scale model locomotives. One such article was in the edition of 28th June 1956, entitled 'Britain's Largest Dam', the subject of which we learned about in school in Birmingham as it was one of the complex of dams that supplied the water to the metropolis we grew up in.

In common with Liverpool, Birmingham draws its water supply from Wales, via aqueducts from reservoirs created by damming Welsh rivers. I vividly remember the large, scale model of the Elan valley complex that supplied us, on display at Cannon Hill Park when I was a child: no mention, as in the ME article of the collateral cost of the development.

The most infamous example of fallout from English water supply schemes was the flooding of the Afon Tryweryn valley in 1965 to supply Liverpool with drinking water, involving the loss of the village and community of Capel Celyn, despite vociferous objections to the scheme in London & Liverpool as well as in Wales itself. The obvious disregard for a country not then recognised as such, it's people, it's culture & history is still an issue, hence the relatively recent re-adoption of the slogan Cofiwch Dryweryn (Remember Tryweryn in English) as a political rallying cry here in Wales.

The wholesale theft of land and resources in Wales has been and continues to be an issue that only independence and the nationalisation of land can stem. As I've said before though, the rider is that it would require renewed membership of the EU to be viable: our current infrastructure is simply not self-supporting and we can't rely on Westminster, even in the short-term. We need a visionary to point the way forward for our nation - for preference they'd be Socialist & Green, too. I do think we've got a decent administration here, with a good First Minister to boot, but given the cliff-edge shortfall in subsidies due to Brexit, we do need a major economic rethink. We've proved that we can do stuff - we just need to be part of a wider community to prosper further.