THE radio ballad Cân y Ffordd Euraidd/The Song of the Golden Road has its first public broadcast in an hour-long online bilingual radio programme at Tafarn Sinc on Saturday, November 6.
Inspired by the Preseli heartlands, the project has taken the form of a series of workshops and walks concluding with a community hike along The Golden Road, the ancient trackway traversing the seven-mile ridge from Foel Drygarn to Bwlch-Gwynt.
“One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about the workshops are the opportunities to keep re-visiting the really unique elements of our heritage and culture in the Preseli area,” said Sophie Jenkins, Community Engagement Officer with the Ein Cymdogaeth Werin project.
The workshop walks included talks by invited experts, opportunities for story swapping and sound recording.
The ballad features the voices of those who contributed talks including the historians Martin Johnes and Hedydd Hughes.
Other material was collected through a meeting with Bwlch Y Groes local history group facilitated by group member and PLANED Ein Cymdogaeth Werin administrator Hedd Harries and interviews undertaken by Huw Jones with local farmers and land workers through the Cwm Arian Renewable energy project Growing Better Connections.
Workshop and ramblings were followed by an intensive weekend of music-making led by musician Stacey Blythe.
Speech, sound and song have been incorporated into the final radio ballad - ‘an oral record of a unique place’.
Ballad producer former BBC radio producer Paul Evans said: “I’ve been coming to this area for 64 years – if we had made this programme then it would be completely different.
“You could do this every ten years and it will be like a time capsule to a time and place – it shows how a community morphs into something else.”
Stacey Blythe will kick off the Tafarn Sinc event with a set of local Pembrokeshire folk songs.
The ballad itself will be broadcast in the pub from 8pm and will also be available through the AM Cymru platform https://amam.cymru/spanarts
The Song of the Golden Road has been delivered by Span Arts and Rowan O’Neill in partnership with PLANED as part of the National Lottery Heritage- funded Ein Cymdogaeth Werin Preseli Heartlands project.
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