Welsh Miniatures, and John Wesley

Unknown artist

These are small items which remind me of my Welsh ancestry. Dad was born into a Baptist family in Newport, Gwent. His big sister always scoffed that he was "born on the wrong side of the Cardiff road" so couldn't call himself Welsh at all - but as far as Dad was concerned, he was Welsh, and that was that. He and his younger brother both attended Cardiff University - their degrees were validated by the University of London, though. Both brothers left Wales - Dad to spend a year in Bordeaux before becoming a Frenchmaster in England, and his brother became a Civil Service librarian at a science institute in Oxfordshire. Both I and my uncle's eldest daughter trained as librarians at Aberystwyth. For me, it was my chance to spend a year in the "Land of my Fathers". I loved it, but work took me back to England where I'd been born and bred. Dad's mother gave me the little miniature cup and plate in a wooden rack, and I can't even remember who gave me the Welshwoman bell. The figurine of John Wesley is very old, and all I know is that Dad inherited it - I don't know how old it is. They were a Baptist family, and Wesley was a Methodist - but a Non-Conformist nonetheless, and that's presumably why they had it. Dad might have come from what was essentially the Welsh side of the Welsh borders, but I've always felt that your nationality is what you feel it is, regardless of physical boundaries. And that makes me half-Welsh.