Book extract: Ponty Is It? by Daryl Leeworthy

Alun Richards and telling it real in Dai Country

With the National Eisteddfod taking place in Pontypridd this week, we are pleased to publish a second extract from Ponty Is It? Travels in a Valleys Town in which writer and historian Daryl Leeworthy, whose books include Labour Country and A Little Gay History of Wales, as well as critically acclaimed biographies of valleys writers Elaine Morgan and Gwyn Thomas, offers readers an irreverent but deeply personal tour of the town and its hinterland.

Acts of rebellion

I spot a couple of intrepid anglers standing in the river below the bridge. Rods lean against shoulders. I pay them little attention, thinking that they are probably taking a break from catching whatever passes for pescetarian delight in the Taff. But then I notice in the corner of my eye that the two men, as they are now revealed to me to be, are making out, using their hoods and waterproofs as cover. Good for them, I mutter to myself, as I carry on into the park.

It’s the little acts of rebellion that make society better for us all. Why should public displays of affection be restricted to the middle-aged husband and wife, to young parents trying to keep things ticking over now that they have a child in tow, or to teenagers with no sense of decorum.

Same-sex kiss

It was not so long ago that a same-sex kiss in public ran the risk of physical violence or vocal abuse. You all know the words. They were thrown at anyone who did not quite fit the stereotype of Valleys Man. Rugby playing, beer swilling, slightly rotund, misogynist towards women but a mammy’s boy if anyone asked. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Whether such habits have gone away entirely, I doubt. The words are said aloud often enough and local masculinity, with hands down its grey sweatpants checking on operations, remains as fragile as ever. But at least we are exposed to alternative ways of living these days, and that has made a difference.

Stereotype

I can hear the voice of Alun Richards in my head as I write these things, asking questions. Is it true? Is it real? Or simply, is it? In his long career as a writer, he felt the constraints of stereotype and argued more than once that it revealed rather less than it ignored. He wanted his colleagues to be honest about the society and culture they were portraying in their work. He wanted them to move beyond the notion that valleys folk had the gift of the gab, that they all came up from underground, pulled on their rugby jersey, and afterwards downed half a dozen pints in the clubhouse. What about the unpoetic, the irreligious, and the ludically incompetent. Well, Richards said, Celtic Twilight blinds us all. Repeating the boys in the duw it’s ’ard stuff ad infinitum limits our understanding of the valleys, past, present, and future.

Ponty Is it? Travels in a Valleys Town by Daryl Leeworthy is published by Parthian. It is available from all good bookshops.