| South Pembrokeshire |
Places |
| "Real..." Series , Seren , April 26, 2012 |
“Real South Pembrokeshire” differs from its predecessors in Seren's “Real...” series in three respects. Firstly, the preface states that it is written specifically as a guide. The reader is addressed directly throughout, the word “you” occurring one hundred and six times in the text. “Worth seeing” and “worth visiting ” are used frequently. Secondly, a large proportion of the book is directed not outwardly at Pembrokeshire but inwardly in the form of biography and family history. The third difference is in its presentation as a product from a professional publisher. The proof-reader has permitted “majesterial”, “largess”, “absailing, “despoilation”, “principle town”, “Mont Sant Michel”, “passed” in place of “past”. A sentence on David Tress has lost its verb. An event took place “in in June 1943.” In an encounter with Rosie Swale-Pope the verbs are muddled between past and present. Lundy’s name is plain Lundy in the way that Anglesey is not Anglesey Island. Qatar is here to be found “on the Gulfl.” The notes to the section on the Torch theatre are wrongly numbered. The forename “Riita” is twice spelled “Ritta.” The acronyms SSSI and DUKW would both be better explained for the general reader. “Yellowhammer” printed across two lines loses its hyphen so that the author admires “yellow hammers.” A full stop replaces a comma in the phrase “one hundred and five men. women and children”. A sentence reads “Development…are.” Commas are variously missing or wrongly present. “The” is missing from the phrase “one of engines.” Hyphens are always up for debate but “cliff edged” and “thirty three” need them. “Turner-esque”, “re-name” and “iron-monger” should lose them. The translation for “art” is written wrongly in a mutated form as “Gelf”. The Nantucket whalers were invited to Milford in 1792 not “in the last years of the seventeenth century”. The death toll at Landshipping’s mining disaster of 1844 is the wrong number. The future Henry VII was born in January 1457, not 1456. Jasper Tudor was his uncle, not his father. As a guide it is as if a whole generation of Lonely Planet- Rough Guide travel publishing had never existed. Of Caldey’s monastery the description is a plain “What you see today is a building by the Anglican Benedictine order, dating from 1906.” The authors of a much-worn first edition of “Wales the Rough Guide” see a “garish, twentieth-century monastery, a white turreted heap that resembles a Disney castle.” In Saundersfoot the “best place to eat and drink is, arguably, the St Bride’s Hotel.” Lunch is affordable…It’s worth driving or walking up for the view anyhow.” The Rough Guide sees “a predictable clutch of cafes, tawdry shops, a faded crazy golf course and boisterously fun pubs.” The descriptions of the castles at Carew and Manorbier read like cut and pastes from a CADW website. The author stands outside many an eating place without stepping in. In Littlehaven “there are several pubs and places to eat in this tiny village. The Nest Bistro looks classy, with a suggestion that if you want to eat their seafood platter, you’d be best to book the previous day.” Of Narberth’s “Ultracomida “Strongly recommended though you may need to book.” Facing a couple of restaurants in Haverfordwest the judgement is no more than “Both do very reasonable lunches and are probably the best places to eat in the town centre.” A travel writer steps in, savours the place, tells the reader how it feels. At Cresswell Quay one of the branches of the Cleddau fattens out and does a dramatic ninety-degree turn. One bank is ancient woodland, the other flows over with drinkers from the resolutely anti-fashion Creselly Arms. It is a great and stirring place. “Real South Pembrokeshire” gives it a no more than a quotation: “As Connop-Price says “it is reasonable to suggest that Creswell Quay may well have been the site of Wales’ first purpose-built coal shipping quay.” Then it is off to the house of a pair of artists. A successful vineyard operates just a couple of miles away, but the book’s span of authentic Pembrokeshire voices is narrow. The concentration on visual artists gives it a cloistered, claustrophobic feel. Hardly a single Pembroke citizen features who goes out in the morning to earn a living. If a retailer features it is inevitably a picture framer. Young people are almost entirely absent. An engineering graduate is to be found working as a lifeguard at Broadhaven. But a disco near Trefloyne is “execrable” and music in Tenby’s Coach and Horses is “some sort of rap crap”. Travel writing captures a place’s essence. A Pembrokeshire farmer in a radio interview told recently how the price of his potatoes jumped eightfold in travelling the two miles from farm gate to local supermarket. It is the economic logic that is making farms uninheritable. Prince’s Gate Farm is bucking this. It gets a mention in passing but the creators must have a story to tell. The Druidstone Hotel is a wonderful idiosyncratic place and passed by. Instead “the Havens are much favoured by visitors. They stay at the usual variety of camp sites, caravans, rented houses and B&B’s along this coast and on the roads from Haverfordwest.” The Celtic long boat deserves celebration. It might be Brian Sewell writing “I can see the attraction of Dale for those with families and a need to have a water holiday, although I have never shared their enthusiasm for the place. It is a flurry of sailing and other activities on the water…” Pembrokeshire has lost its fish, its refining and its status as a Western flank in the Cold War. Maybe it has to make its living from Megafobia and the Dinosaur Experience. This book was published the same time as “Real Powys” so that comparisons are inevitable. That book would have a view beyond “Pembrokeshire does need a variety of accommodation and entertainment for a range of people and rainy days.” As for the great population churn of the young for the old “There are successful people who fall for the county and come down to spend their mature years here; they bring skills, knowledge of the world and money to the place.” Maybe so. They will create and patronise the arts festivals but they won’t fill the schools or join the Urdd. South of the Landsker there are no language politics, but this is a different planet from that of Cymuned. A measure of the biography comes over as chatty, little-edited bloggery. “The booklet you buy at the landing is excellent, clear and concise.” “We drive the four miles back…and settle down to the Jools Holland Hootenany [sic] which we’ve Sky-recorded.” In a venerable Tenby shop “one of his suppliers is a man at my tennis club in Barry.” On a trip to the islands: “Nature is red in tooth and claw and if you come to a natural reserve such as Skomer you just have to deal with that.” By contrast “A spume-laden wind howls steadily over the precipices, strong enough to knock you over, …the Stack Rocks jut out of the sea like a series of tall lichen-spattered stepping stones.” That’s Lonely Planet at Castlemartin. The comparison shows much of the flatness of the prose here. The eerily geometric Church Doors Skrinkle are described as “wave worn sculpted natural arches” but it is not how they are. At Upton “the castle, built by the Malefant family in the thirteenth century, is evidenced now principally because of its towers which are part of the later house developed in parts over three centuries to the present.” Again and again a sentence will begin with “there is” or “there are”. When Gwyneth Lewis sailed out of Milford in “Two on a Boat” her description was gripping. The same journey here simply cannot compare. For a book so fixed on visual art, colour and sensual relish are infrequent. The description of Tenby’s museum passes on Gwen John’s wonderful portrait of sister Winifred with its golden aura. The colourful, detailed, didactic murals in Pembroke’s Town Hall have no description beyond “they are as skilled as the Bradforth piece in Tenby Market and less mannered.” Carew’s Cross, eight ascending layers of Celtic patterning, gets a couple of sentences on place and date but no description. The prose style tends towards long sentences with a multiple clauses and bracketed interpolations. The result is frequently awkward. A sentence opening with “Though” has no completing clause. Of Neyland “it’s not sure how much to forget and what lies ahead.” Of Pembroke “the town and Pembrokeshire needs [sic] to further explore, articulate and celebrate its important link with the war and this aircraft.” “Many things he showed us, but two especially” has an unintentional touch of Yoda to it. Of Colby Lodge “the garden is open to visitors, but the summer house isn’t normally and they use it for occasional dinner parties”. That is an unusual privilege for visitors. The texture of Wales that is depicted in “Real Powys” takes in unemployment, raves, romance, hallucinogens, gay life, the British National Party. None feature in the Southwest. “Real South Pembrokeshire” takes its place uncomfortably alongside its predecessors in this admirable series. |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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