New Welsh Reader 131: Glory Days: Glory Days

By Carole Hailey and Jem Poster

European female-led literature specialising in writing of place, with an emphasis on Wales. This anthology is themed 'Glory Days' and looks ironically at the heydays of a nation, including the development of Pembroke Dock as a navy town, a fictional Valleys Carnegie Library at the point of closure, having been started of funds during the Cameron

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Welsh Rarebyte
• Release date: Dec 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781913830199

Carole Hailey

Carole Hailey completed the six-month Guardian/UEA novel writing course taught by Bernardine Evaristo, who imbued her with such a love for writing fiction that she abandoned her career in law to undertake an MA in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, followed by a PhD in Creative Writing at Swansea University. Carole was a London Library Emerging Writer 2020-21. The Silence Project was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize Peggy Chapman-Andrews First Novel Award 2020 and highly commended by the judges. She lives in west Wales with her husband and two rescue dogs. The Silence Project will be published by Corvus on 9 February 2023.

Book preview

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Contents

IMPRINT

TIDELANDS: PEMBROKE DOCK AND THE ‘BLESSED HAVEN’

A KILLING FROST

WHEN THE LIBRARY CLOSES

BLINKS AND SHARDS

THE SILENCE PROJECT

HEARTH

DAY 1: THE BONEYARD

STILL LIFE

heard at the hay farm

NO POEM, NOT EVEN THIS ONE, CAN CAPTURE HER

she never steeples her hands

IMPRINT

New Welsh Reader

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Sponsor of the New Welsh Writing Awards: RS Powell

Design: Ingleby Davies Design

Host: Aberystwyth University

Main images: Covers and contents page photography © David Street photobenfro.co.uk: (front) ‘Door Number 3’, (contents) ‘Quiet Morning’, (back) ‘Reflection’

© The New Welsh Review Ltd and the authors

ISBN: 9781913830199

ISSN: 09542116

Views expressed in NWR are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of either editor or board.

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The New Welsh Review Ltd publishes with the financial support of the Books Council of Wales, and is hosted by Aberystwyth University’s Department of English & Creative Writing. The New Welsh Review Ltd was established in 1988 by Academi (now Literature Wales) and the Association for Welsh Writing in English. New Welsh Reader is New Welsh Review’s print (and digital) magazine for creative work. We also publish monthly roundups of online content, including reviews, comment and poetry, and at least one book annually on the New Welsh Rarebyte imprint, run a writing competition (New Welsh Writing Awards), and improve diversity in the UK publishing industry by hosting student work placements.

Mae croeso ichi ohebu â’r golygydd yn Gymraeg

Patrons: Belinda Humfrey, Owen Sheers

Patrons: Belinda Humfrey, Owen Sheers

TIDELANDS:

PEMBROKE DOCK AND THE ‘BLESSED HAVEN’

ANGELA EVANS (IN THE THIRD OF A SERIES CELEBRATING THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE WALES COAST PATH) REPORTS ON MASTER SHIPBUILDERS, NELSON AND THE AMAZONIAN OYSTER WOMEN OF LLANGWM

PHOTOS © DAVID STREET

photobenfro.co.uk

Along the Blessed Haven

On my map the Haven looks like a jagged tear in the jutting sleeve of the Pembrokeshire coast, a watery incursion running some thirty kilometres inland to the county town of Haverfordwest. It is one of the world’s largest naturally occurring harbours. Sheltered from the Atlantic weather within the arms of the Dale and Angle peninsulas, the harbour’s deep waters can safely accommodate the largest seagoing vessels.

Inevitably there are competing demands on such a great natural asset. Harbours, marinas, dockyards, wind turbines, natural gas terminals, jetties, and a power station, oil refinery and ferry terminal hug the Haven’s edges. It’s Grimsby, Clydebank and Cowes all rolled into one.

The best way to take it in is from the Cleddau Bridge, built in 1975 to replace the sub-optimal options of a car ferry or a 48-km round trip by road. The bridge is open to pedestrians as well as cars and you need the full kilometre-long walk across to take in the sheer scale and complexity of the Haven. In the seaward distance, where the Haven opens out to its maximum breadth of around three kilometres and a depth of thirty metres, industry has laid claim. The shoreline has been colonised by towers, chimneys, pipes, tanks, pylons, docks and jetties – giant apparatus for industrial alchemy. Tucked away amid the industrial hardware is Milford Haven, past its heyday, although it remains a busy fishing harbour and, with a newly installed marina, has aspirations to be a tourist destination. Closer to the bridge, on the opposite bank, is Pembroke Dock. The town was once home to an internationally important royal naval dockyard, but now a ferry terminal and port have been grafted onto the nineteenth-century dock structures and buildings. The number of defence fortifications – blockhouses, forts and Martello towers – that line the Haven hint heavily at its former military significance. Looking down below the bridge, where the shoreline narrows, the landscape changes once more, edged now with woodland, cutesy cottages and dozens of jauntily named leisure boats.

For centuries this has been a place of transit: the arrival and departure point for many historic journeys. It’s here that the bluestones from the Preseli mountains started their raft-bound journey to Stonehenge, Viking ships sought shelter on their forays along the south coast, several English kings launched expeditions and invasions of Ireland, a French fleet gathered in support of Owain Glyndŵr’s uprising against the English, and Henry VII landed when he returned from exile to become the first Tudor king of England. The Haven provided access to one of the most important medieval centres of power, Pembroke Castle. Sitting above Pembroke River, the castle was for several centuries under the rule of the powerful earls of Pembroke and has royal connections going back to the eleventh century.

And still people and products pass through. From Pembroke Port, on the south side of the Haven, the Blue Star 1 ferry sails twice daily to and from Rosslare in southern Ireland. A little further down, crude oil arrives in tankers, submits to the Professor Higgins treatment at the sprawling, smoking Pembroke Refinery and re-emerges as refined consumer-ready products, ready to be whisked away by rail and truck. Once there were five oil installations lining the Haven but increased production costs and international competition has whittled this away to just one. Now it’s the distribution of natural gas that’s big business here. Every few days an