Crowds turn out for Dai's lecture

In the frame – Memory 1910- 2010

22 November 2011

A rousing and melodic opening song, a wide range of anecdotes, a good line in comic timing and an impressive ability to mimic both the great and the not-so-great: these all formed part of the repertoire of Dai Smith when he addressed the Society at the Medical Society of London on Tuesday 22 November. Following the publication of his book, In the frame; Memory and Society 1910-2010 last year, Dai, who currently holds the research chair in the cultural history of Wales at Swansea University, analyzed, from a personal viewpoint, the history of twentieth century South Wales, with particular reference not only to the influence of writers, painters, boxers, historians, critics and photographers, but to friends and relations, rioters and correspondents. In suggesting that South Wales during the last century was essentially industrial, modern, secular and immigrant as well as being, at times, befuddled and rebellious, he emphasized the strong links with the United States and the American influence on different aspects of Welsh culture. In this connexion he drew attention to the contribution of three Welsh writers: Alun Richards, the novelist and scriptwriter with a knowing eye for the snobbery and pretensions of the Welsh middle class; Gwyn Thomas, the Rhondda novelist whose style, it has been claimed, owed much to Damon Runyon and Groucho Marx; and Raymond Williams, often described as the most influential critic produced by Wales during the twentieth century.

As series editor of the Library of Wales, a Welsh Assembly government initiative designed to bring back into print classic writing about Wales in English, Dai commented that all three writers had been published by Parthian Press as part of this project and that copies of all thirty two titles forming the Library were being displayed by Parthian that evening. A recent addition to the Library had been Dannie Abse’s autobiography, Goodbye Twentieth Century, with a substantial and new last chapter that brings the story of his life right up to the present, and during the following reception Dannie read extracts from it. The many amusing anecdotes, covering such events as his meeting with Dylan Thomas in Swiss Cottage in 1952, provided a fitting conclusion to the evening, leaving the audience with an appreciation not only of the strength of Welsh writing in English but, particularly in times of recession, of the aim of the Arts Council of Wales – of which Dai is chairman – to make the development of the arts a major part of a strategic investment for the future.

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