TWINNING ASSOCIATION OF MUMBLES (TAM)
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Publication of TAM's Yves Pezron booklet
November 2020
Mumbles and Hennebont have been twinned since 2004. To celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of the twinning, an official party from Mumbles visited Hennebont in June 2019 and presented the town with a slate plaque commemorating the birth of the Cistercian prior and scholar Yves Pezron in Hennebont in 1640. A landmark publication by Yves Pezron in 1703 influenced scholars in and beyond Wales as well as in France where it fed into the creation of the movement known as 'celtomanie'. However, neither the author's life nor his work was widely known.
Prys Morgan, Honorary President of the Twinning Association of Mumbles, who assisted in the unveiling of the plaque in the central square of Hennebont, had reconnected two years previously with an academic colleague, Jacques Guilchet, a resident of Hennebont. The two men discovered that in their earlier lives they had both published academic papers about Pezron. Their discussion turned to their mutual regret that Pezron's association with Hennebont was unmarked and little
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known. This gave rise to the idea of the commemorative plaque. But it was also felt that it should be accompanied by a properly disseminated written record of Pezron's life and work.
The outcome is the publication of a 44-page full-colour booklet, Yves Pezron of Hennebont: A Commemoration, in four languages: French, English, Breton and Welsh. The original English text was written by Prys Morgan, who also translated it into Welsh. Brigitte Morel and Rémi Pierre produced the French and Breton translations respectively. David Townsend Jones edited, designed and produced the publication, and the first print-run of 130 was done in Swansea by Harcourt Colour Print. Jacques Guilchet checked and approved the author's text, while René Guerin assisted greatly in sourcing images from the Service Archives Communales de Hennebont, and much else. In various respects this was a true Mumbles/Hennebont coproduction.
Copies have been sent to all the national and relevant regional libraries in the UK and France and to university departments of Welsh and Celtic Studies in Wales, Brittany and further afield. A few copies from the first print-run are still available at £4 each plus £1.86 postage (which you can save by collecting from the editor's home).
A Christmas welcome to all
December 2020
This is a revision to the article originally published earlier this month.
The outdoor pétanque and socially distanced mince pies event at Southend Gardens at 11 am on Sunday 13 December has had to be cancelled due to expected bad weather.
Instead there will be an online pre-Christmas get-together on Zoom at 12.00 noon, Sunday 20 December. Everyone will have a chance to contribute something short and sweet: a song, a poem, a joke, playing a tune, whatever.
Look out for an email to follow soon with the link and more details about this event.
