I think radio programmes on the BBC website can be listened to online
overseas so tomorrow's Soul Music might interest some people.
Hopefully they will be able to listen online after the broadcast.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0418kfw
Myfanwy
Tomorrow 22 April at 11:30 BBC Radio 4
Series 18 Episode 4 of 5
Duration:
30 minutes
First broadcast:
Tuesday 22 April 2014
The hauntingly beautiful Welsh song Myfanwy 'is in the air in Wales'
according to singer Cerys Matthews. She along with others discuss what the
melodic tale of unrequited love means to them. They include a Welsh woman
living in Sicily for whom the song represents 'hiraeth', a longing or
homesickness for Wales and another who believes it expresses the 'wounded
soul of the Welsh'. A man remembers how his late brother and he used to sing
it in pubs in North Wales and how the song symbolises the unrequited love he
felt for him. Members of the Ynysowen choir, started after the mining
disaster in Aberfan as a way of dealing with the emotion, talk about the
song's power, and an ex soldier recalls digging for survivors with lines
from it playing in his head "Give me your hand, my sweet Myfanwy".
Martin Briscoe
Fort William
martin(a)mbriscoe.me.uk