LLANDOVERY AND STATUES

Even though I had only visited Llandovery once before, I feel I have a long-standing affinity with the place which goes back to my A-level study of geology. Throughout the world, the first three epochs of datable geological time are named by way of links with Wales, the Cambrian , derives from the Latin name for Wales, Cambria  and the Ordovician  and Silurian  named after the Celtic Welsh tribes the Ordovices and Siluries. Hence students of geology naturally have a familiarity with the classic sites where these geological systems were initially described in Wales and which have a global importance. The third system, the Silurian, is divided into three periods with the first known as the Llandoverian which was studied by Sir Roderick Murchison in 1831. He was looking at rocks which are 444 milion years old at their base and 434 million years at their top and he first described these strata in the Llandovery area, hence the naming. So, due to this connection from my adolescent scholarly years, this small Welsh market town is ingrained in my memory.

Despite this association, today’s wandering is not to look at some rocks and pay homage to Murchison but to consider the town’s war memorial. This journey is inspired by another connection which is between Llandovery’s memorial and that which is close to my home in Whitchurch, Cardiff. The car journey in bright sunlight takes me directly north and then after cresting at Storey Arms north westwards towards Sennybridge and eventually to Llandovery. Once over the Beacons high point, agricultural traffic increases with large lorries carrying livestock to markets or abattoirs and tractors pulling various types of farm machinery. This slows me down pleasantly as I travel toward my destination.

Arriving in the middle of Llandovery the first statue I see is not the war memorial, for overlooking the car park and in front of the ruined castle is a tall imposing figure made of shiny stainless steel. It is of a helmeted warrior, enclosed in a great cloak, holding a spear with a long sheathed sword on the left. 

Llywelyn ap Gruffydd Fychan (c. 1341–1401) Llandovery

As I approach it I see that there is ‘nobody’ in the garb. It is empty. No head, no face, no body, just the shell of clothing, tall, commanding and defiant. Standing next to it the emptiness presents as a costume, an outfit from a Star Wars movie, where science fiction is mixed with medieval myths. The statue commemorates Llywelyn ap Gruffydd Fychan (c. 1341–1401), a local squire and a supporter of Owain Glyndwr, the self proclaimed Prince of Wales who rebelled against English rule demanding independence for Wales from the King in England, Henry IV.  During this Welsh Revolt, Henry was chasing the Welsh across Mid Wales, and Owain, with resources always a problem, needed time to put an army together in order to confront the King on more equal terms. Llewelyn in support of his prince tricked the King into following him, thus taking the pressure off Owain and allowing him the opportunity to rebuild his forces. Unfortunately, Llewelyn was captured, hung, drawn and quartered in the town square of Llandovery on October 9, 1401. Bits of his body were then displayed around the Principality to discourage others from opposing the English. To the Welsh of the time Llywelyn ap Gruffydd Fychan was a martyr. The importance of the statue is not in its striking appearance but that it commemorates war, tragedy, loyalty and unnecessary death not on some foreign field but on Welsh soil for Welsh reasons.

But this is not the statue I have come to see for although this is a memorial to the fallen in a war it is not the town’s War Memorial. This is located around the corner from the car park on the road where there is a kink in the A40 and it stands on a triangular piece of land with the base of the triangle in the front of the Castle Garage, a place where you can buy second-hand cars. Walking through the stock of cars in front of the sale room it seems strange looking at an effigy identical to that near my home, for this is the connection as the memorial near my home and this one in Mid Wales are identical. 

Llandovery War Memorial

Llandovery or Whitchurch?

Whichurch or Llandovery?

The soldier stands in the same way with the same clothes and has a similar patination. Not only is the figure the same, but the plinth on which it stands and the steps leading up to the plinth are also of the same size and modelled in the same way. The iron chain link fence around the Memorial also bears a similarity.  The dedications on both memorials carry matching layouts, fonts, letter sizes and gildings and proclaim in identical manner the dates of the First World War as being 1914-1919. Of course the most commonly accepted end of the First World War, 11th November 1918, identifies when the armistice was declared. However, the 1919 date refers to the 28th June of that year, when the Treaty of Versailles was signed, thereby formally ending the state of war between the Allied Powers and Germany. 

With all this similarity there is naturally an important difference between the Llandovery and Whitchurch memorials specifically the names carved on the plinth. Different men from different locations but united in their service and sacrifice.  The names maybe different and but the personal histories and family tragedies and grief implicitly declared in the stone will have followed all too familiar paths. As I contemplate the lives and deaths of the individuals I notice another difference in that there is a large crack developing in the plinth and together with its fading letterings of those who died in the Second World War, it remind me of the nature of impermanence, even of granite as well as the slow decline of personal memory. Perhaps this is the way the Whitchurch memorial will also weather with all those private sorrows and anguishes diminishing in a like fashion.

So how it that war memorials from a rural market town and a city suburb are identical? Clearly both are castings of the same figure and this figure can be found to be one of four placed around an obelisk which forms the war memorial of the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) outside Euston Station in London. The four figures represent the Army, the Infantry, the Navy and the Air Force. It is the Army figure that is found in Whitchurch and Llandovery and as the others it was sculpted by Ambrose Neale, a modeller who worked for the stone masons R.L. Boulton & Sons of Cheltenham the contractor for the Euston war memorial. 

LNER War Memorial Euston Station London

Additionally there is a link to Wales with the LNWR memorial for the architect was Reginald Wynn Owen, a native of Beaumaris, Anglesey, who worked for the railway. Certainly the statue from Euston station must have been cast several times from the same mould and undoubtedly it must have been cheaper for communities to buy a memorial that had in some way already been prepared. The memorial in Llandovery was reputed to have cost £900 when it was erected, so presumably the powers that be in Whitchurch also got the same deal and most probably from Boultons of Cheltenham. I wonder whether there was a catalogue for such things at the time and how many other towns and villages in the country have memorials which are copies or replicas of others – the job lot of remembrance.

A strange feeling of being disappointed arises within me. It feels seems as if the individuality of each town’s honouring and remembrance have in a way been diminished by the fact that the memorial is a copy and the same as somewhere else. It like carefully selecting a set of clothes for an event to state who you are and when you arrive finding someone else wearing exactly the same outfit. 

I leave with a sadness about what all war memorials represents and some perplexity about the copying, then walking down the road with my camera in hand, a coat and a hat reminiscent of the Llewelyn statue but now much shorter and above a pair of Wellington boots sharply says to me, “You're not going to take my photograph are you?”

Taken aback and not expecting another empty clothing shell I look closer under the wooly helmet and see an elderly woman peering at me. No empty warrior here, but she seems just as fierce. I approach her gingerly, wondering if I offended her by not seeking some disgruntling permission to hold a camera in public and uncertain about the face and the faceless. 

“No. No. I’ve taken a photograph of the war memorial.”

“Well there we are then,” she says grumpily and seemingly floats off down the road possibly harbouring disillusionment about my mission.

Having been brought out of my reflections of memory, individual and community, similarity and diversity I begin to think about seeking out refreshment before the drive home.