The Rebel, the Railway and the Wales We Still Carry With Us

Tomorrow, 16 September, Wales marks Owain Glyndŵr Day. This year, however, I rather like the way one corner of North Wales has decided to celebrate it: not simply with a plaque, a speech or another history lesson, but with a train ticket costing precisely £14.16.

The Llangollen and Corwen Railway is running a special service from Llangollen to Corwen tomorrow morning, with the fare deliberately referencing 1416, the year traditionally associated with Owain Glyndŵr’s death. The 9.30am departure has even been brought forward so passengers can reach Corwen for the town’s celebrations.

There is something wonderfully Welsh about that.

History can sometimes become terribly solemn. We put important people on plinths, surround them with dates and gradually turn fascinating human beings into exam questions. Yet tomorrow in Corwen, schoolchildren will process through the town, a wreath will be laid at Glyndŵr’s statue, people will gather together, and an old railway will physically carry people into the story.

And it is quite a story.

On 16 September 1400, Glyndŵr was proclaimed Prince of Wales by his supporters.

What followed became a rebellion lasting around 15 years and left a legacy extending far beyond military conflict. More than six centuries later, the date remains part of Wales’s cultural calendar. This year Cadw also marked the occasion by offering children and young people free entry to its historic sites across Wales on Sunday 13 September.

The story is also having something of a cultural revival. Michael Sheen will portray Glyndŵr later this year in Owain & Henry, a major production running at the Wales Millennium Centre in November. Sheen has spoken about growing up without being taught much Welsh history and the importance of reconnecting people with these stories.

I think there is a lesson here that reaches comfortably beyond history.

A place becomes meaningful when we participate in it.

That is something naturists perhaps understand instinctively. There is an enormous difference between looking at a Welsh landscape and actually feeling that you belong within it; between admiring community from a distance and contributing to one; between knowing that Wales has a history and recognising that we are adding our own tiny chapter to it every day.

Naturism, at its best, carries much the same simplicity. Strip away status, labels and the little uniforms we use to announce who we are supposed to be, and what remains is remarkably ordinary: people, place, conversation, laughter, acceptance and belonging.

Perhaps that is why I particularly like tomorrow’s railway idea. Somebody could simply have advertised a journey to Corwen. Instead, they chose £14.16. Suddenly the price itself tells a story. A number becomes a conversation starter, a railway journey becomes an invitation into Welsh history, and a small commercial decision gives an old story another route into the present.

That is clever community building.

Wales does not preserve its identity simply by remembering the past. We preserve it by doing things together in the present: visiting the castle, learning the Welsh name, supporting the little railway, walking into town behind the schoolchildren, talking to the stranger beside us — and occasionally wondering why our history teacher never told us half of this stuff.

Our landscape, language, stories and communities belong to nobody exclusively. They survive because successive generations choose to carry them forward.

And perhaps tomorrow is a good excuse to carry one of them a little further.

What piece of Welsh history, tradition or local folklore do you think more people ought to know about?