Welsh grandma, something I didn’t know before

[Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain]

I just found out something quite sad about my family yesterday. To do with my grandmother on my dad’s side whom I didn’t know very well but only because my parents divorced when I was 5 and DM didn’t want contact with any of them.

My grandmother was Welsh from Abergavenny in south Wales and I know nothing about her, only the fact that the place where she’s from is a market town. I keep meaning to look up her maiden name.

I got speaking to a lovely Welsh woman on the bus yesterday and she told me that when my grandmother married my grandfather (who was English) she’d have been shunned and cut off from her Welsh community because of this. I don’t know how true this is but it would explain how her side of the family was never mentioned if I asked my dad. I’ve always been proud of my quarter Welsh heritage even though I don’t know much about this. I know the English and Welsh have a chequered history too with atrocities committed from the English side to the Welsh side from what I recall of history.

It’s even more sad because at one time she must’ve loved my grandad to have married him and had a child with him but apparently he wasn’t the easiest of men to live with and they had awful arguments and he developed Parkinson’s Disease in later life. How sad that she felt cut off from her Welsh family, if this is the case, and even if she’d wanted to have divorced him, probably wouldn’t have been welcomed back in her home town.

Well, grandma Peggy, I’m going to look into your maiden name and history soon just for you. And my other great grandma on the other side (that’s another story!).

I don’t even know as only a few photos if I look like my Welsh grandma and my half siblings I don’t speak to so can’t ask there.

Yes, this is one of the reasons why some people think people 'were speaking English before I walked in'. They caught some words in English, which could have been either people code switching or just quite a few English words in a Welsh conversation.

Do you think Abergavenny was more Welsh in the 1930s then? Because I would think the opposite.

It would be easy for someone unfamiliar with Wales to misunderstand ‘All the signs are in Welsh!’, as meaning ‘only in Welsh’.

Of course they are in both which makes it a bigger to read while watching the road in an unfamiliar place!

But taught me a few Welsh words… Araf… being a leading contender.

In a shop it could simply have been brand names that the customer was asking for, hence thinking it was English.

I had a Welsh grandparent born in North Wales, married an English person. No shunning!

Not if they were complete strangers but for example I'd speak to my school friends in Welsh at school but English at brownies or swimming club. I've always naturally done that.

"In a shop it could simply have been brand names."

Or 'outfit' or 'bwts (boots', 'handbag' 'hoody' 'shws (shoes') or any number of words we may say in English in the middle of a Welsh conversation.

I really doubt there’s any truth in the tale you’ve been told Op. Good luck with finding out about your Nan.
Don’t believe everything you get told on a bus though .

My parents and grandparents are from Welsh / English descent. I strongly suspect what you've been told is complete nonsense.

"The whole dual language stuff"??!! What, bilingualism? That thing that happens the world over?
"People that sustain the Eisteddfod"?? What, that incredible arts and music festival that thousands visit every year? And the youth Eisteddfod, that's the biggest youth festival in Europe?
Yeah, let's not have any of that old nonsense, is it? 🙄

Yes. It's still deemed ok to do that, unfortunately. It gets incredibly boring for us here in Wales, sigh.

In many areas of North Wales people are very unlikely to be speaking English in the pub and switching to Welsh. They would naturally be speaking in Welsh in the first place. They would only use English if they were trying to include a non Welsh speaker or speak directly to them. Likewise at work, most of the general chat went on in Welsh.

I got told off for speaking Welsh to my school friend at a theatre club. I complied at the time, but looking back I should have told my parents and they would have made a complaint.

You could probably write a book about all the anti-Welsh comments on MN.

Sorry OP but what a load of nonsense. I'm from Abergavenny (of many generations). Weve had plenty of other nationalities here for a very long time (various local army camps and POW camps during the war etc for example) of whom loads of different nationalities settled in the area. It's fairly diverse compared to other parts of wales, plus right on the English border. One of my grandparents was foreign (very obviously) and they certainly weren't shunned, so I can't think that simply marrying someone English at that time would have caused the drama story you've been fed. We are talking about people a few miles over the border to the east, it's not like there wasn't always plenty of English people around.
If you were talking about deepest west wales it might be more believable as I would guess the anti English sentiment may have been a bit stronger there, but think you're been fed a bit of an exaggeration there.

Absolute rubbish.
My great grandmother came from Newbury to live with her aunt (also English) who married a Welsh man.
My GGM married into the family (English to Welsh) and she was welcomed, no shunning, no secrecy or reason to be embarrassed for her. Her cousin married another of the family - again no issue mixing Welsh and English. This was in the 1920’s.

The family tree has been a bugger to do though as many girls from the family married into this family.

All the boys were blonde and handsome so no wonder 😂😂

@Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain If all 4 of my grandparents were alive they’d be over 100. Grandmas both Welsh, Granddads both English. Zero shunning. Don’t let what one person said make you feel sad… I genuinely think she was talking out if her arse!!

People who are bilingual still have a first language 🙄

And despite 40 years of being a mixed race (i.e. very non welsh looking) person in Wales this has never happened to me. What has happened is people switching between english and welsh throughout a conversation, something I do myself when speaking to welsh speakers.

Honestly I never hear this crap from people from most other countries in the world where they are bi or trilingual normally. Its a very english perception of countries with more than one language.

It is arrogant isn't it, drives me mad the number of English people who have confidently told me this is a thing

I mean I worked retail in Wales for years as did my sister, but obviously someone who went on a holiday as a kid to one town in Wales knows our motivations better than people who live and work there 🙄

My grandmother was from Cardiff and as Welsh as they come. She married my Grandfather who was very much English, during the second World war.

Absolutely no shunning of either of them, her family all loved him and he moved to Cardiff with her after the war.

My FIL is also Welsh and married an English girl. No problems there either!

Don't believe the story you were told. Good luck researching your family though!

I agree. I'd take it with a pinch of salt if I were you.
I could understand that happening in a more Welsh part of Wales, but not in Abergavenny.

My Gran from a very Welsh speaking part of Wales married an Englishman in 1928 without being made an outcast. I am not suggesting that there has never been a family that didn't like the new son in law, but to make it into some kind of race thing is just ridiculous.

You’re being unnecessarily negative in your reading. My parents were from Newport, I was trying to illustrate their attitude- there would have been no shunning as the area was barely welsh. He hated the introduction of welsh language on road signs and resented the additional costs to the council. Except for Rugby and singing- dad was very welsh then!

I’m not admiring his attitude, I don’t share it. But it’s relevant to OP’s post!

I spent a hell of a lot of time in Abergavenny. We on the very edges of Wales saw eisteddfods as something lovely that the ‘proper’ Welsh people did. I wondered whether ‘proper’ old welsh families might have been less receptive to marrying out, given the difficulty of preserving heritage, but wouldn’t have expected many like that in the Abergavenny area, in the halflands of Monmouthshire as it is.