Hanes dysgwraig.... A learners tale....

I watched a fascinating programme on S4C this week, one of the 'O Flaen Dy Lygaid' (before your eyes) series which looked at the life of 'Stef Farrar', a remarkable woman who moved from Nottingham to Snowdonia after finishing her university course at Bangor. Stef decided to learn Welsh soon after moving full time to Wales and became fluent in a couple of years. In 1989 she won the prestigious Dysgwr y Flwyddyn competition at the National Eisteddfod and went on to work as a tutor. Perhaps what is most remarkable is how she changed the language of her 'aelwyd' (hearth - meaning home) when her first child was small, in order to give him the best chance to fit into the community. Today her five children are all fluent and enthusiastic Welsh speakers though her determination to use the Welsh language in the home may have contributed to her seperation from her husband, who though not unsympathetic to the language was not interested in learning. In her words he was a little 'pissed off'! As well as continuing to teach the language to adults and raise her family, Stef has been setting new British records in swimming for her age group (she's just turned 50), a childhood interest she's recently rekindled. The backdrop of the programme sadly though was her mothers illness which meant much traveling back and forth between Snowdonia and Nottingham, though things had improved a little by the end of filming. All in all a fascinating programme, well worth catching on S4Clic. (I also write about the programme on Clecs Cilgwri, though this is not a translation of it!)