My Uncle, Vincent Thomas Edwards (1924- 2021), was an active member of Urdd and participated in junior Eisteddfods throughout the 1930's. He found it a great source of escape from the grinding poverty of life at that time. His father Emrys Edwards had been 'Blacklisted' after the general and miners Strike 1926 and had emigrated to the US for work in the Coal fields and Steel Mills of West Virginia. What money he sent home had to support the family of wife and four children. The attached photograph of his Troop at Bynea may be of interest to your archivists. Vincent is in the back row, second from the right holding the top hat. Welsh was the language of chapel and hearth but at school they were beaten for speaking their native language, Urdd was important for maintaining a cultural link within the Community.

Vincent was eloquent in Welsh or English but throughout his years of attending Eisteddfod he was always runner up to a contemporary girl called Elsie Mainwaring, I have no idea who she was other than his Nemesis. He never forgot her name but laughed until his dying day about always losing to #*!#**! Elsie Mainwaring.