This audio clip is from an oral history interview with Heini Gruffudd, recorded by the Centre for the Movement of People, Aberystwyth University, on 29 April 2022. In the clip, Heini reads one of his mother’s poems, entitled 'Hedyn' (A seed). Kate Bosse-Griffiths wrote the poem in 1971.

Kate Bosse-Griffiths – a short biography.

Kate Bosse-Griffiths was a Jewish refugee who fled to Britain from Germany in 1937. She married Welshman John Gwyn Griffiths in September 1939 and moved to Pentre in the Rhondda. She learned Welsh and became a passionate advocate for the Welsh language, even publishing poetry and books in Welsh. The family moved to Swansea after the war, where she continued to write for the Welsh-language press, supporting the creation of the Cymdeithas yr Iaith (Welsh Language Society) in 1962. She died in Swansea in 1998.

Transcript

Cerdd fach yw hon ysgrifennodd mam yn 1971, flynyddoedd ar ôl dod i Gymru wrth gwrs, pum mlynedd ar hugain ar ôl dod yma, ac mae’n dal i deimlo bod hi’n perthyn i ddwy wlad, roedd gyda hi wreiddiau yn yr Almaen a hefyd erbyn hynny yng Nghymru, a dyma ysgrifennodd hi, ‘Hedyn’ yw’r teitl.

Hedyn wyf o wlad bell

Wedi ei lyncu gan aderyn treigl

Wedi ei gludo dros y mor gan wennol;

Dsgynnodd ar dir newydd ei aredig

A thaflu gwreiddiau

Glaswelltyn wyf ar borfa las

Wedi fy mhlygu gan garn defaid

Wedi fy nghnoi gan ddant bustach

Tyflais yn gnawd byw

Tyfais yn rhan o Gymru

Fanna mae’n mynegi yr anhawster mawr o ddod i berthyn i wlad newydd, ei bod hi wedi cael ei chwalu mewn ffordd, wedi cael ei sathru, wedi cael ei chnoi ac eto trwy’r cyfan wedi dod wedyn yn rhan o Gymru.

Sources.

Centre for the Movement of People, Aberystwyth University, Oral history interview with Heini Gruffudd (23 September 2021)
Wikipedia, Käthe Bosse-Griffiths (2022) [accessed 2 August 2022]
‘Kate Bosse-Griffiths’, Refugees from National Socialism in Wales [accessed 26 September 2024]