The hawk has flown

Osi Rhys Osmond

A remarkable book was published last week celebrating the life of Osi Rhys Osmond - artist, writer, poet, teacher, broadcaster, effervescent raconteur, all-round sage and a great friend, but no relation. Entitled Encounters with Osi* it consists of contributions from 42 friends and family members who provide a wide range of perspectives on a many faceted, renaissance figure. Most of all, however, the book is remarkable for its large number of reproductions of Osi’s work: Welsh landscapes and the mythologies they capture, charcoal drawings, portraits, and images from the many lands he visited, from Palestine to Africa and India. A unifying feature is the brightness of the colours, escarpments of deep blues, yellows, browns, oranges, and reds (his favourite). Osi was both colourful and deeply into colour.

He was brought up by a mining family in Wattsville in the Sirhowy Valley, and educated at Newport College of Art in the early 1960s. In his twenties he moved with his family to western Wales and spent many years in Pembrokeshire.

He became Head of Art at Narberth Secondary School and lived at Clunderwen. When he went for the interview, by train, it was the first time he had been further west than Porthcawl. He describes in the book his experience of passing Kidweli and noticing through the window two men in a field cutting hay with a scythe: “I’ll never forget that image because I thought, ‘Where am I going? I’m going back in time, back in history.’ My perception of time and history is an east/west one. The west is old, the east is new. East intrusive, the west is inclusive and ancient and substantial and formed.”

This movement was reflected in Osi’s preoccupations: “It wasn’t until I went to west Wales to teach that I began to think much more carefully about questions of Welsh culture and the language in particular.” He learned Welsh, became an activist with CND and many other campaigns, and stood as a Plaid candidate for Pembrokeshire county council twice and in a general election in the county once, political battles that went on unsuccessfully for 15 years.

Later, after he had moved to Llansteffan to work as a lecturer in Carmarthen School of Art, he was successful in standing for Carmarthenshire county council. He served for three years but found the experience dispiriting. Osi was not cut out for the frustrations of politics. His canvass was much broader.

Among his many projects at Llansteffan was the Hawk and Helicopter, a series of drawings, paintings and texts he created while watching the sunset from a high point overlooking Carmarthen Bay. As he described it, the innocence of the coastal land suddenly became something else. “It’s the hawk’s home and he kills to live, while the helicopter comes to rehearse killing for strategic reasons.”

Osi was diagnosed with cancer in early 2013 and was given only months to live. Yet his extraordinary vitality gave him another two years, which he used to the full. “I’d love to live for another 20 years but that’s impossible,” he said “Instead I’ll experience the next two minutes as intensely as I can.” When he died in March Hilary, his wonderful wife, said, “The hawk has flown.”

* Encounters with Osi, Edited by Iwan Bala and Hilary Rhys Osmond, is published by the H’mm Foundation at £24.99:  www. thehmmfoundation.co.uk

How voters can save Withybush

When Withybush hospital was first seriously threatened, in the run-up to the 2007 Welsh Assembly election, I spoke about little else. I was standing as Plaid Cymru’s candidate in Preseli and would always get a hearing when I raised the issue on the doorstep. Everyone I spoke with agreed that it was vital to maintain essential services close at hand. Some had stories about relatives who had relied on being able to get to Withybush in an emergency. Others had first hand experience of traversing clogged-up country roads to Haverfordwest in a hurry, often in the dark and in bad weather, and dreaded the thought of having to go as far as Carmarthen. However, the main reaction was fatalism. ‘There’s nothing much we can do about it,” I was told. “They’ve made the decision already. The consultation is a sham.”

I pleaded that votes in the election would count. What was happening was the result of political choices made in Cardiff Bay. If faced with a determined stand by the electorate the Labour government there could be made to change course. Fortunately, enough people took this to heart to have a significant impact on the election. I did not win but Plaid Cymru’s campaign – I stood as the ‘Save Withybush’ candidate - made the downgrading of the hospital the central issue. The result was that Labour lost the two Pembrokeshire seats, Preseli and Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire.

Not only that, Plaid’s vote in Preseli was considerably higher than expected, enough to gain us an additional seat on the regional list in Mid and West Wales. These changes tipped the balance in Cardiff Bay. Labour lost its majority and was forced into coalition talks with the other parties. Eventually the ‘One Wales’ coalition government between Labour and Plaid Cymru emerged. A central part of the deal was a moratorium on the downgrading of district general hospitals across rural Wales. Withybush was saved.

But nothing, as they say, is for ever. At the next Assembly election in 2011 Labour got back into government on its own and soon began drawing up plans to reduce service provision in outlying hospitals. Last year Withybush lost its special care baby unity and some paediatric services. Now 24-hour A&E cover is being chipped away, pending the recruitment of more doctors. Chair of the Save Withybush campaign Dr Chris Overton says this is the consequence of five years running the hospital into the ground. “The latest efforts to resolve the situation are no more than a sop, intended to kick the issue into the long grass, until next May’s Welsh Assembly elections,” he told the Herald last week.

I will be standing again in those elections for Plaid Cymru. At a meeting of the party’s ruling National Council in Aberystwyth a few weeks ago the Preseli constituency pushed through a motion committing us to provide 24-hour A&E cover, including consultant-led maternity services, in every part of Wales. Once again I shall be arguing that votes for us in Preseli can make a difference. What we did in 2007 we can do again in 2016. If we get enough support we can demand that a new government in Cardiff Bay changes course on Withybush.

Council faces legal blizzard on schools

Pembrokeshire county council’s secondary schools reorganisation policy is in a mess. On 13 July it was due to publish its proposals following a wide-ranging public consultation that has lasted most of this year. Three days later the full council was to vote on them. Then, on 9 July with only days to go, the Council put the whole process off until September, pending discussions with the Trustees of the Tasker Milward and Picton charity.

What does all this mean? In brief the Council wants to merge Tasker Millward and Sir Thomas Picton secondary schools in Haverfordwest and create a new English-medium and a new Welsh-medium secondary school in the town. On that there is wide agreement. However, the Council also wants the new English-medium school to be just for 11-16-year-olds and provision for sixth-formers made in a new Centre at Pembrokeshire College in Haverfordwest. This would also serve St David’s and Fishguard whose secondary schools would also lose their sixth forms.

These proposals have run into a storm of opposition. It is safe to say that when an authority manages to mobilise entire communities against its policy it has either failed to communicate effectively, failed to listen, or lost the argument.

As it happens, the same day the Council announced it was putting off a decision I was at Sir Thomas Picton School listening to the case in favour of retaining the sixth forms. The main audience was meant to be Pembrokeshire’s 60 county councillors but only a handful turned up and 37 didn’t even reply to their invitations – a case of a failure to listen?

It was the pupils who made by far the most impressive part of the case. We heard a performance by the school’s jazz band and an excerpt from The Sound of Music that was currently in production. Both were excellent and plainly benefited from participation of the schools’ wide age range, from 11 to 19. 

However, what rapidly became clear was that the if the Council presses ahead with removing the sixth forms it will run into a blizzard of legal challenges that could put off its plans for years. In the first place it has failed to square its proposals with the Tasker Milward and Picton Trust which owns most of the Tasker Milward site and is determined to support the continuance of 11-19 education there.

More generally, there were accusations that the Council came to a conclusion about its policy 18 months before the public consultations began, evidenced by documents uncovered through Freedom of Information requests. These, it is alleged, show Pembrokeshire College keen to take over the sixth forms to secure its funding base. As for the Council it is alleged that it wants to offload responsibility for post-16 education to maintain the lowest council tax in Wales. If these accusations prove to be the case the Council deserves to be in the mess it now finds itself in.

In a combative address to the meeting I attended, Paul Lucas, Chairman of Sir Thomas Picton Governors, declared the Council could face an investigation into possible mal-administration following the loss of thousands of pounds as a result of irregular consultation procedures. And he added, “This could be the final death knell of the Council itself, limiting its influence in any future local government reorganisation.” Unfortunately, it is secondary education in Pembrokeshire that could lose out as well.

Give the nation a bird

Nearly a quarter of a million people across Britain have been taking part in a ballot to elect a ‘national’ bird in the past few months. Now don’t get me wrong, in principle I think this is a perfectly good idea. Many countries have such birds, the US the bald eagle, for example, France the rooster, Sweden the blackbird, Japan the green pheasant, and India the peacock.

But it seems a bit odd, in this era of devolution and sporting teams for Scotland, England and Wales, to talk about a ‘national’ bird for Britain. In any event, given the weighting of the population, we’ve inevitably ended up with a national bird for England.

It is, of course, the robin, well known as being territorial, chirpy, and aggressive to other birds. What does that say about ‘national’ character? Birdwatcher and blogger David Lindo, who had the idea for a national bird, attributed the robin’s success to Britain’s small island mentality.

So I think we need a national bird for Wales, a project that should be taken up by the National Assembly. But what bird should it be?

David Lindo organised a committee of experts who came up with a long list of 60 British birds which they whittled down to ten for the online vote. Four were common garden ones – the blackbird, blue tit, wren, and the triumphant robin. The others were a bit more exotic: the threatened hen harrier  (only three pairs bred in 2014), the barn owl, the mute swan, kingfisher, red kite, and puffin.

Pembrokeshire's Puffin should be Wales' national bird

It is interesting that the last two - ones most distinctively associated with Wales – came pretty well down the pecking order. At the top the robin had 75,523 votes. The red kite came fifth, with 13,922, and the puffin came in at tenth, with just 10,674 votes. I wonder how many of those were from Wales.

The red kite is pretty well qualified to be our national bird. Elegantly beautiful, it has a wingspan of up to two metres, a forked tail and chestnut red feathers flecked with white. Persecution meant it nearly became extinct at the end of the 19^th Century, only hanging on in deep mid Wales where their numbers fell to a few pairs. At that point a few dedicated landowners began a fight back. For the past few decades Chris and Dominque Powell at Gigrin Farm in the Elan Valley have been running a feeding centre for the birds. Today the red kite is relatively common.

For me, however, the quintessential Welsh bird is the noble, if eccentric, puffin. Equally at home on sea or land, it is given to binge feeding when the seasons allow, though it is also capable of living in tough conditions – puffins spend their winters out in the North Atlantic. And, of course, they inhabit superior and beautiful locations, none more so than Skomer Island off Pembrokeshire. Here you can find about 6,000 breeding pairs at this time of year, one of the largest and most concentrated colonies in the world. Puffins generally live for about 25 years, with Skomer’s record being 38. Now that’s a pretty good qualification to be our national bird.

Purt’s policies that undermine the NHS

A few weeks ago the daughter of a friend of mine, in her twenties, developed severe abdominal pains and found herself at the A&E department of Withybush hospital. The waiting room was packed with holidaymakers and it was clear that the staff were at the end of their tether. She waited five hours.

By the time she was eventually seen the pains had subsided. She was told that she should have been sent to Glangwili in Carmarthen and was given the choice of either making her own way there or going home. She went home.

While she was at Withybush she got talking to an elderly man with a back injury. He also sat in pain for hours without being seen. Eventually his wife went to complain. She was told there were not enough staff on duty to cope with everyone since no special provision had been made for the summertime boost to the local population.

I relate this not to criticise the medical staff at Withybush. They are doing their best in extremely trying circumstances. Rather, the episode illustrates once again how essential it is to retain our hospital services in Pembrokeshire, and especially those that deal with emergency care.

Yet our essential services are steadily being chipped away. Last year we lost the Special Care Baby Unit and mothers are being directed to Carmarthen to have their babies. Paediatric cover is being reduced. Consultants at the hospital are warning that 24-hour A&E is under threat.

All this is happening as a result of decisions made by the Welsh Government in Cardiff, to save money by centralising basic services away from the scattered rural populations of west and north Wales. Welsh Health Minister Mark Drakeford operates at arms length in pursuing this policy, delegating powers to the Health Boards. Nevertheless, he is responsible for the key appointments and overall strategy.

This was made transparent a few weeks ago when he was forced to put the failing north Wales Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board into ‘special measures’ - that is, direct rule. As part of this process the Board’s chief executive Trevor Purt was suspended.

Until last summer when he was sent to north Wales Trevor Purt had been chief executive of the Hywel Dda Health Board for five years. He is responsible for the downgrading of Withybush, appointed in 2009 for precisely this purpose. Before that he was involved in centralising services in northwest England. Between 2003 and 2006 he oversaw the merger of the Rochdale and Heywood Middleton Primary Care Trusts and introduced private sector treatment centres. This prompted the chairwoman of the Trust Debbie Abrahams to resign claiming that Purt’s policies were “destroying the NHS”.

Unsurprisingly, Trevor Purt’s short tenure at Betsi Cadwaladr was dogged by controversy. Plans to shut down a maternity unit were met with massive demonstrations. As the Herald commented when it reported his suspension: “wherever Trevor Purt goes recruitment problems, protests, closures, and controversy are not far behind.” How can we have faith in the Welsh Health Minister’s reassurances about the NHS when he appoints people like Trevor Purt?