MADAM,
Can I have misread Mr Don Stroud's letter in The Beacon or is he seriously suggesting at this late stage in history that Monmouth and its County Town, Sir Fynwy, are in England?
Educated at a Grammar School where all respect was paid to the dubious text books then available, I remember being told irrefutably that Monmouthshire was attached to the Oxford Judicial Circuit merely for convenience though in all respects seen as still Welsh, way back in the ages of history to which he refers. Its restoration to its proper status as a Welsh county was only just - as an apparent historian, he will probably agree.
As for the sources whom he cites: Shakespeare was the author of Henry's cry at Agincourt, a man of Warwickshire. I have it on the best authority possible for such an anecdotal historian as your correspondent that Malvern was, within verifiable memory, called Maelfryn, was therefore Welsh territory in origin and is not that far from the Warwickshire of Mr Stroud's dubious citing of a lost quotation. My source? An incumbent of that very St Mary's which we all love but on whose erstwhile peals for whatever cause he should not rely for accuracy where history is concerned.
I have known and liked over the years the eccentrics who have chosen to live in Ross or Symond's Yat merely to be securely in England. Their xenophobia is forgivable: That of Mr Stroud is not because he is both intrusive and invasive. Why not return, Mr Stroud, to the Gloucestershire village from which you take your name, vacate another dwelling in Wales for someone Welsh in sympathy if not in debatable origin - we are all, if truth be told, mongrels on this blessed sceptred isle - and unclutter the important channel of communication which our local paper represents of your archaistic and ill-formed nonsense.
Since your correspondent's method seems to adhere to sources of mythical origin, while ignoring reality, let me add this: God is Welsh (see Max Boyce on numerous occasions); so, in all probability, is Shakespeare, therefore Henry Vth, whose battle call he so loosely cites, might just as well be. In other words, what a lot of tosh!
Monmouth remains Welsh, nestling in our blessed county of Sir Fynwy.
MIM Johns
Heath Street,
Monmouth