An odd thing happened on Twitter this morning. Oliver Kamm posted a link to this article in The Times:

Anyone can make a mistake but Welsh viewers are entitled to expect media figures to do their homework. It’s not just a matter of pedantry or even manners. There’s a history of incomprehension and outsiders should be sensitive to it.

It is more than half a millennium since Henry Tudor, a Welshman, was crowned King of England. His son, Henry VIII, initiated the Act of Union between England and Wales in 1536. Yet in the centuries since, Wales has not always been perceived as the equal partner it should be.

The media screws up everything it touches, and one of the things that grates me most about what I see of the modern Welsh is how quickly they claim victimhood for the slightest transgression. I was born in Wales and grew up there, and I find it irritating how ultra-defensive the Welsh get if they perceive someone has slighted them in any way. The other thing that irritates me is the narrative that Welsh heritage was ubiquitous, and ignores the fact there were pockets – such as South Pembrokeshire where I grew up – which were as much English as Welsh, and that much of what is associated with Wales is a recent invention: the flag was adopted in 1959, and the national costume dates from the Victorian era. I’m of the opinion if the Welsh want outsiders to take them more seriously – which they do – they need to stop writing their history on the fly. So I made this point:

A situation not helped by inventing Welsh names for towns for no apparent reason, e.g. Haverfordwest, the place of my birth. — Tim Newman (@whitesundesert) February 22, 2019



This caused a riot on my timeline, mainly with people telling me the name Hwlfordd – the town’s Welsh name – is attested to the 14th century. Maybe it is, but it seems to be a corruption of the English name and nobody’s presented any evidence anyone called it that. There are also plenty of other place names in South Pembrokeshire which are English with no historical Welsh translation, but I am told:

(2) The only reason that places in south Pembrokeshire only ever had English names is because the land was settled on behalf of the English! It was a tactic of subjugation to settle south Pembs in order to bully the Welsh from the west as well as from the east. — Tristan (@Tristan_Cymru) February 22, 2019



I grew up in this place and never heard that; this sounds to me like Welsh history being re-written for an age where everyone must be a victim. What was revealing about my timeline is the viciousness of the responses; the slightest criticism of this increasingly ahistorical narrative about Welsh heritage unleashes a barrage of abuse. Bizarrely, I was then asked to defend the practice of translating Welsh names into English with even a BBC presenter wading in:

A small selection of my favourite polluted horrors. But Hwlffordd is really, really bad. Yeah. Welcome to Wales. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿👍🏻@whitesundesert pic.twitter.com/e6Yp3HvkSl — Huw Edwards (@huwbbc) February 22, 2019

One of the things I noticed is the assumption I can’t be really be from Wales because I dare to criticise the dual-naming policy. I can’t find it any more, but I once saw a video of a prominent Welshman in the 1960s expressing his disappointment at the increase of Welsh nationalism. He believed Welshmen should go out and conquer the world, and that the results of government efforts to “restore” Welsh heritage would end up with the country becoming parochial, inward-looking, and ultimately unwelcoming. Was he wrong? I don’t think so.

UPDATE

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that a BBC presenter is being disingenuous in ascribing to me an argument I have not made:

But inventing English names for so many Welsh towns is, naturally, a really good thing. 👍🏻 https://t.co/t6jLTCQkLs — Huw Edwards (@huwbbc) February 22, 2019



