Cofiwch Dryweryn, Cofiwch Bob Tai'r Felin
David Pike remembers Bob Tai'r Felin, a chapel stalwart and 'Wales' first pop singer', whose passing marked the end of an era
On 30 November 1951 old Bob Roberts of Tai’r Felin, Frongoch, near Bala passed into glory. He was 81 years old. Born in 1870 and having lived in the same house all his life, he had been a faithful member of the little Calvinistic Methodist chapel just a mile up the lane at Glan-yr-afon, where he had served for forty years as precentor, leading the congregational singing Sunday after Sunday. He was also known locally as a very able and energetic singer of traditional Welsh folk songs, and in the last years of his life –through the medium of black and white television – became known and loved all over Wales.
Three years after his death, an announcement was made that the Tryweryn valley would be dammed two miles upstream from Tai’r felin and the valley would be flooded to form a reservoir to supply Liverpool with what was said to be much needed water. In the process, the little Welsh-speaking community at Capel Celyn and a number of nearby farms would be destroyed. Bob Tai’r Felin became an expression of what Welsh people feared they would lose: his face appeared on a publicity pamphlet written by the man who would become Plaid Cymru’s first MP, Gwynfor Evans.
In different ways, these two events marked the end of an era, and of huge social, cultural, and linguistic changes, not only for the ‘milltir sgwar’ of the immediate area, but for the whole of Wales. Things would never be quite the same again.
Late in 1901, Bob Roberts had married Elizabeth Jane Jones of nearby Frongoch farm, and following the deaths of his father Cadwaladr, who had been a beloved pillar of the local community and his mother seven years later, Bob Tai’r Felin, as he came to be known, took on the running of the family farm and its associated mill.
A faithful member at Cwmtirmynach Calvinistic Methodist Chapel for most of his life, Bob preferred to attend close to home, rather than journeying to the Independent chapel his father had been to from a boy which was much further away.
The chapel was originally built in 1826, and rebuilt in 1880 and Bob served here as precentor for almost half a century, leading the congregational singing a capella, as there was no organ in those days. He was also choirmaster there and served as a Sunday School teacher for many years. Later he was chosen to be a chapel elder, one greatly respected by the congregation, and probably greatly loved as well, given what we know of his character. The chapel was less than a mile north of Tai’r Felin in the valley of Afon Mynach, on the road from Frongoch to Cerrigydrudion. Closed for some years now, it has been converted into a private dwelling.
Bob Roberts was a skilled composer of englynion – the haiku-like tightly controlled four-line Welsh poem – and often submitted his compositions to eisteddfod competitions. But he came to be known much more for his singing.
Bob had a fine singing voice, and from an early age became prominent as a popular singer in the wider community of the area, frequently contributing in local concerts and eisteddfodau. He built up a large repertoire of Welsh folk songs and ballads, many of them humorous, gathering them from family, friends and others. Among them were humorous songs, sea shanties, religious songs like ‘Y Gwr Goludog a Lasarus’ (The rich man and Lazarus), and plygain carols like ‘Y Baban Iesu’ (The baby Jesus).
A newspaper report in Y Brython of a harp concert held in Bala in April 1914 in which Bob Tai’r Felin also sang had the following to say of him:
The most popular of all the items in the concert was the contribution of Mr. Robert Roberts, Tai’r Felin, performing folk songs. Everyone in the audience was doubled up laughing the whole time, and we heard one complaining on the following morning that his sides still ached morning. Although he sang a second and third time, there was no end to the crowd’s calls for more.
In 1931 he won the folk song competition at the Bangor National Eisteddfod, and shortly afterwards, he formed the folk singing group Parti Tai’r Felin with Robert Lloyd (1888–1944), who was known as Llwyd o’r Bryn. He a well-known eisteddfodwr, as well as a lecturer about Welsh values and traditions. He became sufficiently famous to warrant an article about him in the Welsh Dictionary of Biography. His autobiography, Y Pethe, was published in 1955, and went on to become influential in defining the culture associated with the Welsh folk tradition, especially where it was associated with the chapels and eisteddfodau.
Parti Tai’r Felin went on to perform in England as well as all over Wales, with Bob starring as a singer, while Llwyd o’r Bryn served as the group’s witty compere.
Bob came to be known as the King of the Welsh ballad singers, after being made famous nationally when the BBC caught up with him. He started singing on a series of radio programmes in 1944 called Noson Lawen which led to him appearing in a film of the same name which appeared with the English title The Harvest (1949). He also appeared in a television live concert from the Alexandra Palace in London when he sang ‘Mari Bach fy Nghariad o Hafod y Rhiw’.
It seems he was one of the first Welsh singers to appear on television. This appearance made him extremely popular all over Wales, with people clamouring for his autograph, thus making him, according to one account, the first Welsh pop singer! At the time, he would have been 79 years old, and a very spritely almost octogenarian he was too, if a film clip of the 1949 ‘Noson Lawen’ recording of Bob singing ‘Moliannwn’ is anything to go by. It is perhaps the song by which he is best known today, a joyful celebration of spring, based on the words of an unpublished poem by Benjamin Thomas (1838–1920).
In 1959 Hayden Morris edited a volume of the songs sung by Bob Tai’r Felin with the title ‘Caneuon Bob Tai’r Felin’, published by Snell of Swansea. Recordings of a number of Bob’s songs had been made in the late 1940s, and Sain brought out two LPs of his performances. These are now available on several online platforms such as Spotify, and also appear on Youtube. Most of the recordings are of traditional Welsh folk songs, some made popular as a result of Roberts’ versions. But there are also several religious songs, including a sincere and wonderfully impassioned rendering of the lovely plygain carol ‘Y Baban Iesu’.
The 1940s recording of ‘Mari Fach fy Nghariad o Hafod y Rhiw’ demonstrates Bob's perfect sense of timing and tone, and his comedic rapport with his audience come across clearly. It’s a song widely sung today by a number of folk artists, largely due to the way he popularised it, though I don’t think anyone else does it quite as effectively as Bob! The applause at the end gives some indication of his popularity as a performer.
Bob Tai’r Felin died in Wrexham Hospital on 30 November 1951 at the age of 81. Bob’s wife Betsi had already died in February 1936 at the relatively young age of 59, and he was laid to rest with her in the churchyard at Llanycil on the shores of Llyn Tegid, at the head of which the town of Bala stands.
Had he still been alive, Bob would have been deeply saddened by the plans to dam the Tryweryn. Locals read about it first in the Welsh edition of a Liverpool newspaper just before Christmas in 1954, just three years after his death.
Plans went ahead despite huge protests from all across Wales as people were horrified at the destruction of a deeply rooted Welsh-speaking community. The dam was completed in 1965, and resulted in the drowning of a historic Quaker meeting place and burial ground as well the chapel and its graveyard at Capel Celyn, the school and surrounding farms.
As the dam was nearing completion, a memorial to Bob Tai’r Felin was built by Jonah Jones (1919–2004). This was after Llwyd o’r Bryn initiated a fund to establish a permanent memorial to him in 1961, the tenth anniversary of Bob’s death. The memorial was completed in 1962, a millstone mounted on a stone roller with an engraved plaque on the front, with a bronze bust of Bob on top. It survived in one piece for just two years, situated at the roadside outside the gate to Tai’r Felin.
In 1964, the bust was destroyed by workmen constructing the dam. In his biography of his father, Peter Jones wrote the following, including a paragraph written much later by Jonah Jones:
On 10 February 1963 a transformer on the construction site of the Tryweryn Dam was blown up during the protests against the drowning of the valley for a reservoir for Liverpool. A group of workers on the dam sought ‘the readiest Welsh target’ and found it in the nearby memorial to Bob. ‘He was attacked with bricks and smashed. Later I took away the granite roller and the broken head, keeping only the original millstone. I placed a carved profile of Bob on it. It seems to survive, but nothing is sure these days, alas.’
This new memorial with a plaque was unveiled in 1984, and can still be seen outside Tai’r Felin.
There are those alive today who still remember Bob Tai’r Felin, and a BBC radio programme about him, broadcast in 2016, is still available online.
As a final tribute to this wonderful man – the perfect embodiment of what in Wales is called Y Pethe – a term popularised by Bob Tai’r Felin’s old friend Llwyd o’r Bryn in the book of that name, published just three years after Bob died. It especially refers to the traditional folk culture, including poetry and folk singing, and the world of the chapel and the eisteddfodau.
Here’s a translation of part of the blurb that accompanies the radio programme followed by the recording itself:
Llŷr Gwyn Lewis’ only impression of [Bob Tai’r Felin] was a distant voice on an old record singing full of fun and conviction before he started chatting with some of the people who had the privilege of knowing him. Dafydd Iwan talks about him creating an impression on him when he was just a small child, and the excitement he felt when Bob Roberts came to Brynaman to perform. Carys Jones from Roslan near Cricieth can share very personal and priceless memories of him as a grandfather. Although she was very young when he died in 1951, she remembers him looking after her and singing while doing it. Another person who brings to mind in Llŷr’s company is Cledwyn Jones from Triawd y Coleg. He also talks about Bob Tai’r Felin’s charisma, and the fact that he attracts women like bees to a jam pot! We get a taste of his mischief, warmth and talent, and a good idea of his special appeal throughout Wales during the second half of the 1940s.
Finally, a number of the songs popularised by Bob Tai’r Felin continue to be sung by various artists in Wales today. I’ll end with just one of them, a lovely recording by the Welsh folk group Moniars of ‘Mari Fach Fy Nghariad o Hafod y Rhiw’.
David Pike writes Welldigger, a blog on Wales’ history of Christian revivals, where a longer version of this article first appeared.