Rhydwen Williams

Robert Rhydwenfro Williams known as Rhydwen Williams, (29 August, 1916-2 August, 1997) was a Welsh poet, novelist and baptist minister. His works are mainly written in his native Welsh language and is noted for challenging the established style and context of Welsh poetry from a rural and bygone age to that of a modernistic and industrial landscape while retaining traditional prose and metre.

History

Born in Pentre, Rhondda in 1916 into a miner's family, Williams spent his childhood in the industrial community of the valley before his family moved to Christleton, Cheshire in 1931 to escape the economic depression. Williams was very unhappy in England and returned to live in the Rhondda in 1941.

Before his return to Wales, Williams worked in mainly menial jobs, and later studied intermintantly at both the University College of Swansea and Bangor. A contiencious objector on Welsh nationalist grounds he served as part of the Quaker ambulance unit during the bombing of Liverpool. Williams was given his first pastorate in a Baptist chapel in Ynyshir in 1941. It was here he developed his style of poetry. A controversial figure due to his pacifism and nationalism, he was still a popular minister with an incredible speaking voice, compared to that of Richard Burton. A gifted reader of poetry, he often read for the Welsh Home Service on the BBC.

As a member of the Cadwgan Circle, he mixed with fellow members Pennar Davies and Gareth Alban Davies, and was especially close to Kitchener Davies. From this informal group of like-minded intellectuals, Williams developed a style of writing and literal ethic opposed to eisteddfodic tradition. Amongst his heroes were writers Huxley, Auden and Orwell.

Although Williams' poetry was not in keeping with the tradition of the National Eisteddfod he was embraced by it none the less. In 1946, at Mountain Ash, he won the Crown competition for the poem "Yr Arloeswr" (The Pioneer) and again in 1964 for "Yr Ffynhonnau" (The Springs)

Leaving Ynyshir in 1946 he travelled Wales, holding pastorates at Resolven and Pont-Ilew in the Swansea Valley until 1959, before spending a year at Rhyl. Williams would later turn his back on his ministry and accepted a job at Granada Television in Manchester, presenting Welsh language programmes in which his skills as a communicator came to the fore. He wrote television scripts, one about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was the first Welsh-language television play to be broadcast on a foreign network.

Of all Williams's work, his trilogy Cwm Hiraith, is seen by many as his finest achievement, semi-autobiographical, the three books form a prose epic of life in the depression hit Rhondda through the eyes of the author's Uncle Sion, a poet and thinker.

Williams suffered a stroke in 1981 from which he would suffered the physical effects from for the rest of his life. Between 1980 and 1985 he edited the current affairs magazine 'Barn'. He died at Merthyr Tydfil in 1997.

Major works

Novels

• Y Briodas (1969)
• Y Siol Wen (1970)
• Dyddiau Dyn (1973)

• The Angry Vineyard (1975)
• Amser i Wylo: Senghennydd 1913 (1986)

Poetry

• Barddoniaeth Rhydwen Williams: y casgliad cyflawn 1941-1991 (1991)

External links

• Rhydwen Williams at IMDb
• British Film Institute profile

Bibliography

• Davies, John (2008). The Welsh Academy Encyclopaeia of Wales. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. ISBN 9780708319536. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)