Bangor:an essay
The etymology of Bangor I personally like is one I saw on the back of the painting which runs against the accepted origin as wattle or woven hurdle fencing. That is: of Ban - côr the upper or exalted choir or commitee (presumably of St Deiniol).
I look down at Bangor town from the terrace outside top College I am observing a conurbation of a millenium and a half. I can't see it but there is an abortive pictorial trail on paving slabs the high street "longest high street in Britain" the founding of Bangor, enormous lacuna, {…} Beatles visit Bangor in 1967, ends.
Happy birthday Bangor for last year btw 2025 - 1500 years! what tagline to attach to this splendid achievement? 1500 years 1500 disappointments (I post on bangor's imaginary FB timeline).
St Deiniol set up Bangor at around 525 ad with his hazel hurdling no doubt, so what happened in the intervening 1442 years? (until the beatles came here) …reflecting on that video of Bangor by the tiktok vlogger Phil Carr "i just don't get Bangor" and it is the same conundrum I have been pondering these past 20 years. Bangor 1500 years and what? 1500 years! 1500 not months or days, 1500 years, 1500 sadnesses, 1500 miniature towns in aspic, 1500 snow globes in the stockroom of the nonexistent Bangor tourist office (or Bangor Co/Down). If every day someone had put one LEGO piece on top of another for this time it would have a pretty nice LEGO castle by now. That is to say forward momentum.
At this point I get serious. I mean Bangor pre dates Islam by 500 years, predates the enlightenment. What has been done? Saints have risen and fallen from favour. A symbol of the torpor of (Welsh) humanity.
Pydru
https://youtu.be/Wx-XB0tQm3I?si=sn-XikCdQO7UIEWg
I noticed a friend on IG talking about that corner near the cathedral that had become a hang-out for homeless alcoholics and adjacent demographics - how they got moved on by the Israeli pro-zionist owner of woodfire shack pizza… a place where a friend of mine: Gretchen had busked her experimental music in a rare treat for Bangor's streets. Not exactly a TAZ (temporary autonomous zone) or anything but… And so if somebody tries to put one LEGO brick on top of another somebody in authority will dismantle that tiny prototower. Bangor's a microcosm for Wales: the circularity, the various lazy explanations for it's stasis: the anglicization of this rather small town in the heart of its most Cymraeg county Gwynedd, the presence of the seasonal student population and their ignorance of the local cultural environment (with the exception of the Socialist Society of Bangor uni perhaps), the excessive length of the high street...
Case in Point Llyr Jones whose art’s venture Noddfa that lasted part of one night alone. The absentee landlord, the police and council shutting them down on a technicality. Llyr then moved to Cardiff to seek his fortune in a more forgiving community.
And what have I done? Stayed under the radar. Tried to assemble a small DIY scene of experimental music that would put it in line with other more metropolitan tertiary culture. Not either a rehash of English scene. Not cerdd dant but something with the possibility of newness. Every day I expect someone to pull my Lego bricks apart and chuck them in the box. The impossibility of a large Cymraeg population without colonial weight: the linguistic and physical tipping over into British Wales overcoming it. (Except Caernarfon). lle mae’r ffocin cymraeg? “its Bang-er not bang-gor mate.” “banger is sn energy”….
Compare Aberystwyth with its student population and sea-side. the difference: money. Bangor has concentrated areas in the most deprived areas of WIMD ( Wales Index of multiple deprivation) 1 in 10 of its neighbourhoods are among the poorest 10% in Wales (Maes G the heart of Bangor) and Aber with no neighbourhoods at all in the worst 20% nationally.
Bangor and its giant orange ashtrays with no flowers. Bangor with its landlordism. Nick Pritchard buying Bangor town fc (1876). Selling a chunk of Bangor mountain for £1. Roman camp, Ashley fields gorsedd. What is that stone circle thingy? The jewel of Gwynedd (should be). The Dino blob’s appearance and disappearance … "Bangor 1500" in flowers near Maes-G and the crematorium (surely a potent metaphor) twinned with Westphalia it's soul, now overgrown to an indistinguishable mass, then nothing a box with earth like a coffin
So much going on: Su’s Ty Glyndwr Cocktail bar open mic, the Nelson gigs, 109 high steet, open mics at belle vue, storiel, poetry at the harp, Nyth, blue sky gigs, Curiad festival and yet what is this quinessence of dust? a worm casing left in the sand: ephemeral. What will there be to pass on? two bricks of lidl-own brand lego ripoff accidentally fused together in an incident involving a candle? opinion is divided.
What would you put on the abandoned timeline paving project? Joy division playing Bangor 1979? Eisteddfod Cenedlaethol Ashley Field 1971 … or something more personal? Skrit play Bangor at Awen33 2022, Owen Harcum queer mayor of Bangor 2021? or something more personal? let me know.
