Wales: Saint Non

 

St Non was a Welsh princess who gave birth to a baby boy on this rugged coastline on the extreme south-west corner of Wales. 

The boy was baptised with the name of David by a local holy man, St Elvis, and grew up to be the patron saint of Wales: the entire peninsula of his birth, its cathedral and tiny city, are named after him.

In the Middle Ages, pilgrims would first visit St Non's chapel, with its nearby holy well, before walking to the cathedral. Little now remains of these coastal pilgrim sites

but the Victorians built a charming little chapel as a replacement

St Non does not appear in my Penguin Dictionary of Saints. 

Coronation Memories

 I was at primary school in 1952 when the King died, and I can remember how we all wrote in our books, "We are sad because our King George the Sixth is dead. Now Princess Elizabeth will be our new Queen." Then the next year there was the coronation. We did not have a television, so I watched it at a friend's house. I remember the street parties, and we were all given presents: in my case a mug and a die-cast metal model of the coronation coach and horses. I lost both these many years ago.  

Thought for the day: English freedom

"The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during the election of Members of Parliament; as soon as the Members are elected; the people is enslaved, it is nothing. In the brief moments of its freedom, the English people makes such a use of that freedom that it deserves to lose it.”

    Jean-Jacques Rousseau: “The Social Contract” (1762)