Sandwiches and languages

On a bleak Saturday Fishguard seems all but deserted. Having a few minutes to wait for my bus I look around the central Square. Back in the early 90s, a local champion of the Welsh language, himself an learner and a teacher of Cymraeg, persuaded many of the town's shopkeepers to adopt bilingual signing as another way of preserving and employing the language (which is spoken by about 30% of the population of Pembrokeshire, mostly in the north.)

Caffi y'r Cornel/Café Cornel is one of the few that remain. Its signage announces: Cludfwyd/Takeaway food, Prydau/Meals, Diodydd/Drinks, Brecwast drwy'r Dydd /All Day Breakfast, Losin/Sweets, Hufen Ia/Ice-cream, and Brechdanau Tost/Toasted Sandwiches. It's a typical sort of small town eating-place, nothing to write home about.

When I look around the Square and the adjacent premises I see that only Boots the chemist and one (closed) pub are labelled in both languages, and the road signs are bilingual too, as they all over Wales. Of the rest: another pub (also closed), two empty shops, a hotel, a bank, two fastfood outlets, a betting shop, a charity shop and the Town Hall itself - all these are signed solely in English. So many of the small businesses that sported the bilingual signs have gone, their owners defeated by rent rises or unable to make ends meet, their customers heading for busier towns with more choice of shops. Ach y fi! So much has gone from this town, it would be a tragedy to lose the language too.