Renaissance Cefn Mawr
A poem by Sara Wheeler
“One night, one night, ooooooo,
one night in C-E-F-N….”
Sang the DJ in Club XS
back in the ‘90s,
when M-people were top of the pops
and I was just old enough to be there serving drinks.
Cefn. Cefn Mawr.
“Big back” - why’s it called that?
It’s always perplexed me,
but then we came here
to explore, to talk, and to listen;
so I looked it up:
‘Cefn’, meaning ‘ridge’ - a less common usage
of this Welsh word - here in Wrecsam anyway.
I’d never, to my knowledge,
been to this specific village;
I was surprised at how pretty it was -
like a lesser-known Llangollen,
minus the river running through it.
This land was rich once,
in iron, coal, clay, and sandstone.
So it was worked, mined, and quarried;
Mineral wealth exported by canal,
over the elaborate Pontcysyllte aqueduct.
Then came the chemical works
and a plethora of productions,
ending in the 20-10s,
and a large Tescos 2 years later.
They built on the old Cefn Druids ground
but made a new one for the football team
over in Rhosymedre.
Ôl-ddiwydiannol. Post-industrial.
So many of the other, similar places
have a tristwch hanging in the air;
ond fa’ma mae ‘na gobaith,
wrth i’r fro ara’ deg aildanio;
So much new hope here,
as a bustling new industry emerges.
Cacennau ‘Moonbakes’ sy’n denu,
pobl draw o bobman;
Trigolion lleol yn wfftio’r
torthi parod Tesco; gofyn i Jason
am bara beunyddiol, ffres o’r siop;
Rhyw hiraeth am yr hen ddyddiau, efallai,
ag arogl melys, iach gynhwysion teg
heb dinc monopolaidd yr archfarchnadoedd mawr.
Rhyw ysbryd boho nawr sy’n chwyrlio trwy’r pentre’
a gyda’n gilydd wnawn ni cefnu a ffynnu:
“Mae Cefn yn haeddu gwell”.