"Only that traveling is good which reveals to me the value of home and enables me to enjoy it better."When Jim and I toured the British Isles this past Spring, we saw and did many wondrous things. I fell in love with the English countryside, green and well-kept with hedgerow-bordered patchwork farmlands and sheep everywhere. Roads were well-maintained, with no billboards! There was little music on the tour aside from a splendid after-dinner show of Scottish dancers and singers at The Rhubarb Room in the Prestonfield Hotel of Edinburgh when the famous haggis dish was served, or a playing of "Loch Lomond" on board as we approached the famous "loch."
Henry David Thoreau
However, as we traveled by bus from England and then through Wales, our tour director, Dan, told the story of how coal mining and black lung disease devastated the spirit as well as the population of Welsh coal-miners. Many miners died young as a result of inhaling the dust in the mines and developed silicosis or anthracosis. In an effort to remedy the situation, a physician in 1830 recommended that the men sing, sing to expel the dust from their lungs, sing to keep their lungs healthy and their spirits up. Thus the genesis of Welsh men's four-part choirs, which I have always loved hearing. Dan then played a recording of Welsh men singing traditional hymns. Being born and bred in western Pennsylvania (bituminous coal country), living in a house with a coal furnace, having a lot of Welsh heritage, and being a musician and choir director, this story hit me with such a punch that I sobbed quietly through miles of Welsh countryside as the rich music filled the bus.
It was a busy, exciting three months away from KCC, and I am very glad to be back.
I will have copies of my "Best of Britain" poem available on a table in the Lounge. Be sure to read the narrative on the reverse side first, as it explains some of the "in" jokes that would be understood only by those on the tour. It was too much to burden down the GOOD NEWS with.
Ele Nash