Posted on 10 March 2014
With the third and final lecture of their 2013/14 lecture programme due to be held on the 14th of March, Branch Secretary Megan Tomos reports on what has been a busy and fulfilling year:
“Two meetings of the Bangor Branch were held this winter. It was a pleasure to welcome Dr Goronwy Wynne Owen to deliver the first lecture - Darwin drwy lygad y Cymro [Darwin through Welsh eyes] - on the 25th of November 2013. This lecture had been postponed two years ago due to Dr Goronwy Wynne Owen’s illness but he was in fine form this year and spoke with as much enthusiasm as ever. There was a good audience with several new faces. Following an earlier programme on S4C on Wallace the audience was particularly interested in Darwin’s links with Wales.
Then on the last day of January our English lecture was held, entitled Who was Mrs R.S.Thomas? Elsi Eldridge and The Dance of Life. The lecture was delivered by Helen Ellis-Williams. It arose from the work she had done for an S4C documentary on Elsi Eldridge and her famous mural. Despite the bad weather, the room was full with around 80 audience members from near and far. A significant selection of Elsi Eldridge’s artwork was presented alongside her life story as she moved from place to place as the wife of the renowned priest, poet and nationalist, R.S. Thomas. R.S. Thomas’ love poems to her were also read highlighting not only his appreciation of her work as an artist but also the marvellous relationship between husband and wife and in this case between a poet and an artist.
The last lecture of this years series will beheld on Friday 14th of March 2014 when Dr Manon Wyn Jones will deliver a lecture on her specialism, dyslexia. This lecture will be held in the Conference Room, Old College, Bangor (opposite PJ Hall). The lecture will be in Welsh.”