A prickly but noble nation

To my mind one of the relatively few happy circumstances of our time, as we grope into the 21st century, is the condition of Wales. By no means all Welsh people would agree with me. Those who love the Welsh language above all else must still fight their heroic battle in its defence. Those who think politically are dissatisfied with devolution and the febrile dullness of the National Assembly. The flood of English incomers is a curse on several levels. Many of my countrymen are in sackcloth and ashes over the state of Welsh rugby, and rather fewer, perhaps, are mourning the virtual dissolution of the chapels.

But I prefer to take the big view, the long view, and all in all it seems to me the condition of Wales is on the mend. At a time when the idea of nation states seems to be mercifully waning, the idea of nation communities is perhaps coming into its own: and never in my lifetime has the whole of Wales seemed more recognisably a community — north and south, industry and agriculture, even Cymraeg and monoglot English-speakers all beginning to sense a shared destiny at last.