Collective Worship

Title: Llangollen Eisteddfod: working together

Theme: Working together: Llangollen

School: Primary

Term: Summer

Summary

How the Eisteddfod began, and its effect on those taking part.

Teachers’Notes

Recommended hymn:

Heddwch ar Ddaear Lawr, Welsh adaptation Eddie Jones

(English: Let there be Peace on Earth)

Recommended reading:

Romans 12. 9 - 21

Occasion:

Llangollen Eisteddfod in July

Directions:

The PowerPoint presentation should run with the story. ( ) indicates where the slide needs to move on to the next. Don’t show the first slide until the service is underway. To begin, the children should try to guess which town is being referred to during the service. Picture 1 gives the answer.

The Main Text

This morning I’m thinking about a town in Wales. I wonder how many clues you’ll need before you’ll be able to guess which town I’m talking about?

1. A canal goes past this town.

2. The Dr. Who museum is in this town.

3. The river Dee runs through the middle.

4. Thomas the Tank engine comes here occasionally.

5. This is where Wales welcomes the world.

6. An International Music Eisteddfod is held here every year.

(Picture 1) LLANGOLLEN

Llangollen is a small, busy town on the A5 in Denbighshire. It is famous for being a pretty town and for the wonderful views of the surrounding countryside.

(Picture 2)

Dinas Brân Castle, an old hilltop fort dating from Celtic times looks down on the town from the top of a high hill nearby.

(Picture 3)

Here too are the ruins of Valle Crucis abbey, destroyed during the time of King Henry VIII of England.

(Picture 4)

The River Dee, which rises in Bala Lake, runs through Llangollen, rushing over great rocks and looking very wild when in flood, with white foam breaking over the rocks. But it is not its natural beauty nor the beauty of its ancient buildings, not even the Dr Who museum nor Thomas the Tank engine’s visits to the station which make Llangollen world famous, but the Eisteddfod.

(Picture 5)

In 1946, following World War Two, Harold Tudor, an officer with the British Council, had the idea of bringing nations together in peace and friendship through music. The first Eisteddfod was held in June 1947. It was a very wet week and no-one was sure whether the foreign choirs would turn up to compete. But they did come, 40 different groups representing 14 different countries, including France, Spain, Holland, Hungary, Denmark and Sweden. The first group to arrive was one from Portugal; they had hired a bus to travel across Europe to Llangollen. Others had sung their way to Wales - -they’d had to sing for a lift or had hitch-hiked!

One country – Germany – was missing from the first two eisteddfodau, but in 1949 the Lǖbeck girls’ choir came to sing. The presenter for that day was a young man called Hywel Roberts. It was a very difficult task for him to introduce this choir because his brother had been killed in Germany on the last day of the war. How would Hywel Roberts introduce this choir, who came from the country which had started the war and which had killed his brother? Everyone in the pavilion was quiet as they waited to hear his words. Hywel Roberts got to his feet and asked the audience to “Welcome our FRIENDS from West Germany”.

(Picture 6)

This was the true purpose of the Eisteddfod, to help put aside the differences which had brought so much misery and suffering to the world and to promote friendship and co-operation.

By now, thousands of competitors, representing 45 countries from around the world come to the Eisteddfod.

(Picture 7)

More than 100,000visitors flock to the field and pavilion to listen to the singing,

(Picture 8)

to the instrumental groups,

(Picture 9)

and to see the national costumes worn by the competitors. Everyone who visits the Eisteddfod marvels at the friendship and enthusiasm which is shown there.

As you arrive in Llangollen, you see a sign which reads, ”Llangollen, where Wales welcomes the World”. This was the vision that Harold Tudor and his friends had, and which has come true.

Let us pray

O God our Father, we thank you today for the men and women who have been brave enough to try and bring the nations of the world together in friendship. Thank you for the fun that we get when we find new friends, and thank you for the friendship that we see in the Eisteddfod in Llangollen.

Amen