Thoughts On Ray Gravell
Hello there. Hope you're feeling well.
When I started learning Welsh those many years ago I remember the first time where I understood a word of Cymraeg in a programme that wasn't aimed at kids. It was a rugby game. A try had been scored.
I don't remember the try. I don't even remember the teams that were playing. But I do remember Ray Gravell describing it as "Hyfred, Hyfred". Remember being pleased with myself for knowing what that meant.
Hyfred is Welsh word for lovely. So you could argue that it's an odd word to use in the rough and tumble of a rugby game. But the thing about Ray Gravell is that being the force of nature that he was no eyelid was batted when it was said.
Today is the seventieth anniversary of his birth.
When he died in 2007 BBC Wales showed the funeral live. The UK schedules were thrown away to do this. In fact off the top of my head I can't recall any other Welsh figure that they did this for.
Growing up in London I won't claim that I've seen him play rugby on TV other than what was then the five nations. I heard the name and registered the man mynydd he was but that was it. Only when moving here did in the mid-nineties did I realise how big a celebrity in Wales Ray Gravell was. And when I arrived he(having obviously retired from playing long before) he seemed to have greater recognition than Gareth Edwardes or J P R Williams. I don't think few people outside of Wales really understood that. It was as if the most recognised player in the within Brazil of their football team in the seventies wasn't Pele. Or until recently the most popular player for Catalans in the Barcelona side wasn't Messi.
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