GO on, I dare you! Ask me how I write this weekly column.
To begin, I usually invert the Thomas Edison quotation – “Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”
Not being in the genius category, my usual tactic is to rely on 99 percent inspiration and one percent perspiration – economy of effort being a highly-valued ability at my senior age.
The neatest trick for that Thursday morning moment when I come to sit down before that blank page of digital ‘paper’ is to get others to write the column for me.
Some folk (no names mentioned!) have ventured down the road of getting Artificial Intelligence (AI) to scribble their words, but I have a more trusted and valued resource to draw on – reader feedback.
Yes, the one thing guaranteed to cheer me up on a Friday morning is getting messages, emails, phone calls and stop-in-the-street chats about the latest weekly column.
For one thing, it provides welcome reassurance that loyal members of ‘Club Evening Post’ still read what I have to say. For another thing, it provides that ‘ker-ching’ moment when I realise I have stumbled across a rich topical seam which will provide enough material for a follow-up column.
And so it has been with last week’s column, which ventured to put to bed the ticklish (or Turkish?) question of why Llanelli people have been nicknamed Turks.
If you were paying attention to last week’s column, then you’ll appreciate that I skewered all the false so-called ‘historical’ evidence about why Llanelli people are nicknamed Turks.
Rather than trot out the main three theories again, I will simply reiterate that the name ‘Turks’ originated from 1970s media banter over the rivalry between the All Whites of Swansea (The Jacks) and the Scarlets of Llanelli RFC.
David Thomas, once the senior press officer with the old Llanelli Borough Council, agreed with me (breaking a long tradition of press officers never agreeing with journalists).
David wrote – ‘Wynford Vaughan-Thomas (the celebrated Swansea-born broadcaster and journalist) used to say he thought the name Jacks came from the fact that many Cornish people moved to the area with the copper industry.
‘He reckoned that Cornish people were called Jacks but there was no explanation for how they got the name.
‘I moved to Llanelli in 1969 . . . and I never heard the expression Turks until well into the ’70s!’
David Rees, once a senior committeeman with the old Llanelli RFC, wrote – ‘It’s a name I never ever heard in the ’60s or early ’70s and is simply a ‘modern’ media label created for banter.’
Carmarthen-born Hywel Emrys, the Welsh actor (best known for playing the garage owner Derek in the S4C soap opera Pobol y Cwm) also weighed in.
He wrote – ‘Many of my Cardiffian friends claim that the Turks nickname they give the Scarlets is because of the Welsh language! They said that it sounded like Turkish!’
A more academic view on the subject was provided by John Alban, Honorary Associate Professor at the School of History and Art History at the University of East Anglia.
Many readers will remember John for his work with the Swansea City Archives department and the West Glamorgan Archive Service.
He sent me the following email – ‘I read with great interest and amusement your article about Llanelli Turks in (the) South Wales Evening Post (January 31).
‘I completely agree with everything you said: none of these (‘historical’) theories can be substantiated in any way.
‘As you say, the probability is that the term resulted from fairly recent banter between supporters of Swansea and Llanelli. I don’t think I’d heard it until the 1970s, although I had attended All Whites games throughout the 1960s.
‘You may not want to hear or speak about this subject again, but I thought that you might be interested to learn of another ‘theory’ about the term.
‘Like all the ones you mentioned, this one also doesn’t really hold water, but it goes like this
‘Turk is an anglicisation of the Welsh word twrch (with the primary meaning ‘boar’ or ‘hog’ and the secondary meaning ‘mole’).
‘The person who explained this to me (in a pub, not in an academic setting!) suggested that the boar/hog element was intended to be highly derogatory of people from Llanelli.’
It was somewhat reassuring that I didn’t receive a single piece of feedback supporting any of the three wild ‘historical’ theories about the origin of the Turks nickname.
But . . . just when I thought I was winning the battle to get the Turks nickname consigned to the wastepaper bin, I received another blow to my campaign to get it erased.
It came from the good people who run the Phil Bennett Foundation charity. They staged a fundraising dinner at Llanelli’s Diplomat Hotel on the very day last week’s column was published. Guests included former players from the old Scarlets RFC and the All Whites.
And, yes, you guessed it – they billed the function as ‘Jacks v Turks’.
The suspicion is that trying to stop the Turks nickname now may be like trying to halt a heavy juggernaut from freewheeling down Swansea’s Constitution Hill.
Finally, I closed last week’s column by declaring I want to hear no more on the subject (Turks and Llanelli).
Obviously, my desire to do just that was overtaken by the presentation of a ‘gift horse’ for this week’s column.
I don’t expect to revisit the subject again . . . ever . . . unless, of course, you (my dear readers) tell me different!
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