Welsh stereotypes, and why we like some of them

A Welsh stereotype you don't like

IF YOU haven’t read Tom Griffin’s pean to the south Wales Valleys, you should. Full of warmth as well as some sharp observation, it speaks of a part of Wales steeped in its own culture, as well as a good few stereotypes. Tom’s aim was clearly to dispel some of those stereotypes but, in doing so, has he perpetuated others?

Being stereotyped is so often a bad thing. Not many people in Wales retain a sense of humour for sheep shagging jokes, and the leek is more a source of irritation than pride. The Male Voice Choir – shamefully – is regarded as kitsch (we explored this topic recently) and the broader cultural legacy of Wales’s extractive industries is marked by the intelligentsia rather than the wider population. Progress has been made in expunging some crude categorisations (when was the last time you heard the word “Taffy” uttered?) but the Welsh remain a tetchily vigilant bunch when it comes to most caricatures.

Others, however, are cheerfully perpetuated. How often have you celebrated the “Welsh passion for Rugby”? What about that oft-repeated approving contrast between the Celtic “love of song” and those stiff, tuneless English? And often, the pigeonholing goes deeper. In a lecture last November, Adam Price MP urged a new economic model based on “our own collaborative and egalitarian system of values [rather] than the rapacious Anglo-American ideal of heroic individualism”.

There are many others – and self-improving working class pride and “tight-knit” Welsh communities of the Valleys so lovingly described by Tom Griffin are among the hoariest. That’s not to say they’re wrong, and they are certainly not pejorative, but they are just as stereotypical as the Valleys as low aspiration, poverty and family breakdown dismissed in the opening paragraphs of the essay. Even intelligent discussion of “the people of Wales” or “life in the Valleys” means generalisation and a loss of nuance. Stereotypes are the inevitable consequence. It just turns out that we quite like some of them.