It was exactly these unruly barons, the illegitimate relatives of the English Angevin monarchs who were latterly encouraged to invade Ireland by Henry II. There they established a pale of similar style and method to the one already established in South Wales in their fathers’ time. What was learned in Wales was practised in Dublin’s Pale by an incoming Anglo-Norman-Welsh baronry being cleverly diverted by their Angevin overlords.

If you look at the place names to the east of Neath and eastward from their to Cardiff, you can almost trace an invisible line, behind which are almost exclusively English place-names, beyond which are Welsh.

Not so much Taffy was a thief, as FitzHenry and FitzRoy were larcenous bastards – quite literally.

Hardly! Construction began at Chepstow in 1067, less than a year after William the Conqueror invaded England!

Fair enough, although I don’t think I am “completely wrong”

Main Entry: bru·tal·ize
Pronunciation: \ˈbrü-təl-ˌīz\
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): bru·tal·ized; bru·tal·iz·ing
Date: circa 1704
1 : to make brutal, unfeeling, or inhuman
2 : to treat brutally
— bru·tal·i·za·tion \ˌbrü-təl-ə-ˈzā-shən\ noun

bru·tal·ize (brtl-z)
tr.v. bru·tal·ized, bru·tal·iz·ing, bru·tal·iz·es
1. To make cruel, harsh, or unfeeling.
2. To treat cruelly or harshly.

brutal·i·zation (–zshn) n.

bru·tal·ize (brtl-z)
tr.v. bru·tal·ized, bru·tal·iz·ing, bru·tal·iz·es
1. To make cruel, harsh, or unfeeling.
2. To treat cruelly or harshly.

brutal·i·zation (–zshn) n.

So I spent a while telling my infinitely patient five-year-old what these things meant. And I became aware that the old man sitting opposite me was staring out with a terrible sadness written across his face. He said to me his father was out there and his uncles too, amongst those fading dips and furrows.

Growing up, I would sit every Sunday morning at Mass, surrounded by old ladies, whose prayer books were interleaved with small photographs of fresh faced, clear eyed young men. The cameras had caught the softness of their skin, the roses in their cheeks. Innocent, and frozen in time like so many plaster saints. As if they were never meant to live, make mistakes, misbehave, get into trouble, and enjoy all the sins and misdemeanours of a normal span of years.

Now that I am much older, I think of them in a very different way. They were just like us. They wanted all the things we want. Love, marriage, maybe children, plenty of money, a nice golden labrador, a house, a motorcycle and sidecar, a job with a pension, the occasional day at the races, glass of beer, chips after the cinema, a day trip to Redcar. Thinking about them like that, it’s more painful, more tragic, and more personal.

Most of all they wanted to survive, win, and come home knowing that they had won. In that order. No man went there to die. My family were among them.

I’m very glad that Harry Patch survived, won, and came home knowing he had won. I’m glad he lived well, and lived so long. I think he should be laid to rest in the manner specified in his own wishes, in the place he loved, by his family and friends. We must avoid anything that might cast him as some sort of icon, or a metaphor for something else. He spent more than a hundred years showing us who he was. We don’t get to turn him into a plaster saint.

Fair point! But I think by the time they were getting into North Wales where most of the castles are they could be described as English as much as Norman.

Owain The Bank

I think you will find it was the Normans who built castles all over England before doing the same in Wales.

Germany was not a very pleasant country in 1914. All the traits that were to find full expression in Hitler’s movement were well represented in 1914: racism, the desire for supremacy, ignoring neutrality and subjugation of other nations. Let’s not forget that Ludendorff was a close political associate of Hitler’s after the war; that Belgium, a neutral country, was invaded or that Austria had made completely unreasonable demands of Serbia. Let’s not forget that the German armed forces did operate murderous military dictatorships in the occupied lands.

The options were either to let Germany roll over France, let Austria subjugate Serbia, let Germany take over huge swathes of territory in the East and allow Germany to establish hegemony over the whole of Europe – or alternatively, as happened, the option was to fight.

Having decided to fight, I think one can fairly lay huge blame on sh*ts of the first order like Haig for engaging in fruitless high casualty offensives.

I think the right thing to do then was probably to seek all avenues for peace once the initial emergency was over. But it has to be understood – difficult though it is now to comprehend – that in many ways the war was kept going by popular demand.

Another heretical point I would like to make is that many Tommies came from appalling home circumstances in the UK in the slums of the great cities. They didn’t necessarily find the brutal warfare quite as traumatic as might be supposed. It was an escape from grinding poverty and the narrow life of home. Troops were actually rotated a lot and spend a good deal of time behind the lines enjoyed a good deal of recreation. In the army people at least had food, drink and a decent set of clothes.

No, you’re completely wrong:

“to brutalize (third-person singular simple present brutalizes, present participle brutalizing, simple past and past participle brutalized)

1. (transitive) to brutally inflict violence on someone”

That’s what the English did to the Welsh. Or did you think the castles were seaside homes for the English nobility?

It was a long time ago. I am not suggesting anyone get too worked up about it now.