A WELSH FUNERAL

A friend of ours named Geraint Roberts died in the Aberystwyth hospital on October 22. He had three heart attacks in a few hours. He was a year older than me. He had been a room-mate of Iola’s brother-in-law Keith at University in Bangor in the last 1950s and they were involved in the Christian Union there. His wife Rhiannon was from Iola’s home town and went to the same Welsh Congregationalist Chapel. She was part of one of those movements of grace that comes upon towns, villages, churches so that a group of young people profess faith, evangelise, go to camp, read books and support the Christian witness at the University when they leave home. Numbers are stony ground hearers and don’t survive the pressure, but others do. It is all a familiar phenomenon which still goes on as living preaching and witnessing breaks out in an area long moribund. Such was the work of God in Blaenau Ffestiniog in the 1950s, but then it disappeared from there too, as is also the case. You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Rhiannon is distantly related to Iola and Rhiain. She has a blood disorder, but treatment is handling it. Geraint loved the Bible. When he shared a room with Keith he was always reading it, and he was just the same until the day he died. Rhiannon found many pieces of paper on which he had recently written out portions of the Psalms, Proverbs and Isaiah - verses that had struck him. He was the senior chemist for the Welsh Water Board.

Geraint was buried on Monday. They lived in a little Welsh-speaking village called Llannon on the shores of Cardigan Bay about 7 miles south of Aberystwyth. I had often driven past Shiloh Chapel, admiring how well it was being cared for, but had never entered it. It was just as pretty inside with oak rather than pine pews and the big Welsh text painted above the pulpit telling us, Holiness Becometh Thy House O Lord. Every seat was taken. The minister, Dr Felix Aubel, has immersed himself in Wales and all things Welsh, so that you would not know it was his second language. He pastors four churches in the area. He has stood as the Tory Candidate in a couple of General Elections and generally speaks for the Tories in Welsh TV discussions.

There is an immense emphasis on protocol and courtesy in these official occasions. All the ministers taking part are formally introduced to the congregation and welcomed, and then are given thanks for taking part quite deliberately and slowly at the end of the service. It used to irritate, but now I appreciate the concern it shows not to offend. It is a an older gentler way. This was a slowly paced service. We did not leave the cemetery until almost two hours after the service had started. We sang the Welsh paraphrase of ‘Unto the hills around do I lift up my longing eyes.’ The one English hymn was ‘Jesus, the very thought of Thee.’ Rhiannon said how much she enjoyed singing it:

Nor voice can sing, nor heart can frame,
Nor can the memory find
A sweeter sound than Thy blest name
O Saviour of mankind.

I read in English and then Iola’s brother-in-law spoke bilingually, but mostly in Welsh, about Geraint, his faith and godliness. It was convicting. What a giant my dear friend Keith is. Then all the congregation walked half a mile down a country lane, hedged on each side, to the side of the sea in Llansantffraed where the thousand year old Norman church stands on the site of a much older Celtic church. Soon after we got there the hearse and cars with Rhiannon and the four children arrived and about a hundred of us walked through the lines of ancient graves. While waiting for them to arrive I read the inscription on one to the south of the church door. The woman was named Mary Lewis Morgan, born in 1786 and dying at the age of 85. She had inscribed on her grave, “Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage. Thy testimonies have I taken as a heritage for ever; they are the rejoicing of my heart.” Then as we were slowly following the coffin to the grave I read these words on an older grave - the ‘s’s were ‘f’s:

Salvation is our happy rest,
Salvation is our home.
And let Salvation be engraved
Upon our silent tomb.

We stood around the grave on this bright autumn day, the sun shining on the hills of north Wales a hundred miles away, easily seen across the waters of the Bay. Two black pedigree sheep ran up and down the other side of a fence a little fearful of the crowd. The family wept as they gazed down for the last time on the coffin, hanging on to one another in turn, husbands and wives, and Mam with them all. Many coming to her with their words of sympathy. What immense realities were there. The beauty of creation. The faith living on in this place nineteen hundred years after the time eastern Mediterranean traders first brought the news of Jesus of Nazareth to the area. Friendships maintained in Christ over many years could be topped up in a smile and brief conversations - “Where are the children? How are they doing? What are things like in the church?” The text on the front cover of the funeral service leaflet said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Gwyn eu byd y pur o galon: canys hwy a welant Dduw. No greater hope could be enjoyed.

GEOFF THOMAS

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