A True Story of Famous Welsh Gypsies
The childhood of real-life Romani Eldra Roberts was the basis for the S4C Film Drama Eldra, now available on DVD by ValleyStream.      
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It's a sad fact that the real-life "Eldra" never lived to see the release of this award-winning 35mm film, having unfortunately passed away into the next life - as Romani folki believe - two years previously.  Teleri and Nia, her two daughters, are certain their mother would have been "proud" of the outcome and even more proud for Romani culture that the Welsh language broadcaster S4C, especially noted for their world-spanning animations, had the vision to commission such a piece of  filmic brilliance fit for world cinema.

Eldra was originally produced by Teliesyn for S4C  
Hundreds of schoolchildren auditioned for the children’s roles.  Iona Wyn Jones from Bethesda was picked to play the lead role of Eldra, with Gareth Wyn Roberts playing Robat.  The film's producer was Bethan Eames, with sister Manon Eames writing the script.  It was directed by Tim Lyn, "The film is not about anti-Romani prejudice, nor ... a picturesque romantic expression of the Romani way of life.  The subject and drama is: what happens when different worlds begin to meet, sometimes even clash and collide".

Eldra has won several prestigious awards:
*  BAFTA Cymru 2001: Best Drama, Best Director of Photography, Best Design,     Best Original Music, and Best Costume;
*  International Film Festival of Wales:  Film Four Audience Award 2001;
*  Moondance Festival: Best Feature Film (Spirit of Moondance) 2003;
*  24th Celtic Film & Television Festival - Jury Award.

Robin Huw Bowen composed the score and plays the triple harp on Eldra.  Robin is an acknowledged musical authority, specializing in Welsh folk and Gypsy music, and he performs Welsh harp music around the world.  In 1998 he joined with three other traditional Welsh musicians to form Crasdant.  Recently, he has formed a Welsh triple harp choir called Rhes Ganol with four other triple harpists.

Robin first met the real Eldra whilst on a television chat show in 1991.  He contacted her later on as he was interested in her style of music but it took him a while to gain her trust.  Gradually, she accepted him and agreed to teach him her lively Gypsy tunes.  So it was fitting that he should be invited to play a small piece of music on the drama Eldra - and even more fitting that he should go on to compose the score and play the harp music which won the BAFTA prize for Best Original Music.  “It was just fantastic … a real victory,” he said, but “the honour goes to Eldra because without her there wouldn’t have been a film”.   He was very proud of the finished film and "proud to be part of celebrating Eldra.  She left us so much in a very small way". ... More on Robin

Why is Eldra the Drama so important?  - it's extremely significant for both Welsh Romani culture and Welsh culture and a landmark film for the nation.  When I first saw Eldra I was immediately captured by the quality of cinematography.  It has to be said Teliesyn's film production team and the array of talented Welsh actors did a cool cymru making this 35mm film.  It's what Welsh film-making is all about - embracing our Welsh cultural traditions and projecting their richness into the world arena.  With Eldra nothing is watered down for some short-lived market.  It's a solid earthy period valley drama - that locks out present day time for 90 minutes - then the nostalgic flicker disappears into the ethos of past history.   A social drama that will no doubt one day have its name permanently placed in the film vaults as a Welsh classic, alongside the other great Welsh drama Hedd Wyn.   The Irish did it with David Lean's Ryan's Daughter, the English with Ken Loach's Kes, and let's not forget the smoky top brilliance of A Taste of Honey, a film that went on to inspire the creation of Coronation Street, which then iconically inspired the whole development of the Soap World as we know it today.  Without question, an evolution on celluloid.

Ground-level dramas always captivate the hearts and minds of people, even if you're from outside these cultures.  It can be a riveting watch and memory lane stuff that's very hard to tire of - viewers can't get enough, especially as we inject ourselves into this new dark age of  uncertainty and technology, whilst at the same time watching the last century slowly wane over the horizon .

What's after Eldra?  of course Wales needs to move on with modern contemporary film concepts, but lets not forget to make the "The Obvious" .  When will Llewelyn the Last or Prince Madog and the Discovery of America ever hit the silver screens or will it just become Llewelyn the forgotten.  Away from the epics perhaps a simpler challenge - a film of Edgar Christian's adventure , a movie long over due.   Film budgets are always a major restricting factor on what can and can't be made, and this certainly applies to S4C with their ever-shrinking kitty courtesy of the powers to be. Yet against all odds every now and then S4C turn out some top class stuff, with a fistful of world spanning animations and how can we forget Hedd Wyn - robbed of its rightful oscar by an egoistic hollywood.  Still, perhaps it's now time Cymru cast off the 1000 year old foggy cataract and showed clearer vision.  We need to embrace new methods in how to successfully nurture our vast secret vaults of ancient literature and adapt these past works of arts into formats for the future world arena - so people can learn what Celtic Wales is really all about, that we're not just all rocks and sheep, and most importantly where we are located.  How many Americans still think Wales is in England! 

As one well-travelled old mush from Chile once told me: "I've travelled in my lifetime around every crease of the world but Wales is my favourite secret corner of the garden ".  True words my friend or - Tatcho lavos tute rokker pral as the Welsh Roms would say.     Let's hope it stays that way.

The Real Welsh Romani
Eldra explores the tensions and cultural differences between the Welsh Gypsies and the small community in which they live.  Set in the 1930s amongst the shadows of Penrhyn Slate Quarry, a schoolboy's fascination with Eldra, a barefoot Gypsy girl, sparks resentment from his brother.  Taid rolls up in his Gypsy caravan and warns that the two cultures cannot mix - but is this true?

Welsh Romani had a unique influence on the history and culture of Wales - yet many people have never heard of their existence and contribution to our  national heritage.  Sadly, the Welsh Romani way of life today has all but vanished unless of course you know where to look.  Where Celtic Wales has hung on to its culture and done a pretty good job - in contrast Romani people have been slowly losing theirs in Britain over the last 50 yrs.

Some would say it was bound to happen.  A people with no land, "Romanistan was wherever a Rom stood"  and a nation on foot.  It's a very tragic outcome.  Yet ironically, throughout international literature the Welsh Gypsy tribes and their Cale language now command great recognition and respect amongst many academics.

How ignorant that the Romani people of Britain still don't have a National Heritage Museum of their own, yet there's a museum on every Tom Dick and Harry subject but Romani culture.  You will find one or two with Romani themes, or find a dusty corner with a waggon shoved into it after some poor Rom gave it to them in frustration in a feeble attempt to save the family's most prized possession - but the majority of museums have no interest in the Romani culture.  So out of respect, isn't it time The National Romani Heritage Centre was built.

The land of Wales welcomed the Romani tribes into the region - however that's not what it looks like if you study pre-1900 written evidence, mainly authored by the well-educated fraternity. This type of "Academia-discrimia" often portrayed the Romani people in bad light. However it's doubtful that was the view of many of the Welsh countryside people who made up the vast majority of the Celtic Nation. How many ordinary farmers or villagers had the privilege to have their views and experiences with Welsh Gypsies recorded and published? - Very few. Like the Romani at the time, many working class Welsh folk were illiterate themselves so could never have written material down about there own lives, let alone about local Gypsies. And it's this fact  that needs to be taken into account to "keep balance"  whenever studying past literature portraying all Gypsies as no good - because that's not true. There's good and bad in every race, and many of  the "antique" personal views of those early authors deflaming gypsies would, if said today, equate to what you would read in your tacky Sunday papers. Romanies regard some Gaje' - non-Romani - as foolish people, and you can you see why.

Fortunately in the 1800s/early 1900s there were the Great Rais - Master Gypsies Scholars like Burrows, Leyland, Groomes, Samson and many others who worked tirelessly to address unbalanced issues relating to Gaje' ignorance. Groomes even married one chi Gypsy girl Esmeralda, while Samson was intellectually and emotionally absorbed by strong Welsh Romani friendships. "Treat a Romani with respect, and they will often do the same back, but kick one at your own peril". So there are many instances of  the Welsh people warmly accepting Roms into their midst. Could this be anything to do with the fact that the Gypsy "Cale" and the "Celt" have a greater understanding about what persecution means and, more importantly, the notion that both people come from the same ancient origins of India, travelling the drom of the ancient silk routes many eons ago.  There's a natural legacy that exists between these kindred tribes that is scrawled into ancient history.  The Gypsies were hounded and heavily persecuted right across most continents from when they first left India's Kushmir and Punjab regions around 800 AD.  They were driven from one European country to the next eventually reaching the safe wooded mountain valleys of Cymru - a wilderness sanctuary where there was no need to run any more.  Just as the Welsh Celts were driven themselves here into these lands centuries earlier.  When these nomadic Gypsies arrived in Wales it provided a natural haven and easement for the harassed tribes where they could hide away and become "mist in the valleys".  But there was one other major thing they both had in common - a hatred for the English kings who killed Welsh princes and Gypsies alike on its gallows.  Celtic blood and Gypsy blood "kalo ratti" ran together along the same historical gutters. ...  A parallel not dissimilar to the Nazis and their murderous campaign, slaughtering Jews and Gypsies together.  So it could be safe to say the Welsh Gypsies and the Welsh Celts have a lot more in common than most people are aware.

Celts and Gypsies alike persecuted? - When you first watch Eldra you wouldn't think the Welsh were any different from anyone else; the way the young Gypsy girl is treated - typical discrimination - on this occasion by a young Welsh lad and his buddies, but look closely beyond all this to the scene of the song and dance evening by the waggons.  All the local miners are singing in harmony with the Romani folki, and it's this image that clearly demonstrate the rapport between Rom and Celt.  The miners around this time had actually being treated very harshly as slave labour - intended persecution by Lord Penrhyn, who starved them from their tied homes over a dispute, destroying the community and forcing the quarrymen's wives to "beg for food from door to door" as they slowly starved to death.   Echoes similar to the romnis hawking.  Dignified and defiant, 2800 quarrymen stood for their beliefs, brothers together trapped in poverty and squalor - but with no where to go.  

It's ironic that the eldest boy's discrimination in the Eldra film is born of innocent ignorance.  After all, his very father lost his arm in Lord Penrhyn's quarry of Hell, the very same families that suffered great persecution themselves.  Yet the lad even goads his own brother  "You'll end up in the quarry"! - meaning no hope, to suffer, always our destiny.  Yet towards the end of the film the bitter boy melts to Eldra's Romani charm, for really when all's said and done they were both two peas in the same pod anyway - victims of dictatorial suppression engrained in their blood for centuries.  Still, Wales wasn't a perfect world, and no doubt more serious discrimination did take place against some Gypsies - mostly in the towns and city environments, though much less in the countryside.  However, in general, much less in Wales then in other countries.

It's hardly any wonder then that some people - even experts outside of Wales - cannot understand why the Welsh Roms are so settled but then how many truly understand Welsh culture itself anyway.  The occasional Rom even became a farmer dealing in sheep instead of the grai (horse).  Most are now settled in harmony with their Welsh environment often keeping very dignifed to themselves.  I'm certain it has everything to do with the natural Celtic way of life.  Either way, Welsh Romani no matter how they live are undisputedly still Romani - it's by bloodline not by environment - and they are fiercely proud of their roots along with their English prala brothers. So was Wales a discovered secret haven of Europe to some nomadic Romani tribes landing on the shores of Britain all those centuries ago?  A promised land - a Welsh Romanistan?

More on Welsh Gypsies see - Romani Cymru

The Real Eldra Roberts - Descendant of Abram Wood, the first Romani to settle in Wales "I'm not going to be on celluloid when I'm gone."

Eldra was born in 1917, and her father taught her to play the Welsh harp.  She soon followed in her ancestral tradition by taking up the Romani way of the harp and learning her forefathers' Gypsy music.   It wasn't long before she became a well known player.  Eldra joined the land army in the Second World War and was deployed as a rat catcher on Anglesey - she had a way with nature.  She was spotted dancing barefoot in the snow outside Bangor University by a student who was immediately obsessed by her unusual wildness.  He later married her, and it truly was the story of the "Gypsy Girl and the Professor"  who often had to reign her in due to her Gypsy wild ways and independence.  They had two equally independent daughters, Teleri and Nia, both proud of their Romani roots.  Knowing about lifes cruel struggles Eldra wanted the best for her Chavvis and brought them up to respect the Romano and the Gorje way of life, however Teleri was too much like her mother and the wild Gypsy - kalo Ratti burned in her veins and still does to this day.  Nia contains it better.  As old age crept up on their mother, Eldra secretly kept an eye out for a special musician to whom she could entrust the Gypsy harp music of all her ancestors and teach him the exact way it should be played.  One day from the mists of the local TV studios came the renowned triple harpist Robin Huw Bowen, completely unaware that he was about to be the chosen one.

A rapport developed, but not before a cautious period went by, as Robin had to prove himself genuine and worthy of her trust.  Eldra displayed her typical Gypsy wily ways but it was short-lived, and Robin would go round to her house so she could pass down the music, all played by ear, to perfection.  If not, Robin had to start again till it was right.   "Once you've learnt pieces, only then can you add your own styles to them as you wish".   A few years before her death, Eldra was interviewed by producer Bethan Eames - these stories later became the basis for the television drama Eldra scripted by Bethan's sister Manon Eames.  Her own composition, Eldra's Polka, features throughout the soundtrack of the film.   Teleri, Eldra's daughter, told me: "My mother went through a period of not wanting to be interviewed on TV.  She said: "I'm not going to be on celluloid when I'm gone".  How ironic that she's now on an award-winning 35mm film.

"The idea for a film sat on the shelves of the TV company for some years, and it's sad that my mother died before the film was made - she never saw it," said Teleri.  Her sister Nia continued: "She would have been very pleased that it was finally made.  However, she would have been critical if she spotted anything not quite right and would have said so regardless of who heard" - Eldra's spirit lives on, and she would be pleased that her Romani heritage was getting the celluloid recognition it deserves.

Read more about :- Eldra and her Ancestors                                                                             Buy the DVD now!

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Article - ValleyStream / Bose Wales 2007
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