WALES Research Articles

Ordinary risks and accepted fictions: how contrasting and competing priorities work in risk assessment and mental health care planning.

BackgroundCommunication and information sharing are considered crucial to recovery‐focused mental health services. Effective mental health care planning and coordination includes assessment and management of risk and safety.ObjectiveUsing data from our cross‐national mixed‐method study of care planning and coordination, we examined what patients, family members and workers say about risk assessment and management and explored the contents of care plans.DesignThematic analysis of qualitative research interviews (n = 117) with patients, family members and workers, across four English and two Welsh National Health Service sites. Care plans were reviewed (n = 33) using a structured template.FindingsParticipants have contrasting priorities in relation to risk. Patients see benefit in discussions about risk, but cast the process as a worker priority that may lead to loss of liberty. Relationships with workers are key to family members and patients; however, worker claims of involving people in the care planning process do not extend to risk assessment and management procedures for fear of causing upset. Workers locate risk as coming from the person rather than social or environmental factors, are risk averse and appear to prioritize the procedural aspects of assessment.ConclusionsDespite limitations, risk assessment is treated as legitimate work by professionals. Risk assessment practice operates as a type of fiction in which poor predictive ability and fear of consequences are accepted in the interests of normative certainty by all parties. As a consequence, risk adverse options are encouraged by workers and patients steered away from opportunities for ordinary risks thereby hindering the mobilization of their strengths and abilities.

The Life Science Exchange: a case study of a sectoral and sub-sectoral knowledge exchange programme.

BackgroundLocal and national governments have implemented sector-specific policies to support economic development through innovation, entrepreneurship and knowledge exchange. Supported by the Welsh Government through the European Regional Development Fund, The Life Science Exchange® project was created with the aim to increase interaction between stakeholders, to develop more effective knowledge exchange mechanisms, and to stimulate the formation and maintenance of long-term collaborative relationships within the Welsh life sciences ecosystem. The Life Science Exchange allowed participants to interact with other stakeholder communities (clinical, academic, business, governmental), exchange perspectives and discover new opportunities.MethodsSix sub-sector focus groups comprising over 200 senior stakeholders from academia, industry, the Welsh Government and National Health Service were established. Over 18 months, each focus group provided input to inform healthcare innovation policy and knowledge mapping exercises of their respective sub-sectors. Collaborative projects identified during the focus groups and stakeholder engagement were further developed through sandpit events and bespoke support.ResultsEach sub-sector focus group produced a report outlining the significant strengths and opportunities in their respective areas of focus, made recommendations to overcome any ‘system failures’, and identified the stakeholder groups which needed to take action. A second outcome was a stakeholder-driven knowledge mapping exercise for each area of focus. Finally, the sandpit events and bespoke support resulted in participants generating more than £1.66 million in grant funding and inward investment. This article outlines four separate outcomes from the Life Science Exchange programme.ConclusionsThe Life Science Exchange process has resulted in a multitude of collaborations, projects, inward investment opportunities and special interest group formations, in addition to securing over ten times its own costs in funding for Wales. The Life Science Exchange model is a simple and straightforward mechanism for a regional or national government to adapt and implement in order to improve innovation, skills, networks and knowledge exchange.

In Memoriam: David A. Flockhart, 1952–2015

We lost David Flockhart on Thanksgiving Day, 2015. He was 63 years old, and had battled cancer for more than a year. David Flockhart was a pioneer and innovator in the field of pharmacogenetics. His conceptual contributions to pharmacogenomics date back more than 20 years, when most of us were learning to recognize the word. He is best known for his work on the pharmacogenomics of breast cancer, and the responsiveness of the disease to tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitor treatment. He also made major contributions to understanding the genetic basis for individual variations in pharmacokinetics and clinical response to warfarin, clopidogrel, opiates, antiretroviral drugs, and antidepressants. Despite his conviction of the importance of medical genetics and pharmacogenomics, David retained a critical and questioning outlook, cautioning us about the limitations of the discipline, and the potential downside of widespread or routine genetic profiling. David's scientific work was consistently insightful and of high scientific merit, but his overall objective always was to improve the length and quality of life of ill patients. As such, his impact on both biomedical science and clinical patient care was broad and profound. David was a native of Scotland—the oldest of five children born to D. Ross Flockhart and Pamela Ellison Flockhart. Following his early education in Aberdeen and Edinburgh, he received his undergraduate degree from the University of Bristol in 1973, and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Welsh National School of Medicine in 1976. David came to Nashville in 1976, serving first as post-doctoral research associate, then as assistant professor, in the Department of Physiology at Vanderbilt University through 1984. David's soul was set on becoming a physician—he wanted to assure that the science had an impact on humanity. He enrolled at the University of Miami School of Medicine, graduating in 1987. He did his residency training in internal medicine at Georgetown University, finishing as chief medical resident at the Fairfax Hospital in 1991. His voluntary shouldering of the chief residency position—one of medicine's thankless and relentless tasks—says a great deal about David's dedication to patient care and medical education. The same dedication persisted throughout the rest of his career. Following residency, David stayed on for fellowship training in clinical pharmacology at the legendary Georgetown University Division of Clinical Pharmacology, with Ray Woosley as his mentor. David joined the faculty in 1993, and rose to tenured associate professor in 1999. He was named Chair and Chief of the Division in 2000, and was a consistent advocate for and supporter of the discipline of clinical pharmacology. Craig Brater recruited David to Indiana University School of Medicine in 2001, where he became Professor of Medicine, Pharmacology, and Medical Genetics, and Director of Clinical Pharmacology. He was appointed as the Gladstein Chair in Cancer Genomics in 2007, and Director of the Indiana University Institute for Personalized Medicine in 2011. David Flockhart was a national and international leader in cancer pharmacogenomics. He served on or directed numerous scientific symposia, workshops, and policy-making advisory groups. He served as Principal Investigator for the NIH Pharmacogenetics Research Network, and for the Consortium on Breast Cancer Pharmacogenomics. He participated as visiting scientist or guest speaker at the invitation of numerous academic institutions, medical and scientific societies, hospitals, and government agencies. The quality and impact of David's work has been recognized by his peers through awards such as the Rawls-Palmer Progress in Medicine Award from the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (2011), and the Nathaniel T. Kwit Distinguished Service Award from the American College of Clinical Pharmacology (2009). With no hesitation, he accepted our invitation to serve on the Editorial Board of Clinical Pharmacology in Drug Development, despite a number of existing editorial board commitments. Above all, David remained devoted to his patients and his students. He was kind and compassionate to the patients under his care, and spent as much time as necessary to assure their best possible treatment. To his students and trainees he was equally devoted, enthusiastic, careful, and thorough. He always believed that scientific advances had to be translated into improved patient care. David loved his family. He loved music, and took great pride in his Scottish beginnings. He retained the quaint Scottish lilt to his speech. David Flockhart was a great scientist, colleague, and friend. We will miss him.

National sustainabilities

In this paper, we examine the potential for developing a stronger connection between the two significant discourses of sustainable development and nationalism. While there has been limited academic enquiry into the relationships that might exist between these two discourses, we draw on the case study of Wales since 1999 to show how policy-makers are increasingly examining the potential for promoting a more fruitful dialogue between them. We examine how nationalist discourses in Wales have led to the development of a form of sustainable development that is allegedly more attuned to Welsh national values and identities. We also show how sustainable development is being used to imagine new and possibly more inclusive kinds of futures for the Welsh nation. We conclude by reaffirming the fruitful synergies that might exist between sustainable development and nationalism while acknowledging the tensions that arise in seeking to make connections between them.

Evolution and the Struggle of Love in Emily Pfeiffer’s Sonnets

Mrs. Pfeiffer's most abiding reputation will rest upon her sonnets, and of these best deal with two great questions of day--evolution and sphere, wrote Eric Robertson in his headnote to six Pfeiffer poems he selected for English Poetesses: A Series of Critical Biographies, with Illustrative Extracts (1883). (1) Robertson's second center of interest, woman's sphere, has found traction in emerging scholarship on Pfeiffer's poetry--a scholarship not birthed till mid-1990s and growing but slowly, despite a nineteenth-century regard for Pfeiffer that led Robertson to group her in a chapter with Christina Rossetti, Augusta Webster, and Mathilde Blind. Questions of gender typically anchor modern editorial introductions or headnotes on Pfeiffer, and gender also informs studies of Pfeiffer's prose travel writing, Hellenism, and Welsh nationalism. (2) In contrast, despite expanding scholarly conversation on nineteenth-century poetry and evolutionary theory, Pfeiffer's poetry on this subject has been little discussed. For instance, in Darwin's Bards: British and American Poetry in Age of Evolution, John Holmes studies numerous major and minor poets who grapple with competing Darwinian and non-Darwinian evolutionary theories but does not mention Pfeiffer, though he considers Mathilde Blind, Constance Naden, and Agnes Mary Robinson alongside an array of male poets. Fabienne Moine's recent Women Poets in Victorian Era: Cultural Practices and Nature Poetry helpfully brings multiple women poets with evolutionary interests into view; but her expansive coverage requires Moine to consider Pfeiffer in under two pages. (3) Yet Pfeiffer's sonnets merit more sustained attention for their vigorous critique of Darwinism within a general assent to evolutionary theory. In present article, therefore, I revise and extend emerging interpretations of Pfeiffer's evolutionary thought. Pfeiffer (1827-1890) was well read on this and other subjects: though not formally schooled, she maximized opportunity to study and write afforded her by her 1850 marriage to Jurgen Edward Pfeiffer, a wealthy and supportive German merchant in London; having no children, she could devote time to literary endeavors. She and her husband frequented literary circles and corresponded with British and American editors such as Theodore Watts-Dunton, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Horace Elisha Scudder. Pfeiffer published her first serious volume of poetry seven years after her marriage, followed by more than a dozen poetry collections and periodical essays--on women's education, women's suffrage, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti as Pre-Raphaelite poet--before her death in 1890 (Hickok, Emily Pfeiffer; Hickok, Why?, p. 374; Brown et al.). To my mind as well as to many of her contemporary reviewers, Pfeiffer's sonnets form her best work. Pfeiffer herself seemed compelled by form: she wrote more than ninety sonnets between 1873 and 1889, ones most invested in evolutionary thought by 1880. Her sonnets frequently blend Petrarchan and Shakespearean forms, perhaps implying she viewed sonnet form as equally in flux with her evolutionary subject. (4) In any case, her sonnets mostly precede now more recognized nineteenth-century poems on subject of evolution such as George Meredith's nature poems (1880s); Naden's Evolutional Erotics (1887); Blind's A scent of Man (1889); and Tennyson's By an Evolutionist and The Making of Man, among others (1889 and 1892, respectively). As I shall demonstrate, poet-speaker of Pfeiffer's sonnets emerges in a position unique among these close contemporaries: she accepts Darwinian evolution as true but regards it as an enemy whose savagery must be resisted through a moral force called Love. This claim differs from brief readings put forward by Kathleen Hickok, Trenton B. Olsen, Fabienne Moine, and Virginia Blain. Hickok interprets one of Pfeiffer's most anthologized poems, The Chrysalis, as a religious poem whose phrase the Love that saves! …

Robert Browning

Robert Browning Suzanne Bailey (bio) Ann Marie Drury, Translation as Transformation in Victorian Poetry. (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Richard Pearson, Victorian Writers and the Stage: The Plays of dickens, Browning, Collins and Tennyson. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature, 1790–1880, eds. Norman Vance and Jennifer Wallace. (Oxford University Press, 2015). The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 22, November 1855–June 1856, eds. Philip Kelley, Scott Lewis, Edward Hagan, Joseph Phelan, and Rhian Williams. (Winfield, KS: Wedgestone Press, 2015). Was Browning’s career as a playwright more successful than critics have presumed? Is Browning experimenting with the monodrama in The Ring and the Book (1868/1869), and does this mark a shift in his poetics? In what ways does Browning’s writing fit within Victorian cultures of translation? How do we read Browning’s language, and how does the poet mobilize patterns of repetition and deferral? These are some of the questions scholars have posed this year in research on Browning. Richard Pearson’s work on Victorian theater highlights debates about the state of the theater and the public role of the author- playwright, suggesting that Browning carved out a unique response to theatrical authorship by choosing to publish his plays. A number of essays propose innovative ways of reading Browning’s writing and career. Patricia Rigg suggests that Browning began to experiment with the monodrama in The Ring [End Page 344] and the Book, possibly through the influence of Augusta Webster’s poetry. Yopie Prins and Annmarie Drury also recast the later work: Prins, by focusing on Browning’s creative appropriations and translations of classical literature, particularly in the decade of the 1870s, and Drury, by considering translation itself as a trope. Browning’s language is a significant theme this year. In a fine article on “Sordello,” Ewan Jones studies the poem’s transfiguration of “the nature and effect of dysfluency” (p. 121), and Joshua Taft reflects on the characteristic density of Browning’s language, which he sees Augusta Webster resisting in her practice. Stefan Hawlin examines intertextual echoes of Keats in Browning’s poetry, and numerous critics consider Browning as part of a network of influence, reading his work in conjunction with that of Augusta Webster, William Michael Rossetti, William Morris, Ezra Pound, and even James Joyce. The most unusual context in which Browning appears is in the analysis of an early silent film directed by Lois Weber in 1915. Critic Paul Young argues that the film Hypocrites (1915) may have been inspired by the structure of The Ring and the Book, as well as by the poem’s preoccupation with notions of truth. Young mentions other films with links to Victorian poetry: the 1909 adaptation of Pippa Passes, for instance, and a homage to Tennyson in The Golden Supper (1910), suggesting that critics of Victorian poetry have fertile ground to explore in early film history. Books and Book Chapters Ann Marie Drury, Translation as Transformation in Victorian Poetry. (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Annmarie Drury sets out to clarify our understanding of Victorian translation as a kind of “translation culture,” the effects of which extend into the early twentieth-century. In Translation As Transformation in Victorian Poetry, Drury undertakes some novel conceptual work in her analysis of the dynamics of translation, particularly in the context of British imperialism. She describes “the incorporative impulse” by which foreign elements, whether actual objects or a poem in another language, are assimilated as part of the desire “to enlarge and enhance the English world of life and letters by incorporating non-English things into it” (p. 5). Victorian translators shared a range of cultural assumptions, including “[r]ejeuvenated interest in Eastern civilizations, conflicts over racial identity associated with the ascendance of Welsh nationalism, and uncertainty about the viability of [End Page 345] imperialist undertakings” (p. 5). Among her concerns are “the role of translators as key agents of assimilation” and the notion of poems themselves as “enacting intercultural negotiations,” as Victorians sought to “incorporate foreignness” (p. 8). Drury also makes a compelling case for considering translation as a kind of collecting (p. 45) and as “a strategy for the accrual of cultural wealth” (p. 45). Discussions...

The democracy of colour

The evolution of the technical reproduction of colour in film has been categorised and studied in great detail. The aesthetic use of expressive colour has not had as much attention historical. Vacche and Price’s Color: The Film Reader seemed to spark a critical interest in this area. In this article, writing as a practising cinematographer, I outline a brief history of the discussions of the use of colour in film, examine two significant attempts to define a colour theory for film, Kalmus and Storaro, and then discuss in detail my own practice in this area. The article concentrates on The Sleeping-Mat Ballad, a project commissioned by the Welsh National Opera (WNO) and The Space, and the short animation film The Separation. In both these films I explore the expressive use of colour, as a function of the cinematographer.

Identifying Continence OptioNs after Stroke (ICONS): an evidence synthesis, case study and exploratory cluster randomised controlled trial of the introduction of a systematic voiding programme for patients with urinary incontinence after stroke in secondary care

BackgroundUrinary incontinence (UI) following acute stroke is common, affecting between 40% and 60% of people in hospital, but is often poorly managed.AimTo develop, implement and evaluate the preliminary effectiveness and potential cost-effectiveness of a systematic voiding programme (SVP), with or without supported implementation, for the management of UI after stroke in secondary care.DesignStructured in line with the Medical Research Council framework for the evaluation of complex interventions, the programme comprised two phases: Phase I, evidence synthesis of combined approaches to manage UI post stroke, case study of the introduction of the SVP in one stroke service; Phase II, cluster randomised controlled exploratory trial incorporating a process evaluation and testing of health economic data collection methods.SettingOne English stroke service (case study) and 12 stroke services in England and Wales (randomised trial).ParticipantsCase study, 43 patients; randomised trial, 413 patients admitted to hospital with stroke and UI.InterventionsA SVP comprising assessment, individualised conservative interventions and weekly review. In the supported implementation trial arm, facilitation was used as an implementation strategy to support and enable people to change their practice.Main outcome measuresParticipant incontinence (presence/absence) at 12 weeks post stroke. Secondary outcomes were quality of life, frequency and severity of incontinence, urinary symptoms, activities of daily living and death, at discharge, 6, 12 and 52 weeks post stroke.ResultsThere was no suggestion of a beneficial effect on outcome at 12 weeks post stroke [intervention vs. usual care: odds ratio (OR) 1.02, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.54 to 1.93; supported implementation vs. usual care: OR 1.06, 95% CI 0.54 to 2.09]. There was weak evidence of better outcomes on the Incontinence Impact Questionnaire in supported implementation (OR 1.22, 95% CI 0.72 to 2.08) but the CI is wide and includes both clinically relevant benefit and harm. Both intervention arms had a higher estimated odds of continence for patients with urge incontinence than usual care (intervention: OR 1.58, 95% CI 0.83 to 2.99; supported implementation: OR 1.73, 95% CI 0.88 to 3.43). The process evaluation showed that the SVP increased the visibility of continence management through greater evaluation of patients’ trajectories and outcomes, and closer attention to workload. In-hospital resource use had to be based on estimates provided by staff. The response rates for the postal questionnaires were 73% and 56% of eligible patients at 12 and 52 weeks respectively. Completion of individual data items varied between 67% and 100%.ConclusionsThe trial was exploratory and did not set out to establish effectiveness; however, there are indications the intervention may be effective in patients with urge and stress incontinence. A definitive trial is now warranted.Study registrationThis study is registered as ISRCTN08609907.Funding detailsThe National Institute for Health Research Programme Grants for Applied Research programme. Excess treatment costs and research support costs were funded by participating NHS trusts and health boards, Lancashire and Cumbria and East Anglia Comprehensive Local Research Networks and the Welsh National Institute for Social Care and Health Research.

Opera: Rossini leads the way to Verdi.

Rossini (1792–1868) seems indelibly associated with fun; many people’s first opera experience is his fizzy Il barbieri di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville , 1816), a rom-com for its time, a brilliant piece of propulsive theatrical and musical construction, composed early in his career. Or, we know the theme tune of The Lone Ranger — again with propulsive energy as a deep, characteristic part of the William Tell Overture , Rossini’s operatic swansong. For many, this is all they know of the composer who shook up 18th century operatic form, and prepared the way for the great Verdi. Recent times have allowed us to enjoy and understand more of his work; the 2014–2015 season has been particularly rich, and there is a glorious opportunity in the middle of March, at a cinema near you — read on ... In September 2014, The Barber opened the season in London and Paris. Meanwhile, The Welsh National Opera had a double bill of Guillaume Tell (William Tell) and his …

Explaining the Perseverance of "Independence in Europe": Strategic Reinforcements of Minority Nationalist Pro-Europeanism

In the 1980’s minority nationalist parties adopted a policy of “independence in Europe.” Paradoxically, the policy simultaneously advocated conceding powers to a supranational body and taking back powers from the state. EU regional development programs initially spurred these pro-European policies, but these programs have since failed. Given the EU incentives, why do minority nationalist parties remain pro-European? I test a bottom-up, party political theory and use the British case studies of the Scottish National Party and the Welsh nationalist party, Plaid Cymru. I argue that these parties have remained proEuropean because they are small oppositional parties. As small oppositional parties, minority nationalist parties have unique strategic mechanisms that incentivize policy inertia. These mechanisms are: (1) the continuity and dominance of party leadership in making EU policy, (2) underdeveloped policy positions, and (3) the importance of transnational coalitions. Implications include the possibility that as minority nationalist parties grow in size and power, they might alter their European position to suit changing strategic considerations.

Beyond invisibility. Uses of comparison in Welsh cultural nationalism

This article explores the uses made of comparison in transcending the alleged invisibility of minorities. Beginning with the suggestive fact that African-American Ralph Ellison began conceiving of his seminal novel Invisible Man while a merchant marine stationed in wartime Swansea, South Wales, the article proceeds to explore the ways in which Welsh nationalist authors and thinkers have compared their plight to that of others. Emrys ap Iwan was one of the first to describe the Welsh experience in broadly colonial terms, and to lampoon English monolingualism in the mirror of European multilingualism. Saunders Lewis developed ap Iwans thinking by emphasising the ways in which Wales had been cut off form its natural home in Europe by the development of the imperial British state. If some writers turned to Europe, others turned to the United Staes for comparative sources. Jon Dressels problematic comparison of Wales with the Southern States is discussed as an example of the dangerous implications of some comparisons. The article seeks to demonstrate that national visibility and invisibility can only emerge in relation to one another. Recognition - that is recognising the Other and being recognised by an other - is where nationalism finds its cultural embodiment and expression.

The construction of a 'new nationalism'. The Welsh Nationalist Party to 1946

The invisibility of Wales compared to other sub-state nations such as Catalonia and Scotland invites case studies of this sociological phenomenon from multiple perspectives. This article utilises the formation and development of a new, territorially-centred political party and its invention of a new nationalism as an instrument for achieving territorial visibility, which was recognised and empowering. In the process, it characterised its predecessor old nationalism as unseen or subjugated. While intellectual innovation, party activities conventional and unconventional and press exposure were central to this new formation, its foundational era the post-War turbulence of the inter-war period and the Second World War challenged its political development but saw it rapidly adapt. The article critically reviews the current historiography of Welsh nationalism from the failure of the old nationalism of the Liberal and Labour parties and places this demonstrably new nationalism in its European and global contexts. State-building was the partys core component, which placed it in sharp opposition to the British state. Nor was it just another political party competing within the state, but one with an alternative world-view. Another foundational principle was the protection of the Welsh language. Yet it appealed to non-Welsh speakers and immigrants in the era of fascist Europe. This newly constructed alterity was especially marked in the field of international relations. At the apogee of the British Empire, it espoused a fundamentalist opposition to imperialism, stressing what it saw as the negative connectivity between UK domestic and international policies. Defining a new national interest, the party used the super-visible Irish Free State as an exemplar, not only on constitutional issues but economics, trade, international affairs and defence. The latter helped define its 'defensive neutrality' policy during World War II, a position which invited powerful attacks from state opponents.

Cymru'n Deffro. Michael D. Jones and the 'national awakening'

During the second half of nineteenth century, Wales seemed to experience an upsurge in its sense of identity as a nation, a so-called national awakening. While this led to the belief that its social and economic needs as well as its cultural characteristics were distinct from England, few people called for a radical solution to the apparent injustices and misrepresentation of Wales within the British political system; it was not until the twentieth century that a movement emerged to gather support for some form of national self-government. The most prominent of these early advocates of self-government for Wales was the Nonconformist minister and college principal Michael Daniel Jones (1822-1898). Jones has since been described as the the founding father of modern political nationalism in Wales and the first in modern times to offer the Welsh a rational political solution to the question of how best to maintain their identity. Yet despite this acclaim, he is a figure who remains largely unstudied, especially beyond the sphere of Welsh (and, more specifically, Welsh-language) historiography. This article focuses on the formation and attributes of Michael D. Joness political thought in regard to the Welsh nation. It concludes with an attempt to explain his failure to incite a national movement during his lifetime and the underlying divergence of his aspirations for Wales and the political views that were dominant among Welsh Nonconformists at the time.

Barrie Patrick Marmion

Barrie Patrick Marmion excelled as a clinical microbiologist, medical researcher and academic, mentor to many younger colleagues, and outstanding human being. His professional life and activity stretched more than 70...

Recent trends in glaucoma surgery in Scotland, England and Wales

ObjectiveTo evaluate national trends of trabeculectomy, aqueous shunts and cycloablation performed in Scotland, England and Wales from 1993 to 2012.MethodsThe annual numbers of trabeculectomies and aqueous shunts carried out between...

‘A Little Tragedy of Two Races and Two Traditions’: gender and nationality in the historical fiction of Hilda Vaughan

This article discusses the representation of gender and nationality in the historical fiction of Hilda Vaughan, a Welsh woman writing in English during the early twentieth century. It offers a detailed discussion of her second novel, Here are Lovers (1926), but also makes reference to other texts. These texts are located within the historical context of the interwar period when nationality was a key issue for both feminist campaigners and emerging Welsh nationalist politics. The article draws upon the theoretical work of Williams and Foucault and argues that Vaughan's fiction offers a particularly sustained exploration of the gendering and classing of national identity.

Independence for Wales: a change from informed consent to presumed consent.

Wales lost its legal independence in 1536 when the Act of Union with England was enacted in London. We have continued to resent the situation and when opportunities offer themselves our national desires emerge. Welsh Nationalist members have been elected from Wales to the British Parliament and continue to remind our English neighbours that we are different. Wales was the language of Court Princes, almost a 1,000 years before the time of Chaucer the father of English literature. It continues to be a living language ever since the Romans left these shores about the middle of the fourth Century. Then the old Brythonic language become truly Welsh and can be identified with the Cymraeg spoken today. This independence manifests itself in many ways and although many have lost the language they continue to be fiercely Welsh when called upon—as anyone who has been present when Wales plays England at rugby in Cardiff or Twickenham will testify!! The strongest expression of this growing independence came in 1997 when Wales voted for devolution from England. Now there is a functioning Senedd (Senate) in Cardiff where laws specific to Wales can be identified and enacted as, for example, in the conduct of Finance, Education, the Welsh Language, Agriculture etc. Now perhaps the most unique result of this independence is the passing, with the blessing of the Queen and the approval of the United Kingdom Parliament of the Human Transplantation (Wales) Bill. This Act became law in Wales in 2013. Human tissue donation throughout the United Kingdom has hitherto followed the Informed Consent principle and will continue to be so in those parts of the United Kingdom outside Wales. But the historic step has been taken now to change this in Wales where the principle of Presumed Consent will be the law. It is a historic change which once again emphasises the strength of independence in Wales. Thus as the Health Minster guiding the legislation declared ‘‘Tuesday July 2nd was a landmark day for Wales, and I expect the rest of the UK will watch with great interest when the legislation is implemented in 2015’’. He added in a published statement ‘‘The people of Wales should be proud that we are the first nation in the UK to take this step’’.

Building Bridges? The Welsh and Basque Nationalist Parties during the Spanish Civil War

This article analyses the relationship between the Welsh and the Basque Nationalist Parties during the Spanish Civil War. It pays attention to the ways in which the Welsh nationalist leaders interpreted this war and the role of their Basque fellows from 1936 onwards, and to the first attempts to create a formal relationship between them. The research focuses on three aspects. Firstly, the article explains the limited attention paid by the Welsh nationalist leaders to their Basque fellows. Secondly, it explores the political heterogeneity of Welsh nationalism in the 1930s and its internal problems as they are made evident through the study of the intense debates within the Welsh Nationalist Party over the Spanish Civil War. Finally, it will consider the international relationships of nationalist parties and the objectives which guided them in periods of tension and conflict.

‘M4 to Wales - and prosper!’ A history of a motorway

The M4 is integral to the south Wales economy, shapes the area's mental geography and contributes to the sense people in and outside Wales have of the Welsh nation being somewhere that is both part of Britain but at the same time ‘other’. Moreover, the motorway's history is the history of modern Wales: a reliance on the state, tensions over nationalism, administrative devolution and regional rivalries, the marginalization of working-class communities and the emphasis on economic integration with the rest of the U.K. This article explores these dynamics by looking at the Welsh stretch of the M4's political, economic and cultural origins, development and impacts.

Hidden Heritage: Underlying Ideologies at Three Welsh Heritage Sites

Heritage sites are powerful venues for disseminating and perpetuating local ideologies regarding the contemporary political and economic climate of a nation as well as ideas concerning the best way to move the local area into the future. Such is the case with slate industrial heritage sites in North Wales. By exploring site presentations in addition to interpretations by site staff at each location, I claim that heritage sites in North Wales implicitly represent three variations of the most prominent ideologies in the local area. The underlying narratives at Penrhyn Castle, funded by a British heritage institution, symbolically maintain historical class divisions and speak to the maintenance of Wales under the British government. The National Slate Museum, a site funded by the Welsh National Assembly's heritage committee, represents complete independence from the United Kingdom linguistically, culturally, economically, and politically. Llechwedd Slate Caverns, a privately owned and independently funded si...