Land Of My Fathers – the 1931 Version
I’m very grateful to Anton for sending me a link to this wonderful bit of history – the first time the singing of “Land Of My Fathers” before an international rugby match was captured on a newsreel. The venue for the Wales-Scotland match was Cardiff Arms Park, which still exists, but the international games are now played at the recently-renamed Principality Stadium which is directly adjacent to the old venue. The skyline around the Arms Park is still mostly recognizable. The opening panning shot is looking North towards Bute Park, but as it moves right you can see the old Palace and Hippodrome, on Westgate Street, which is now the site of a Wetherspoon’s pub; only the facade is intact as the interior was completely gutted and rebuilt.
It seems that some sort of mechanical fault meant that the roof of the Principality Stadium was left open for last night’s match between Wales and France (which Wales won 19-10). That would have meant that the singing of Land of my Fathers could have been heard throughout the city. I remember once spending a Saturday afternoon in my garden in Pontcanna, and could hear the noise from the stadium very clearly. There’s something very special about the singing of the Welsh National Anthem on such occasions – it always sends a shiver down my spine.
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In the Dark 
February 27, 2016 at 11:10 am
If I’d known before the last 15 minutes that that match was on then I’d have gone to the pub to watch it. (By design I don’t have a TV aerial or license.)
I learnt Hen Wlad fy Nhadhau last year to sing at the funeral of a friend’s mother, who was Welsh. Although I did this phonetically I took the trouble to understand what it means. I live near Wales and wish that land well.
I would be interested to hear this played at the dance tempo at which it was originally written!
February 27, 2016 at 11:27 am
It’s interesting that in 1931 the Scots sang “Auld Lang Syne” rather than “Flower of Scotland”…
February 27, 2016 at 12:00 pm
That might be because Flower of Scotland was written in the 1960s…
For another moving National Anthem, try Hungary.
February 27, 2016 at 3:00 pm
I always thought it was a much older tune!
February 27, 2016 at 4:31 pm
It certainly sounds it. But that’s just good writing.
February 28, 2016 at 11:33 am
Yes, but sadly the tune can’t actually be played on the bagpipes. It has a very nice blue note on the ‘think’ of ‘tae think again’, so it always grates when sung at rugby matches as some people sing the written note, and some follow the bagpipes, a (far less effective) semitone higher. The combination is, naturally, excruciating.
March 1, 2016 at 9:46 pm
Without googling, and with no guarantee of rectitude, Going Down The Road by Roy Wood has bagpipes at one point and he was versatile enough to include just about any instrument, perhaps a harpsichord. Or maybe something by Malicorne or someone like that.
March 2, 2016 at 3:01 pm
I thought you knew the answer!
It’s also the sort of thing Mike Oldfield might do. Or Alan Stivell.
March 2, 2016 at 3:07 pm
Or these people:
March 2, 2016 at 4:56 pm
I take it that’s Peter Knight the fiddler, not Peter Knight the physicist…
I remember seeing Steeleye on their first tour after getting a drummer, in the early 1970s.
I recall Amazing Blondel but never heard their music – what’s it like?
March 3, 2016 at 2:29 pm
You don’t know about Peter Knight the physicist’s involvement with the Hendrix tour of England then?
March 3, 2016 at 3:10 pm
I don’t know much more than that but Peter K told me that he had the task of getting onto the stage a Hendrix who was sufficiently stoned to fall out of the tour coach.