Jack Walters: Grandfather
Quotes
-
[first lines]
Narrator : For some odd reason, lost in the mists of time, there's an extraordinary shortage of last names in Wales. Almost everyone seems to be a Williams, a Jones, or an Evans. To avoid widespread confusion, Welsh people often add an occupation to a name. For example, there was Williams the Petroleum, and Williams the Death. There was Jones the Bottle, and Jones the Prize Cabbage... which described his hobby and his personality. Evans the Bacon, and Evans the End of the World. But one man's name was a puzzle, and it wasn't until I was 10 years old that I asked my grandfather about the man with the longest and most enigmatic name of all.
Grandfather : [to the narrator at age 10] The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain? Now there's a long name for you. And a long story. You are not going to fidget, are you? For this is a story... an epic story. Yes, epic.
-
Grandfather : [narrating] The truth is that, while we Welsh like to believe that it was the mountains that beat the successive invaders, it was really the weather that comes with mountains. It was the rain that defeated every invader. Yes, simple rain.
-
Grandfather : All this fuss over what? Is it a hill, is it a mountain? Perhaps it wouldn't matter anywhere else, but this is Wales. The Egyptians built pyramids, the Greeks built temples, but we did none of that, because we had mountains. Yes, the Welsh were created by mountains: where the mountain starts, there starts Wales. If this isn't a mountain - well, if this isn't a mountain, then Anson might just as well redraw the border and put us all in England, God forbid.
-
[last lines]
Grandfather : And so it was that Betty and Anson stayed the night on Ffynnon Gawr. Now you know what the Welsh say about people who stay on mountain peaks at night, don't you? They become poets, madmen, very very wise, or...
[band playing, procession, cheering]
Grandfather : And when they descended, it was to announce that Ffynnon Gawr was indeed a mountain, of one thousand and two feet, and that they were engaged to be married. Yes, it was an odd courtship, but one befitting a man who went up a hill but came down a mountain.
[cheering]
Narrator : And should you think this is just a shaggy dog story told by a senile man to his impressionable grandson, I'd ask you to come to South Wales, to the village where I was born, and as you drive north from Cardiff, look for the first big hill. Not just a hill, but a mountain, and the children of the people who built it. However, just before this film was made, the mountain was remeasured and found to be nine hundred and ninety-seven feet, thus the mound had settled back into a hill.
Rev. Robert Jones : [from the grave monument] A hill?
[sighs]
