The Cairo Eisteddfod and Other Welsh Adventures in Egypt

An interesting collection of stories about the links between various Welsh men and women and the Middle East, in particular the city of Cairo during the 19th and 20th centuries, in business, political and cultural fields, presented by a journalist and thorough researcher into the history of Egypt. 27 black-and-white photographs.

Review :
Imagine dropping into your local for a leisurely pint and finding an old Cairo hand at the bar only too willing to share his repertoire of Welsh-connected Egyptian stories with you. The prospect might be daunting - and indeed the stories can be opinionated or racy by turns - but as time goes by you quickly come to appreciate the affection of the man for the place and its people and to savour his wittily Welsh perspective on the place. And sometimes his passion has a serious edge that makes you sit up and take notice. So it is with this engaging yarn of a book. As is the way with such encounters, the author follows a series of hares. The title refers to an Eisteddfod organised in the Egyptian capital in 1943 and 1944, presided over by the Anglican Bishop of Cairo, Llewelyn Harry Gwynne, for whom a thumbnail biography is provided in a separate chapter. To the Eisteddfod came the members of close on twenty Middle East Welsh Societies, whose newspaper Seren y Dwyrain - the subject of another chapter - had a circulation that reached two thousand. The large number of Welsh and indeed Welsh-speaking troops in the Middle East were sure of a warm welcome at Davies Bryan and Co., one of the most famous department stores in the Middle East. A chapter is devoted to its founder whose roots were in Caernarfon. The racy contribution concerns Rhiwabon Grammar School's most notorious pupil, Frank Harris, whose explicitly pioneering My Life and Loves (1922) was endorsed, 'Not to be offered for sale in England or the USA'. The punchline here, more amusing than it is relevant, is that Welsh soldiers returning from active service brought copies home maintaining that the prohibition did not apply to Wales. Relevant only by name, but also a good story, is the chapter on Lord Carnarvon and Tutankhamun's tomb. There are three chapters that make you sit up and think. One, dealing meticulously with the Welsh ancestry of Lawrence of Arabia, is a case study for students of family history. Another, on David Lloyd George's role in the fateful Balfour Declaration, is freighted with consequences. ‘Acetone converted me to Zionism,’ the former Prime Minister remarked within a decade of the end of the Great War, for Chaim Weitzman, a Zionist, was personally responsible for overcoming the crisis of cordite supply that threatened Lloyd George's reputation as Minister of Munitions. The author concludes that the state of Israel has been built on ‘David Lloyd George's selfish political chicanery’. For this reviewer, the most fascinating chapter is the one on The Soldier's Parliament, a welcome reminder now that Hollywood is so rapidly rewriting the history of the Second World War, of the common bond of socialism among the troops fighting the People's War against Fascism. This 'parliament' of British soldiers proposed the very political programme that so decisively swept Churchill from power in 1945. In short, the book - which includes a good selection of black-and-white photographs - is as refreshing as a pint of real ale tapped from the cask.