The Box is a major cultural and heritage attraction and archive, which opened in Plymouth’s city centre in September 2020. Its collection, formally the South West Film and Television Archive (SWFTA), is the regional film archive for the South West of England, comprising the combined programme libraries of Westward Television and Television South West (TSW). It also includes a significant number of donated film collections dating back to the early 1890s.
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Berdh Gorsedh Kernow and the New Grand Bard
The Grand Bard presides over the sky blue pageant
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Overview
Bank manager and Methodist preacher George Pawley White with the Bardic name of Gunwyn (pronounced goonwin) takes over in 1964 as the fourth Grand Bard from Talek or Retallack Hooper and presides over the meeting in Goodern, Kea near Truro in Cornwall. Archdruid Pedrog of Wales officiated at an inaugural Gorsedd which was held in 1928 at the Boscawen-Un stone circle at the behest of two Cornish academics, Henry Jenner and L C R Duncombe-Jewell.
Over a thousand bards have since been inducted and the Cornish language has come back from the brink of extinction. Cornwall’s sense of identity and Celtic spirit is in evidence in county-wide cultural events and in schools. Cornish is a recognised minority language and taught in some Cornish schools and nurseries. New literary works have been written in the language and some classics have been translated into Kernewek or Cornish from Sawsnek or English. Bards Morton Nance, Malcolm Stephens and Dr John Chesterfield are all in attendance at this convening of the Bardic Assembly.
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