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Cyflwyno Cae’r Gors i’r Genedl - Kate Roberts

Queen of Welsh literature - Kate Roberts - dedicates her childhod cottage to the nation at Rhosgadfan

Home movie 1971 4 mins Silent

From the collection of:

Logo for National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales

Overview

The ruined quarryman's cottage is Cae'r Gors in the village of Rhosgadfan - childhood home of the acclaimed novelist and short story writer Kate Roberts. Dr Roberts is seen here addressing the gathered crowd on the occasion of the dedicating of the cottage to the nation, sharing the platform with Dr John Gwilym Jones, the distinguished playwright and academic from the nearby village of Groeslon.

Kate Roberts (1891-1985) is known in Welsh as 'Brenhines ein llên' (queen of our literature) for her contribution to novel and short-story writing in Wales. Born in 1891 to a slate quarrying family, it was the loss of her brother in WW1 that prompted her to start writing. By turn a teacher, literary journalist and printing press owner and publisher, her subjects range from the hardship of life in the quarrying community, epsecially as experienced by its women, to individual struggles of a more internal nature. Themes of loss and the capacity to overcome or endure it, permeate her work.