Coracle Races, Cilgerran

Cilgerran’s annual coracle races take place in August on the Teifi, a river famous for coracle makers and paddlers. Small enough to be carried by one person and made of easily accessible materials, the coracle has been in use since the Bronze age, across the British Isles and beyond e.g. Iran, India, Norway. Celebrating the boat and maintaining the tradition, the races attract hordes of spectators. Raffle prizes reflect the locality: a large salmon and a minature coracle.

The film-maker, Gareth Hywel Vernon Jones (1918-1987) was born in Tregaron but his family moved to Aberystwyth when he was 5 and he remained there for the rest of his life. He married Joan Elizabeth Jones (1929-2017) of Lampeter in 1958 (who had also moved to live in Aberystwyth with her family, when she was 18). They had a daughter, Miriam Elisabeth (b.1967). Mr Jones, an audio-visual officer with the council’s education department, was interested in recording family and community life on film and was also a well-known player of the ‘saw’, using a cello bow to do so. He would entertain local societies with his skill and demonstrated this talent on television too.