As he took the short walk from his uncle to his auntie's house on a small road in Llanengan, Al Lewis turned the corner of the small country road and saw a Waitrose van. "Nothing could have been more succinct," he laughs.
Originally from Pwllheli, the singer-songwriter went to school in Sarn Bach in Gwynedd. His latest single, The Farmhouse, released on Friday, April 8, is about second homes and the impact they are having on the area he grew up in. He knows it isn't a new issue, nor is it simple, but as he walks through the villages he grew up in he sees the Welsh house names being changed, the heart of the community he knew being chipped away at and with that the fear once it has gone, it won't return.
"Like a lot of people during lockdown I was just seeing a lot of stories online and hearing reports from friends and family who I still have living there and seeing a lot of reports about old Welsh buildings that weren't necessarily houses but old post offices, old schools, being bought up for second homes and being turned into names like 'The Seagulls' or whatever. And I just felt like it was a bit of a cultural whitewashing and it was a tendency of just purchasing these properties or these buildings with no real regard for what had been before and the area in which they were in." Read the story of how people on Anglesey think any changes to second home rules are 'too late'.
