One of the poems pupils from a local school performed at this year’s Eisteddfod yr Urdd held a particular significance for the Port Talbot audience. Y Ffatri’n Cau, or The Factory Closing, tells the story of the despair engulfing a man who has lost his job, and finds the future is now “yn rhoi clep yn ei wyneb” – a slap in his face.
The south Wales town, one of the most deprived in the UK, is still grappling with the closure of the blast furnaces at Tata Steel, which shut down in September after more than 100 years, costing nearly 3,000 jobs. The sense of injustice was inflamed by the UK government’s decision last month to step in to save the Scunthorpe steelworks in Lincolnshire from a similar fate.
