Cantre’r Gwaelod

Welsh singer, founding member of Catatonia and Year Of Legends ambassador Cerys Matthews tells Buzz about her favourite Welsh secret.

You’re listed as one of the real-life legends of Wales. How has being Welsh influenced your work?

Over and over and over again, it’s quite hard. What I can say is that all of the cultural riches and treasure of Wales have informed my work, outlook on the world and my love of music and literature so much, I can’t even think what life would be like without knowing these things.

So how do you think the Year of Legends campaign will benefit Wales?

If people don’t know about Wales, how will they know we’re great to do business with; how are film directors going to know it’s a great location to film in; how will furniture designers know that there are some great furniture designers in Wales; that we’ve got all these great sports and venues? It’s reminding people we’re here otherwise they’re going to be talking about London, talking about Hull – you know, the City Of Culture! – about Scotland. No, we are Wales and there’s a lot going on here: we have the sports, the scenery, and the arts. We need to keep piping up because the world’s a busy place.

If someone had never been to Wales before and you could only recommend one place, where would it be?

The Lost Lands of the Lowlands (Cantre’r Gwaelod). It’s just off the Cardigan coast.  I’d tell somebody to drive to Cardigan and drive down that coastal road and look up, because there’s this area of land that’s very flat and at sea level; it’s a huge sort of semi-circle of land that seems to have been lost to the sea. Legend has it that it used to be protected from the sea by huge walls, but somebody got drunk and forgot to close the gates, and lost the whole land. I just love that legend because you can actually see it. It exists. Plus, you might see some dolphins.

Year Of Legends 2017. Info: www.visitwales.com