As soon as we walked into the Catherine Wheel in Henley we were engaged in conversation with a couple of Taffies from the Valleys named Norman and Ken.
Although Taffy is used as a nickname or pejorative for someone of Welsh origin, it is a Welsh pet name for David and means” beloved one”.
Well these two Welsh exiles had come to live in England each for a different reason. Norman had been pursued by many a woman and the only way to escape them was to flee to England and Ken had had to leave Wales because when he was younger he was a fighting man and there was a bounty on his head for beating up several policemen, several circus performers and half of the local rugby club in a single evening but to meet him you wouldn’t think that he would hurt a fly. His mettle was tested by Phil, who said “The English should have never built that M4 motorway and the Severn Bridge to allow the Welsh to escape. Ken didn’t bat an eyelid and just laughed “It could have been worse, they could have built a bridge from Liverpool to Dublin and let in all those thick Paddies”.
The Captain asked Ken “Why can all Welshmen sing and why was it that Wales produced so many superior male voice choirs who performed in awe all over the world”. Ken revealed the secret and told us “That none of them can sing in key and most of them more often are tone deaf but when they sing together , the good cancels out the bad and vice versa and the result is a harmonious rendition”. In order to prove the point, we all took him up on his word and sang several songs much to the pleasure of an audience of five drunks, a couple of sub-normals and a couple of grannies.
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