In the early weeks of having the shop running, we were thinking of having our own logo or slogan. Many customers remarked on the lovely smell of timber as they walked through the door, so that got us thinking. Not being the most poetic of souls (I was once struck with a ruler by a teacher who was unimpressed by my efforts) we decided to ask a local poet to come to the shop, soak up the atmosphere, talk about what we were aiming to do, then go away and dream up a slogan.
I won't go too deeply into the nature of traditional forms of Welsh verse, but in simple terms there is a format called a
cynghanedd, which has very specific forms of alliteration, scanning and meter. Thus our poet wrote us a 'first line'....this is what he came up with....
Sawr y pridd sy ar y pren....but you'll mostly be interested in the translation, which reads
Timber bears the scent of the earthWe're really happy with his work and think that it fits well with our needs, so we had it made up into vinyl letters and it now reads right across the shop window, at head height.
Les
