Hymns and ices
Eddie Ladd was brought up on a farm and, as Abba would say, could almost sing before she could talk. She learned hymns very early on at Siloam Chapel, Y Ferwig, where most of the congregation were also dairy farmers. Chapels not only offer long sermons; there are always sandwiches, cup cakes and Victoria Sponges served up in the vestry after major services and it is this memory that put the keys into the ignition of the Iâs road trip. For a few years, she had wanted to go to places that had hymn tunes named after them, and sing in each of them the hymns named after them. The opportunity arose. How could she get from one site to another? She does not drive (apart from tractors). Staring through a window in midwinter and feeling that the light was so far away...what about an ice cream van? A vehicle that is always going somewhere, promising thrills, sweetness and light?
Although Eddie knows many hymns, there were quite a few on route that she did not – Capel Tygwydd and Llanrhystud, for example. Many of the singers (and Google) did however, and could tell her a lot about the tunes and their composers. Parti Llanrhystud actually sang theirs on the site of David Lewis’ birth place, which is now the Memorial Hall’s car park and has a burger van standing there daily.
The words to Llwyncelyn are especiall touching (“And when troubles destroy my home...”) and she dedicated her performance in another car park, outside the village’s Spar shop, to those both suffering in Ukraine and driven from there. And the ultimate iâs (which means thrill and shiver) was to have people, some of whom had not been together for two years, singing, socialising, and lapping ice cream.
An ice cream van was found! Ice Cream Van Wales is a company from Tregaron (look up Dessert Delights on Facebook) and Phil and his mother were willing and patient enough to drive from Llambed (Lampeter) to Abersytwyth on March 5th, the day of the trip. Starting in the sunshine and finishing in the wind and darkness, the van visited fourteen places throughout Ceredigion.
Eddie’s work from early January was to get together friends, neighbours, choirs, relatives and even people she did not know, to practise their area’s hymn and to introduce them to the van’s special accompaniment. It would play the hymn tune, chiming it as ice cream vans do, but replacing Greensleeves with Gogerddan. The sound was created, and the hymns arranged, by Plyci, an electro composer and musician.
“The experience might have been unusual but I hope it did away with the idea that art lies beyond the magic curtain.”
Eddie Ladd
