Tag: Visit Wales

How to mark St David’s Day in Wales for food lovers and walking fans

St. David’s Day in Wales this week and I’ve got two articles out to mark Wales’ patron-saint day.

The first is a piece about foodie breaks for spring and my contribution focused on the local flavours and fairytale architecture at Portmeirion [pictured above], North Wales, one of my favourite places to spend time.

Why? Read the full story to discover why via Waitrose Food Magazine.

The second is the publication of copy-writing work for a tourism client, outlining story angles around the tenth anniversary of the Wales Coast Path — it’s coming up in May.

The 870-mile, long-distance walking trail, launched in 2012, forms the first ever continuous waking circuit of a nation.

The anniversary will be accompanied by a programme of key celebratory events, starting from March 1st, St David’s Day.

According to research by Ramblers UK, some 89 per cent of people find walking amongst nature improves health and mental wellbeing. Walking briskly for 30 minutes a day, five days a week, is one way of meeting medical experts’ recommendations for adult physical activity.

Read the full media pack here via Natural Resources Wales.

Visit Wales content via Telegraph Travel

Wales is lovely in autumn.

While everyone is back into work mode, I love escaping to Snowdonia [atop Y Eifel pictured above] and marvelling at the changing colours of the landscape.

This was the idea behind a series of editorial posts I worked on recently. It was sponsored content for Telegraph Travel and commissioned by Visit Wales.

The themes were adventure, days out and hidden gems. I also wrote a couple of more narrative-based posts about the heritage of Conwy Castle and walking trails.

You can read the full set of articles at Find Your Epic in Wales.

Or catch the individual posts as follows:

Alternative activities in Wales for the whole family

Ten of the best walks with rewards in Wales

 

Just published: Roald Dahl 100 events in Wales this autumn

Roald Dahl Map Final artwork A3_23may_v3

Roald Dahl is everywhere these days.

From school set texts to West End theatres, his stories have been translated into 58 languages and he has sold more than 200m books worldwide.

Many of his creations have already been adapted for stage and screen, notably Willy Wonka and Matilda, while Steven Spielberg’s new film of The Big Friendly Giant (BFG), staring Wolf Hall’s Mark Rylance in the title role, premieres on July 22.

But most people don’t realise that Dahl was Welsh — born just outside Cardiff to a Norwegian family on September 13, 1916. The day is now commemorated globally as Roald Dahl Day and Wales celebrates Dahl’s literary legacy this year with a programme of cultural events to mark the 100th birthday of the world’s favourite children’s author.

“I read Dahl for the first time with my two young children and Danny Champion of the World had me in floods of tears,” says Lleucu Siencyn, Chief Executive of Literature Wales, one of the festival organisers.

“Dahl’s appeal for me is to draw on his own personal experience to convey a real sense of humanity.”

I’ve come to Cardiff to follow in the footsteps of the great storyteller, exploring the formative places that fired the literary imagination of the young Dahl.

CARDIFF

Dahl’s Oslo-born father, Harald, had come to the Welsh capital to seek his fortune in the late 19th-century iron-making and coal-mining boom. The latter established a successful ship broking business, Andresen and Dahl, from a rented office on Bute Street in modern-day Cardiff Bay [see map, above].

My first stop is the Norwegian Church, established by the Norwegian Seamen’s Missions, where young Roald was christened in 1916. Today the building is known as the Norwegian Church Arts Centre and plays home to concerts and exhibitions. Check out the upstairs Roald Dahl gallery for changing exhibitions.

Round the corner is Roald Dahl Place, home to the Wales Millennium Centre, a key venue for events this summer. It is close to here that, at the age of nine, Dahl set out for boarding school in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. He would travel to and from school in on an old steamer ship from Cardiff Docks and suffered from terrible homesickness for his family in Wales.

Writing in Boy: Tales of Childhood, he says:

“On a clear day you can stand on the esplanade at Weston and look across the fifteen or so miles of water and see the coast of Wales lying pale and milky on the horizon.”

LLANDAFF

Dahl was born and spent his early childhood in the Llandaff district, a leafy community a couple of miles outside of Cardiff. He attended Llandaff Cathedral School, situated in the shadow of the towering Gothic cathedral, from the autumn of 1923 onwards.

It was here, aged just seen years old, that he developed his particular sense of mischief while admiring the Sherbet Suckers and Tonsil Ticklers at the sweet shop on the High Street.

Dahl recounts the legendary story of the Great Mouse Plot, a scheme to leave a dead mouse in a jar of Gobstoppers to frighten the misery-guts female proprietor. He writes:

“Mrs. Pratchett was a small, skinny old hag with a moustache on her upper lip and a mouth as sour as a green gooseberry.”

Today Llandaff remains a leafy enclave on Cardiff’s doorstep. After a stroll around the genteel village green, I join Dahl fans to admire a blue plaque, commissioned by the Llandaff Society, to mark the site of the former High Street sweetshop.

Somewhat underwhelming, the erstwhile sweet shop is now a Chinese take-away.

TENBY

Dahl would often spend childhood holidays in the stately Pembroke shire resort of Tenby. The family stayed in the same property, The Cabin, every year.

The Grade II-listed property remains in the ownership of the Dahl family with inspiring harbour views and it is available to rent as a holiday home to this day through Coastal Cottages. The Blue Plaque outside now commemorates the Dahl connection.

Dahl also holidayed in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire, and is known to have visited Dylan Thomas’s writing shed on the estuary.

The tiny shed may even have inspired him to build his own writing hut at his home in the Buckinghamshire village of Great Missenden, Bucks, where the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre today welcome visitors from across the would

More from roalddahl100.wales/whats-on.

  • Published in the Daily Express, July 2016.
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Copywriting: Your British Journey campaign for Marketing Manchester and Visit Wales

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Manchester and North Wales are two places where I always enjoy spending time.

So, when I was asked recently to do some copywriting work for a tourism project around the theme of ‘Two destinations. One British journey’ (catchy, if I do say so myself), then I was delighted to get involved.

This campaign was aimed at American visitors to the UK, so it was all ‘vacations’ not ‘holidays’.

The brief was to write copy to entice visitors this spring to explore both the essential and less-well-known sites, combining the two locations in a week-long itinerary.

The resulting microsite went live this week and you can read read my copy at Your British Journey. The work will also appear via American Airlines.

Emma Gordon, Marketing Manager at Marketing Manchester, who commissioned the work from me in collaboration with the Visit Wales office in New York, said of my contribution to the project:

“It was great to work with David. He listened to our needs, developed a perfect strapline and delivered inspiring copy for our marketing campaign.”

Do you have a copywriting project and need a professional writer with an eye for a story? Please get in touch.