JOHN Ffos Davies is not a well recognized name in Wales. Not yet, anyway.

But the villagers of Cribyn, Ceredigion, are confident that’s just about to change.

A 100 years since he was headmaster of the village school, the enterprise to co-operatively buy Ysgol Cribyn and develop it as a centre of local education will be staging a festival in Ffos Davies’ honour on Saturday,26 October.

“Soon after he arrived here he recognized the songs the older generation were singing to be a treasure trove already lost to much of rural Wales,” said Euros Lewis, one of the leadership team.

“So he set about ‘recording’ them using his well-tuned ears, school copy books and Sol-Fa notation.

“By today, this heroic action is recognized as having saved a great measure of Wales’ folk heritage from being lost for ever.”

Those songs include Twll Bach y Clo and Y March Glas – two of the best known within the Welsh folk canon.

“Our hope is that, along with Ysgol Cribyn, the festival will grow in strength and influence from year to yearm,”’ added Euros.

In Ffos Davies’ manuscripts, which are kept at the National Museum of Wales, St Fagans, it can be seen that he noted his songs in sol-fa and they were carefully classified according to their function (e.g. love songs, work songs, ballads etc.).

His collection of native songs was published under the title Forty Welsh Traditional Tunes in 1929 by the Ceredigion Antiquities Association at the request of David Thomas, Her Majesty's Inspector, who realized the value of what Ffos Davies had achieved.

The one-day inaugural event will be in two halves.

The afternoon session will welcome nursery and junior school pupils to hear local stories and learn to sing the locally collected songs, accomapnied by Folk singer Owen Shiers.

The evening will be a whole-family event in the shape of a free-form, stage-less, Noson Lawen featuring an array of folk singers and instrumentalist, including Cleif Harpwood, Ceri Rhys Matthews, Julie Murphy, Ifan Gruffydd, Dafydd Jones, Mali Lewis, Ianto Jones, Robyn Tomos, Carys Hâf, Iwan Coedfardre and Iwan Tyglyn.

Harpwood said: “It’s about time we gave Ffos Davies the recognition he deserves, and there’s no better way of doing that than by making his songs sing again!”

Gŵyl Ffos Davies - The Ffos Davies Festival, children’s local story and folk singing session, 2pm -4pm; the Noson Lawen, 7.30pm, with evening bar service. Admission is £5/£2 on the door.