A TIMELY new TV show will investigate the lesser known details of the ‘Black Chair’ bard.

A century after the death of Hedd Wyn, the poet from Trawsfynydd who grew to become one of Wales’ greatest icons, the National Poet of Wales Ifor ap Glyn traces his fascinating life story in a special documentary Hedd Wyn: Canrif o Gofio.

The programme will be broadcast on S4C on Wednesday, 6 September, 100 years to the day that the poet won the chair for his poem Arwr (translation: Hero), at the 1917 Birkenhead National Eisteddfod.

Ifor ap Glyn will follow in the footsteps of Hedd Wyn from Trawsfynydd to Litherland near Liverpool, where he was trained for the army; then to Fléchin in France from where he sent his poem to the Eisteddfod; and to the Ieper area in Belgium where he died on the battlefield.

“The poet’s history is now a very familiar one to the Welsh people,” said Ifor, “but in this programme we will bring some less known facts and less familiar locations to the audience’s attention, for example the house at Abercynon where Hedd Wyn was a lodger while he worked at a local colliery and York Hall in Liverpool, where Welsh soldiers from the Litherland camp would be entertained by the Welsh people of the city.”

Over the past century, Hedd Wyn has become a symbol for a whole generation of lost talent, but the programme will also try to identify the man behind the legend.

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