Hiraeth

There is no exact translation for the Welsh word Hiraeth. I am using it in its sense of nostalgia in this memory of my childhood. For me this is an emotional landscape where belonging and memory converge for what was and can never quite be again. But although distinctly Welsh, hiraeth speaks to a universal human condition: the ache for simpler happier times. In my world Cresci’s ice cream shop featured large while for others it was the chapel. I once asked my mother why I hadn’t been christened. Her reply was that she probably forgot. The man and the dog have their backs turned to us as if inviting the viewer to join them in observing what once was an every day view. That is an every day bar Sunday when the chapel came into focus. No one would have dreamt of hanging washing on the line, or of scrubbing their front doorstep on the sabbath. But you could buy ice cream. See Auntie Alice here: carynnuttall.com/archive/auntie-alice