My husband’s father is Welsh.
This father-in-law of mine is the son of a man who played football for Newport.
F-i-L is Welsh Rugby through and through. And golf (?)
His son (my husband) had trials for Bristol as a potential professional footballer but got totally totalled by his own father.
To this day my boys’ grandad says football is a game for Big Girl’s Blouses. Real Men play Rugby.
Youngest Sis-in-law married an English Rugby fan who – in his wedding speech – pointed out that his family name was spelt the ENGLISH way, not the Welsh way. It doesn’t have the Welsh E in it.
Ooooh.
Ahem. With a 36% Scot, 11% English, 0% Welsh girl in the family, things get even more complicated because Scotland doesn’t exist in their world!
Yesterday France TROUNCED England on the rugby pitch. A HUGE embarrassment that the Welsh revelled in.
It’s called The Auld Alliance. France and Scotland versus England and sod the Welsh.
Louis XIII of France and the Valois before him had Scots Guards as Personal Security. I stole a name from the original roll of Scots Guards in 17th century France and made him a character in my novel.
These “guards” had to be over 6ft tall and…erm…Scottish by gene.
Robbie (the name of Lewis in the Morse books!!) was a kind of triple agent in my fictional world :o)
Then we have, thrown in the mix, the real life Alasdair MacColla, same timeline, a 6ft 7″ Gaelic Highland Warrior, fighting with or against Montrose who was fighting with or against Charles I Stuart.
Hey. It all makes sense to me.