Who would have thought that a T-shirt could cause so much trouble?
A quarter of a century ago, Wales was undergoing some massive changes that would alter people’s day to day lives. Well, if county administration and border redrawing is your kind of thing.
Before 1974, there were 13 counties in Wales, including your Brecknockshires, your Merionethshires and your Radnorshires.
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In the south-west and stretching into mid Wales, there was Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire, and Cardiganshire, only two of which remain today.
In 1974, following the introduction of the Local Government Act 1972, those 13 counties were tossed aside and replaced with eight new counties: Gwynedd, Clywd, Powys, West Glamorgan, Mid Glamorgan, South Glamorgan, Gwent, and Dyfed - the latter of which swallowed up Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire, and Cardiganshire.
However, presumably in a need to mix things up again, this set-up was effectively thrown out of the window in 1996, when 22 new (or in some cases historic) counties were drawn up, making the map of Wales look a lot different.
Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire, after a generation of living under the Dyfed umbrella, were back. And Cardiganshire too.......except, not quite. While the authority to reintroduce Cardiganshire to the world was granted on April 1, 1996, a vote was taken the very next day to change its name to Ceredigion, the name we know today.
No drama, then. After all, you come to expect something of a map tear-up in Wales every now and again, be it a council-based or parliamentary constituency-based thing (we might have more of that to look forward to soon, which you can read more on here ).
There was some drama in Cardigan, however, as some of the locals feared the ancient town was being taken off the map, as it were. It was a sore subject made more sore by the creation of a snazzy T-shirt with a catchy logo.
‘You won’t need a Cardigan in Ceredigion’ was emblazoned across the front and back of these T-shirts, in Welsh and English, a design thought up and signed off by someone at Ceredigion Museum, and presumably worn by dozens of people not from Cardigan.
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The issue was highlighted in a recent episode of Tudur’s TV Flashback on BBC Wales. In it, a news report from the time told the story.
“This T-shirt has caused uproar in the town of Cardigan," the report stated.
"The slogan has not pleased some. Many people in Cardigan were in favour of using Cardiganshire as the name of the new county council. To them, playing on the name ‘Cardigan’ is pouring salt on the wound.”
One man interviewed in the piece even suggested that some councillors signed off on the controversial name change in order to “create fear”. However, the T-shirts were made by the county museum without the approval of councillors at the freshly formed Ceredigion Council and, according to the news report at the time, staff at the museum thought the design was innocent enough and not something that would cause offence.
That didn’t stop them being pulled from shelves across the county to appease those that were angry at a perceived dig at both their town and the historical map of Wales.
Shoppers in Cardigan at the time didn’t seem that perturbed by the issue, however, perhaps a sign that the ‘furore’ created by the shirts’ creation and subsequent pulping was nothing more than heated administrative jostling between councillors.
As one shopper on High Street in Cardigan said when presented with the T-shirt: “It’s a bit corny, but it’s OK.” When asked if she would buy one, she said: “No, I’m from Pembrokeshire.”
So there we have it, a drama in west Wales caused by a play on words that was printed on a piece of clothing. Twenty-five years on, if anyone still has one of those garments, who knows, they could be a collectors’ item worth a fortune by now, so it’s always worth a look in the attic.
As for the row itself over the renaming of one of Wales’ most historic and biggest counties, it was perhaps nothing more than a storm in a teacup, or should that be a storm in a T-shirt.
What do you think about this story? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
