South Wales Valleys - Culture

Culture

This section requires expansion.
This section does not cite any references or sources.

The South Wales Valleys became a symbol of the whole of Wales for many foreign people and people in the rest of the United Kingdom. The valleys do, however, contain a large proportion of the Welsh population and remain an important centre of Welsh culture, despite the growing dominance of Cardiff. The UK parliament's first Labour Party MP, Keir Hardie was elected from the area and the Valleys remain a stronghold of Labour Party power. Rugby union is very popular and pitches can be seen along the valley floors. Football is also popular in the valleys, as in the rest of the UK. The area was overwhelmingly Welsh-speaking at the end of the nineteenth century, but today, English is most commonly the everyday language.

The geographical shape of the valleys have their effect on culture. Many roads stretch along valleys connecting the different settlements in the valley. Consequently the different towns in a valley are more closely associated with each other than they are with towns in the neighbouring valley, even when the towns in the neighbouring valley are closer on the map. The Heads of the Valleys road, the A465 road, is significant due to its connection of valleys with each other, and there are hopes that the upgrading of this road to dual carriageway will improve the economic performance of the region as the road becomes the main thoroughfare to South West Wales from the West Midlands.

Read more about this topic:  South Wales Valleys

Famous quotes containing the word culture:

    Children became an obsessive theme in Victorian culture at the same time that they were being exploited as never before. As the horrors of life multiplied for some children, the image of childhood was increasingly exalted. Children became the last symbols of purity in a world which was seen as increasingly ugly.
    C. John Sommerville (20th century)

    Like every other good thing in this world, leisure and culture have to be paid for. Fortunately, however, it is not the leisured and the cultured who have to pay.
    Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)

    When we want culture more than potatoes, and illumination more than sugar-plums, then the great resources of a world are taxed and drawn out, and the result, or staple production, is, not slaves, nor operatives, but men,—those rare fruits called heroes, saints, poets, philosophers, and redeemers.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)