TY - CONF

T1 - From Modern to Extreme: Dams and Reservoirs in Emlyn Williams’ The Last Days of Dolwyn (1949) and Cynan Jones’ Stillicide (2018)

AU - Webb, Andrew

PY - 2024/5/23

Y1 - 2024/5/23

N2 - This paper looks at two Welsh texts – the film The Last Days of Dolwyn (directed by Emlyn Williams, 1949) and the radio play / novella Stillicide (Cynan Jones, 2018) - through the contemporary critical terms ‘modern water’ and ‘extreme water’. The latter, coined by geographer Jamie Linton, indicates the process which ‘abstracts all waters from the social, historical and local conditions in which they are produced and reduces them to a common abstract and timeless identity’, while the former, coined by Sherae Deckard, defines ‘the technical intensification of capital-intensive, high-risk modes of extraction and production of potable water, including […] megaprojects reengineering riparian systems through large-scale dams, river diversions and water transfer projects’. I suggest that the idea of ‘modern water’ is particularly relevant to The Last Days of Dolwyn, which depicts the drowning of a Welsh village to make way for a reservoir to supply an industrial area of England. It is based on the 1880s drowning of the village of Llanwddyn to create the Efyrnwy reservoir which supplies water for Liverpool, and it foreshadows the expansion of the Elan Valley reservoirs in 1952 to provide water for Birmingham, and the drowning of the Welsh village of Capel Celyn from 1957 to make way for the Tryweryn reservoir, also providing water for Liverpool. I argue that, through its depiction of ‘waters’ (especially local wells and rivers), their sounds and the parts they play in the lives of an idealised gwerin, Williams’ film captures something of the historical significance and meaning of Welsh ‘waters’, and the apocalyptic shift to ‘water‘ as an abstract, impersonal resource (symbolised in the memorial stone to the village, the dam, and the reservoir), to be systematically extracted and transported for profit elsewhere. In the contemporary text Stillicide, politicians in a future London suffering extreme water shortages have developed two megaprojects to address its supply issues: the construction of enormous dams and reservoirs in a barely-disguised Wales from which water is transported to the capital on armed water trains, and the large-scale displacement of communities in London to make way for an Ice Dock, built to house an iceberg being towed down from the Arctic. I argue that Stillicide offers us a dystopian warning of ways in which ‘extreme water’ may reshape our lives in the future, before drawing out the text’s allusions to Tryweryn. I conclude by briefly suggesting some parallels to the current project of privatised water companies, already underway, to move water from Efyrnwy in north Wales to London: the so-called ‘Severn to Thames Water Transfer Project’.

AB - This paper looks at two Welsh texts – the film The Last Days of Dolwyn (directed by Emlyn Williams, 1949) and the radio play / novella Stillicide (Cynan Jones, 2018) - through the contemporary critical terms ‘modern water’ and ‘extreme water’. The latter, coined by geographer Jamie Linton, indicates the process which ‘abstracts all waters from the social, historical and local conditions in which they are produced and reduces them to a common abstract and timeless identity’, while the former, coined by Sherae Deckard, defines ‘the technical intensification of capital-intensive, high-risk modes of extraction and production of potable water, including […] megaprojects reengineering riparian systems through large-scale dams, river diversions and water transfer projects’. I suggest that the idea of ‘modern water’ is particularly relevant to The Last Days of Dolwyn, which depicts the drowning of a Welsh village to make way for a reservoir to supply an industrial area of England. It is based on the 1880s drowning of the village of Llanwddyn to create the Efyrnwy reservoir which supplies water for Liverpool, and it foreshadows the expansion of the Elan Valley reservoirs in 1952 to provide water for Birmingham, and the drowning of the Welsh village of Capel Celyn from 1957 to make way for the Tryweryn reservoir, also providing water for Liverpool. I argue that, through its depiction of ‘waters’ (especially local wells and rivers), their sounds and the parts they play in the lives of an idealised gwerin, Williams’ film captures something of the historical significance and meaning of Welsh ‘waters’, and the apocalyptic shift to ‘water‘ as an abstract, impersonal resource (symbolised in the memorial stone to the village, the dam, and the reservoir), to be systematically extracted and transported for profit elsewhere. In the contemporary text Stillicide, politicians in a future London suffering extreme water shortages have developed two megaprojects to address its supply issues: the construction of enormous dams and reservoirs in a barely-disguised Wales from which water is transported to the capital on armed water trains, and the large-scale displacement of communities in London to make way for an Ice Dock, built to house an iceberg being towed down from the Arctic. I argue that Stillicide offers us a dystopian warning of ways in which ‘extreme water’ may reshape our lives in the future, before drawing out the text’s allusions to Tryweryn. I conclude by briefly suggesting some parallels to the current project of privatised water companies, already underway, to move water from Efyrnwy in north Wales to London: the so-called ‘Severn to Thames Water Transfer Project’.

M3 - Paper

T2 - The Making of Inland Reservoirs in Global, Comparative and Multidisciplinary Perspectives: An Interdisciplinary conference

Y2 - 22 May 2024 through 24 May 2024

ER -