MANAGER BANS WELSH

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30779, 17 June 1965, Page 13

MANAGER BANS WELSH

(Special Crspdt. N.Z P.A.) LONDON, June 16. Eight workers at a light engineering factory in North Wales have had to choose between speaking English or going back on the dole. They were asked by the management to sign an undertaking not to speak Welsh at

The factory was opened in February by a Midlands firm manufacturing precision tools, in a disused school at Blaenau Ffestiniog, one of the places where most people still speak Welsh.

Mr W. Brewer-Spinks, the technical director, said that the 10 men at the factory, with the exception of two absentees, had signed an undertaking not to speak Welsh. This was after he had circulated a notice reading: “I have a genuine regret

that 1 do not speak Welsh. This is an omission which I propose to repair as quickly as possible. “In the meantime, within the bounds of these premises. English will be spoken at all times. Any exception will result in instant dismissal.” Mr Brewer-Spinks said: “It is no use my giving instructions to a man who thinks in Welsh and who has to translate into a language which has no engineering terms equivalent to English.”