Dyfed Elis-Gruffydd

I have just caught up with the news that Dr Dyfed Elis-Gruffydd died on October 16th in Bronglais Hospital in Aberystwyth after a long struggle with Vascular Dementia. We had lost touch over the past few months as his his symptoms became increasingly severe -- and our recent contacts were via his wife Sian. I'm very saddened by his passing.

Dyfed studied Geology and Geomorphology at University College London.  His doctoral thesis was on the glacial history of the Brecon Beacons and Carmarthen Fans, and he was more or less a contemporary of mine.   We shared a lot of our research information and had many intense discussions about our conclusions -- which were very similar.  He lectured in Geology and Geography at the City of London Polytechnic and also more recently at Trinity College, Carmarthen. He was a passionate Welshman, and a fierce advocate of using Welsh in an academic context.  He was Head of the Publications Department for the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority, and then Editor and Publishing Director of Gomer Press, where he expanded the Welsh language publication programme of volumes relating to geology, geography and the landscape.  For six years he was a member of the Executive Committee of the Countryside Council for Wales. He loved exploring Wales, leading walking tours, addressing Welsh societies and walking the glacial and volcanic landscapes of north-west Europe. He was the chairman of the Edward Llwyd Society, which organises walking trips every Saturday in different parts of Wales.

He was the author of Wales: 100 Remarkable Vistas (Y Lolfa, 2017), the original Welsh-language version of which reached the 2014 Wales Book of the Year Creative Non-Fiction shortlist, Rocks of Wales (Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, 2019) and Y Preselau - Gwlad Hud a Lledrith (Gomer, 2017). He also worked on the Gwyddoniadur Cymru (University of Wales Press, 2008) and Geiriadur Cymraeg Gomer (Gomer, 2016).

He was a very good geologist, and I greatly valued his advice on a number of occasions with regard to Pembrokeshire locations -- and especially on the vexed question of the bluestones.  On that we saw eye to eye, and like me he was appalled by the elaborate narrative developed by the archaeologists over the past decade or so.  He supported the glacial transport hypothesis, and promoted it in his book on Preseli and in the Welsh-language media including S4C.  When I discovered that Dyfed had been to the excavations at Rhosyfelin and had been less than impressed by the interpretations being placed on natural features, he and I got together with geologist John Downes to investigate and to write two articles which were peer reviewed and published in 2015.  (John had also visited the site and had failed to see any sign there of anything man-made.......)  We three brought different skills to the task,  and after assorted revisions (some suggested by referees and some of our own making) we were happy with what was published.........

Anyway, I am thankful to have known Dyfed and to have worked with him.  I remember with pleasure his infectious sense of humour, his very loud laugh and the depth of his knowledge in the fields of glacial geomorphology and geology.

Dyfed and John during one of our visits to Rhosyfelin