Narberth Museum's Welsh women history project inspires poets

Annie Webb appeared in Narberth Petty Sessional Court for the 14th time on the charge of "allowing a mule to stray"

A history project celebrating the lives of women in west Wales has inspired a group of amateur poets.

More than 60 women have been researched and profiled thanks to Narberth Museum's Women of West Wales project, which is available to view online.

The museum's Emma Baines said the idea came after some Tenby school pupils pointed out there was a lack of information on local women.

A series of video poems have now been created, inspired by the project.

Ms Baines said the school pupils helped with selecting the women who would become the subject of the exhibition.

"They selected six women and created Facebook-style profiles of the women and made an exhibition of them," she explained.

During World War One, Betty Lloyd Davies worked at a munitions factory in Pembrey, but soon returned to her calling in the arts

The project has been funded by Arwain Sir Benfro Leader Project and the Heritage Lottery Fund, with contributions from local history groups and individual researchers.

More recently the project has inspired the local history group in Llangwm to set up a poetry workshop, which has resulted in the production of the series of video poems being showcased at the Llangwm Literary Festival on Saturday.

"Everybody wrote poems either about remarkable women or about their relatives, who of course are also remarkable but not necessarily known about by other people," said Llangwm writer and psychologist Philippa Davies.

"Now, everybody has also created a video poem, whether it's just a series of pictures, or something more experimental and modern. We've been amazed by how many people took part."

The video poetry will be exhibited in Llangwm Literary Festival on Saturday

Ms Baines said she was interested to see where the project goes next.

"Over the next two years we'll have more talks and workshops and school activities, and we're extending out geographically to talk about women from the other areas like Carmarthenshire," she added.

"But we're open to wherever it takes us now. That's part of the excitement and thrill of doing it, to see where these woman can take us."

The project has been awarded funding to continue for the next three years.