Would holiday help save St David's Day? (From Western Telegraph)

Would holiday help save St David's Day?

As children dressed uyp for St David's Day, the county has declared a public holiday may save St David's Day from fading from the public consciousness in Pembrokeshire.

This was the resounding opinion of a cross-section of Welsh people across the county.

Despite their differing ages and backgrounds all agreed they would like to preserve their Welsh heritage and would oppose the Chancellor of the Exchequer's plan of having a day to celebrate being British. In his first speech of 2006 Gordon Brown suggested that a day be put aside to celebrate the cultural diversity of Britain.

Daniel Birch, aged 16, of Spittal, said: "We should make more of St David's Day and a public holiday would encourage people to do that, at the moment it's only really schools which do anything."

Evelyn MacCallum, 66, of Pembroke Dock, does celebrate St David's Day but feels this is a rarity in the modern day.

She said: "If schools were to stop celebrating St David's Day the tradition would die out very quickly and it would be a great shame to lose this link to Welsh history."

The general feeling was that it would be a shame if St David's Day lost all meaning as is the case for many with St George's Day in England, but most confessed it was not celebrated at home.

Les King,of Haverfordwest, said that it would be good if the day was marked with some kind of celebrations similar to St Patrick's Day in Ireland where every self-respecting Irish man will be guzzling Guinness and wearing green.