Wales really is a country of legends, but, far too often, they are overlooked. I’ve mentioned in here a couple of times Billy Boston, the Tiger bay legend, but nothing’s been done about it. Hopefully that can change. Before each sporting international, we will sing ‘Gwlad beirdd a chantorion, enwogion o fri’, and it's clear that Wales is a land of poets, singers and famous people of renown—that's the English translation. But when you walk around our capital city, you're more likely to see streets named after Normans who conquered us rather than the Welsh people who tried to set us free. If you head out on 25 January, Santes Dwynwen, if you’re all going out, you're more likely to come across haggis and Burns Night than Santes Dwynwen, our Welsh patron saint of friendship and love. And, you know, it's the same on St David's Day, because I remember, in 2011, we created on Cardiff council the St David’s Day Festival, and we couldn't get Brains, of all people, to support the festival, but yet they supported St Patrick's Day—odd.

So, you know, while selling Wales and our culture abroad is to be celebrated, we need to sell, also, our culture to our own people in Wales. Who knows about Sycharth, the court of Owain Glyndŵr and the centre of cultural life back then? It could be a great tourist attraction, but it's a vacant hill with a battered old sign barely stating its significance. For me, that sums up Wales. You know, how many people here know of Dafydd ap Gwilym? It took an American to tell me who he was some years back—a great, internationally renowned writer in the fourteenth century; one of Europe's greatest writers. Yet everybody knows who Shakespeare was. Now, we have all these cultural icons unused.

The first-ever rail passenger journey took place from Merthyr ironworks to Abercynon in 1804, and what's there now? Just a path and a battered, again, dirty old sign and a plaque. In most countries in the world, you'd have a themed train ride up there and some kind of visitor centre celebrating the history of Wales and the industrial revolution. We have a country and culture that we're proud of, but we need to sell it. And if we sold it, people would buy it. The First Minister takes trips to America, but I don't see many results, because Hollywood has fallen in love with Ireland and with Scotland, with major films celebrating their legends, but, you know, as their Celtic cousin, we remain unknown. Even our rugby legend, Gareth Thomas, who inspired so many people when he came out, well, in the film about him, the character’s Irish, because they felt that being Welsh wasn't internationally known enough to justify a character.

I welcome the film initiative about King Arthur—great, great. But what about a film about the father of Welsh democracy in Owain Glyndŵr? Global star Matthew Rees has already announced that he’s determined to make the Welsh equivalent of ‘Braveheart’. Now, would the Welsh Government support such a project? Minister, why not host an event, maybe on St David's Day in 2017, and invite the brightest and the best scriptwriters and actors to Cardiff, to Wales, to talk about taking this project forward? Because I think a film about Owain Glyndŵr could do for Wales exactly what ‘Braveheart’ did for Scotland. And in the book ‘Tourism in Scotland’, it showed that, in 1997, 39 per cent of visitors to Stirling said that ‘Braveheart’ had influenced their decision, and 19 per cent said it was the reason for visiting. So, you know, there's a lot of good stuff in there, and I hope the campaign is a success and it brings much-needed jobs to Wales, because Wales does need to celebrate its legends, so I welcome your initiative. But I think it's important as well not to do it just for one year; it's time to put pride back into Wales from this day forward and every day after this, and it's time to throw off the stifling cloak of colonialism. Diolch.