I've already referred to that poet from the sixth century, Aneirin. His masterpiece, 'Y Gododdin', is a literary record of the forces of the Gododdin who died in a battle in the Old North, an area near Catterick, or Catraeth, to give its Brythonic name. It's impossible to overemphasise the literary and historic significance of this extraordinary poem, because it’s among the oldest of its type in Europe—and, in many ways, it was only by accident that it survived. In one exceptional line, Aneirin says that there was silence after the battle—'tawelwch fu'. There is very little historical information about the people of Gododdin or the battle that destroyed them. History is silent about them. This only goes to prove how important it is that we tell those tales that have survived.

We cannot be too prescriptive and we must provide space for teachers and schools to decide on the best way to dovetail local history into their lessons. There are many ways of teaching history. It doesn't necessarily have to be chronological. One could argue that far too much history puts too much emphasis on the acts of kings and queens whilst neglecting the experiences of ordinary people, of local riots and uprisings and the change in the way that ordinary people saw themselves and their importance within society—such as the Chartists, the Rebecca rioters and Dic Penderyn. If the curriculum is too ambiguous about the importance of Welsh history, there's a danger that it will be peripheral or will be a footnote to global history.