Well, the past informs the future. Many of the myths and legends that have shaped the heritage and culture of Wales refer back to the common past of the Ancient Britons who lived across Britain, named 'Wælisc', or 'Welsh' or 'foreigner' by the invader, but who instead referred to each other as fellow countrymen and women, as 'Cymry'. We sometimes hear about the Roman era, the conquest of Isle of Druids, Caernarfon's Segontium Roman fort, and, more recently, the Roman villas discovered in a settlement on the western shores of modern-day Wales. We hear about the Norman conquest of Wales and the castles they refurbished or built. We need to hear more about that dark bit of history in between, to which so much wonderful heritage relates and where the true origins of the Arthurian legends lie.

It is said that, for a brief moment in time, the Romano-Britons of the west, from Strathclyde to Cornwall and Brittany, stood united against the invader who dared to refer to them as 'foreigners' in their own lands. To reclaim the lost lands and reunite the tribes of Britain was their legacy. The Norman Conquest of Ireland and Britain was driven by the legends of Brutus and Arthur, as rewritten by Geoffrey of Monmouth for his Norman masters. In the winter of 1069-70, 100,000 Britons died in the attempted genocide in northern England by the Normans—the harrying of the north—either from the immediate slaughter and carnage or from the starvation that followed. And yet no memorial stands to mark this terrible loss of life. The rebellions in 1070 by Hereward the Wake in England, in 1294 by Madog ap Llywelyn in Wales, and in 1297 by William Wallace in Scotland were all rebellions by Britons against Norman rule.

Robert the Bruce's father and uncle fought for Norman King Edward I, the 'hammer of the Scots' in the 1282-84 conquest of Wales, owing military service for their English lands. Robert himself is thought to have spent some time at Edward's court during this period and may himself have been involved. In the service of a knight from Flintshire, Sir Gregory Sais, Owain Glyndŵr and his brother Tudur spent a period guarding Berwick-upon-Tweed on the Anglo-Scottish border, and in 1385, Owain and three other family members joined the army that the last Norman king, Richard II, led against Scotland. Having dutifully served this last Plantagenet king, he then plotted with the Percys and the Mortimers to divide the kingdom into three.

Henry VII came from an old established Anglesey family, which claimed descent from Cadwaladr, who was, in legend, the last ancient British king. He was descended through the paternal line from Ednyfed Fychan, the seneschal or steward of Gwynedd, and through the seneschal's wife from Rhys ap Tewdwr, the king of Deheubarth in south Wales. To the bards of Wales, Henry was a candidate for y mab darogan—the son of prophecy—who would free the Welsh from oppression. As such, when he ascended to the throne, he reunited the Romano-Britons in the west with their fellow countrymen and countrywomen—y Cymry in the lost lands to the east.

Henry VII's daughter Margaret married into the Scottish royal family. Her direct descendant was James VI of Scotland, who succeeded Elizabeth I on the throne of England in 1603 and therefore became King James I of a United Kingdom, uniting Scotland with the rest of the UK through inheritance not conquest, the political and economic union passed by the Parliaments of England and Scotland 104 years later. Elizabeth II is a direct descendant of Henry VII via his daughter Margaret, the older sister of Henry VIII.

Flooding of the north Wales village of Capel Celyn in 1965 to create a reservoir to provide water to Liverpool echoed events in Lancashire a century earlier when the chain of Rivington reservoirs were constructed to supply water to Liverpool, with the flooding of many dwellings in local communities and mill and farm land, and, yes, protests in Liverpool.

The economic causes and social impact of modern industrial history are also border blind. After 1970, coal mining practically disappeared in north and south Wales, as well as Northumberland and Durham, Yorkshire, the Scottish central belt, Lancashire, Cumbria, the east and west midlands and Kent. Steelwork closures in 1980 involved Shotton, Consett and Corby. Past myths and present truths such as these combine to provide the foundational legends of our land. The history of Wales and the history of the Britons are therefore intertwined and inseparable, and should be taught to every school pupil in Wales on this basis.