Amy Parry-Williams

Amy Parry-Williams (1910–1988) was a Welsh singer and writer with a special interest in Welsh folk traditions. An active broadcaster, she was an early director of the Welsh television company HTV.

Biography

Born on 18 December 1910 in Pontyberem, Carmarthenshire, Parry-Williams was the eldest child of Lewis Thomas and Mary Emiah. She attended Llanelli Girls' Grammar School before entering the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, where she graduated in Welsh (1932). In 1942, she married her professor, T. H. Parry-Williams.

From an early age, together with her brother Madoc and her sister Mary, she competed successfully in the Carmarthenshire eisteddfodau, singing penillion lyrics written by her father. She also sang at university, taking the lead role in the opera Rhosyn y Coleg. Thanks to her interest in Welsh folk music, she published two articles on Welsh folk songs. The folk songs she recorded in the late 1940s for the Welsh Recorded Music Society were among the earliest reviewed by the Gramophone magazine. She sang Welsh-language songs at the Llangollen Eisteddfod and at the Albert Hall while acting as an adjudicator at the National Eisteddfod. Together with her husband, she wrote the words "Beth yw'r haf i mi?" to an 18th-century harp tune.

In addition to her short story Henrietta (1938), she published a farce Tŷ ar y rhos (1944) as well as three collections: Deg o storïau (1950), Y plât piwtar a storïau eraill (1962), and Dyddiadur Jane Parry (1965). As a broadcaster, she sang songs for children and presented television programmes on the folk tradition. She was an early director of the HTV commercial television company.

Amy Parry-Williams died on 28 January 1988 in Aberstwyth. Established in 1990 in Parry-Williams's memory as a former president of the Welsh Folk Song Society, the Amy Parry-Williams Memorial Lectures have been delivered annually in Welsh at the National Eisteddfod.