We'll Keep a Welcome - Welsh Patriotic Song

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"We'll Keep a Welcome" is a Welsh Patriotic song that was song composed by Mai Jones with lyrics by Lyn Joshua and Jimmy Harper in 1940. It was introduced in the BBC radio variety show Welsh Rarebit.

Jones joined the BBC in Cardiff as a radio producer of light entertainment. In this position, she devised Welsh Rarebit, a variety show originally broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme and intended for Welsh people serving in the armed forces during the Second World War. "We'll Keep a Welcome", with music credited to Jones and words by Lyn Joshua and Jimmy Harper, was written to close each edition. The song's lyric was intended to reflect the hiraeth those away from home would be experiencing. It was first performed on the programme on 29 February 1940 by the BBC's resident 25-strong male voice choir, the Lyrian Singers. After the war, Welsh Rarebit moved to the BBC Light Programme where it was the most popular show in 1949. By then, "We'll Keep a Welcome" had become "a British as well as a Welsh favourite", according to the Western Mail. By the 1950s, the song was sometimes referred to as "Wales' second national anthem".

Performed by Bryn Terfel and the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera.

Images:

'On the Hills above Betws-y-Coed' by Benjamin Williams Leader.

'Welsh Landscape, Llyn Nant-y-Clif, North Wales'
by Charles Leslie.

5th Battalion, Welsh Guards, Guards Armoured Division, moving up to the front line, Normandy, 17 June 1944.