There was always my dear cousin Bobi.
Memories of our early times together are filled with fun playing Cowboys and Indians, or sometimes less fun for him when I once locked him in the cellar for a prank and went out to play for ages, forgetting all about him!
His all-round brilliance manifested itself very quickly, but he was without a grain of snobbery and was earthed in the werin, the common folk of Wales.
Welsh language
When he passed the ‘Scholarship’ at the age of 11 he went to Cathays School, where he speedily had to make a little decision that changed his whole life, as he had to choose what languages he was to take. The Welsh master, superintending the process, coveted this bright boy. Bobi was at sea and the option of Welsh was put to him by this advocate: the boy was persuaded to learn the Welsh language and he loved it from the start.
In time he became the most prodigious Welsh scholar that Wales has ever known, professor of Welsh at Aberystwyth University and the author of over 100 books in the Welsh language, the most that anyone has ever written in our precious ancient Celtic language. Right to the end of his life, he was writing every day, but in those final autumn months of 2017 he returned to his first love, writing poetry.
Bobi went to Cardiff University and got his First-class Honours degree. Moving to Dublin, he gained an MA. He married Beti and then began his career, briefly teaching Welsh in two schools.
Path to Christ
This was a period when he had to come to some commitment to Christianity, or not. Bobi had been raised in a Baptist Church in Cardiff, but his immersion in the Welsh language resulted in his regular attendance at the Welsh language Congregationalist Church in Cardiff. There he heard a social gospel and meandered under that influence throughout his teenage years and during his time at Cardiff University. He was aware of evangelical Christianity through people like Derek Swann, and the witness of the Christian Union at the university, but held its emphases in some suspicion.
During his time in Llanidloes he attended China Street Calvinistic Methodist church and there, quite suddenly, at the Lord’s Supper one Sunday night, he received assurance of his interest in the Saviour’s blood. He was self-consciously a Christian, a disciple of Jesus Christ. However, over the few years ahead, there was no pulpit teaching sound theology nearby. He looked into the Roman Catholic view of the Scriptures. After being introduced to Van Til, and Dooyeweerd, Vollenhoven, Rookmaaker and Schaeffer, he could not escape from their influence.
Aberystwyth University
In 1958 Bobi moved to Aberystwyth, joining the Welsh department at the university. In 1980 he was appointed the Professor of Welsh Language and Literature. I looked with awe at the flow of books that came from him – novels, short stories, children’s books, poems and books of literary criticism.
He wrote monthly columns in the prestigious Welsh journal The Barn and regularly in the Welsh language version of The Evangelical Magazine of Wales. His non-creative work was published under his given name, Robert Maynard Jones, and his children’s books under a pseudonym. He will live on in hymn books and congregational singing by his moving translations of a number of classic Welsh hymns.
Stewardess saved his life
He taught the Prince of Wales in the time coming up to his investiture. In 1968 a ‘Poetry Olympics’ conference in Mexico City was organised to coincide with the Olympic Games, and Bobi was chosen to represent Wales. On the plane he had something like a fairly severe heart attack and was at death’s door for some time. One of the stewardesses on the plane had trained as a nurse, and through her his life was saved.
Bobi suffered with a spinal complaint for the last 20 years of his life. He was unable to sit. In the last month a cancer spread. He recovered from one major operation, and two weeks before his death he was in church. At his funeral the mourners were invited to give gifts to the work of the Welsh Christian Unions of the Colleges of Wales – it was by his support and instigation that a separate Welsh language Christian Union was started with weekly meetings.
Nothing about himself
His funeral was understated, just like himself: two hymns, a reading, a prayer and a brief sermon. At his graveside, the family sang a Welsh hymn [We thank you Almighty God for the holy gospel. Hallelujah. Amen]. He was weary of the funerals of academics from the university, when all their achievements were solemnly read out by a senior member of staff. So Bobi insisted that the whole service be in Welsh ‘without a single word of English’ and that not a word about him be said.
Here is his translation of William Williams’ hymn, Iesu, Iesu, r’wyt ti’n ddigon.
Jesus, Jesus, all-sufficient,
Beyond telling is Thy worth;
In Thy Name lie greater treasures
Than the richest found on earth.
Such abundance
Is my portion with my God.
In Thy gracious face there’s beauty
Far surpassing everything
Found in all the earth’s great wonders
Mortal eye hath never seen.
Rose of Sharon,
Thou Thyself art heaven’s delight.
