A Pembrokeshire frozen food company has vowed to remove the phrase "little England beyond Wales" from its ice cream packaging. The description had sparked a social media storm.
The backlash came after a Twitter user shared a picture of a tub of strawberry ice cream from the Pembroke Dock-based business Upton Farm. The tagline read: "Made for you in little England beyond Wales."
In a tweet with more than 700 likes and retweets El-Dafydd wrote: "Yes, hello, I would like to show the most disrespect to the local community I can with my ice cream... yes, that's perfect'... I was never that fussed on #uptonfarm product, now I nor any of my family will be buying their products. Ach y fi."
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One Twitter user, Welsh-Republic, commented: "Pembrokeshire is called 'Little England beyond Wales' by colonial incomers; it must give them a sense of security/comfort. The majority of the natives detest that phrase."
Another commenter, Toby Bradley-Watson, tweeted: "I am no fan of that wording too but it is all about this" — sharing a link to the Wikipedia page for 'Little England beyond Wales'. The entry claims an area of southern Pembrokeshire and southwestern Carmarthenshire has been "English in language and culture for many centuries despite its remoteness from England".
An Upton Farm spokesman said: "Upton Farm is a proudly Welsh business which has been supplying customers across Wales with our farm produced ice cream and other frozen goods for more than 30 years. Being part of a community business we recognise the importance of understanding and listening to our customers and as our use of ‘Little England’ on the packaging of one of our ice creams has unwittingly caused offence to some we will be removing that reference from any future packaging.
"We believed that was a heritage phrase that helped us show pride in being from the heart of Pembrokeshire and our intent was to celebrate our geography and place in the world. That pride will of course remain but with messaging that more clearly celebrates our Welshness. We are sorry to those who took offence."
The Little England beyond Wales moniker is rooted in the Norman conquerors who established an outpost of the English crown in Pembroke after defeating Rhys ap Tewdwr in 1093. South Pembrokeshire has retained some Norman place names seldom found in Wales.
But back in 2004 American historian Thomas D Brown wrote a book How Wales Created England and The English Language suggesting that the links could be older. He argued the Normans could have been drawn to south Pembrokeshire because English tribes had lived there for centuries.
When Germanic tribes settled in south-east England after the withdrawal of the Roman Empire in 410AD three main tribes — the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes — replaced the English kings with their own leaders. And although it is clear which part of Europe the Saxons and Jutes came from Brown wrote that there had never been a satisfactory place of origin for the tribe that gave its name to England — the Angles.
He believed they — and the English language — may have come from the village of Angle in Pembrokeshire. His theory, based largely on place name evidence, is that an ancient tribe established a stranglehold over the Irish Sea from bases in Angle and Anglesey. Under the theory they travelled east after 410 and established another seat of power in East Anglia bringing a new language with them. You can read more about Brown's theory here.
