The Autograph Collection

500 signatures collected from the Eisteddfod visitors books, have been painstakingly recorded in exquisite embroidery on two large linen cloths. Now framed, they hang on display in the Eisteddfod office. Started in 1954 by Mrs. Magda Markovits and Mrs. J. Campbell Preston and continued up to and including the 49th Eisteddfod by Mrs. Mary Baxter, Mrs. Joan Jones and Mrs. Gwen Manuel these cloths make fascinating reading.
The Royal signatures of Elizabeth R, Charles and Diana, Anne and Margaret are prominent, as is Luciano Pavarotti, but frequently the eye stops at well known names such as: Anthony Eden, Edward Heath, Harold Wilson …. Joan Sutherland, Tito Gobbi, Mstislav Rostropovitch. Stuart Burrows, Geraint Evans, Julian Lloyd Webber, Evelyn Glennie and …. the list is endless.

Placido Domingo – A guest artist in the Thursday Evening Concert, 11 July 1968.

In 1968 the backstage facilities, to put it kindly, were rather crude. Placido Domingo remembers with a smile of disbelief the time when, waiting in the wings to perform. he just had to loosen his vocal chords by singing a few ear-splitting, ‘tra Ia las’.
But how – in a tent – with the audience a mere hundred feet away?
Help was at hand in the form of a perky Eisteddfod volunteer who stood on a chair above his head holding an embroidered handkerchief in her hand whilst peeping at the proceedings onstage through a crack in the canvas. The instant the stage performance ended, deafening applause began. Quickly the lady raised her handkerchief – giving the great man a few brief moments to burst into full voice – before quickly bringing it down again to cut him off as the applause died.
It’s an experience he claims he will never forget.