Iberians v Vikings: it’s all in the DNA

LYN JENKINS offers up a properly spirited defence of Wales (“Wales life can still beat Norway for me”, Views of Wales letters, March 5). On the day my admiration of Norway was published, I noted that the global watchdog Transparency International had rated Norway one of the least corrupt countries (joint 3rd, the UK having climbed from 10th to joint 8th). For Norway to be declared both one of the wealthiest and one of the most honest nations is to be admired.

I should perhaps declare an interest in as much that I must have some Viking DNA, being perfectly happy in the snow and the cold weather. A few years ago S4C did a series of programmes investigating certain Welsh celebrities’ DNA to trace their origins. They featured a couple of players from the Scarlets – but they missed the glorious opportunity to compare and contrast two classic bookend players from the club’s glory days, namely Phil Bennett and Derek Quinnell.

Benny is the typical Welshman: short, dark with dancing feet characteristic of a matador, confirmation of his and Wales’s Iberian heritage. At the other end of the scale, Derek represents the significant thread of tall, fair haired people in Wales – you can picture his ancestors at the front of the longboats crossing the North Sea.

What a fascinating programme that would have made, tracing the routes of Benny and Derek’s ancestors from the plains of Africa to their ending up alongside each other in the same tribe on the Stradey pitch. Again I should declare an interest: while I am tallish and fairish and clearly influenced by those Viking longboats, my brother is darker, slightly shorter and a typical bullfighter. I go out in the sun and I burn, while he instantly tans.

If I hadn’t been born into a Welsh hillside of daffodils, daisies, dandelions, bluebells, honeysuckle and golden rain, then being delivered by a lurpak – as opposed to a stork – to a paradise overlooking a Norwegian fjord would have done rather nicely, thank you very much, tusen takk, literally a thousand thanks. Perhaps I should have that DNA test anyway.