Since we read John Redhead’s comment on ‘To Hatch a Crow’ following an account of the Pumlumon anti wind-farm protest, 06/30/2011, and noted his critical line concerning author Jim Perrin: ‘… but using the ugliest weapon of Nationalism is an evil far worse!’, we have learned of a YouTube interview with that author. An interview in which, incidentally, there is not ONE mention of his ‘terminal lung cancer’: the ‘story’ he has made so much of in many previous interviews and articles, and which gained him such sympathy from those who believed him. Ref. Jim Perrin: Diagnosed with Terminal Lung Cancer?, but a ‘story’ presumably which by now has out-lived its usefulness…
He asserted, in this interview, that he is a Welsh speaker yet for some time we have had an inkling that this is not strictly true… (He spoke NO word of Welsh to people connected with our family who were first-language Welsh speakers, and elderly, when it would have been simple courtesy to do so.) Still, he was proclaiming his ‘Welsh-ness’ — although when asked: ‘The sense of belonging, though of course you were born and grew up in Manchester, yes?’ Jim Perrin answered:
‘Yes I was, and when you talk about a sense of belonging there’s something which precedes that, which is the sense of scattering which I think is common to all peoples — it’s the notion of the Diaspora — the people who are scattered. The Jews certainly had it…’
This is an idea which he has put forward several times before; he might think it quite ‘clever’ and ‘deep’, but, of course, it is not necessarily the case; it is not ‘a given’. One may have a ‘sense of belonging’ because, for many generations, one’s family has been in the same place — or one may simply have a strong personal feeling ‘of belonging’ somewhere, mysteriously previously quite unknown.
‘Scattering; ‘Diaspora; is not always the precursor to a ‘sense of belonging’ as Jim Perrin stated: his theorising however does conveniently and neatly lead him to his latest notion:
‘My people, who were Huguenots [!] who were expelled from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes [1598] somehow, by some process, eventually ended up in Denbighshire and my Grandparents came from there — they moved from there… ‘
We would suggest that this ‘process’ is nothing more than the author’s imagination. Details of his genealogy posted on this site prove his Lancashire — his ENGLISH origins as far back as 1768 — and there are no earlier records found, neither Huguenot nor otherwise. During his many years and in all his writing (particularly in his book ‘West’ which was described as ‘nearly autobiographical’ by one reviewer) has Jim Perrin mentioned the possibility, let alone the ‘fact’ that he was of Huguenot descent… ? No: never. And we are not certain how he squares this recent claim — that he is descended from Huguenots — with his previously self-publicised claims of Roman Catholicism.
Jim Perrin needs, it seems, to keep re-inventing himself and he has apparently some difficulty in separating truth from fiction… Possibly, as with other ideas he has ‘planted’ it will appear in some future biographical note.* One such note still gives the false information that ‘he is of a Denbighshire family’! (Wales Literature Exchange) — although by now they are certainly aware that it is a lie.
These are just some loose ends but the gist of this post, and the link with the quote from John Redhead’s comment at the beginning of this piece, is to point out Jim Perrin’s further remark in the YouTube interview, about ‘the ENGLISH ‘.
We believe he is trying to make good the ground — possibly somewhat eroded by the revelations in ‘jacssisters’ posts — with the Welsh literary establishment; those with whom he has, over many years and by many means, become firmly embedded.
The comments which we now quote are in our view distasteful and revealing of the man:
‘A lot of Wales is being again colonised by ”the corrupt whine of the soft English” [quote from a Welsh poet], and there’s too much of that in Wales and too many of the associated bourgeois values and I don’t want to be around that so, if and when I do come back [from France] I suspect it would be to some area like rural Cerigidigion, somewhere far apart from the English colonists. But the culture east of the border is such a philistine, materialistic one — who in their good senses would want anything to do with that, so much rather hold to [another Welsh quote] this side of the border — over there you’ve just got competition, materialism, acquisition, all the base activities of humankind you engage with immediately you cross the border into England, and sorry to be racist [he ADMITS it — this Englishman!] but I don’t want to go there, I don’t much like the twenty-first century English and their culture; slightly nauseates me… ‘ (Such a poseur!)
Yes, this IS racism — perhaps Jim Perrin hopes to further consolidate his position in the Welsh literary heartland, (‘them and us’?).
What he said was foolish and shows his real nature by his willingness — by his alacrity — to use what John Redhead brilliantly described as ‘the ugliest weapon of Nationalism’. It is xenophobic (except that he is not Welsh!) and, we believe, not to put too fine a point on it — that he is ‘barking’: fellow climbers used to call him ‘Jim Dog’…
Jac’s sisters
* ‘Lo and Behold.’ Jumping forward in time — this posted on 21st. July, 2012 — he does just that! He amended his Wikipedia entry (see Wikipedia ‘history’) to claim Huguenot descent! For the details of this latest ‘twist’ in his story please read: ‘Jim Perrin: more practice needed to deceive?’ which we posted on March 30th, 2017, and in which we trace his online manipulation of ‘Wikipedia’. (However and in brief, he appears to have appropriated, magpie-like, his ‘Huguenotism’ from a neighbour who told us he showed him his own records.)