Price, Berwyn Philip. b. 11:2:21, d 12:2:97. Wing and full-back, (occasionally scrum-half). Played, Aberavon (267), Barbarians (3), Wales (42). "BP", Known for his blistering pace, scored 27 tries for Wales, most notably the two tries in injury time in "BPs Triumph" the 1947 21-20 win over England at Twickenham. Also representative honours, Wales 100/220 yards. Gold medallist, Empire Games, 1948 (100yds) Son of Philip Price, Swansea & Aberavon, wing, one Welsh cap.

rs Bethan Price, if you're reading this, then it looks like I must have managed it, after all. I went and over-did it and popped my clogs, just like you and Doctor Llewellyn said I would. So bugger me, I'm dead, well what do you know? I'm sorry love, but if that's what happened, then it happened. I'll bet I died happy, though. Was it at the Arms Park? I bet all I could see when the moment finally came was red and white and green. I bet I could smell the lads and the mud, see the flags and hear Bread of Heaven!

I bloody well hope it was like that. I hope I didn't keel over on the way to the stadium. You and the girls, Ivor, Bernard, Pimple Thomas, all the lads, you might've missed the game, I couldn't have had that. That's why I had the little note behind my leek and pinned to my collar. I left this letter here for you but the note was something else. That was why I made you promise.

Oh, my darling woman, I'm going to miss you. I think you'll be glad of a rest though, eh? All the talk about rugby and me never letting you forget that you gave me four daughters when I wanted a few more Price boys to carry on the family name. Oh, Bethan Price, I hope you'll forgive me. I know you wanted me to be a quiet old man but I just couldn't do it. In the end, God knows best. He knows more than doctors and nurses and reporters and people from the television. After waiting twenty-nine years, do you honestly think I could have missed the game? Do you really think I could have missed a Price boy on the wing, a Price at scrum-half, and, bugger me, a Price grandson playing for England against us? Love, I think I wanted to die at the game. I think I knew nothing would ever be better than that Saturday.

But I am sorry, love, I know it was a little selfish. But I think, all in all, it was better like that, better than to fade away slowly. Dylan Thomas got close to what I mean. I couldn't go gentle, mun, not me, not BP Price.

Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Oh, Beth, my lover, try to laugh. Do you remember how hard we had to fight to get tickets? We had our debentures, but we had to get tickets for all the old boys, for Gwyneth's family, the Evanses, Tommy Thomas, Pimple and Argus and a pair for Jones-Eighteen-months! All that bloody wheeling and dealing! I should have been done in well before the game but that would've been a bit cruel and I didn't think your God in Heaven was like that. I think, deep inside, I knew I'd make it to kick-off, just as I was pretty sure I wouldn't be watching any more games, at least not from our seats in the stand.

It's funny, but I was never really scared of dying. I never thought of it, hardly, but the first time I did was when I won my Empire Games medal.

Four years I'd worked for that. Ivor Coach Jenkins from Cardiff AC had trained me and I worked, oh, Beth', how I worked for that extra half second, then that extra tenth of a second, and then the dip that got me home from that good black chappie, Tomkins. Under ten seconds for the hundred yards, Beth'! That's not bad now, but then it was a bloody miracle! We were on cinders and wearing what we called lightweight spikes. Hah! Compared to nowadays we were running in hob-nailed boots. And I ran nine-nine, Beth', nine-nine, and they put a ribbon round my neck and a big gold medal.

But there was a moment then, when I thought about dying. There's a point in a race when you're flying, when you're an angel, just before it really hurts—you're on another level and all the rules are different and you are so special, so damn-well, Godly, and you just know something is out there.

Being so alive like that, well, it makes you wonder about things, about dying too. But it's a nice feeling, Beth', not a bad one.

I remember when you gave birth to Gwyneth. I admit I was disappointed, I admit it, I wanted a boy, but you, all the pain you'd just had, love, and you looked into my eyes and you smiled. You'd done your nine-nine for the hundred too, you'd been there, and it was in your face. I think I was playing for Aberavon then, I scored a few tries, and the next season I got my first cap for Wales.

Oh, Beth, do you remember? We had those four tickets for Murrayfield and a hotel booking, and I tried to trade them with E. Briscoe Phillips, for his two England tickets. Then the cheeky bugger wanted us to throw in his coach fare to Edinburgh as well, d'you remember? And in the end we had to give E. Briscoe our Parc de Prince tickets too, but only when he let us have his three tickets for the Ireland game. Bloody bloke, everything the hard way. He must make love standing up in a hammock and take his goldfish walking.

Still, we got our tickets, didn't we? Oh, I do hope you can see the funny side. I hope you're not all tearful and saying "If we'd not got the tickets…"

What was the deal for Jones-eighteen-months, can you remember? It was so bloody complicated! He gave us thirty-five quid up front, didn't he, and then he said he'd fit Mrs Gill Williams' kitchen. Then Mrs Gill Williams lent her one-ton van to Dai Rees, and for that Dai said we could have the two tickets if we'd let him use the caravan at Trecco Bay a couple of weekends. Wisht, I'm thinking maybe E. Briscoe's deal wasn't that complicated after all.

Don't go thinking the tickets were a mistake, love. They weren't. Think of the view I'm getting now, and bugger their debentures!

But I will miss you, Bethan Price, and I do feel guilty for leaving you alone. Life and death is funny, you know. I want to say hurry up so we can be together again, but then if I was there for your birthday, I'd be singing, "Many happy returns!" Daft, eh?

I'm too old to pretend I didn't want boys, but I ought to say, Beth, I really ought to say that the girls lit up my life. God, Bethan, the four of them are so beautiful, like you are, and all so fiery, and who would have thought they'd marry the family back into rugby and I'd get to see three grandsons at the National Stadium before I took an early bath?

I'm not unhappy, Beth, love. Really. It's a funny sort of happy-sad that's not easy to pin down, but it's definitely not a bad feeling. I might be getting religion right on the final whistle, but I think it's just the thought of seeing John, Matt and Iestyn running out there. Oh, please God, don't let me die before I see the boys touch the turf.

You're downstairs now, in the kitchen, making ham-rolls for the game and a flask of oxtail soup. The house is so quiet, I can hear it breathing and then, faintly, if I listen hard, you humming as you prepare our half-time snap. You always said you didn't hum, but you did, Beth.

I'm hiding in the office, Beth, surrounded by all the books, scratching this to you, thinking of all the time you gave to me, how you gave me four daughters and a tribe of grand-children and every last one with either your red hair and green eyes, our love for words, or a few—not that many but just enough—with the good Price hands and the fast Price feet, two of them, two good enough to play for Wales, and one to play for England. That really is odd, but he's a good number eight, as good as they've had for twenty years.

And Gwyneth's little Ben the best of all, on that wing, eight years old, living, breathing for his rugby, and is he fast!

I'd write more, Bethan but the longer I stay up here the longer I'm without you. You always said I spent too long in here, marking papers, working on other people's dreams. I'll finish and come downstairs, then. For one last time, I want to watch you in the kitchen, smell bread, ham, see you spread Branston and lick your fingers, see you fill your apron.

Oh, my darling woman, I am going to miss you.

Bethan Price puts down the letter. Part of her is roaring with joy but there are tears rolling down her face. She can hear voices elsewhere and they are not unhappy, they ripple like a clear spring in the mountains. There are so many people, so many people, in the other room, in the hall, the kitchen, and in two marquees on the lawn, there are so many people all talking rugby and writing and still arguing about the winning English try last Saturday.

Bethan blows her nose and wipes her face. There is a glass case in one corner of Berwyn's office, somewhere, covered in manuscripts, a few match programmes, in it, a sorry leather-flecked ball scratched with faded names, English, Welsh, fine young hands, the old fingers now of fading lights, and not a few, like Berwyn, passed on, throwing a ball around in a better place, injury free, playing with spirit, a little faster than they were, just a little braver.

Bethan takes out the ball. It's the size of a new born baby, and, she thinks briefly, skin, and capable of being so much, meaning so much more than what it is, should you simply measure things and pretend they are physical.

Beth has seen blood and mud, seen the scarves fly, the foam-rubber leeks waved, the coaches in convoys going up the M5, along the M4, to Scotland, to Twickenham HQ. Bethan has gone to Cardiff airport to fly to Dublin and gone there with Berwyn to fly to Paris. Once they travelled to the other side of the world to watch brave Welsh boys crushed by farmers dressed in black. Bethan has seen every mad celebration, and every rain-beaten temporary depression and she has heard every argument, every explanation and one thousand and one excuses. And she always shook her head and always said, "Boys, it's only a game, only a game."

She holds the ball, first like Berwyn might have, then crooked into her elbow like a baby, then like a wing, flying down the line, his boot-studs an inch from the white lime edge of touch, his eyes gleaming, so near to being, well, Godly, at the height of living and touching the hem of death.

And she dabs her face again, takes a huge deep breath, then another, goes to the wall where Berwyn's gold medal hangs and looks in the mirror there. She takes out her compact and tidies herself up a bit, for Berwyn's sake, for the girls, the lads.

They had got home late after the game, almost eight o'clock, and Berwyn was still red-faced, bursting with the afternoon's höel and magic. He couldn't stop talking about Iestyn's try, the way John had virtually run the game for Wales from behind the scrum. Even the last minute winner scored by the English number eight couldn't dampen the light in Berwyn's eyes. In the pub he had drunk his second brandy and laughed with an English couple that the team in white couldn'ta done it without that sprinkling of Welsh blood. The best English player was a Price, for God's sake!

Berwyn had been quiet in the car on the way home, then in a reflective moment he had said, "Beth, you think young Ben will pull on the red shirt?"

When they had come in, Berwyn had taken off his coat and unpinned the leek from the collar and the note had fallen out. He had picked it up and laughed. It was something about dealing with him at half-time, he'd said, or full-time, but not missing the match. You promised, it said on the bottom. He had sat down then, still chuckling, and Bethan had gone to make some tea. Berwyn never got to drink it.

Bethan looks in the mirror and she decides she looks OK. She picks up the rugby ball and goes out, downstairs. She can hear the video recording of the game being played again, far too loudly, and then she hears a taped roar and someone shouts, "Yes! Yes!!" and she hears Bread of Heaven.

© Alex Keegan