Powsys was at heart a primitivist, for whom virtually every modern invention was anathema. In Wolf Solent he referred to airplanes as "spying down upon every retreat like ubiquitous vultures." He never drove a car and never used a typewriter. He thought television was pernicious. He didn't like talking on the telephone, because he didn't want his words violated by a tangle of wires. So it's not surprising that after his move to Wales he looked to the inviolate past, especially the inviolate Wales past, for inspiration.
Before they left we put a thick plank in the backyard for Grandad to do the "tatterdemalion Train". The dance mimicked a locomotive, starting slowly, a little faster then roaring down the track with his heavy brogues a blur. I called it a "Dandy Lion Train", perhaps because our yard was so full of dandelions. Grandad's hair was gray; his fedora bobbed like smoke from a stack.