The Gymanfa Ganu was very popular in the old times. I can remember when we were young my mother took us every year to where the Gymanfa was, as the Wesleyans had the Gymanfa in different places each year and still do on a very small scale.
The best gymanfa that I can remember was in the Methodist Chapel in Talsarnau. The Wesleyans asked if they could have the Chapel for the day as there was not enough parking space at Soar. The Conductor was Dr. Leslie Wynn Evans and the congregation were still singing as they left the Chapel. It was nice to hear the people singing the hymns as they walked in the road for weeks after that.
We had two Eisteddfods at Talsarnau. The Soar Eisteddfod, as it was called, and Eisteddfod y Pasg. That took place at Soar every Easter and the other was Eisteddfod yr Eglwys and took place at the school (the Village Hall today, - but a new community centre has been built since then). There was also a little Eisteddfod at Peniel in Eisingrug and the Ynys but they were more for the locals.
The dramas went down very well between the wars and we used to walk to Harlech on New Years Eve to listen to a drama at the Town Hall and we had a lot of fun walking home early in the morning, there were a lot of old people amongst us.
They had Whist drives at Glanywern Church Hall and there was some people, who were so keen, that they would not miss any whist drive in other villages.
The `Cyfarfod Pregethu' took place in Soar once a year, and at one time they would invite two ministers to Soar to preach on a Sunday in September. One would preach in the morning and the other in the afternoon, and in the evening the two would preach.
In the early thirties they opened a picture house in Porthmadog, the Coliseum, and I can remember two of us going round the village to get people to put their names down so that we could send it up to the railway to get a late train to run after the pictures and we were successful and the train kept running for years until people started buying cars. If we wanted to go to the second house we had to go with Robert John, the Garage, and he charged us 2sh. each and we paid nine pence to go in to the picture and 2sh. if we wanted to go to the Balcony.