And so we come to the end of 2018. It’s been a year when the news agenda has felt beyond satire, so I’m scrabbling around for positives to draw in the same way as I’m currently rooting through the Celebrations tub for the last Malteser among the unwanted mini Mars bars.
Yet while social media continued to be the bear pit for Brexit scrapping, three big anniversaries invited more reflective response.
On its 70th birthday we cherished the values of the NHS and the vision of its founder, Nye.
As the centenary of the Armistice was marked, we mourned the sacrifice of our youthful ancestors in the Great War.
And as 100 years of female suffrage was celebrated, 2018 was designated the Year of Women across the globe.
Looking back to the milestone of women getting the vote has proved a great focus for examining how far women must still journey forward on the equality path.
In 1918 it was only a partial victory, of course. The vote was only given to women over 30 with property.
One hundred years later there are still voids to bridge.
More from Carolyn Hitt
In 2018 chief executives of FTSE 100 companies are still as likely to be called Dave as to be female; only a third of MPs are women and in Wales this year we saw the departure of the first and to date only female party leader while Labour had to be nudged into including a woman on the shortlist for its successor to Carwyn Jones. But there are also reasons for optimism.
It feels as if the importance of making the world an equal platform for women is in the public consciousness as never before.
And in that spirit I’d like to devote my final column of 2018 to celebrating my Top Ten Women of the Year – the females of Wales I have found interesting and inspiring over the past 12 months.
Some I know personally, some I have known of and admired for years, some I have only discovered in 2018. All have enjoyed a particular “moment” this year, making a lasting impact with their talent and achievements. In no particular order they are:
Eve Myles
If Geraint Thomas’s yellow jersey is the sporting symbol of the Welsh year, Eve Myles’ yellow mac is the pop cultural emblem.
Way back in 2001 writing comedy monologues for a young actor straight out of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, I thought there would one day be a role big enough to express the fabulous force of nature that was Eve Myles.
Keeping Faith, the iPlayer phenomenon of the year, provided it.
The six-part thriller that vividly colourised Carmarthenshire really was All About Eve.
Whether she was rolling on the floor, downing Chardonnay by the gallon or escaping crooked cops in four-inch heels, Myles was mesmerising in the breakthrough part that brought her UK-wide acclaim.
Menna Fitzpatrick
Welsh skier Menna made history at Pyeongchang 2018 when she became Britain’s most successful winter Paralympian.
Alongside her guide, Jen Kehoe, the visually impaired 20-year-old won four medals in South Korea – claiming gold in the slalom, silvers in the giant slalom and super combined and bronze in the super giant slalom. Menna was born with an eye condition that has left her with just 5% vision.
Just imagine hurtling down slopes at speeds of up to 70mph with barely any sight.
But Menna, who took up skiing at the age of five, never let her disability hold her back.
She began by following her father down the mountain in the same way as her two fully sighted sisters did.
“I would follow my dad over powder, jumps – literally everything. I remember my mum used to shout ,‘Dave, she’s behind you’, and he had no idea!”
Belinda Bauer
Belinda was once a sub-editor on this very paper but this year, rather than typing headlines, she was the subject of them as her novel, Snap, was longlisted for the Booker Prize.
I particularly admire Belinda’s achievement because she was brave enough to give up the day job to pursue her dream.
Saving enough money to take a year out, she initially set her sights on screen-writing before publishing her debut novel, Blacklands, at the age of 45.
It won the Crime Writers Association Golden Dagger Award.
And this year she shook up the snobbish literary establishment by bringing the crime genre into the rarified realms of the Booker Prize.
The judges described it as “an acute, stylish, intelligent novel about how we survive trauma”, which “undermines the tropes of its own genre, and leaves us with something that lingers”.
Well done, Belinda, for doing it with a whodunnit.
Elin Manahan Thomas
When this Swansea soprano provided the ethereal soundtrack to Meghan Markle’s journey to the altar – singing Handel’s Eternal Source of Light Divine – an estimated 1.9 billion people were listening.
While Elin has marked 2018 by attracting an audience of mind-boggling global proportions she should be commended too for the new listenership she has brought to the forgotten women of Welsh music.
Her championing of Treforest-born composer Morfydd Llwyn Owen in the latter’s centenary year has been a joy, reigniting interest in the highly talented composer, singer and pianist who tragically died shortly before her 27th birthday.
Elin has also shone the spotlight on the work of composer Dilys Elwyn-Edwards, releasing a CD collection of her works entitled Mae Hireath Yn Y Mor.
Dilys Price
I met this remarkable woman this year as we both became ambassadors for Processions, the celebratory march through Cardiff marking the suffrage centenary.
I had read about Daredevil Dilys and how this 86-year-old retired teacher and charity founder had refused to let age or even the sky be her limit as she leapt out of planes in her ninth decade.
In the flesh she was even more inspirational, dressed in a rainbow template with silver shoes and sapphire eyes shining with energy.
Her inimitable sense of style made her the perfect model later in the year for Helmut Lang’s autumn collection as she sashayed around the Valleys in blue velvet trouser suits for the internationally renowned fashion designer’s Women of Wales campaign.
“We’re alive, we’re still alive. We’re alive until the day we die,” she declared at the time, adding: This is my mission now – to tell older people like myself to keep a passion. They have to be active.”
As I hit the milestone of my 50th birthday in October there was no better anti-ageing tonic in human form than Dilys.
Crystal Jeans
With a literary voice as distinctive as her name, this Cardiff writer blew the judging panel away in the 2018 Welsh Book of the Year Awards.
I know because I was on it, and I’d never read anything quite like Light Switches Are My Kryptonite, the novel we gave the fiction prize to.
A coming-of-age tale set in a dysfunctional Valleys family, it was funny, it was dark, it was disturbing, it was moving.
In the author’s words: “It’s a novel, totally fictional, about a character called Sylvester who has quite chronic OCD, anxiety, a lot of intrusive thoughts and compulsions.
“It’s about a week in his life where he’s navigating his way through this really horrible time.”
It made us laugh, it made us think, at times it even made us recoil.
I just can’t wait to read what Crystal writes next.
Tracey Davies
Unless you have a connection with Velindre Cancer Centre you probably won’t have heard of Tracey, but she deserves every accolade for being one of the most phenomenal fundraisers in Wales.
This social worker from Bridgend is simply relentless in her drive to raise money for cancer patients and research. Our paths crossed back in 2015 when Tracey took part in Velindre’s Patagonia Trek and she has been fundraising ever since.
She’s organised money-making expeditions up Ben Nevis, multiple sponsored sky-dives, completed half-marathons and triathlons, took part in the Velindre New Zealand Ride with the Pride Bike Ride and Peru Trek in the same year and organised an overseas trek through Cambodia in October, as well as three Pen Y Fan Night Walks which gained the interest of more than 12,000 supporters.
Her next fundraiser is a trek to Everest Base Camp.
All this adds up to more than £130,000 funds raised for Velindre. All done with a smile and without reliance on corporate networks or celebrity friends – Tracey embodies grassroots charity work.
As Velindre spokesman Andrew Morris says: “Tracey’s enthusiasm and energy for fundraising is nothing short of incredible!”
Liza Burgess
Affectionately known as Bird, Newport-born Liza is an absolute legend of rugby.
That status was given official approval this year as she became the first Welsh woman to be inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame.
The Number 8 who skippered Wales 62 times, won 93 caps and played in four World Cups, took her place on this global roll-call of excellence alongside male inductees and fellow icons Ronan O’Gara, Pierre Villepreux, Bryan Williams and Stephen Larkham.
It’s a massive achievement and one which, like many sport stories featuring women, didn’t capture the attention it deserved when it was announced earlier this year.
Not that Liza herself would have been trumpeting it, such is her humility.
“I’m lucky to have played a sport I love and to be honoured in this way is unbelievable,” she said.
Not unbelievable at all, Bird – you totally deserve it.
Catrin Finch
One of the most beautiful albums of the year was Soar - created by harpist Catrin Finch with Seckou Keita, a renowned Senegalese master of the kora, a type of African harp.
It features some of Catrin’s own compositions, and its delicate, elegant melodies were enjoyed by audiences across the UK as the pair toured the album this year.
What was remarkable about this is Catrin committed to the performances despite undergoing treatment for breast cancer – including chemotherapy sessions.
Her decision to share her experiences and progress on social media with candour was equally impressive as she discussed everything from coping with extreme fatigue to hair loss.
She will have helped others in a similar situation and it’s great to see this brilliant Welsh musician looking forward now her treatment is complete: “I just want to stay healthy and to keep going – there is a full diary for next year already.”
Carole Cadwalladr
I was Carole’s “mother” once. Not literally. She was the fresher I was assigned to look after for a few weeks as a second year at Hertford College, Oxford.
We were both comprehensive school pupils – she’d gone to Radyr, I’d attended Cardinal Newman in Rhydyfelin.
It was obvious she was a huge talent as an 18-year-old.
Thirty years later she is arguably the UK’s most courageous investigative journalist.
The myriad awards she has mopped up this year following her Cambridge Analytica scoop and continued scrutiny of alleged malpractice in the Leave campaign are testament to her formidable tenacity and refusal to fold in the face of quite horrific misogyny and abuse.
In this centenary of women getting the vote, the Suffragette mantra of Deeds Not Words echoes still. Carole Cadwalladr has used Words and Deeds to make a seismic impact in 2018 – this makes her my Welsh Woman of the Year.
