Pausing for thought

Only occasional lightening interrupts the ground war

Fighting an election campaign is like being involved in a skirmish on the edge of a battle in a wider war. You’re aware of your immediate surroundings, your friends on either side of you, and your opponents immediately ahead. But as to what is happening overall, who is winning and who is losing, you have little idea.

The circumstances of the present Assembly election only serve to underline this truth. In particular it is being overshadowed by another vote, little more than a month after 5 May – the EU referendum on 23 June. The broadcast news is full of it, giving little space for the Assembly election. UKIP is standing in the Preseli and Carmarthen West and South Pembokeshire constituencies for the first time in an Assembly election. No one believes they can win, but equally no one knows how well they will do and at whose expense.

Walking the streets on Plaid Cymru’s behalf I encounter the occasional UKIP supporter. They rail against what they see as the imposition of rule from Brussels. “Do you realise how much we’re paying them every week,” they demand. There’s no point my responding with a return question, ‘Do you appreciate how much they’re investing in Pembrokeshire, and how much our farmers depend on European subsidies and markets?” They’re just cross.

Media coverage is the air war in the election. Most of it comes from Cardiff or London and barely touches Pembrokeshire. It’s like distant rumblings of thunder with occasional flashes of lightening that momentarily light up the landscape. People are aware of it but don’t take a lot of notice.

Of real importance, however, is the ground war. This is the extent to which the parties can get their message across directly. Leaflets, posters and placards are their ammunition. Social media also count. But most important are the conversations. These have real impact and are capable of changing minds. The trouble is it’s not possible to talk to everybody.

On some occasions voters contact candidates directly. Most days I take a few calls. Standing in the centre of Fishguard I reached for my mobile phone. “I only have one question, what is your position on Trident missiles?” a woman asked. “I’m against them,” I answered. “They’re very expensive and I don’t see what they are defending us against. If you’re worried about defence it would be much better to spend some of the £100 billion or more you could save on conventional forces.”

I get e-mails as well. One asked me whether I had any background in science and engineering and my views on nuclear power. I wrote back that I couldn’t claim to be a scientist though as a journalist I was used to grappling with complex topics. On nuclear power I was conflicted. I could see it was a way of reducing carbon emissions and so was good for tackling climate change. On the other hand there was a huge problem in dealing with nuclear waste, which was also a source for making nuclear weaponry. On the whole I favoured the German approach of concentrating on renewables.

A woman in Milford rang to say that her husband was a lifelong Labour voter, but thinking of changing this time. On the other hand she was a lifelong Conservative supporter. Could I reassure her? Of course I could. At the end I wished her good luck with her forthcoming operation for which she was travelling to Glangwili in Carmarthen.

As I move around the county I’m constantly asked how the campaign is going. The people of Pembrokeshire are thinking, I say.

Passionate about Pembrokeshire

 Pembrokeshire is full of special places. The lie of the land, the western peninsula pushing into the Irish sea, the Cleddau waterway, and the Preseli hills offer many vistas that draw artists, writers and common folk more generally. But some places are very special. One is at Haroldston Chins above the high 300ft cliffs between Broadhaven and Druidston, near the centre of St Brides Bay. Here there is a long flat cliff walk with exceptional views of the ocean. To the north is St David’s Head and Ramsey Island. To the south is Skomer Island, though it looks to be an extension of the land.

 

'Where the sea touches the sky in a limitless horizon...'

Walking the coast path at this point feels like being on the deck of a liner with a limitless horizon, and where the sea touches the sky in a seamless continuity. Invariably, out in the Bay are oil tankers parked in line. Normally there are three or four, but I’ve counted as many as a dozen, waiting their turn for a berth in Milford Haven.

It is one of those places that, whatever the weather, feels intensely spiritual. And, in fact, it has taken on the character of a modern, secular 18^th or 19^th Century churchyard. It is full of benches bearing plaques commemorating the lives of people who frequented this place. One is in memory of Paul Blick who helped establish the Pembrokeshre coast path in the 1960s and who was appointed its first warden. The inscription is taken from Shakespeare’s sonnet, ‘Shall I compare three to a summer’s day’: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

A stretch of the cliff path has been tarmacked to provide wheelchair access. At intervals are square benches hewn from tree trunks, all bearing plaques. One is for Sheila Ann Mathias 30-9-42 to 12-6-02: “In loving memory of a devoted wife, mother and granny who liked to walk this path. Hope you enjoy the view as much as she did.” Another is for Edward Hier 1913-2007 and Margaret Hier 1921-2012, both of whom were “Passionate about Pembrokeshire”.

A little further on towards Broadhaven is a standing stone with a plaque declaring: ‘In memory of Glyn Charles Olympic Yachtsman. Lost at sea 4.9.1965 – 27.12.1998. He loved Pembrokeshire.’ Charles was drowned, aged 33, after being swept overboard from the yacht The Sword of Orion he was crewing during the 630 mile Sydney to Hobart Race, one of yachting’s most challenging contests. Ironically Glyn didn’t like ocean racing because the open sea made him seasick. Instead he was ranked fourth in the world for sailing the Star Class, a 22.5ft, two-man keelboat.

Most of these commemorations are for people who lived for a reasonable time. They had a good innings, you might say. But there is one for a young man who did not reach twenty, Roger Dyer 3 June 1981 – 27 February 2000. The inscription bears a quotation from Nelson Mandela: “It is not a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream.”

Though we live in a largely secular age, we still need our own versions of spiritual commemoration.

Never ending tour of the Welsh Bob Dylan

Dafydd Iwan - never-ending tour

Dafydd Iwan’s Wales-wide fiftieth anniversary tour comes to Pembrokeshire next week. The troubadour, politician, businessman, language activist, architect, song-writer and lay-preacher will be giving one of his inimitable performances in Fishguard next Friday evening.

He started giving anniversary tours in the early 1980s with the band Ar Log (For Sale). These events have now become so frequent that one can say that like Bob Dylan, Dafydd Iwan is on a never ending tour. It has always seemed to me that he has a lot in common with Bob Dylan, though he insists it’s the American’s model of political protest rather than his music that has had most influence.

Dafydd Iwan first came to prominence in the 1960s as a student activist with  Cymdeithas yr Iaith (the Welsh Language Society), and especially its campaign for bilingual road signs. Peintio’r Byd yn Wyrdd (‘Painting the World Green’) was one of Dafydd’s most notable anthems of that era. He was ‘discovered’ by the television news programme Y Dydd (The Day) and given a weekly slot. As a result he became  “perhaps the first modern Welsh language singer to become a teenage idol”, to quote the sleeve of his first record in 1966.

He became chairman of Cymdeithas yr iaith between 1968 and 1971, one of the most dynamic periods in the Language Society’s history. This was due in part to its stand-off with George Thomas, the Labour Secretary of State for Wales who had adopted a stridently anti-language profile. In particular George Thomas ardently supported the Investiture of Prince Charles at Caernarfon Castle in 1969, which Cymdeithas yr Iaith opposed. Dafydd’s satirical anthem against the event was entitled ‘Carlo’.

Soon, however, he began a more conventional career on a number of fronts. He co-founded the record company Sain (Sound) which became a hugely successful business. Utilising his qualification as an architect he became involved with the Cymdeithas Tai Gwynedd housing association, dedicated to providing affordable homes for local people. And he switched from direct action campaigning to party politics. He stood as Plaid’s candidate in the two 1974 general elections in Anglesey, became an influential councillor in Plaid-controlled Gwynedd, and was eventually elected President of the party in 2003.

Dafydd was born and spent his early years in in Brynaman on the western edge of the southern coalfield. But when he was twelve his father, a nonconformist Minister, was called to be a pastor in the village of Llanuwchllyn near Bala. This upbringing gave Dafydd an instinctively national rather than local identity.  His was a family of nationalists in any event – grandfather Fred Jones, another Minister, was one of the founders of Plaid Cymru in 1925.

But what Dafydd’s 50^th anniversary tour underlines is that throughout his career he has never ceased composing, recording and singing. Undoubtedly this has been his greatest influence and achievement. As the writer Simon Brooks once said, Dafydd’s songs have changed the cultural universe in which the Welsh people live.

The secret life of Billy Lang

One damp chilly morning last week a small group of us met at the Parc Gwyn crematorium near Narberth to say goodbye to Billy Lang, one of our Plaid members in Preseli. It was not an altogether sad occasion because Billy, who hailed from Fishguard, had lived a good life for a full 92 years. But there was something touching about the event all the same, because in a real sense we were Billy’s family. He was an only child, his parents died long ago in the 1960s, he never married, and as far as we know he had no other close relatives.

On the face of it Billy was one of those thousands of people who live their lives without disturbing the surface of public affairs. But it transpires that he had a secret war record. Aged 18 he joined the RAF in 1940 and became a Leading Aircraftman, working with ground crew in the UK and Egypt. Very soon, however, he joined the Special Services Brigade with which he served for much of the Second World War and was only demobbed in 1946. However, mystery surrounds what Billy got up to during this time as he hardly ever spoke about it.

After the war Billy worked on farms, at Trecwn and for a time was a lineman (pole climber) for the South Wales Electricity Board. Aged 37 the 1950s he became a deckhand with trawlers working out of Lowestoft and Milford Haven. After a few years he enrolled as an Able Seaman and later Bosun in a succession of merchant vessels.

For 27 years Billy criss-crossed the oceans of the world. He sailed the Pacific in ships from a Scots owned line. He worked out of Bristol down the coast of West Africa, to Cape Town and then on to Australia. He served on ore carriers that brought iron ore into Port Talbot. He sailed across the Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal and down the coast of East Africa. In 1982 he was on a ship in the South Atlantic carrying water supplies to the forces that recaptured the Falklands. His last voyages before he retired in 1987 were on large container ships owned by Canadian Pacific that plyed the North Atlantic. At least three of the vessels he sailed on later sank. Sop Billy was a lucky man to sail with. 

He was extremely fit, strong and resourceful. He was also a very private man and fiercely independent, characteristics that were almost his undoing. After a fall in his Fishguard bungalow on the Thursday before the August Bank Holiday in 2012 he lay on the floor until the postman heard his cries the following Tuesday. Sipping water from a hot water bottle that had been near his bed and with a bag of nuts to hand Billy, as ever, had a ‘plan to survive’ and it worked. 

Friends who recently applied for his Service Record from the Armed Forces archive in Glasgow were told they would have to wait for 25 years. So it’ll be a long time before we know what Billy really did in the war.