Archive for the ‘Wales’ Category

The Iron Lady – an unlikely night out

Friday, January 13th, 2012

The Iron LadyOf all the strange places for an outing of the Bangor University Labour Society (of which I am a member), a visit to a film about history’s most vilified opponent of the Labour movement seems the most unlikely. However, a group of us from the Society went to see Meryl Streep’s portrayal of The Iron Lady at the cinema in Llandudno.

I felt rather out of place with this group, as only one of them was born when Margaret Thatcher came to power, whereas I had already voted in the 1970 General Election before that dark day in 1979 when she became Prime Minister. NB: I didn’t vote for her! My expectation and fear was that this film would sanitise her historical role and leave us feeling sorry for her in her confused state of Alzheimer’s disease. I had read reviews that  she had been portrayed very sympathetically in those autumn years of her life so I steeled myself not to feel any undue compassion.

The film alternates between the present day and flashback throughout and it is the skilful make-up worn by Meryl Streep thet helps the viewer get the chronology correct. From the very start, in her role as the grocer’s daughter, you saw the determination, ambition and sheer bloodymindedness of Margaret Roberts, later Thatcher, in her determination to achieve her political goals.

The portrayal of Margaret Thatcher through her period as Education Secretary and then as Prime Minister was very much as I remembered it –obstinate, insensitive, arrogant and even cruel. It put me very much in mind of a sketch in the vicious satire Spitting Image where she is treating her cabinet to a meal in a restaurant

Waitress: Would you like to order, sir?
Thatcher
: Yes. I will have the steak.
Waitress
: How would you like it?
Thatcher
: Oh, raw, please.
Waitress
: And what about the Vegetables?
Thatcher
: Oh, they’ll [The Cabinet] have the same as me!

The only thing that caught me out was the scene that portrayed the killing of Airey Neave by a car bomb in the Palace of Westminster. Although the INLA (an Irish terrorist group) claimed responsibility, a Wikipedia article suggests the security services or even the Americans were responsible. I always wondered how the INLA could get into the underground car park at the Housees of Parliament. I remember the incident well and how affected I was at the time, emotions I relived while watching. The film then showed Mrs Thatcher running up the car-park exit ramp seconds later, having just said goodbye to Neave. I suspect that was just poetic licence!

I felt again that same surge of anger that I felt at the time of the events when the film covered probably her most controversial policies during the Miners Strike (1984-85) and the Poll Tax Riots (1990) Seeing again the newsreel scenes of appalling police violence reaffirmed my long-held views of anger and incomprehension of her coldness and brutality.

Ironically, I had always promised myself that if I were ever to meet Margaret Thatcher I would tell her exactly what I thought of her. In fact, I met her on two occasions but both times “on duty” where I was representing another organisation and had a prior obligation directing my conduct. I would not have been discourteous, I would simply have asked her if she was aware of the hurt, damage, pain, distress, hardship, and loss of hope that she had caused to the poorest and most vulnerable people in society. This is probably the closest I’ll ever get to having asked that question.

The portrayal that I struggled with the most in the film was that of Denis Thatcher. He came across as an affable, slightly dotty, harmless old man. The reality is that he was a sharp businessman and from all I have ever heard of him, not a particularly pleasant person to know. There is no doubt that Margaret and Denis had a remarkably close relationship and the film betrayed that well. Meryl Streep’s acting was breathtakingly good and one of the few good things that I can take away from the film that stirred up powerful negative emotions in me.

Why I am a Welshman

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

Welsh flagWell, surely one is or one isn’t! It’s actually far more complicated than that. Being Welsh isn’t a simple matter of your parents’ nationality, the location of your birth, or even where you live at present. Indeed, many nations of the world give the opportunity for citizens of another country to become naturalised citizens of their land and adopt a new nationality – once they go through a considerable number of hoops.

My passport confirms I am a citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. As an aside, I have discovered that since 1983 I am no longer a British subject but a British citizen. Concealed in all that complexity is that fact that qualifying people in Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland all have the status of British citizen and there is no mechanism to become a naturalised citizen of just one of those three nations or one province. This is all beginning to get very complicated and I recommend you take five minutes out to watch The United Kingdom Explained. It’s a fun piece but beware of some inaccuracies such as Anglesey, the Isle of Wight and the Scottish islands NOT being part of Great Britain and England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland being “sovereign nations” with their own “Parliaments”. Ah, that it were so!

Anyway, I digress. This is all about me being Welsh. Was I born in Wales? No, sadly. I entered this world six weeks after the creation of the National Health Service (Architect: Aneurin Bevan – a Welshman) so I was free at the point of delivery which was Battle Hospital, Reading. My father? Born in London to English parents (with Irish and French one generation earlier). My mother, however, was born in Cilfynydd, a coal-mining community in the Rhondda Valley, to proud Welsh parents with many generations of North and South Welsh ancestry.

I loved our visits to South Wales as children and our times with our Welsh family and in the 1980s and early 90s I always felt at home when I travelled in Wales in my role of Wales Liaison Manager for the British Tourist Authority. The tipping point came when our elder son Mark moved to Llanberis in 2002. We visited regularly and both fell in love with North Wales and moved here in January 2007.

I realised almost immediately that for the first time in my life, I felt as if I’d truly come home. Some people scoff at the Welsh concept of hiraeth – a deep sense of longing for, and connectedness with, the land of Wales to its people and to its history. Hiraeth is probably the most tangible and real explanation I can give for my Welshness as it’s nothing to do with the more conventional Welsh icons all of which, other than the Red Dragon, are recent inventions. Rigby ball It’s only slightly connected with rugby – that’s only been the national sport since December 1905; it certainly has nothing to do with thick woollen shawls and silly tall hats – an invention of Lady Llanover in the 1830s;  daffodils only became a Welsh emblem in  1911, courtesy of David Lloyd-George, and the Welsh flag was only officially recognised in 1959!

No, I’m a Welshman because I know I am. I cry when I sing Calon Lân or Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau. I’m profoundly moved when I hear Katherine Jenkins, Bryn Terfel or Cerys Matthews. I am joyously transported 1400 years into Celtic history when I sit in Penmon Priory and think of St Seriol and St Cybi in their daily meeting at Llanerchymedd after a 20 mile walk. I long for their connectedness with God and with the land.

Welsh £1 coinsIt’s all summed up in a line from our National Anthem (also found on the edge of Welsh £1 coins) – Pleidiol wyf i’m gwlad – True am I to my country. 

Dw i’n Gymro balch.

 

Step up you Welsh radical politicians and young people

Monday, December 19th, 2011

Aneurin BevanWatching Ed Milliband dance a ballet of indecision and uttering lightweight response to the Euro crisis and our economy has been excruciatingly painful. Similarly listening to Carwyn Jones political statements in the Welsh Assembly and the press were just like being stoned to death with popcorn. Our Welsh politicians have all been dancing together, jockeying for advantage and selling their souls to pass the Budget, but always with an eye on public opinion and a reluctance to put their head above the parapet.

Where are Welsh radicals of history like Anaeurin Bevan who single-mindedly fought to establish the National Health Service in July 1948, ensuring my birth seven weeks later was free to my parents at the point of delivery (literally)? Indeed one of his famous quotes could be his verdict on current politicians.

We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run down.

We sadly miss Welsh radicals like David Lloyd-George, who for all his deep flaws, was the architect of educational reform and social benefits. He got to the heart of the matter when debating in Parliament on the new idea of unemployment benefit:

You cannot feed the hungry on statistics

Our lightweight, self-serving and ineffective politicians seem to have had every drop of radical blood removed and simple don’t or won’t recognise the need for radical solutions to the issues faced by today’s society. Indeed, they would shy from the dictionary definition of radical:

…a person who advocates fundamental political, economic, and social reforms by direct and often uncompromising methods

My passion for justice has been fuelled by many people who were uncompromising in their quests for reform. People like the great Christian reformers such as William, Wilberforce, John Groom, John Newton, Lord Shaftesbury and Elizabeth Fry. Campaigners for equality and social justice like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King.

When I grew up, my teenage years were the 1960s and I drank in every drop of news and information about the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-Vietnam War movement and shaped my musical taste with the protest songs of Pete Seeger, Woodie Guthrie, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Donovan and others. Thank goodness we still have Billy Bragg today carrying the torch – his unaccompanied singing of the Internationale always has me in tears.

Students were at the vanguard of reform in the 1960′s and individuals like Daniel Cohn Bendit and Tariq Ali were young focal points for students and others. Today, the Occupy Movement has adopted the view, misguided in my opinion, that everyone is equal and no individual needs to be a leader or spokesman. They need to learn the lessons of history – battles are fought around a leader and a flag. Wider society can then evaluate the arguments in the way they are familiar with.

I’ve given up on today’s politicians. There are young people out there burning with passion, energy and zeal that need to declare themselves, step up to the plate and be the leaders they are and then change Wales, the UK and the wider world for the greater good of the people.