Tuesday 20 December 2016

Gwynfor had a deep antipathy towards the Labour Party and its Government

Elystan Morgan reminiscing - Plaid Cymru, Saunders Lewis and Gwynfor Evans.

Last in the series - very interesting

Elystan Morgan discusses the different characteristics of Saunders Lewis and Gwynfor Evans.

Outlines Gwynfor's deep antipathy towards the Labour Party and its Government.


Gwynfor's words to Elystan when told that he was joining the Labour Party - 'the party of Bessie Braddock'.

The difficulties he faced inside Plaid Cymru from the party's left wingers - some of them on the far left.

In the years prior to the by election in Carmarthen in 1966 Gwynfor had been facing significant pressures from within the party over its failure of electoral progress and especially after the controversy over Tryweryn.

But seemingly fate intervened!



Initially when Lady Megan Lloyd George was chosen by the Labour Party instead of  the young John Morris (by one vote) in 1957, then the decision made by the local Labour party not to select someone to contest the March 1966 General Election, despite the fact that Lady Megan was terminally ill and finally the choice of the North Walian Gwilym Prys Davies to contest the Carmarthen by election of July 1966 instead of the local candidate from Cynwyl Elfed, Denzil Davies.

Gwynoro describes how people in the Gwendraeth and Amman Valleys were telling him when campaigning during the by-election how they did not 'understand' Gwilym Prys speaking with his deep North Wales accent.
Elystan then relates a similar story when he was campaigning in Anglesey and with Cledwyn Hughes in Llangefni 1979.