Glanmor Williams: A Life PDF
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Glanmor Williams: A Life This page intentionally left blank GLANMOR WILLIAMS (cid:91) A Life UNIVERSITY OF WALES PRESS CARDIFF 2002 © Glanmor Williams, 2002 First published 2002 Reprinted 2002 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data. Acatalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0–7083–1745–6 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without clearance from the University of Wales Press, 10 Columbus Walk, Brigantine Place, Cardiff CF10 4UP. www.wales.ac.uk/press First edition published with the financial assistance of the W. T. Mainwaring-Hughes Memorial Fund, University of Wales Swansea. The right of Glanmor Williams to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Typeset at University of Wales Press Printed in Great Britain by Dinefwr Press, Llandybïe Contents Preface vii I Bachgen bach o Ddowlais 1 II Early schooldays 16 III Life in ‘the Castle’ 29 IV ‘The College by the Sea’, 1937–1942 42 V The ‘County School’ 62 VI Academic apprenticeship 74 VII The groves of Academe 87 VIII Disturbed waters 104 IX Calls from many quarters 118 X The broadcasting arena 132 XI The world of books and information 149 XII Academic run-down 162 XIII Clearing up the backlog 177 XIV Retrospect 195 Index 200 List of illustrations Glanmor Williams aged three 2 G.W. aged four with his father and mother 8 Grandfather James Evans 24 G.W. in Cyfarthfa Castle Grammar School aged twelve 31 Committee of the Celtic Society, Aberystwyth, 1941 51 G.W. as president of the Students’ Representative Council, 1941–2 57 Joint Students’ Representative Council, UCW and UCL, 1941–2 58 Wedding photograph, April 1946 81 The family, 1965 101 1962 portrait 108 The Department of History, Swansea, 1964 113 G.W. with Mrs P. M. (‘Ginge’) Thomas 115 With Princess Margaret at the opening of the BBC headquarters, 1967 133 The Broadcasting Council for Wales, June 1971 146 G.W, with Professor Gareth Elwyn Jones, 1990 178 Bidding farewell to Cadw, 1994, with Sir Wyn Roberts 185 The Chairmen and Secretaries of the Royal Commissions on Ancient Monuments, England, Wales and Scotland, 1989 186 Investiture at Buckingham Palace, 1996 193 Preface Idid not originally plan to write an autobiography. It all sprang from a lecture on my recollections of the early years I spent in my home town of Dowlais, which Dr Joseph Gross and Dr T. F. Holley persuaded me to deliver. That talk was well enough received for it subsequently to be published in the Merthyr Historian VI (1993), and led to my being invited to publish the second, third, fourth and fifth instalments in the Merthyr Historian VII (1994), VIII (1996), IX (1998) and X (1999). At this point, I had reached the end of the story of the time I had spent in the Merthyr district. It now dawned on me that, whether or not I had intended to do so at the outset, I had in fact written an account of about a quarter of my life’s history. This realization prompted me to think seriously of the possibility of completing my recollections. Having done so, I sent the finished manuscript to the University of Wales Press, whose director, Ms Susan Jenkins, was, as always, distinctly encouraging in her attitude. I am deeply grateful to her and her colleagues, Ms Ceinwen Jones and Ms Liz Powell, for all they have done in ensuring that the volume appeared in print. I should also like to express my gratitude to the W. T. Mainwaring- Hughes Memorial Fund for its generous assistance, the anonym- ous Press reader for helpful comments, Mrs Gloria Watkins for typing so much of the manuscript for me, Professor Ralph A. Griffiths for his help and advice and Dr Richard Welchman for his unfailingly cheerful support. My thanks are due, too, to Dr Gross and Dr Holley for their interest and friendship over many years, as well as for unwittingly acting as ‘midwives’ for the book. What I owe my wife is beyond praise. March 2002 This page intentionally left blank I Bachgen bach o Ddowlais Bachgen bach o Ddowlais Yn eistedd ar bwys y tân. (Alittle boy from Dowlais sitting by the fire.) or, as Dowlais people would certainly have said in days gone by Bachan bêch o Ddowlish Yn ishta ar bwys y tên. ‘Bachan bêch o Ddowlish’: that is what I have always been and very largely what I still am. I look back on the people of my native heath with the deepest pride and affection. The Dowlais of my youth was a typical south Wales industrial community whose inhabitants were in the main ordinary working people with no pretensions to money or position. I remember them as wonderful folk, true members of the industrial gwerin: hard- working, warm-hearted, kindly and hospitable, willing to share their last crust with others and marvellously brave and supportive of one another in adversity. They had a real sense of shared values; they were, and are, to me the salt of the earth. The older I get the more I admire them and the more sorely I regret the passing of that kind of community. I do not think that this is just sentimental hiraeth or nostalgia on my part. My own impressions were vividly confirmed some years ago by Dr Roderick Bowen, at one time MPfor Cardiganshire. He told me 1
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