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the welsh agenda

Exclusive Charles Burton: The lost War paintings of the Boy

Spring/Summer 2016 | No. 56 | £4.95 www.iwa.org.uk Cover Photo: David Wilson The Institute of Welsh Affairs gratefully acknowledges funding support from the Jane Hodge Foundation, the Welsh Books Council and the Waterloo Foundation. The following organisations are corporate members:

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the welsh agenda

Editors: leverage our own comparative advantages’. Jessica Blair and Dylan Moore Bringing Wales has substantial zero carbon Editorial Board: renewable energy resources. But how do we Clare Critchley, Geraint Talfan unleash them in the face of practical, political Davies, Gerry Holtham, Marcus energy to Longley, Rhea Stevens, Lee Waters and legislative barriers? The IWA has just succeeded in securing Cover Photographer: David Wilson the debate the first package of funding for this multi- Political Cartoonist: disciplinary project to lay out a blueprint for Mal Humphries (Mumph) Wales to address the energy ‘trilemma’. Our Design: aim is to boost the Welsh economy through [email protected] It seems we face an energy ‘trilemma’ - yes, a detailed programme of energy saving and To advertise, tel: 02920 484 387 it is a new one on me too. generation to exploit Wales’ renewable energy The phrase refers to a trio of challenges resources. We have assembled an impressive The publisher acknowledges the financial support of the Welsh we face in the way that energy is consumed, group of experts to work out how can meet Books Council. generated and supplied. future energy demands and cut energy-related Much of our supply of oil comes from greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2035. Institute of Welsh Affairs 56 James Street, , politically unstable parts of the world, fired Working with practitioners, as well Cardiff, CF10 5EZ powered stations are being closed down and as distinguished experts from Bangor, Tel: 02920 484 387 not replaced, new nuclear plants are struggling Cardiff, Glyndwr and Universities, to get off the drawing board and there’s an the project is to be structured in a series Charity number: 1078435 imperative to address global warming by of work packages focused on addressing The IWA is an independent think tank and charity dedicated to developing ‘low carbon’ forms of energy. All of the different facets of an energy strategy promoting the economic, social, these come together to produce a headache. for Wales. Broadly these cover technology, environmental and cultural well- ‘We must accept that we have to make policy, community, end users and economics/ being of Wales. hard choices in this generation to bring about markets with specific skills sets assigned to To become a member and receive real changes for the future generation and the each work package. benefits such as copies of the welsh agenda, discounts on planet. Politicians and the industry must get We have secured funding for the first events, weekly newsletters and free real,’ the World Energy Council says. element of this three-year project from the publications, for just £45 a year, The future of energy production was Jane Hodge Foundation and are continuing to please call Jess Blair on 02920 484 387. one of the key areas identified by the IWA seek further funds for additional elements. last year in our report on the need for an We are conscious that our members economic strategy to close the wealth gap are our greatest assets and we’d value any Branches between Wales and the rest of the UK. help you feel you can give to making this

North Wales Secretariat To catch up we need to be growing our project a success. c/o Andrew Parry, Glyndwˆr University, Mold Road, economy by 4% a year more than the UK As we approach the 30th anniversary LL11 2AW average over 20 years. It is a tall order. of the Institute of Welsh Affairs next year, we To be in with a chance we need to play are embarking on what promises to be the Cardigan Bay Secretariat c/o Meilyr Ceredig to our strengths. As our report pointed out, most ambitious project yet undertaken by the 4 Science Park ‘just as the City of and south east think-tank. Aberystwyth England exploit their comparative advantages SY23 3AH of financial muscle, political power and Lee Waters Tel: 01970 636412 geographical location, we in Wales must IWA, Director Secretariat c/o Delith Thorpe 38 Southlands Drive, Swansea, SA3 5RA Tel: 01792 404315 the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 1 11 24 contents

4 A Love Letter to Wales Election 2016: Unheard Voices 24 Charles Burton: The Wales’ Oxbridge problem John McGrath was the 8 Which Welsh Muslims painting’s in the pity 42 Bridging Wales’ inaugural Artistic Director are we listening to? Tony Curtis uncovers the Oxbridge Gap of National Theatre Wales. Abdul-Azim Ahmed Rhondda Boy’s unseen Lord Paul Murphy talks to After leaving to become outlines the diversity within war paintings Dylan Moore about why AD of the Muslim communities in Wales has an Oxbridge International Festival, Wales and laments the lack 30 Wales, a Paradise problem, the Seren project McGrath sends a letter of nuance in the dominant for Artists? that aims to support Wales’ ‘home’ media narratives Amid the current climate brightest - and how we of cuts to arts funding, might eventually tempt 5 Europe – In or Out? 11 Taxing Bedrooms argues that we those graduates back David TC Davies & in Betws need to remember the rich Byron Davies Seb Cooke meets Kay history of our 44 Oxbridge: Harris, a A confidence trick? 6 Why can’t we be honest grandmother who has 32 City Regions – Rhea Stevens gives a about healthcare found herself, through Deal or no Deal? personal reflection on her choices? circumstances, at the Lee Waters & Jess Blair time at Marcus Longley advocates forefront of a campaign to honesty, clarity and fight the everyday ravages 34 Turning threats Lost Leaders? choice in the ‘marvellous, of the Bedroom Tax into opportunities 46 Edwina frustrating’ Welsh NHS outlines As one of the Assembly’s 16 How feminist is the the implications of an English stalwarts - and most divisive Welsh Assembly? Northern Powerhouse for figures - retires from office, Liz Silversmith surveys the north of Wales economy Rhys David runs the rule the facts and asks some over Mrs Hart’s record difficult questions 39 Welsh Wizard…Gentle as minister for economy, Giant…Golden Gareth? science and transport 18 Song of a Potted Plant As Wales’ footballers George W. G. explores the prepare for Euro 2016, 48 Kirsty migrant experience from Dylan Moore goes in Dewi Knight provides the inside search of the superstars an insider’s profile of the who prefigured the ’ 21 The pragmatist at work world’s most expensive outsider-insider and Manon George and Huw player, survivor, party leader Pritchard say recent announcements on the Wales Bill are encouraging

#56 Spring/Summer 2016

2 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org 50

54 Cardiff: A Welsh Seeking God’s Kingdom: ? Missives The Nonconformist from Modern Wales Social Gospel in Wales Simon Brooks and Geraint 1906-1939 & Rhys Lewis: Talfan Davies discuss Minister of Bethel ‘the Cardiff effect’, local government reorganisation Still with the Music: and the future of the north My Autobiography

The Roots of Rock from 58 Reviews: Cardiff to Mississippi My Histories & and Back A Life in History Alun, Gweno and Freda Petticoat Heroes: 50 In Parenthesis: music, 52 Convergence: Wales Gender, Culture and Red Dragons: The Story mayhem and majesty and the digital Popular Protest in the of Welsh Football explains promised land Rebecca Riots the sense of Colin Thomas explores 68 Last Word: behind Welsh National an altered media The Tradition: A New Unheard Voices ’s forthcoming landscape to find Wales History of Dylan Moore adaptation of David Jones’ catching up with the 1400-1990 epic poem of the Great present War, In Parenthesis All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recorded or otherwise without the permission of the publisher, the Institute of Welsh Affairs. ISSN 1464-7613 in Wales perhaps more than anywhere else emails redundantly reviewed for the I’ve been, the landscape presents a surprise umpteenth time, the A470 reminds me A Love around every corner - a new way of dividing of the real need for journeys - the need to land from sky, a new way of imagining the stop, to stay along the way. To push the shape the ground can take. body with the effort of the walk and the Letter The landscape, and equally the stories spirit with the quality of the encounters. it tells. With city eyes, it’s easy to see nature Wales is not a slow country - it’s a country in Wales. But with a little more experience, of wise-cracking wits and fiercely made to Wales every limestone outcrop, every grassy friendships, but it is a country that can mound whispers of centuries farming, teach you to slow down, to recognise the mining, living in a battle with this stubborn, value of this very particular corner on which John McGrath was the inaugural lovely land. And so every inch matters, you have, for now, settled, to resist the Artistic Director of National Theatre because every inch tells its own unique tale. sweeping overview - the bird’s eye. Wales. After leaving to become AD of Place: it was our constant inspiration It’s not necessarily a fashionable lesson the Manchester International Festival, during my time at National Theatre Wales. - yet. But it will become so, more and more McGrath sends a letter ‘home’ From the tough beauty of the Valleys to as we look for a response to the endless the breathtaking slate-scars of Snowdonia. march of over-familiar brands, attitudes, Not the empty landscapes of the postcards politics – the same rhetoric everywhere. though, but locations brought to life by A response that is not a rehearsal of old the people that make lives in those places. imagined certainties, but rather a demand Arwen and the shepherds of Hafod y Lan; for constantly shifting specificities. You had Rhiannon, Lynnett, Alison and all the other to be there. wild women of Merthyr; the citizens of ‘Will you miss Wales?’ The question I’m sitting in Heathrow airport waiting for a . Again and again I learned that I was constantly asked both before leaving two-hour late flight to Bangladesh and I find the more time you spend with people, in and on arriving in my new elsewhere. What’s myself dreaming of the A470. Perhaps it’s their place, their places, the better the work to miss? So many shades of green that the delay. Being stuck on a bench outside you make there becomes. Most of NTW’s the word falls apart. A politics so far from the departure lounge’s Pret A Manger and best achievements came from time served Westminster’s post-Thatcherite certainties sitting looking at the arse end of a very (sometimes if felt like that at first). A prison that it’s hard to translate across the border. A slowly moving tractor involve much the of the unfamiliar, or even the deadly dull - belief in deciding things together that creates same frustrations: inability to move from and yet it was never that, but always a chain the dullest of committees but the deepest the designated waiting zone; incapacity of unexpected consequences, gentle nudges, of communities. An easy fetishising of the to do anything constructive to solve the wandering conversations, landing in a shared notions of hiraeth and the square mile that problem; a lack of surety as to whether it’s moment of theatre. nonetheless expresses something beautiful man or machine that is more dedicated to And so, sitting in another departure about the guts of place - a place that gets screwing with your day. But no, it’s not just the lounge, teeth gritted against the delays, you in the guts. similarities that flash Wales’ great grey artery Can you have hiraeth for an adopted across my mind with a strange, sweet lighting home? As Wales becomes a place of bolt of longing. It’s what I’m missing. Having POR migrants other than English incomers, it’s gone from running a National Theatre, to T an important question. Can you become leading an International Festival, suddenly my Welsh? Can you become Welsh not in some life is less about the particularities of place, easy parody of assimilation but in a new way and more about the exchange of thought, T of walking, a new call in your bones. Sitting ideas, people. Some things are gained, others A in an airport language between nowhere and could be lost. The A470 symbolises much of L somewhere, I feel my bones, and that old HEATHROW T what I realise I need to hold on to as I replace AIRPORT O grey road wending through them, answer a my dodgy driving with frequent flying. full-voiced Yes. The A470, winding up through a country united over a fair few things, but A4 John McGrath is the outgoing divided by mountains, gorges, valleys; Wales, Artistic Director of National a multiplicity of peoples, each with their 70 Theatre Wales. He leaves the own very deep relationship to their location. post to take up the position of The A470, with all its delays, taught me to Artistic Director at the Manchester look at a place slowly, carefully, to see that, International Festival

4 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Europe – In or Out? —Remain

When considering my decision as to whether we should remain or leave the European Union, I listened to and read many arguments both for and against. However, when it came down to finally deciding, the biggest factors in my decision were based on two things that have been a major part of my adult life, policing and security. I have witnessed for myself, in Eastern Europe as a member of the National Crime Squad, the improvements and strides that have been made in criminal justice systems. The police forces, judges and security officials who have worked hard, through the cooperation and guidance of other nations’ police apparatus to improve the system of justice in their country. The rule of law and —Leave the security of justice is central to the welfare of any state and we have been a hugely important part of supporting and improving At present too many of our laws are coming from the EU, but not that in many EU states. from the MEPs, who are at least elected. Instead they come from The European Union has contributed to improving these the unelected Commissioners or from the unelected judges in the fundamental building blocks of states and that is something that European Court. The lack of accountability angers people with should not be overlooked. There are failings of the European widely different political views, including large numbers of Labour Union, as there is in any major institution, state or project. Just voters who are concerned at the forthcoming TTIP free trade because we are sceptical of certain aspects of Europe should not treaty, the impact it could have on the NHS and the power it will be a barrier to understanding areas where it has succeeded. We give multinationals to sue governments if they object to legislation must not look to the past, but to the future and I believe that the which they enact. Prime Minister has achieved a lasting deal for change in Europe I am concerned at the huge costs of EU membership. We that does address some serious concerns regarding the concern currently pay in £12.9 billion and receive around £4.4bn back that many had about an ‘ever closer union’. making a net cost of £8.5bn. This money has never been properly There are deep uncertainties regarding our security from accounted for – the EU’s own Court of Auditors will not sign off the the Syrian Civil War, Daesh, Russia’s intentions in Eastern books. I cannot possibly continue to ask constituents to pay their Europe among a plethora of other possible risks. We would also hard earned money into an organisation which cannot account for need to think about our role in policing and security institutions it. If we exit the EU we could comfortably continue making all CAP in Europe. We are part of Europol, operational agreements, and other EU payments and still have billions left over. security sharing arrangements and crucial partnerships that help EU leaders like Angela Merkel have created a migration catch criminals, prevent crime and work to tackle extremism catastrophe by encouraging millions to enter Europe illegally and possible acts of terror. Now is not the time to tear up those with the promise that they will be able to stay. Having created a agreements and have to renegotiate our way into new provisions. mass migration the EU now want all countries including the UK The art of Policing, the acts of crime and the pursuit of justice to take a much greater numbers of migrants. This will simply doesn’t stop whilst we enter into discussions over what role we create further problems. Whatever happens, within a few years play in the security apparatus of Europe post Britain leaving the the millions of young men arriving will have the right to move European Union. Now is not the time to take a leap into the dark, anywhere in the EU and many will head for the UK in numbers we must ensure that Europe is united against the major threats which will be very hard to deal with. of our time. Now is not the time for Europe to be divided. I do not So on 23rd June I will vote for Britain to leave the EU believe that it would be in the interests of our country to vote to because I believe that we, the , should have control leave the European Union. That is why I will be voting to remain of our laws, our money and our borders. and keep us within a safe and secure partnership within Europe.

David TC Davies, MP for Byron Davies, MP for

the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 5 Why can’t we be honest about healthcare choices?

Marcus Longley advocates honesty, back at least a decade - to Derek Wanless, of getting on for 20 years in healthy life clarity and choice in the ‘marvellous, and arguably back to the early 1990s and expectancy. Do we care? We say we do. But frustrating’ Welsh NHS the late lamented Welsh Health Planning there is no plan - and we have tolerated 25 Forum which gave birth to WIHSC. I years of things getting worse. If surmounting mean the need to concentrate some the problem is just too difficult, let us at least specialist services in fewer hospitals, admit it. while simultaneously shifting large Because we are not honest with tranches of care out of hospital and into ourselves and the public, we don’t face the community. ‘Care closer to home’ is up to the options and trade-offs which so commonplace, it has almost become are unavoidable – my second challenge. The NHS has always had multiple a cliché. Yet how much of it do we want? For example, do we want to reduce objectives. Health Boards in Wales, How would we even measure it? What’s health inequalities, or raise average life for example, currently have about 60 the target? We don’t know. We can say the expectancy? We’ve been doing the latter, nationally prescribed targets – something same for health and social care integration. and not the former. Have we made clear to like half of which have never been achieved, How much of it do we want, and by when? people that the current pattern of hospital and show little prospect of being so. First we pretend that 60 objectives care institutionalises people and may even They range from long-term, multifactorial are all vital and equal; second, key strategic kill them, and have we told them how many issues such as obesity and smoking, to the shifts go undefined and unmeasured. lives could be saved? Research published number of hours spent waiting in an A&E Our third problem with honesty is around last year in the British Medical Journal department. All are non-negotiable, all pretending to care, yet doing almost nothing suggests that just short of 800 babies a equally important. Except of course they’re about it. Take health inequity. We say year are dying because they were born not. There is an unspoken hierarchy which we’re against it, yet we have no coherent, at the weekend, rather than during the dare not speak its name. Woe betide any measurable and accountable plan to reduce week. Do we make people aware of this, Board that massively overshoots its cancer it. And what’s happening? According to or pretend that somehow it doesn’t apply waiting times or its financial targets, but the latest ONS data, in the 25 years from in your local hospital? It’s no wonder that show me one that will reduce obesity. So the early 1980s to the late 2000s, the life the public hasn’t bought into the case for why can’t we just be honest about this, and expectancy gap between the most and least change. Have we really asked people about

“the NHS usually gets an allocation, it seldom gets a budget”

acknowledge the reality? prosperous women in the UK increased from which of the 60 targets matter most to There are other top priorities where 3.8 to 5.3 years, and that of men from 5.6 them? Have we explained the opportunity we don’t even have targets. Take one of to 6.7 years. In Cardiff, as in most UK cities, costs of prioritising one over another? the biggest objectives of all, which dates a simple bus journey can map a difference This muddled thinking and allergic

6 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org reaction to plain speaking goes further. efforts a mile wide and an inch thick. the rate of chronic tooth decay is starting We need to grasp the difference between Choices don’t get made – and this is my to come down. Modest changes, but real a budget and an allocation. A budget is a final challenge. Progress in crucial areas health benefits. The cardiac surgery team binding agreement to deliver a quantified - productivity improvement, adoption of is in the top three in the UK and Ireland, amount and quality of something in return 21st century ICT, even maintenance of where the most heroic, challenging and for a sum of money, where - crucially – the estate - is always just about bearable, quite frankly awe-inspiring surgery is both parties have agreed that the input is but never great. It is frankly unacceptable, provided. Fantastically dedicated and reasonable for the output. An allocation is a for example, that every year we – all of meticulous care means that lives really sum of money, with no agreement that the us, managers, politicians, voters - fail to are being saved every day; people are amount is right. I would argue that the NHS allocate enough money to maintain our sent home after a few days in hospital, usually gets an allocation, it seldom gets a estate and major equipment, and rely on lives restored and with hope for the budget. Following the allocation of funds, our technical professionals to patch, repair future. Another shining example is the targets are imposed, usually in piecemeal and keep things going. Talk about false small mental health charity, supported fashion. We don’t acknowledge the real economy and poor stewardship. by NHS funds, located in a deprived trade-offs and the consequences; we would But one of the great paradoxes of inner-city community in far-from-ideal rather not have to choose. The result is the NHS is that all of this flawed decision- premises, where people with long-term and a series of disappointments, and public making goes on in parallel with what many sometimes quite complex mental health criticism of apparent failure. Another term would consider the real business of the problems are supported on their road to recovery by each other - and a small team of patient and empathetic staff, there every “On one hand, [there is] a fear of honest and day, helping to chip away at the emotional, economic, housing, relationship and other grown-up debate about the real choices that issues which their clients face. Both worlds constitute the paradox have to be made; on the other... thousands of which is our NHS. On one hand, a fear of daily acts of highly skilled compassion” honest and grown-up debate about the real choices that have to be made; on the other, all those thousands of daily acts of highly skilled compassion for which the for this approach is ‘muddling through’. NHS. In this parallel world, human dramas NHS exists. It is marvellous, it makes you Divisions and Departments within Health are played out every day; individual staff proud, it moves you to tears. And yet on a Boards receive their share of the often and clinical teams enact and embody the collective basis, it frustrates you, confuses arbitrary, euphemistically-termed, ‘efficient essential humanity and decency of our NHS you, makes you angry. savings’. And the game goes on. for the hundreds of thousands of citizens We could do so much better to It is very much to the credit of for whom they care. support those 70,000+ staff and three clinicians and managers throughout the Let me offer three examples of this million citizens for whom we hold the NHS service that, by and large, no-one is actually ‘real’ NHS, which all come from Cardiff in trust. And it all starts with a bit more harmed. Patients usually get good, or and the Vale, but are repeated in similar honesty, clarity and explicit, deliberate, even great, care - and amazingly service stories everywhere across Wales. There is informed choices. If you like, it’s another provision actually seems to get better. At the Health Visitor who has been working aspect of co-production – bringing the the end of each year the NHS, somehow, consistently and loyally with gypsy and public and staff into the real choices - and breaks even, albeit with one or two bailouts traveller communities. After four years of it’s certainly about being prudent. en route. The jumbo jet lands, if not on the building trust and working in partnership, postage stamp, then pretty much nearby! every child is now up to date with their But the cost is that we spread our vaccinations at the age of five, and at last Marcus Longley is Director of WIHSC and Professor of Applied Health Policy at the University of “Because we are not honest with ourselves South Wales. This article was first and the public, we don’t face up to the options given as a speech at the WISCH 20th anniversary conference, ‘Your and trade-offs which are unavoidable” Life Might Depend On It: The Future of Health and Social Care in Wales’ on 26th November 2015.

the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 7 Election 2016 X Unheard Voices

This election year we wanted to take a different look at the issues facing Wales. We’ve given a platform to voices you won’t hear in the lead-up to the vote on May 5th

Which Welsh Muslims are we listening to?

Image: Abdul-Azim Ahmed

Abdul-Azim Ahmed outlines the a horrific bombing campaign that saw the Muslims in the Docks than any form diversity within Muslim communities many landmarks in Cardiff flattened, and of religious extremism. The way in which in Wales and laments the lack of many lives lost, the Peel Street mosque was Muslims are discussed in the media and nuance in the dominant media decimated. It was Sheikh al-Hakimi who kept amongst politicians today is often far narratives the morale of Cardiff’s Muslims high, setting removed from the day-to-day realities about immediately to rebuild the lost place of Welsh Muslims. The community is of worship. not divided, as some suspect, between There are a few important lessons we moderates and radicals. For the vast majority ‘A venerable patriarchal gentleman wearing can glean from this short pen portrait. The of British Muslims, the only extremists they a green turban and white and green robe is a first, and perhaps most important, is that know of are the ones the television tells familiar figure as he walks about followed by Muslims are not newcomers to Wales, nor them about. Nor are there latent sympathies a tall slim man clad in a white burnoose and Britain. The second, is that the fortunes of for the so-called Islamic State in British white turban - the Sheikh and his secretary.’ Welsh Muslims are no different to that of mosques – it is, after all, easy to forget that This is how the eminent sociologist St the wider population. In Blitz and recession, the primary targets of Isis are Muslims, and Clair Drake described Sheikh Abdullah Ali Muslims are part of the fabric of Welsh those fighting Isis on the ground in Syria and al-Hakimi and his student, Sheikh Hasan society. Finally, it is possible to see through Iraq are also Muslim. Ismail, in his thesis that described the the example of Sheikh al-Hakimi how civic So who are Wales’ Muslims? The 2011 lively and multicultural life of , engagement has always been a relevant census records 45,950 Muslims in Wales, Cardiff in the 1940s. Abdullah Ali al-Hakimi concern for Muslims. the bulk of whom live in South Wales, was a scholar and teacher who founded The era of Sheikh al-Hakimi is far spread between Cardiff (23,656), Newport Cardiff’s first mosque in the 1930s, on Peel removed from today, in which Muslims (6,859) and Swansea (5,415) with smaller Street. He was instrumental in securing a are viewed primarily through the lense of communities in the valleys and across rural Muslim cemetery in Ely, and often met with security and terrorism. Perhaps ironically, and North Wales. Around half of Muslims in officials and politicians, putting the case the British government were much more Britain are born in the UK rather than abroad, forward for South Wales’ small but growing concerned in the 1940s and 1950s about and just under half are also under the age of Muslim population. When, in 1941, during potential communist sympathies amongst 25. A audit on Welsh

8 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org terms of ethnicity, migration history, and economic circumstances. Theologically of course, Muslims present diversity too. Most Muslims in Wales (as globally) are Sunni, and in Wales, Shi’a Muslims represent perhaps 10% of the total population. However, despite simplistic descriptions of ‘sectarian war in the Middle-East’, the Sunni-Shi’a divide is not as wide as some would imagine. The doctrinal and practical differences are certainly less pronounced and less significant than the differences between Catholic and Protestant Christians. Amongst Sunni Muslims, one can trace differences in religious authority, worship, Image: Abdul-Azim Ahmed and different approaches to tradition. There is no equivalent of an Archbishop, there is no overarching Pope; rather, religious Muslims found them both more likely to Bangladeshi or Pakistani, having migrated leaders (whether called Imam, Sheikh, Mufti be low-waged than the wider population (on invitation of the British government it or Pir) are leaders in a rather democratic, and more likely to be in professional should be remembered) during the post-war egalitarian way, each holding influence in employment than the wider population. economic boom. Middle-Eastern and Arab their particular mosque or movement. The What this tells us so far is that Welsh populations account for an indeterminate average Muslim is likely to be a worshipper Muslims are a young, largely British-born figure, most likely around 10%, the bulk of at several mosques, not just one, and would demographic. Yet the social challenges they whom are professional migrants. This should take religious instructions from a variety of face in terms of employment and education be put alongside a significant and growing religious scholars and leaders. Those who are significant. Ethnically, the heritage of population of converts, both white and know about chapel Christianity and Welsh Muslims is perhaps unsurprising. Two-thirds black British and Afro-Caribbean. Muslims nonconformism may find the fluid religious of the population are South Asian, either in Wales are diverse, incredibly so, both in authority of Islam familiar.

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visit iwa.wales Election 2016 X Unheard Voices

There is an old joke that if you have does not speak for Muslims, and the result is not always positive. The same month three Muslims in a room then you that Lee Rigby was killed, it was Anjem have four opinions. Choudary who was invited on to Newsnight on the BBC, Daybreak on ITV and Channel 4 News to speak. A dangerous radical, with a small following, was given prime-time opportunity to speak for Islam on three different channels. Not only does this leave an absence for those all important, and authoritative Muslim voices that condemn extremism, but it also gives him legitimacy and validity. There is not a single mosque in the country at which Anjem Choudary could In this brief sketch of religious, ethnic, name indicated I was a ‘community leader’. I speak, yet he is repeatedly given the type of and economic diversity of Welsh Muslims, received dozens of text messages afterwards prime-time coverage that would make the you may wonder how there can exist any from friends poking fun at the description. Archbishop of Canterbury green with envy. common ground or unity. It’s certainly a The notion of a ‘community leader’, self- In Wales, the picture is more nuanced challenge, but no more a challenge than appointed or otherwise, is an outdated one. in most cases, with a variety of Muslim representing the diverse views of university It perhaps applied during the 1980s, when voices included in the media and political students, or teachers, or any other group. Muslims were first thrust into the spotlight circles. There is still however a tendency In the Victorian era, an English gentleman of media attention and without appropriate at times to fall victim to the idea that convert to Islam, Abdullah Quilliam, was representative structures, deferred to senior Muslims constitute a single, homogenous given the title of Sheikh-al-Islam of the members of their communities to speak on and uniform block, for which there can be a by the Ottoman Caliphate. their behalf. Since then, however, Muslims single view. That’s never the case. There is Within Sunni Islam, to be called a Sheikh- have developed structures of representation an old joke that if you have three Muslims in al-Islam of a particular area is perhaps the and organisations. a room, you’ll have four opinions. It seems closest analogy to an Archbishop one will Indeed, some Muslims looked to rather than seeking a single representative come across. However, Abdullah Quilliam a more established minority faith group Muslim voice - a ‘community leader’ - it is was Britain’s first and only Sheikh-al-Islam, for inspiration: following the model of healthier to view the issues of representation and though the title no doubt gave him the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the of Muslims in the same way as other groups. a degree of influence, even amongst the Muslim Council of Britain was formed. Before working with the Muslim Council early Muslims in Britain, it was unlikely to Rather than try and provide religious of Wales, I was an elected officer at the go unchallenged. In a survey of influential authority, however, it seeks consensual National Union of Students Wales. The Muslims in the world, the Cambridge politics, and operates more like a union, NUS Wales could never, of course, provide University Professor and Muslim, Tim with affiliates, members and elections and a single authoritative voice for all students, Winters, is often ranked as the most consultations. Following devolution, the but it did work to provide a platform for influential British Muslim – and though he is Muslim Council of Wales was established, engagement for students, via their students one of the foremost British Muslim scholars, and works with the Welsh Government unions, and thus bring an important and he himself concedes he prefers the life of a on devolved issues. The model used by largely consensual voice on issues that scholar than the life of a representative of the Muslim Council, much like similar mattered to students. I like to think of the British Muslims. It is unlikely there can, or organisations such as the National Union issues related to Muslim representation will ever be, a single voice or individual who of Students, has its merits in participatory in the same way. There will never be a can represent all British Muslims. politics, but as a body formed through uniformity of Muslims views on a topic, but it Despite this, it isn’t uncommon to mosques, Muslim organisations and is possible, working with a range of partners, find people presented as a voice for Britain’s charities, it is designed to provide voices to to get the key messages out there. several million Muslims. This happened to communal groups rather than individuals. me once. As Assistant Secretary General of Of course, much of this is almost the Muslim Council of Wales, I’m sometimes irrelevant. The question of who speaks for called upon to speak on television or radio. In Muslims is sometimes more about which Abdul-Azim Ahmed is Assistant one particular instance a few years ago, I was Muslims are heard – and more often than not, General Secretary of the Muslim horrified to discover the caption below my it is the media which chooses who does or Council of Wales.

10 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Taxing Bedrooms in Betws

Images by Sebastian Cooke

Seb Cooke meets Kay Harris, when you stand outside you can see they do not pay the bedroom tax. Officially a south Wales grandmother the surrounding valleys, where once referred to as the ‘under-occupancy who has found herself, through the spectre of marked the penalty’, the bedroom tax is applied to circumstances, at the forefront of landscape. Inside there is a wood panelled anyone in a local authority or housing a campaign to fight the everyday fireplace that was handmade by Terrence. association run property who is deemed to ravages of the Bedroom Tax The centrepiece of this is an electric coal have an unnecessary spare room. imitation fire that reminds Kay of growing In the case of the Harris family, up in the nearby Gawr valley. When she the spare room in question is their third was a child she would bathe in a tin tub bedroom. Kay takes me upstairs to show next to a coal fire in her parents’ living me what it looks like: a small box room that Kay Harris lives with her family in Betws, a room. The surrounding area was heavily just about fits a single bed on one side and small ex-mining community near Maesteg mined, and most people worked in the a toddler’s bed on the other. She explains in the that has been pits. Coal was cheap and plentiful. that her husband is seriously ill with heart her home for the past 27 years. 16 of ‘I’d love to have my coal fire back,’ she disease and has recently had an operation those years have been spent in the same says. ‘That’s why I have the electric fire. It’s after being rushed to hospital. Due to his three bedroom council house where she never on because it takes all my electric condition, Terrence sleeps by himself in has raised her two children and now lives but it’s there as a feature, because it looks this bedroom every night during the week. with her husband, Terrence, and her son, like coal.’ She pauses for a moment. ‘Them On weekends, he vacates the room so that Gareth, 25. For the first time in Kay’s life, days are gone’. their grandchildren Damien and Maisy can this family home is under threat. When I meet them, Kay and her come and stay. ‘But according to them,’ The house sits on top of a hill, and family are facing eviction from their home if says Kay, ‘they don’t take that into account.

the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 11 Election 2016 X Unheard Voices

‘Them’ are the local housing association, properties instead of being evicted, but  For one bedroom that Valleys To Coast. the number of people who would require is deemed surplus to Bedroom tax rules are incredibly a one or two bedroom house massively requirements a tenant strict. The only reason a person would be outweighs the number of those properties automatically exempt from the charge is that are actually available. This gaping can face a 14% reduction if they were a disabled adult and needed hole doesn’t seem to have deterred the to their housing benefit, an overnight carer. Factors such as having Department for Work and Pensions from meaning that they have relatives come to stay, having a disabled enforcing the bedroom tax with little to pay back that amount child, the length of tenancy or having remorse. It is no overstatement to say that to make up the shortfall dependants who use the room are rarely the effects of this ‘no nonsense’ approach taken into consideration, and if they are it is have quite literally been deadly. on their rent. often as a result of long drawn out appeals. On 4th May 2013, Stephanie Botrell For one bedroom that is deemed took her own life in her home in Solihull. surplus to requirements a tenant can Next to her was a note to her son titled: face a 14% reduction to their housing ‘Don’t blame yourself for me ending my benefit, meaning that they have to pay life. The only people to blame are the back that amount to make up the shortfall government.’ Stephanie had lived in her on their rent. If they are unable to pay three bedroom council house since 1995. back the money, bailiffs can be sent in to She raised her two children there but evict them. The government have said was living by herself after they had both that people can be rehoused in smaller left home. When the bedroom tax came

12 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org into force in 2013, she was told that her discriminatory and unlawful. The people the government announced they would housing benefit would be cut by £80 a at the heart these cases were a Welsh appeal the decision in the Supreme Court, month and that she would have to make couple who cared for their disabled where the ruling would be final. Those up the rent or leave. On the day before she grandson and a victim of domestic abuse. who had been following the case were left killed herself, Stephanie visited her GP and Both had houses that were deemed stunned. said she felt she was being pushed into ‘under-occupied’. After a two year fight In the case of the woman, ‘A’, she deciding whether to stay or move and that against the DWP, they won. It was hailed has been raped, beaten and had her life she couldn’t cope with the stress. A year as a landmark ruling; one that could threatened by a former partner. The DWP after she was found dead, a coroner ruled help thousands of others who found claimed she was ‘under-occupying’ her that Stephanie Botrell had been worried themselves in such a position. However, no house as she had a spare room: a specially about the bedroom tax before committing sooner had the verdict come through than equipped secure ‘panic room’ that was suicide. In a statement defending the measure after the incident, the DWP said that it was ‘returning fairness to the system and making better use of social “My mother’s neighbour said you want to housing stock’. leave Labour because it’s coming into This unshakable commitment to New Labour and go to UKIP. I said I’m not ‘return fairness’ manifested itself again even voting for UKIP, I’m not voting for any this year when the court of appeal ruled of them. What’s the worth? They’re not listening!” that in two cases the bedroom tax was

the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 13 Election 2016 X Unheard Voices

installed for her to go to in case her abuser “The Conservatives have got a heck of a lot to returned. Both lawyers represented their answer for. Heck of a lot. Because they’ve ruined clients effectively, and together they this country.” inflicted a rare and potentially devastating blow to the solid exterior of the DWP. Then, as news of the appeal filtered through, it suddenly became clear that kitchen, something she is very proud of. Unemployment in the borough of the government was prepared to spend ‘They just come in and make it their own’ is above the national average at potentially millions of pounds in order to she says, ‘That’s the way I like it. It’s not 7%, a figure that rises dramatically to over force a woman who could be murdered by bickering or arguing all the time because 20% if you’re unlucky enough to be aged her abuser into paying a penalty of £11.65 there’s no need for it. This complete street 16 – 24. ‘All the jobs that are out there now a week on a room that could save her life. is just one clique as you can see. In this you need qualifications for,’ says Kay. ‘Well, The way that the bedroom tax is street everybody knows everybody.’ some people haven’t got the qualifications. administered means that people can Kay plays a big part in this closeness, It is hard, but especially for the youngsters. quickly get into a huge amount of debt regularly organising trips for the children in It is hard for them. Like they go to college with their council or housing association. Betws to go to theme parks like Oakwood and what’s it worth because there’s no jobs This happened to Kay Harris when the and Alton Towers during the summer. when they come out.’ charge first came in. She was quickly in ‘There’s six weeks summer holiday and going The mines around Betws used to debt to the tune of £172, placing her under away just once, it helps. It relaxes them and provide work for thousands of local people. enormous financial pressure. The bedroom everything and gets them out of the village,’ The biggest of these was St John’s Colliery tax amounts to £127.60 a month for Kay she says. ‘I’m only doing it because there’s in Maesteg which employed 700 workers and her family. This exact figure is made nothing round here for the kids.’ in the 1970s but was closed in November up of various charges. As she explains, When hearing about what Kay 1985. ‘The mines closing had a heck of a ‘We’re paying £127.60 a month. Because does, I can’t help but be reminded of past lot of an effect on an area like this,’ Kay [Terrence] claimed the PIP (Personal speeches by various politicians where tells me. ‘It disrupted everywhere, because Independence Payment) they’re charging they hail this kind of community spirit as as I said I wouldn’t have minded working us £26.25 a week, plus I gotta pay £4 off integral to their vision for Britain. In fact, down the pits. A job is a job at the end of the arrears. That only worked out at £120 the term ‘community’ has been used to the day. But it affected everywhere. Not but the other £7.60 is coming back off the sell so many hollow policy initiatives over just mining villages but everywhere. The arrears again.’ the last ten years it’s become almost Conservatives have got a heck of a lot to Hearing Kay talk about her budget meaningless. By far the most obvious of answer for. Heck of a lot. Because they’ve is confusing, but only because it’s made these was David Cameron’s Big Society, a ruined this country.’ up of so many different calculations, vision of Britain where people apparently Kay informs me that her father used to subtractions and penalties that seem to help each other out. The deep irony of this be the secretary for Ray Powell, the Labour tighten around her all the time. She can only begins to sink in when you realise MP for Ogmore from 1979 until his death talk about this mix with ease, knowing that it is another of Cameron’s ideas, The in 2001. Despite this association, Kay says the figures down to the last penny. But if Bedroom Tax, that could see this very real she retains little faith in politics. ‘I don’t trust talking about her finances is easy, then community spirit in Betws ripped apart. Labour, I don’t trust any party. My mother’s deciding how to divide them up is not. ‘Almost everyone here has had a neighbour said you want to leave Labour Her total income is £610 a month. This Stage 2 eviction notice,’ Kay tells me, because it’s coming into New Labour and go has to pay the Bedroom Tax, feed her waving hers in the air. These get sent to to UKIP. I said I’m not even voting for UKIP, family and pay for gas and electric, as anyone who has failed to keep up with I’m not voting for any of them. What’s the well as covering anything else that comes their payments, and can result in a court worth? They’re not listening!’ up; clothes, Christmas, travel, things for appearance followed by eviction. Many modern political commentators her grandchildren. ‘I’m shopping once According to Kay, some are now would describe Kay’s attitude fairly a fortnight and I’m struggling doing it finding it hard to pay for their children to sweepingly as part of the new ‘anti- because of the amount of money I got left. go on the trips that she puts on. ‘We’ve politics’. But as we go on talking, it’s quite I can’t even afford to have my haircut or organised this trip since February and clear that Kay is far from anti-political buy a pair of shoes!’ some are giving me so much a week for or apathetic, and such a description Speaking to others, it’s clear that the bus fare, you know, which helps them seems patronising at best. Kay has seen Kay’s situation is not rare. The community to afford it. They have been struggling to Conservative and Labour Governments is close, and often people socialise in Kay’s pay for it.’ come and go and come back again. So

14 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org why, when those governments have £700 of debt with her housing association their appeals and helping them to win their presided over a haemorrhaging of good being evicted from her home. Had it gone cases. ‘If it wasn’t for him, this campaign jobs and increasing poverty, should she ahead, it would have been the first eviction would be nowhere,’ Kay says, explaining retain any faith in the political system that of its kind in Wales. how they work together. ‘I take the phone gave them power? There is now a far bigger fight over calls and get the details and then Alan It would also be wrong to describe housing, which has grown sharply across goes to see them and measures it up and this disillusionment as anti-political the whole of the UK since 2010. This he goes to court with them.’ because it would ignore the activism that movement has been led mostly by working Alan recently put Kay’s number in the local Kay is involved in locally. In fact, she holds class women, the worst affected group paper for people to get in touch if they regular organising meetings about the when it comes to housing policy. A key want help with their appeals. ‘I’ll get a lot Bedroom Tax in her kitchen: ‘We held a moment in this battle came through the more calls,’ Kay says. ‘But I don’t mind that meeting last Tuesday,’ she tells me. E15 Mothers, an incredibly successful coz I’m fighting for our rights. We’re being Kay is involved with South Wales campaign led by mainly single mums who walked all over is how I feel, but no more. Against the Bedroom Tax, a broad faced down Newham council and halted a We’re going to fight and we’re going to of trade unions, faith leaders, campaigners, series of potentially devastating evictions. fight until the end. It’s the only thing we charities and homelessness organisations. Kay is now part of this wider can do isn’t it? Keep going...” They estimate that 31,850 people are movement. As well as organising against affected by the Bedroom Tax in Wales and the bedroom tax, she also helps others are lobbying the Welsh Government to in appealing against it. One person she copy and end the measure here. gives special credit to is Alan Short, a local Seb Cooke is a photographer Last year, they successfully stopped a man well into his seventies who spends and documentary film maker disabled woman who quickly got into over his spare time driving people to and from based in Cardiff.

the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 15 Election 2016 X Unheard Voices

How feminist is the Welsh Assembly?

Image courtesy of the National Assembly for Wales

Liz Silversmith surveys the facts and asks some difficult questions

As we draw to the end of the Fourth representation back in 2003, and many arrangements. became Assembly, it can be declared fairly regard that achievement as a high tide leader of Plaid in 2012 and brought the ‘feminist’. From 2011 to 2016 we’ve seen mark for equality. The Assembly has won party to a prominent position by appearing 24 female and 36 male AMs. A 40/60 numerous awards for being a family- in the General Election debates. After this, rather than 50/50 split, but many of these friendly, LGBT-friendly and disability- she became more widely recognised than women have been in strong positions friendly place to work. Its Tuesday the First Minister, quite a coup for an AM within the Welsh Government: stalwarts and Wednesday afternoon sittings are known for her rebellious ways: calling the and have been in much more conducive to AMs having Queen ‘Mrs Windsor’ and being arrested Cabinet since 1999. This term’s Cabinet a family life when compared to say, the for protesting against Trident. But as has also included in Westminster Parliament, and the very Plaid’s chances of securing a majority are numerous Ministerial positions and in nature of a small country like Wales very low, it’s more likely Leanne Wood Deputy Ministerial positions we’ve seen means AMs don’t have to travel as much might take a Deputy First Minister role in , and Rebecca as certain MPs do. any Plaid-Labour coalition than fulfilling Evans - but it’s not often women control But what about the next Assembly? her ambition to be Wales’ first female FM. health or education. At this point, the There’s a worrying downward trend. Kirsty Williams could be another Cabinet has five women and seven men. Hopefully we’ll see the strong women potential coalition partner, if Labour Again, not quite 50/50. in opposition continue in leading need just a handful of AMs to make up The Assembly did have equal roles, particularly if there are coalition the numbers. She’s widely admired and

16 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org will have a hard battle in Looking ahead to the elections, how many Cardiff Central against . Jenny Rathbone herself is the Labour female AMs are we likely to see return? backbencher who was - worryingly - Candidates are still being chosen, but there’s removed from a Committee chair position simply for voicing her own opinions. a worrying number of influential women Even if plenty of women get selected leaving and not seeking re-election. as candidates, how many are in winnable seats? Yet again, many of the safest seats with male candidates are nearly guaranteed a win, with women left with the hardest and most difficult majorities to tackle. This means plenty of male candidates will be confident of their success, whereas the women will have to known for collaborating with the Welsh doesn’t help to stuff the with work much harder to beat their opposition. Government where possible to secure women if none of the Bills they pass Looking ahead to 2016, the turnover Liberal Democrat policies in budget help to tackle gender inequality in wider of AMs bring into question how much deals. She has also pushed through a society. The Fourth Assembly has seen further away the Senedd might move Member’s Bill on safe nurse staffing levels the Violence Against Women, Domestic from equal representation. UKIP is not and, despite often working together with Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act known for its equality policies and the , is frequently the strongest passed, but not without a battle from the number of seats it is expected to gain performer in FMQs when subjecting third sector to change the title from the (up to nine, potentially) will be unlikely to to scrutiny. Many people ‘Gender-based Violence’ Bill, to recognise feature many women. We’re a long way across the spectrum in Welsh politics the disproportionate impact on women. off a female First Minister, but we might hope that the hardworking Brecon & This is important not only symbolically, see the female opposition leaders take on Radnorshire AM holds on to her seat. but to recognise that there needs to be roles as junior coalition partners. It would Regarding the , more women’s refuges (whilst never be remiss not to mention the Women’s only four of their 14 AMs are women ignoring the need for services for men Equality party fielding candidates in South and they have never had a female leader. too). There was also a fight from Jocelyn Wales Central, and the new female Wales However all four have held shadow policy Davies to ensure ‘healthy relationships’ Green Party leader, Alice Hooker-Stroud, positions to good effect: has are taught in schools, as she pushed for but unfortunately these smaller parties been particularly strong on the education the Welsh Government to take a long- look unlikely to gain many seats. However, brief, as was Antoinette Sandbach who term view to tackling harmful attitudes they are likely to grab the opportunity to left to be an MP in May 2015. However, between genders. The Wellbeing of Future ask voters specifically for their regional without positive discrimination measures Generations Act works towards a ‘more votes, rather than waste efforts on like All Women Shortlists, it doesn’t look equal Wales’, but this is legislation is yet to constituency campaigns. likely the Tories will increase their female be fully tested and has been criticised as The Assembly set itself an admirable representation by much this time around. woolly, although its aims are admirable. benchmark in 2003 – and temporarily in All Women Shortlists are the main Looking ahead to the elections, how 2006 after a by-election, when it actually reason the Assembly saw a 50/50 many female AMs are we likely to see had 52% women – but if parties get gender split in 2003. Labour’s use of return? Candidates are still being chosen, complacent about propelling Wales to them frequently causes local upset but there’s a worrying number of influential gender equality, it won’t be able to reach amongst male members who want a go women leaving and not seeking re-election. it again. at a particular seat, but most advocates In Labour, this includes Edwina Hart, really do wish they didn’t need them. Gwenda Thomas, , Unfortunately, they’re the only way the and Presiding Officer, party can ensure progress. If all parties Rosemary Butler, who in the last few years Liz Silversmith has a used them, perhaps 2003’s 50/50 high has led a ‘Women in Public Life’ campaign. background in working for watermark would be a common fixture of From Plaid, is leaving, Welsh MPs in Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. which is a great shame given her valuable AMs in Cardiff Bay, as well But representation alone is not scrutiny and experience. No Conservative as running campaigns. She the whole picture. How feminist was women are confirmed to be leaving, currently coordinates the housing the Fourth Assembly in policy terms. It but in the Welsh Liberal Democrats, campaign Let Down in Wales.

the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 17 Election 2016 X Unheard Voices

Song of a Potted Plant George W. G. explores the migrant experience from the inside

What a hard and concrete pot this is. holes symbolic of happy days and years We have seen inequality, discrimination, of struggle. Tefiro from Eritrea carried a persecution, poverty. Culture and traditional bead necklace his father gave

Images by Louis Herron religion in Uganda provide no chance him as he fled the country. ‘It is the only for divergent thinking or living, lest point of connection I hang on without you become ‘the enemy of the people’. despair.’ Abed, from Iraq, holds small It is, rather, a ‘song of a plant in a pot’, I Needless to say: in Uganda, culture, denominations of currency from different guess. How dare a potted plant put out religion and education are manipulated to countries across Europe, connecting the roots; reach out for air, water and the propel a narrow political agenda from the dots of his story. Turkey, Greece, Italy, minerals required for its growth? The national level to the grassroots. France. One more little story that remains flowers and fruits a plant in a pot can bear When I chose to stand for the outside of the big story that continues to are restricted according to the size and inclusion of marginalised individuals in engulf individual lives. shape and location of the pot itself. The schools, I knew it was a matter of time. In 2014, after several years in truth is that any plant can be kept in a pot, Admittedly, I appreciated my culture, England, I arrived in Wales, carried by the separated from its native species. Plants religion and education; these were the mighty tidal River Usk into the heart of in pots live in a world of conformity and concrete pots I had grown up to know, Newport. Local people have been happy oppression; a situation of standing choked, even when I felt squashed, like so many to respond to my questions, sharing a feeling trapped, or living only in part. This other unheard voices. Sometimes heritage that I have understood to involve is the song of a potted plant. transplantation can be to the benefit of a hard work in coalmines and steelworks, Culture, politics, religion and plant, but I was uprooted completely. I was a love of music and sport, and many educational systems are all forms of pots rejected, persecuted and told I was vile. I previous waves of immigration. We in which people find themselves. In most no longer had a place in my motherland. attended rugby matches at Rodney Parade cases, these pots are forced upon people. When migrants leave their countries where I made friends with locals in an You do not choose and neither can you of origin, the loss is immense. Loss of effort to understand the rules of the game. refuse the particular pot in which you self, culture, profession, possessions and And at the local library, I learned of the find yourself. family. I grew up in a culture that believes Irish ‘mudcrawlers’ who made their way I come from Uganda, where a child is a communal responsibility but to the workhouse on Stow Hill, a hundred sometimes culture overrides reason, that is also quick to condemn: more often and fifty years before many now make religion in most cases conflicts with than not inequality, exclusion and violence the same walk in search of community culture and more often than not education are more prevalent than the virtues of a and belonging. Personally, I have found does not help out at all. Politics of tribe ‘tight-knit community’. The state lends help whenever I needed it, enabling me and religion is regrettable in all aspects. no hand of help to the victim. Individuals cope with my situation. I feel a sense of Since independence in 1962, apart from are crushed as much as organised social belonging to the community here, contrary the eight years from 1971-79 when Idi groups. In the face of persecution, I lost to what I experienced in England. Amin, a Muslim, ruled Uganda, there confidence and self-esteem. When death Attending a traditional Sunday dinner has always been an Anglican Protestant was imminent, I fled to the UK. provided by Bethel Community Church, president. The incumbent has ruled For every refugee, there is at least one we counted 25 nationalities at table, Uganda since 1986. Goodness gracious! thing that reminds them of the journey’s excluding the hosts from Wales, England Thirty solid years - and in the last month long days and nights. For me it is the belt and Ireland. Discussing the contents of he has been elected again! my brother made, its markings and extra our plates, we found it difficult to use the

18 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org word ‘food’ – to each of us this general term means something specific. To most Ugandans, food refers to matooke (plantain). From Kenya southwards in Africa food is cornmeal called by different names: ugali, shima, saza; from Nigeria across the Democratic Republic of Congo, food is fufu (pounded yam and cassava). Of course, rice is the staple across much of Asia, notwithstanding myriad styles of preparation. After our roast beef, potatoes, carrots and other vegetables, the conversation continued with open minds. Noticeably, food and language take the centre in migrants’ recovery of the self they lost in the process of fleeing their countries of origin. Refugees keep ‘community clusters’ for good reasons. People like to eat food that they are used to and speak their native language, which eye contact is seen as a sign of disrespect. political leaders and the media are able is healthy for self-identity. Nonetheless, As the language sessions progress, to drip disdain on unspeakable human the local language (in this case, English) there is noticeable integration as a suffering. Without this sense of common is paramount if one is to access local result of sharing good practice. Open humanity, it is no wonder that policy services. And I have observed among discussion comparing the similarities and interventions are so hollow.’ my fellow asylum seekers and refugees differences of body language with intent You cannot shake hands with a that a lack of English language is a major to understand the meaning has been the clenched fist, yet how easy can it be for impediment to integration. way forward. I must admit that owing to a refugee to accept freedom when they Having a professional background in my own culture, it has taken me a while to have known oppression their whole lives? teaching English, I took up the challenge cope with some common aspects of body Migrants will tell you that it takes a little of teaching the male asylum seekers and language in the West – especially a wink. while to realise they are around people refugees attending the Sanctuary project Migrants endeavour to recover the who love, care and listen. run by the church I had attended. The lost self in many ways. Dress is another, People exist as individuals so much class started with just two men. By the end especially for women. Observing the long like plants. Take garlic mustard; it produces of 2014 we had about 20 learners. In 2015, trails of migrants in our news media, you chemicals poisonous to the growth we saw the average attendance rise to 45 hardly see the traditional ‘faith wear’ – all and existence of other plants. Tamarisk per session. Imagine 45 men from over we see is ‘crisis wear’. After the crossover, consumes all the water, regardless of other 20 nationalities and cultures, with varied steadily people begin to rediscover plants and aquatic habitats. Yet plantain is abilities and attitudes, working together to themselves. But in some instances, women gentle and able to coexist with most plants. fit into yet another culture and language! break out of the pots in which they have lived I thought I could find a point relevant Scholars seem to agree that language their entire lives, refusing to be replanted. to all migrant plants in the words of actor and culture are intertwined. As I set up From my understanding, many days spent D’Andre Lampkin: ‘Groom yourself and your to teach, I need to plan for the inevitable. on land and sea are sometimes enough to life like a shrub. Trim off the edges and you’ll Cultural crash and clash in relation bring about a more lasting change in lifestyle. be stronger in the broken places. Embrace to language use. Even body language Despite the reality, many migrants the new growth and blossom at the tips.’ and nonverbal communication cause (asylum seekers and refugees) struggle to Let the potted plants sing their song, problems. One student from Iran got into accept their status quo, as their past seems after all. trouble when indicating the number two to fresh daily. Winnie Byanyima, Executive a lady who took offence at the way he was Director of Oxfam International, says that holding his fingers. After years of exposure the anti-migrant language that seems to George W. G. teaches English and practice, I find it easy to make eye place hierarchy on the value of human at The Sanctuary, a project for contact as expected in the West – yet in life leaves migrants as equal bystanders: refugees and asylum seekers most cultures among my fellow migrants, ‘Something terrible is happening when in Newport.

the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 19

Photo: David Wilson

The pragmatist at work

Manon George and Huw Pritchard Some aspects of the original Bill realistically’ relates to a devolved matter it say recent announcements on the were welcomed from the start by followers does not matter whether it might also be Wales Bill are encouraging. of Welsh devolution. For example, the capable of being classified as relating to a Draft Bill provided that the Assembly subject which has not been devolved. would be a permanent institution and put The Supreme Court held that the the convention that the UK Parliament competence tests in Part 4 and Schedule should not legislate on devolved matters 7 to the Government of Wales Act 2006 The reserved powers model is generally without the Assembly’s consent on a must be interpreted as intended to create considered to be the best way of statutory footing. It also transferred more a ‘coherent, stable and workable’ system delineating power, where the legislature powers to Cardiff Bay, including powers for the exercise of legislative power can make laws on any matter except those over Assembly elections. by the Assembly. Likewise, the fourth matters reserved to the UK Parliament. However, the list of reserved powers constitutional settlement through the However, as Stephen Crabb, Secretary of in the Draft Wales Bill as first introduced current Draft Wales Bill was intended to State for Wales, acknowledged on Monday contained over 200 matters. This was be a ‘stronger, clearer and fairer devolution 29th February when announcing changes seen as a ‘roll-back’ of the National settlement’. However, in introducing a to the Wales Bill, ‘the devil is in the Assembly’s powers especially following new ten-part legislative competence delivery of the detail’. the decision of the Supreme Court in test, it would most likely to lead to even The clarity and workability of the relation to the Agricultural Sector (Wales) more debates about what is and is not model depends on its design, the tests for Act where five Justices unanimously held devolved. In fact, Welsh Government competence and the list of reservations. that as long as an Assembly law ‘fairly and lawyers suggested that around 20 Acts or

the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 21 specific and detailed approach rather than a general devolution of functions as in And in this five-year remembrance Scotland. There is no change in the Wales of the Great War in which the UK is Office position against a separate, or distinct, jurisdiction for Wales. Yet, there is presently engaged the resonance of recognition of the need to look at justice in these works has sharpened again; Wales in light of the growing divergences in some areas of . A working how could we have thought that they group will be established between the were consigned to history? Ministry of Justice, the Welsh Government and the Lord Chief Justice’s Office to consider what ‘distinct arrangements are required’ to recognise the needs of Wales within the current jurisdiction. This is a significant step from the St David’s Day announcement which did not really consider justice in much detail. In Measures would have failed to pass this decided to remove the restriction as it fact, it may be argued that it is a return to new test. applies to the general principles of private the Silk Commission recommendation of Critics of the original draft will and criminal law altogether. reviewing the devolution of justice matters therefore welcome the Secretary of State’s He also announced that he will within the next decade. The Lord Chief ‘significant and substantial changes’ to remove the restriction that the Assembly Justice has been vocal of the need for a the Wales Bill. With the aim of removing needs the consent of the UK Government ‘dedicated justice function’ which would ‘constitutional red tape’, he will work to legislate on Minister of the Crown ‘enable legislation to operate effectively’ in with Whitehall departments to shorten functions in devolved areas which Wales. Administrative developments since and simplify the list of reserved matters. existed before the 2011 referendum. This devolution, such as unifying the Wales It remains to be seen whether this restriction under Part 4 of the Government circuit and establishing the administrative will go as far as the Silk Commission’s of Wales Act 2006 currently creates court in Cardiff, mean that this work has recommendation that Welsh devolution great uncertainty as to the boundaries already commenced to some degree under should be based on the principle of of the Assembly’s legislative powers. the umbrella of the current legal system. It subsidiarity, so that the UK Government The problem is that these powers are is hoped that the working group will have should only reserve what cannot be done very difficult to ascertain due to them the remit to provide a structure and plan of effectively at a devolved level. not being defined or listed anywhere. how this could be taken forward. Some of the most controversial Determining the full extent of all powers The detail of the delivery of a details in the Draft Bill were the of UK Ministers of the Crown would reserved powers model for Wales is still restrictions on the modification of involve a detailed trawl through all UK somewhat unknown and very much at the criminal law and private law. Despite the legislation prior to May 2011 to identify mercy of Whitehall departments until we fact that many existing Assembly laws the relevant functions. In Scotland on the see the next version of the Bill. However, modify general principles of the law, other hand there is a general transfer of the Secretary of State’s willingness to modification would only be allowed where existing Minister of the Crown functions in pause in order to ‘devolve more powers it had ‘no greater effect otherwise than devolved areas. and remove constitutional and legal red in relation to Wales than is necessary to As with the removal of the necessity tape’ is certainly encouraging. give effect to the provision’. According test, the Assembly will hopefully enjoy to the UK Government, such restriction more flexibility in legislating without was necessary to protect the unified legal this restriction. However, more detail is system of England and Wales. it is hoped required on how this will be achieved that the final Bill will provide the Assembly as there seems to be a gulf between with more flexibility as the Secretary of the Scottish approach and the proposal Manon George and Huw State went further than the Welsh Affairs by the Wales Office of looking at each Pritchard are Lecturers at Committee’s recommendation that the function ‘with a view to devolving as many Cardiff University’s School of test of necessity should be replaced, and as possible’. This implies a much more Law and Politics.

22 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org

Ambulance men at work, Charles Burton

24 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Charles Burton: The painting’s in the pity Tony Curtis uncovers the Rhondda Boy’s unseen war paintings All pictures by David Wilson

In this anniversary year of the Battle of each other, but when I began work on my all these years Charlie cannot distinguish of the Somme a remarkable body of series of interviews Welsh Painters Talking them in memory from the injured miners. paintings and drawings has come (Seren, 1997) Charlie was one of the first In a sense, his figures from the Somme to light: these engage with those artists I visited. There were paintings of his can be seen also as a correlative to those soldiers of the British Army which was domestic life, family, his time in Egypt doing other suffering Welshmen. Most of the decimated in that campaign. Charles National Service, paintings of Valleys railway Somme works are black and white pen Burton, one of the ‘Rhondda Boys’ lines and terraced streets and many still and ink drawings. Apart from the second group of painters who travelled down to lifes. There were no actual mines, no miners work, a large oil of an officer gripping his Cardiff School of Art on the train in the in the cage or at the face as in Valerie Ganz swagger stick, all the serving men are 1950s has worked on the theme for a and Joseph Herman, none of the winding non-combatants, ‘Ambulance Men on the number of years and there is now a body gear and pit-heads that our contemporary Somme’, being an almost generic title. They of some two dozen works which have resident in Barry, Jack Crabtree, would be so are gaunt, haggard, damaged themselves. never been exhibited, but which have fascinated by. Charlie hated mining: this was Their faces are distorted, strung between a powerful, cumulative effect, that of the industry to which his father was drawn horror and resilience. When his boss, the evoking the whole range of emotions of each morning, the danger that the young boy college Principal W. J. Norman, saw Charlie the Western Front – determination, fear, feared would take his father from him, the working on the officer painting he stopped humanity, resilience, trauma. black hole into which he would disappear. to look at it and then said that he’d walked His father was eventually seriously injured into an R.A.F. hangar in the last war which underground and never worked there again, was completely full of coffins. The painting Charlie Burton, born in 1929 in Treherbert, though he survived, with “dust” into his had triggered that memory. It was the only along with , Nigel Flower, nineties. The Burtons outlast their times. conversation Charlie remembers having Gwyn Evans and Dave Mainwaring, formed Charlie has said that he was glad the mines with him. a group of Valleys young men who through had closed: it was a personal, unequivocal In the drawing in our collection and their education and teaching careers took and deeply felt emotion. which I used as the cover of my 1998 their vision of the to So what had drawn Charlie to the poetry collection The Last Candles, the Cardiff and beyond. Charlie went on to the First World War and those Tommies at the bodies of the three soldiers fade into Royal College of Art and a successful career Somme? Of course, he could have had no paleness and begin to disappear as one’s in School of Art and, in his forties, direct experience of the war, he was born eye moves down the picture: the mud, their as Head of Art at the South in 1929; but he does remember seeing blood, their meaning is draining away. In College of Education in Barry. It was there in Treherbert and Cardiff the crippled the 1960s it must have seemed as if they that I, a young lecturer in English, first met survivors, the crutches, armless sleeves, the were being forgotten, though 1968 was the him. When the college closed we saw less wild-faced men damaged by the war. After fiftieth anniversary of the ceasefire and the

thethe welsh welsh agenda agenda spring/summer spring/summer 16— 16—issueissue 56 56 | | 25 5 Exhausted ambulance men, Gentleman on the Somme, Charles Burton Charles Burton

Treaty of Versailles. And in this five-year whose figures are often from a circus of from his time in uniform in Egypt; though remembrance of the Great War in which the imagining, like Charlie he had left the he had a house in France for many years, the UK is presently engaged the resonance valley, Tredegar, studied at Cardiff with he never visited the battlefields; he has no of these works has sharpened again; how and gone on to the Royal firm recollection of the monumental The could we have thought that they were College. He had served with the South Great War BBC TV series of twenty-six consigned to history? Wales Borderers in India, so why had hourly episodes in 1964 which was one of Visiting the house of Charles and Charlie’s doodle led to war and not John’s? the landmarks for my generation of sixth- Rosemary Burton in is always an Charlie cannot explain the manifestation formers. Though he was familiar with the exhilarating experience: it is one of the of that first Somme ambulance man. He work of Spencer, Nash and Nevinson. finest Victorian properties in that posh resists my attempts to draw some influence Charlie recounts the story of his town and is full of art – from Rosemary’s deceptively simple still-life collages to Charlie’s large characterful chairs, his And in this five-year remembrance sixties semi-abstract plant-forms and those strangely un-peopled Valleys scenes. There of the Great War in which the UK is is only one war work hanging, on the first presently engaged the resonance of landing, an ambulance man. Charlie tells me that is the very first. ‘I was sharing a these works has sharpened again; house in Liverpool for just a few weeks how could we have thought that they with the Welsh artist John Roberts, who also taught at the school of Art. We were were consigned to history? drawing, doodling, one evening, using the cross-hatching we did, and the ambulance man appeared out of it.’ Roberts (1923- 2003), now largely neglected, is an artist recently championed by Robert Meyrick at . A fine print-maker

26 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Ambulance men resting, Charles Burton

the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 27 Red Cross Men, Charles Burton

This body of work must paternal grandfather from London, who their Western Front experiences. He enlisted and was, remarkably, taken had fought in the 1915 Battle of Loos: surely be seen by a wider for active service, despite the fact that as a German attack began and he and public, and before 2018, he had only one eye. He was seriously comrades held their fire a French rapid when, perhaps, these wounded and died of those wounds after artillery barrage swept across the the war, a decade before Charlie’s birth. I advancing line of Germans and none men will again begin to encourage him to go online and retrieve was left standing. The Tommies had not fade away. details of his grandfather’s service: might needed to fire their rifles. It was carnage. he have served on the Somme? Four years But on the British side too almost 60,000 back Charlie shared with me the story of men were killed or wounded. a young valleys boy returning wounded The task of retrieving bodies, dead from the Front, his greatcoat growing or alive, and patching up survivors at heavier and heavier on his journey. It field dressing stations was left to the gifted me a poem: ‘The King’s shillings, ‘ambulance men’. Charlie insists, ‘I the people’s pennies/slipped quietly to couldn’t possibly have drawn someone the boy while he’d stood or slept/by the with a gun.’ His figures are unarmed: men and women he’d travelled with.’ their uniforms and webbing, shoulder (‘Shillings and Pence’). straps and helmets are detailed, their There was one Great War soldier faces unforgettably pained, their eyes who Charlie talked with. He had a short darkened or reduced to little more than hospital stay in his Liverpool years and sockets, but the red cross armbands they the old man in the next bed was one wore are the constant motif. ‘They are of those rare men prepared to share my dark side,’ he says. The background

28 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Two ambulance men, Charles Burton

is often an unlikely rising slope with an ambulance men, this time almost faceless They pause in their dreadful work and say: ambulance lorry crawling up it. There torsos, with the distant ambulance lorry ‘Look at what you have made us do; look is barely the hint of sky. In my visits to and a sweep of bruised sky curving at the what we have done for you. See what we the Western Front the highest piece of top left hand corner. It is inscribed ‘Charles have become.’ This body of work must ground I’ve seen was Hill Fifty-Two, which Burton probably 1968’. I used this second surely be seen by a wider public, and is fifty-two feet above sea level. Such work as the cover for After the First Death: before 2018, when, perhaps, these men meagre elevations were tactically crucial an Anthology of Wales and War in the will again begin to fade away. in the lowlands of northern France and Twentieth Century (Seren, 2007). Over the Belgium. But Charlie’s incongruous hills last thirty years my poems have included are necessary to the composition of the dramatic monologues to explore others’ picture. He is not a faux documentary experiences of war: an English nurse witness. He tells me, ‘It is not my job on the Eastern Front during the Russian to paint ideas, my job is just to do the revolution, ‘The Last Candles’; Elie Wiesel Tony Curtis is Emeritus picture. The ambulance men are an in Auschwitz, ‘Soup’; a guard/executioner Professor of Poetry at the excuse for something else.’ at Sachsenhausen, ‘Holsteins Black and University of South Wales. This series of pictures is a remarkable, White’. Charles Burton’s engagement with His New & Selected Poems: unique reimagining of the Great War. In conflict in our century has been focused From the Fortunate Isles is its entirety it has not been exhibited. Four on the Somme; his haunted ambulance published by Seren in October pieces are in private collections – one men stare out as us and demand our 2016. His Some Sort of bought by a medic, one by a psychologist engagement. This compelling series of Immortality: New & Selected and I have two in my collection: The works are his silent, dramatic monologues, Stories appears from Last Candles cover work and a smaller, each man essentially separate in his Cinnamon Press in 2017. coloured painting, again with those three thoughts while working with his fellows. www.tonycurtispoet.com

the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 29 Wales, a Paradise for Artists?

Amid the current climate of cuts to arts funding, Iwan Bala argues that we need to remember the rich history of our visual arts

Snowdon from Llyn Nantlle by Small but perfectly formed, Wales is a Park that commemorates Henry Moore. a definable ‘iconography’ in this period landscape fit for Turner and Richard Wilson, Tradition has it that the practice of - and the architecture of Welsh chapels and , Gwilym Pritchard, oral recitation, of ‘performing’ poetry, has itself points to a somewhat ‘minimalist’ David Tress, Peter Prendergast and a host a long history in Welsh culture, predating sensibility. Perhaps a more reasonable of others who have followed. A land often anything written. The Mabinogi, for explanation is that Wales was ever a feminised by poets - ‘Hon’ of R. Williams example, the cycle of ‘tales of youth’ that relatively poor country. Poetry (and singing) Parry comes immediately to mind (‘God contains the mythology of the Britons, are easier on the pocket than the expensive preserve me, I cannot escape from her’) spans back to pre-Roman times, though process of painting and sculpting. - the country has plentiful inspiration it was only transcribed much later, in the And yet we have produced many for landscape painters, whilst also being 12th and 13th centuries, by monks. But the notable practitioners. Richard Wilson (1714- relatively easy to access. Yet for centuries tales also create vivid visual experiences, 82), born in Penegoes near Machynlleth, is poetry seems to have been the primary and we know that anthropomorphic known as the father of ‘English’ landscape and quintessential art form associated ornament and visual metaphor was as painting, and was one of the founder with Wales, whose poets are mightily much part of Druidic/Celtic culture and members of the Royal Academy in London. celebrated. I might have said, as I did in artefact as storytelling was. His disciple Thomas Jones (1742-1803), my essay for Encounters with Osi (H’mm Is it more recent history that has of Pencerrig near Builth Wells, is another Foundation, 2015) that visual artists have sublimated the visual? Is it the iconoclasm leading painter who should be celebrated historically been neglected in comparison to and reliance on the ‘Word’ rather than with a major presence in the culture. poets in Wales. Well, perhaps I exaggerate, ‘Image’ of the Protestant movement that Betws-y-Coed in north Wales was but few artists in Wales are as well known has relegated visual art to a sideshow? This home to Britain’s first artists’ colony as the poets. Despite the presence in Wales is an attractive theory - but even within between 1844 and 1914. Among the best- of one of the world’s greatest contemporary the Methodist/Protestant movement, known of this group were David Cox and sculptors, David Nash, we see little of his portraiture of leading preachers were made Clarence Whaite. For the most part, these work in the landscape of the country he has by ‘Folk’ artists such as Hugh Hughes were English artists who were no longer made his home. In Blaenau Ffestiniog where (1790?-1863), paintings that the art able to travel to the Alps to paint, due to the he lives, there could be a park dedicated to historian Peter Lord has identified as the Napoleonic Wars. Wales was a convenient his work, and for other sculptors to show ‘aesthetics of relevance’ in Welsh visual Romantic landscape, easily accessible. in - something like the Yorkshire Sculpture culture of the 19th century. There was still A century later, Ceri Richards (1903-

30 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Yorkshire Sculpture Park Anthem (RS Thomas) by Iwan Bala

71) was born in Dynfant near Swansea; At last, on his eightieth birthday, Coed instance in the 19th century. And Wales he was a thrilling modernist painter who Ivor Davies of Penarth has received the still attracts artists from beyond its borders. should be celebrated with a dedicated honour of a major one-person survey So, the question remains: why museum in Swansea. Though not, like exhibition at the National Museum, work are so few artists household names in another interesting Swansea artist, Alfred that spans decades and includes his archive Wales? Could it be the Anglocentric Janes, a close friend of , of information on the ‘Destruction in Art’ establishment’s past indifference and a Richards devoted a lot of his energies to avant-garde movement of the 1960s, in lack of infrastructure to exhibit? Whereas visualising Thomas’ poetry. The Glynn which he was a major participant (working poets could recite and publish, and Vivian and the National Museum and at one time with Yoko Ono). I wonder, had musicians compose and perform, artists, Gallery in Cardiff hold a number of his he not been there in the 60s, whether he historically, had little opportunity to have works, but more should be acquired for would have been given this major survey at their work shown publicly in Wales. There the nation. In David Jones (1895-1974), our national institution? Shani Rhys James, were few commercial galleries even up to though born in Kent of Welsh descent, born to a Welsh father in Australia, has the 1970s, and the Gallery of the National we have an artist remembrancer who made her home in Wales and was recently Museum was loath to show Welsh artists combined the skills of drawing and given a major exhibition at the National work unless they had prior ‘sanction’ painting with those of a poet. He returned Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. Why not by gaining fame in London. Primarily it to the sources of ‘the ’ Cardiff? Why not huge TV coverage, so we was run as a ‘colonial institution’. The in the Mabinogi and in early Arthurian all get to know her work and her name? situation has changed somewhat from literature for his complex artworks and Beyond the ‘names’ of artists who the 1990s onwards, though our ‘home literature. He also spent time at Capel-y- should be more widely known in Wales, grown’ institutions are still more partial Ffin with the celebrated sculptor, engraver there is a strong ‘collective’ sense in which to sung poetry than visual arts, but now, and calligrapher, . Jones’ work was artists collaborate and create, many forming with austerity measures, we see once shown at the in 1934. studio groups and ideological groupings. more that the art and culture section is the Polish-Jewish emigre Josef Beca, which was formed in the early 1970s by one targeted heavily by our own Council Herman famously settled for a while in brothers Peter and the late from cutbacks. Cardiff County Council threaten Ystradgynlais, becoming popularly known the (and later joined by Ivor Davies £700,000 cuts this year, affecting the as Joe Bach; others, like Heinz Koppel, and others, including myself) has become future of many initiatives including escaped the war in south Wales. Whether almost a mythic presence by now. Its aim the Artes Mundi Art Prize and Cardiff because of, or in spite of this - possibly was to operate as a collective and to produce Contemporary. Such economically short- a bit of both, but let us not suggest that political and ‘protest’ art. It also heralded the sighted action displays the ‘culture cringe’ these Europeans arrived as ‘missionaries arrival in Wales of performance art and public our established political system clings to. of modernism’ - a host of artists emerged art. Most parts of Wales now have artist-run And that, in the end, has always been our in the south Wales valleys: Charlie Burton, enterprises that bring visual culture into the problem, ruled by philistines of our own Ernest Zobole, Osi Rhys Osmond, Christine public realm consistently and constantly, as making, not by the rulers ‘outside’. Kinsey, Robert Alwyn Hughes, John Selway well as having many public art projects. We (an émigré initially), Glyn Jones, Roger might argue that Art collectives are part of Iwan Bala is an artist, writer Cecil, David Garner, Anthony Shapland. a tradition in Wales, following the Betws-y- and lecturer.

the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 31 jobs and reducing worklessness. One council leader felt moved to City Regions – reassure his local paper that while the City Deal ‘is not committing the council to anything at the moment’ , it is ‘a fantastic opportunity... empowering communities Deal or no Deal? to really drive economic growth’ and that Lee Waters & Jess Blair ‘detailed discussions would be fleshed out in the coming months’. After four years of introspection the City Wales at the centre of the next industrial So one year on from the report of the Region agenda has finally shown signs of revolution of genomics and cloud-based Cardiff Capital Region, chaired by Roger life. As austerity deepens in Welsh local IT - and a funding package drawing on Lewis, why has progress been so difficult government, the prospect of cash from private and EU funds. ‘I can clearly see a to discern? the Treasury has focused minds in Cardiff Swansea Bay that is globally recognised On the anniversary of the report’s and Swansea, with both the Cardiff Capital for innovation and economic acceleration publication in mid-February the IWA and Region and the Swansea Bay City Region once again, ideally located on a digital Cardiff University assembled a roundtable submitting bids to the UK Government for super-highway connecting the UK and discussion, held under the Chatham House a ‘City Deal’. North America - London and New York’, rule, to hear from a broad range of people With just four local authorities to Sir Terry Matthews said at the bid launch. involved with work in the ‘city region’ to bring together, and under the single- South-east Wales, meanwhile, assess progress. minded leadership of Sir Terry Matthews, without a clear lead figure and with ten Unsurprisingly nobody argued with the Swansea Bay project submitted an local authorities to corral, appears more the concept, or the potential, but there was imaginative £1 Billion bid focused on hesitant. At the time of writing the details of palpable frustration - both with the lack of technology, health, energy and -fast the £1.28bn City Deal bid from the Cardiff leadership and drive, and also with the fact broadband infrastructure. Capital Region have not been published that such an absence was too often used as a The ‘Internet Coast’ theme of the bid beyond an indication that it is focused on reason for not taking action, when in fact there has a clear narrative - placing south west improving local productivity, creating new is nothing stopping progress being made.

32 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org ‘The long debate around governance Let’s get this in perspective. What is Participants is a side-issue, the city region exists. The the economic vision? Get that together question is what can organisations do then hopefully post election we’ll have Mark Barry, to make things happen’, one contributor a strong Welsh Government that can M&G Barry Consulting said in exasperation half-way through the look outward and inside have clear roles Ann Beynon, discussion. and responsibilities. If a regional body is CCR Transition Board Examples were pointed to where best model then so be it. Make it clear, progress is being made. Some success is forceful and stick to it. Jess Blair, being achieved through developing clusters IWA of activities linking firms and universities in One of the less discussed issues around Rachel Bowen, the city region, but it needs to be supported a Cardiff City Region is the perspective FSB Wales and strengthened. After a slow start from people living within it. The span of Donna Coyle, progress is also being made on the South the region is much wider than the city of Wales Co-operative Centre Wales Metro Project in particular. ‘It’s like Cardiff itself, and there were concerns Sheila Davies, a super-tanker slowly being nudged in the that a fundamental blockage is present Newport City Council right direction’ one attendee noted. between Cardiff and the rest of the region. And yet, time and again participants From the outside of the political discussion Cllr Peter Fox, felt the full potential had yet to be of the City Region it is difficult to see Monmouthshire County Council unleashed. ‘We’ve had enough of the the vision and narrative and buy into it, Adrian Healy, debate, the focus must now be on pace, claimed one attendee: City Region Exchange urgency and delivery’ said one. Justin John, However, as many noted, not There is a communications problem Life Sciences Hub Wales everyone is pulling in the same direction. generally in that people see this as Prof Calvin Jones, ‘There are policies that take the wider being about getting into Cardiff and Cardiff Business School perspective. The issue is that they’re all with growing Cardiff and not supporting different ministers’, said one attendee. the wider region. There is a real job Gareth Jones, Contributors said the new City to address that. People pull against it Welsh ICE Region Transition Board being chaired by as they don’t think their interests are Paul Matthews, former BT Wales Director, Ann Beynon, aligned with the region. Monmouthshire County Council has work to do with groups and people Chris Meadows, who felt marginalised under the last There is a lack of leadership at many levels in IQE Board, and also needs to build in effective this debate, some felt, and the political cycles Prof Kevin Morgan, business engagement. Whilst the Board are detrimental to that, ‘so much is driven in Cardiff University is accountable to the Welsh Government, five year cycles. What we need is some kind it also needs to operate at arm’s length so of acceptance about the anchors - and when Rob Rolley, that it can respond quickly to need and they get down they stay down.’ General Dynamics opportunity with its own statutory powers; Pulling the evening’s discussion Chris Sutton, ‘Unless we can drag powers down- there’s together, the Facilitator highlighted the JLL/ CBI Wales no point even starting’. Another attendee commonality within these themes ‘What Stevie Upton, agreed but questioned Wales’ precedent on all of these things have in common is that City Region Exchange giving away power, ‘Power and control are we need new, better and more robust Derek Walker, big words in our nation and I don’t think we relationships’. Wales Co-operative Centre have the confidence to let go and trust’. Yet, with so many elements still Another felt the recent discussions in play; the City Deal, local government Lee Waters, around a City Deal had distracted from reorganisation and the possibility of an IWA getting on with delivering: Elected Mayor, and most importantly a new Welsh Government, the ability of the The City deal is just a source of funding. Cardiff Capital Region to realise its stated What about the others? European aim of ‘fundamentally transform[ing] funding etc. We’re spending hours and the lives not only of the people living Lee Waters is Director of the days trying to get sorted- for £1.2 bn within the Region, but of all of the people IWA. Jess Blair is Policy and over 20 years. It’s a drop in the ocean. throughout Wales’ is hardly certain. Projects Manager.

the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 33 Turning threats into opportunities

Ieuan Wyn Jones outlines of Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield being delivered. the implications of an English and Hull together on the premise that But despite the challenges faced by Northern Powerhouse for the in the global economy, size matters. the Northern Powerhouse project, it would north of Wales economy With their combined population of 10 be foolish to assume that it does not pose million, and a total of 23 universities and a threat to the economy of the North of internationally renowned research hubs, Wales. In one sense, if George Osborne is the north would be in a better position to right that size matters, then we could be on a take on the economic might of London. hiding to nothing. How could a region whose However, bridging the 127 miles between total population of 695,000 (less than the How seriously should we in Wales Liverpool and Hull and all the historical city of Leeds) compete with an economic take the UK government’s recent and cultural differences in between will be powerhouse of 10 million inhabitants? If pronouncements on the setting up of a monumental task. The journey between only some of the transport infrastructure a Northern Powerhouse? Since George Ealing and the East End in London - all of projects come to fruition, such as HS2 and Osborne first introduced the idea in 14 miles - is a stroll by comparison. the improvements to TransPennine links, it June 2014, a number of publications The economic challenge is also would improve the region’s connectivity at and announcements have followed. Of enormous. According to the latest figures, the expense of neighbouring areas. By also these, perhaps the most notable are the Northern Powerhouse contributed investing in the knowledge economy over a the proposals to devolve power to the 13% of the UK’s GVA. London, with a consistent period, improvements to GVA, Greater Manchester Combined Authority similar population contributed 22.6%. however modest, would be a threat as talent (November 2014), the Northern Transport Wales’ share, albeit with a much moves east to capture higher wages and a Strategy (March 2015) and a £250m smaller population is 3.4%. It will take a higher standard of living. nuclear research fund announced in significant amount of political capital and As every student of the ‘SWOT’ Osborne’s 2015 Autumn Statement, much funds delivered over a generation to turn analysis will know, all threats are of which will be allocated to research the Northern Powerhouse into a genuine accompanied by opportunities. We cannot hubs such as the Dalton Institute and the University of Lancaster. There is no doubting the ambitions of The plan - not easily achievable - is to the programme to develop the Northern Powerhouse; if all the investment plans bring the northern cities of Liverpool, are delivered, it would amount to a very Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Hull significant injection of funds and the completion of massive infrastructure together on the premise that in the projects - in addition, of course, to the global economy, size matters. plans already outlined for the HS2 project. The scale of the plans and the political impetus behind them puts them in a different league to, say, Peter Walker’s Valleys Initiative in the 1980s. Those plans, despite the hype and PR surrounding economic powerhouse. Consistency over compete on size, obviously, but by being them, amounted in the end to little more a 10-year period, never mind over 25-30 smart we can work on our strengths and than recycling existing Welsh Office funds. years, is extremely rare in politics. Due to capture economic opportunities which The scale of the political challenge likely changes in the political complexion many have thought to be traditionally in turning the Northern Powerhouse of UK governments over the period, outside our grasp. We can improve our from a concept (so described by the changes in political priorities and the fact connectivity, by making improvements think tank IPPR North) to a physical that governments need to respond to to the A55, creating better links with reality is enormous. The plan - not easily short term difficulties it is difficult to see the motorway network and through achievable - is to bring the northern cities all the plans for the Northern Powerhouse electrification of the North Wales mainline.

34 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Realistically however, these can only in place, we could then be in a better position of Wales. Yes, there are economic ties, be achieved if the Welsh Government’s to capture Innovate UK funds, increase our but there are real opportunities for us borrowing powers are enhanced share of UKRC and staircase into high value as well. A powerful voice for the region significantly and it makes judicious use of Horizon 2020 funds. such as the NWEAB and all political and its new tax varying powers. We need to congratulate the North business leaders should be making the But we cannot prosper on the promise of Wales’ local authorities for setting up case for transport improvements and of transport improvements alone. A key the North Wales Economic Ambition further investment in R&D. Growing our part of the Northern Powerhouse drive is Board (NWEAB). It has developed into economy by concentrating on key enabling based on investment in R&D and there are an effective body aimed at bringing sectors such as low carbon energy and a number of world class research institutes investment into the region and identifying advanced manufacturing will provide ready to use that investment to grow the the skills requirements of new employers. a better platform for future prosperity. region’s GVA. It is no good looking to the It has already forged links with the nascent Menai Science Park will play its part in this UK Government alone to deliver similar Northern Powerhouse, as well as making new agenda. But we need more and the investment in our research institutes. The the case for further Welsh government next Welsh Government needs to address Welsh Government has to show a clear support. It is already a powerful voice for this by making an early commitment to a commitment to investing further in R&D and the north, but by enhancing its powers and sustained programme of investment in the to link that investment to the market and providing it with meaningful resources, it right areas. commercialisation end of the research cycle. can make a large contribution to develop That is why the Welsh Government’s support the region’s economy. Ieuan Wyn Jones is a former for the Menai Science Park project is so vital. The ‘threat’ of the Northern leader of and That’s also why the campaign to maintain Powerhouse can be seen by some Deputy First Minister of funding in our Universities’ research base in as reinforcing the argument that our Wales; he is now Director of the Welsh Government’s 2016-17 budget economic future is more closely aligned the Menai Science Park at was so important. Once the basic funds are to the north of England than to the rest Bangor University.

Welsh Wizard… Gentle Giant… Golden Gareth?

As Wales’ footballers prepare for Together, Stronger was the marketing already clocked up 75 years. Euro 2016, Dylan Moore goes masterstroke that supported Wales’ blazed For a country whose national sport in search of the superstars who trail to the Euro 2016 football tournament - certainly if measured by number of prefigured the world’s most that takes place in France this summer. It participants or number of spectators - expensive player, Gareth Bale was based loose translation of the national has often been more a source of division team motto Gorau Chwarae Cyd Chwarae (football and rugby, north and south, Images: Mumph (Team Play is Best Play), first stitched into Cardiff and Swansea) than of unity, the famous red jersey in 1951 to celebrate Together, Stronger was a slogan designed the anniversary of the world’s third oldest by a newly media-savvy FAW to capture football association, which had by then the imagination of the social media

the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 39 Doubly cursed by its population size and the fact that even at schools level football has to compete with rugby for the nation’s best sportsmen, Wales has produced many talented individual footballers but not many great teams. A dispassionate history of the world’s third oldest football team would comprise a litany of near misses, tragedy, comedy and tragicomedy as well as a raft of oft-told hard-luck stories. Mario Risoli’s account of the 1958 World Cup campaign is called When Pele Broke Our Hearts. Other chapters of the story might have been named When Scotland Broke Our Hearts, When Russia Broke Our Hearts and When Bodin Hit the Bar. Another, kinder, history of Welsh football would simply reel off a list of stellar individuals. Much is made of the fact that ’s never graced the World Cup. But neither did Toshack, Southall, Rush or generation. It could be used as a Twitter importance of Gareth Bale to the current Hughes, Speed or Giggs or Bellamy. hashtag, and therefore be seen, publicly, Welsh national team. Neither his manager The very first footballing superstar to unite ‘all those connected with football nor his teammates pretend that the was Billy Meredith, a Welshman. Born in in Wales - players, coaches, medical, Cardiff-born 26-year-old is anything other , Denbighshire in 1874, Meredith’s administrators, volunteers and fans’. If the than a talisman, a player whose perfect larger-than-life stature was a result of his slogan’s success barometer was on of outstanding individual phenomenal longevity as a player (740 pitch, the arrow burst through the glass: skill and dedicated team ethic makes it appearances spanning 27 seasons either Chris Coleman’s players shattered records impossible to exaggerate his contribution. side of the First World War, for both of the in an amazing charge toward the finals. It is perhaps fitting that Bale wears the big Manchester clubs, amongst others), his It was as if the team – and the fans number 11 shirt, given that at times he colourful extra-curricular activities - being – had imbibed the spirit of togetherness appears to carry the whole team on banned for bribing an opponent, founding emblazoned hopefully around the Cardiff his back. the Players’ Union, running a pub and a City Stadium, the new home of Welsh While Bale has certainly not excelled chain of cinemas - and his habit of chewing football, which had a complete refit for in every one of his 54 games for Wales, and a toothpick during matches. Meredith each home qualifier. Goalkeeper Wayne it would be a real disservice to the rest of a was both a product of his time and a Hennessey and a defence expertly really good team to suggest the country’s harbinger of the future. A miner, a Primitive marshalled by captain Ashley Williams first major tournament qualification in 56 Methodist, a lifelong teetotaller and a limited goals conceded to just four in ten years is down to Bale alone, the statistics supporter of Lloyd George’s Liberal Party, qualifying matches, a record bettered in the tell a stark tale. In ten qualifying matches his extraordinary life careered through the whole of Europe only by Spain, England and Bale scored seven of Wales’ eleven goals, big political, social and sporting issues of Romania. Midfielders like Aaron Ramsey, including three crucial winners (against Edwardian Britain. Joe Ledley and Joe Allen helped the team Andorra and away and the pivotal The contrast between Meredith, develop a reputation for neat, attractive victory over eventual group winners who commuted between coalmining football, providing service for exciting Belgium at home). It is not only fair to say in Denbighshire and footballing at forwards like Hal-Robson Kanu to excel on that without Bale’s contribution Wales Manchester City, and Bale - who earns the international stage and propelling the would not have qualified, it is a fact. It is £15m a year, the equivalent of Barack team to an all-time high of eighth in FIFA’s also logical to suggest the country’s fate in Obama’s salary every five days – is stark. world ranking system. And then, of course, the finals tournament this summer largely But Meredith was instrumental in laying there was Bale. rests on the fitness and form of the world’s the ground for today’s millionaire playboys. It is difficult to exaggerate the most expensive footballer. His Players’ Union waged war with the

40 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Football Association over the issue of scouted by Leeds United while playing for the game.’ In Italy, he earned the nickname the maximum wage, resented because a local youth club, Gendros. Leeds were by which he is remembered: Il Buono it perpetuated amateurism and set dubbed ‘ United’, such was Gigante (The Gentle Giant). footballers apart from other ‘industries’. the Welshman’s influence on the club’s If alliterative nicknames suited the Meredith thought it highly unfair that he fortunes; in his final season at Elland Road, outspoken ‘Welsh Wizard’ Meredith and personally could not be rewarded fully for Charles scored 38 times in 40 games, the humble but brilliant and galvanising the sacrifices he had made to become the securing the team an eighth place top Charles, attempts by the shorthand-hungry best player in Britain. A salary cap was not flight finish. Spanish sporting press to endow Gareth finally abandoned until 1961, four years At the 1958 World Cup, Charles was Bale with a suitable moniker have only been after another iconic Welsh footballer had injured for Wales’ legendary quarter final a partial success. Bale wears superhero become the best of British and joined defeat to Brazil. A 17 year-old Pele scored nicknames like his superstar Alice-band: Juventus of Turin for £65,000, a fee that the only goal of the game, but Wales’ awkwardly. At first, Marca, the Real Madrid doubled the then transfer record. manager Jimmy Murphy contended, with paper, called him El Canon – ‘the Cannon’ John Charles (like Billy a William good reason, that ‘with John Charles in (as Bale enjoyed a fairytale end to his first by birth) was six feet tall and had such a the side we might have won.’ Charles is season at Madrid, scoring in the Champions powerful physique he was equally adept remembered and respected throughout League final against city rivals Atletico and at centre back or centre forward. Born the game, not only as ‘one of the greatest the winner against Barcelona in the final of in Cwmbwrla, Swansea in 1931, Charles footballers who ever lived’ but also, in the the Copa del Rey). Then it tried a composite made some appearances as a youngster words of former England manager Bobby – ‘the BBC’ – to designate the all-galactico for Swansea Town reserves, but was Robson, ‘one of the greatest men to play forward line of Bale, (Karim) Benzema and Cristiano (Ronaldo), who had scored 97 goals between them that season - but even that felt a little forced. Bale does have some of the qualities expected of a twentyfirst century footballing superstar. His trademarked ‘heart’ goal celebration has become a global phenomenon, a universally understood symbol of love that many the world over would immediately associate with the Welshman. But mostly, to use the parlance of sports journalism, Bale lets his football do the talking. This summer, Gareth Bale and his teammates will have a unique opportunity to rewrite the entire Welsh football saga. If things go badly, Euro 2016 will perhaps turn out, after all, to be just another chapter: when , Russia and – please, no! – England break our ever hopeful hearts. But if things go well, and Wales at least progress from the group phase – a realistic target – then this generation will truly be seen as Golden. And, just maybe, like his gigantic and magical predecessors, Gareth Bale will get a nickname that sticks after all.

Dylan Moore is the IWA’s Comment & Analysis Editor.

the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 41 Wales’ Oxbridge problem

Bridging Wales’ Oxbridge Gap

Lord Paul Murphy talks to Dylan indulge his passion for classical music, try that little bit harder’. Moore about why Wales has an an opportunity he may not have been Murphy is keen to stress that Oxbridge Oxbridge problem, the Seren project afforded elsewhere, and he was also able is not the be all and end all. Only 20% of the that aims to support Wales’ brightest to join the Oxford University Labour Club total number of applicants to the colleges of - and how we might eventually tempt which paved the way for his eventual Oxford and Cambridge are successful, so it is those graduates back political career (after 17 years back in inevitable that the majority of those students Wales as a teacher in ). selected for the Seren programme will What Oxford did for Murphy is end up in other Russell Group universities. something he is determined that today’s ‘We have very good Welsh universities, Welsh sixth formers should not miss out and some students would prefer to stay at When Paul Murphy, later to become on. As Oxbridge Ambassador for Wales, home, or go to London, or another big city; Lord Murphy of , went up to his report for Welsh Government has there’s no exclusivity,’ Murphy says. ‘But Oriel College Oxford in the late 1960s, resulted in the adoption of a Wales-wide there is a big but: Oxford and Cambridge are only 5% of the UK population went initiative to support the country’s brightest two of the finest universities on the planet.’ to any university at all. ‘Things have students. Seren hubs allow Wales’ Year The former Torfaen MP lives up to his role changed,’ says Murphy, a mantra repeated 12 and 13 students to meet university as Ambassador. ‘It’s a two way street,’ he throughout our conversation. It is, of tutors and Oxbridge alumni from their own says, advocating for the colleges as much course, true. Wales has changed; Oxbridge area in the hope that we might close the as for Wales: ‘Wales has to come up to the has changed; the world has changed. But Oxbridge gap. Murphy’s report had found mark.’ Oxford and Cambridge, he argues, one thing has remained: a Welsh inferiority that fewer Welsh students apply to Oxford ‘have changed. One or two colleges in both complex when it comes to Britain’s finest and Cambridge than their counterparts in universities are still snooty, and dominated two universities. Scotland, Northern Ireland and the English by public schools, but overwhelmingly they Murphy’s is a familiar story. Son of regions, and that application success rates take increasing numbers from state schools.’ a coal miner, he was the first of his family were also proportionally lower. He was impressed by how seriously both to go to university, let alone the best Wales has an Oxbridge problem. But universities took the ambassadorial project, in the land. As a young man, he ‘never why? ‘The biggest single issue’ Murphy each seconding a full-time member of staff thought Oxford was within my reach’ but, had to confront in the course of his to look at the issues. benefitting from his education at West research was the idea that ‘it’s not for me’. One of the issues, of course, is Mon., the grammar school Overwhelmingly, what Murphy calls ‘the devolution itself. Wales and England for boys, which had built something of a myths’ of Oxbridge - Bullingdon Clubs and have different, and diverging, education tradition of sending its brightest students Brideshead Revisited - were able to flourish systems - and Oxbridge has had to adapt. on to Oxford and Cambridge, he ended in a culture where, often, Wales’ brightest In England, the abolition of AS Levels up having a ‘brilliant time for three years.’ and best students do not know anybody has led to a return to the days of the There was, of course, a huge academic else who has been. Encouragingly, Murphy admissions test, at least in Cambridge. benefit - Murphy read History under the notes that, if they do get in, Welsh And in Wales, the introduction of the tutelage of, among others, AJP Taylor - but students actually do marginally better Welsh Baccalaureate has created other this was coupled by an ‘entire widening than their peers from elsewhere; perhaps, issues. Murphy is pleased the qualification of horizons’. Oriel allowed Murphy to posits Murphy, ‘they are used to having to is now graded, but is still unconvinced

42 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org

Murphy, ‘a couple of years before we start One of the issues, of course, is devolution seeing the results of the Hub system,’ but itself. Wales and England have different, he is certainly hopeful that many more Welsh students will be following in his and diverging, education systems - and own footsteps in the near future. Oxbridge has had to adapt. On the bigger question, of the potential for brain drain and the ability of Wales to attract its brightest academic stars back to the country, Murphy strikes a balance. On one hand, he sounds a note of circumspection - ‘We are only three and a half million people’ - the implication being that the big wide world about its value to able scientists. ‘It to report however there is a even balance will inevitably have its draw: ‘If you want to can help with politics, history, the arts between English students studying in work in international banking, you will go subjects,’ he argues, hinting at widespread Wales and Welsh students crossing the to London - but you’d go to London even if disillusionment with the Welsh Bac’s border into England. you were born and educated in Paris.’ On value among students themselves. ‘The Murphy ‘keeps in touch’ with the the other, Murphy throws down a gauntlet. other issue, of course, is the Welsh Seren programme and is impressed with ‘That’s up to us,’ he says, ‘we need to make language.’ Murphy has done much work its early successes. He recently attended sure there are opportunities for them to alerting Oxbridge admissions tutors to the launch event for the South-East Wales come back. Hopefully a lot [of Oxbridge the potential difficulties faced by those Hub, at Ebbw Vale College, and was graduates] will come back to Wales, and educated in Welsh who may have a lack heartened by the sight of students from bring their experience and intelligence - of fluency regarding highly specialised different schools working together and but we need to create more jobs for top technical terms in English. He is pleased teachers comparing notes. ‘It will be,’ says graduates and professionals.’

the welsh agenda winter 15—issue 55 | 39 Wales’ Oxbridge problem

Oxbridge: A confidence trick? Rhea Stevens gives a personal reflection on her time at Oxford

‘We sometimes have a habit in Wales of College, Oxford. I had much of the support whom Oxbridge is their personal star to talking ourselves down. I will have none available to me that Murphy identifies in aim for, are not getting the support and of that. The Welsh pupils and students I his report as helpful for Welsh students. opportunities they deserve. For these young have met over the course of my study are I attended a Comprehensive school with people, who actively pursue Oxbridge as an as bright as any anywhere. Whatever path a strong record of students progressing informed choice, Paul Murphy’s hard work they choose in life, our job is to equip them to Oxbridge; had access to teachers who is immensely important. to aim for the stars’. These are the words were Oxbridge alumni; parents who were I am just not convinced that the of Paul Murphy, former MP for Torfaen, supportive. I am acutely aware that debate is informed. Who decides which in his foreword to the Final Report of the without this support, I would not have ambitions are better than others? Are Oxbridge Ambassador for Wales, written for applied to Oxford. we taking the time to understand the the Welsh Government. I am equally aware that not every aspirations and choices of our brightest I couldn’t agree more. The role of student in Wales is as fortunate as I young people, or are we judging what education is surely to equip people with was and this must mean that some, for ambition should look like through our own, the knowledge, skills and confidence to ‘aim for the stars’ and achieve whatever they put their mind to. Where I take issue with the The role of education is surely to equip sometimes myopic focus on Oxbridge people with the knowledge, skills and is the assumption that the stars to aim for are pre-determined: endorsed by confidence to ‘aim for the stars’ and achieve prominent alumni who believe that since whatever they put their mind to. Oxbridge did great things for them, it’s a useful measure of success for the generations of students that follow. But that’s only part of the story. Like Paul Murphy, I attended Oriel

44 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org We cannot on one hand decry young people in Wales for lacking self-esteem or confidence, and then on the other continue to assert that we know best, and that is Oxbridge.

sometimes nostalgic, lens? you; the two are not mutually exclusive. my own personal aspirations. My instinct Some of the commonly articulated With that in mind, I am not convinced tells me I have gained more confidence barriers for Wales’ low application rate to the popular narrative creates the space and belief in the value of my choices from Oxbridge are low self-esteem and a lack of for young people to determine their my time beyond the dreaming spires. I am academic self-confidence. From personal aspirations for themselves. We cannot on better able to connect my experiences as experience, I know that both those factors one hand decry young people in Wales a barmaid or as a social work assistant can still be in place even when young for lacking self-esteem or confidence, and as developing the social skills that have people gain a place at Oxbridge. I also then on the other continue to assert that driven some of my proudest achievements know that Oxbridge was not necessarily we know best, and that is Oxbridge. Is it to date, than I am my time at Oxford. My the best destination for a bright student true that students in Wales have lower degree brought me valuable learning and who lacked confidence. Factors which aspirations, or is it possible that the state, experiences, certainly, but without my build resilience such as pastoral care, both public and political, don’t recognise wider experiences and the inspirational social networks, the community the choices they make as worthy enough? people I have met outside Oxford I would surrounding a university weren’t part of It is surely possible that at least some not have built the confidence to put that the conversation when I was applying. If of the brightest students in Wales are learning into practice. confidence and low-self-esteem are the actively deciding that Oxbridge isn’t right Confidence, aspiration and self- root of the problem in Wales, shouldn’t for them. belief are deeply personal, and everyone’s these factors count equally if not more? I could understand if we had the journey towards them will be different. Looking back, I wonder what choice same public fascination with the Russell Oxbridge doesn’t have the monopoly on I would have made had I questioned Group, and celebrated the fact that Cardiff aspiration - and we should stop pretending the accepted truth that if you are bright University has an international reputation that it does. It is part of a whole range of enough to go to Oxbridge then you have for excellence. Or if we celebrated and options for able students. If we really want an obligation to try. If I had been more created opportunities for our young the best for our young people, we have to confident in my views, might I have entrepreneurs and businesspeople with tell the whole story and let them judge for considered whether a different university the same zeal. But these equally valuable themselves what is best. with a different culture was the right choices don’t get the same airtime. There choice for me? Or whether university was are a number of reasons why this is likely even the right choice at that time? I’ll to be the case, but at least one of them never know the answer, but I know now must be that Oxbridge has powerful and it’s a question worth asking and should be public international alumni who champion Rhea Stevens is a member of part of the conversation. their own choices. the editorial board for the Welsh Aspirations are built from a belief in It wasn’t until many years after agenda. She writes this in a yourself and the belief of others around Oxford that I had the confidence to define personal capacity.

the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 45 Lost Leaders? ------Two women have stood out since the Assembly was established. As one stands down and the other fights for her political life we offer our assessments. ------

Edwina

As one of the Assembly’s stalwarts - and most divisive figures - retires from office, Rhys David runs the rule over Mrs Hart’s record as minister for economy, science and transport

Wales is not the hand most economy to corporate headquarters elsewhere. while at school (the composer ministers would want to be dealt from a So, how to judge the impact of retiring attended the boys’ school in the town and selection of West European countries. Our economy, science and transport minister played in the same orchestra several near neighbours, Scotland and Ireland, both Edwina Hart? The most pugnacious holder years ahead of her). She lists as interests have their problems but also aces – the of the office to date, to some she is, to her local countryside, music and literature enduring appeal worldwide of whiskey paraphrase the famous description of and she is acknowledged as having been and, even in its devalued form, oil, in Israel’s Golda Meir, the only man in the a consistent supporter of the arts. Indeed, the one case; in the other a world class Welsh Cabinet. An ever-present in various she is given considerable credit, as finance pharmaceutical sector and the European posts since the first Assembly back in 1999, minister in the first Assembly Government, bases for many US technology companies. she has held the economic portfolio since for ensuring the funds were made available Wales’ top cards are – the universities apart the last election in 2011. for the , despite – mainly in engineering, notably Tata Steel, To say Gower AM Mrs Hart divided the rather lukewarm support of some of Airbus and Ford, and two of these three are opinion would be one of Welsh history’s her most senior Cabinet colleagues. The facing tough times. great understatements. Those who like Mrs good relations she enjoyed with the then Sir Ah, but it’s all about services now, Hart, first woman president of BIFU, the (now Lord) David Rowe-Beddoe, whom she it might be said. Wales has, indeed, banking union for which she worked, are helped to appoint as WMC chair in 2001, developed a burgeoning service sector very complimentary. Those who feel she were a big factor in creating the platform on over recent years. Nevertheless, the has treated them roughly can be vitriolic. which has emerged one of the great post highest level services in finance, business Nor does her aversion to interviews – devolution successes. and the law are under-represented. including in this case – make it easy for the Her admirers also recognise what The bars, restaurants, hotels and other outsider to come to conclusions. some might describe as that rare quality in elements of the consumer service sector Her supporters talk of a private and Welsh politicians - the ability to be decisive, that have sprung up in our city centres act cultured person. She was born and brought quoting examples of proposals that had lain in large measure to ensure money brought up in in her own constituency, unanswered for years in the in-trays of her into Wales by students, sports fans and attending the town’s Grammar School, predecessors. These received her attention other visitors, together with the money and still lives there. She played cello in and endorsement very soon after she took spent by local people, is channelled back the National Youth Orchestra of Wales over the portfolio. One leading business

46 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org one observer notes, ‘It’s not as if they can To say Gower AM Mrs Hart divided say, here’s the money, let’s go and build it.’ opinion would be one of Welsh history’s Yet others say Mrs Hart’s uncompromising, take-no-prisoners style great understatements. has not helped and that although she has been prepared to listen, she has not been a team player. She is reputed to have been the least collegiate among her Cabinet colleagues and prepared to take decisions figure puts it this way. ‘Business seeks successive Governments in Cardiff Bay, or change policies with the minimum many things from Government but the including Mrs Hart, have failed to develop consultation or reference. She has also ingredient it wants most is the minimisation an overarching economic strategy that will kept a very tight rein on her civil servants of uncertainty. The initial reaction to her work, linking all the various initiatives and and on their cross-departmental dealings. appointment had been largely one of proposals that have spilled out over recent She has also been notoriously frosty with suspicion but her willingness to make years. Firefighting has often been good but Whitehall and Westminster, jealous of decisions where others had prevaricated too much activity has been reactive. There her territory and determined to evict quickly secured her the approval and have been reviews aplenty but the bricks intruders. Famously, in 2011, she responded confidence of business.’ and mortar have seldom followed. to an invitation to appear before the Others, too, mention the good The great issues that have occupied Parliamentary select committee on Welsh relations she developed with business and so much airtime and print space over the Affairs looking at inward investment with her willingness to look outside the usual past decade will - despite Mrs. Hart’s the reply: ‘I will not be attending.’ A second Welsh Labour tent and bring forward famous decisiveness - be passed on to her sentence went on to say the economy leading figures from within business, successors. The Swansea Bay Barrage is was her responsibility and she was quite academia and elsewhere – such as Sir still on the drawing board and fighting to capable of doing her job. Terry Matthews at the would-be Swansea make it further; the first stanchions carrying For all this there would be few Bay City Region - to head up the various electric power to the new Cardiff and who would argue that it has not been a reviews and task forces charged with Valleys Metro have not left the steelworks distinguished career of public service across coming up with ideas for pushing forward and the Brynglas tunnels remain a more several portfolios, requiring high levels of Wales’ economic growth. She is credited, formidable obstruction to entering Wales stamina, determination and commitment. too, with repairing much of the damage than high winds on the Severn Bridges. And Her legacy is undetermined at present but caused to Wales’ inward investment so it goes on. if Wales can look back in a few decades performance with the disappearance of the How much of this mixed picture can to a higher-skilled labour force working in Welsh Development Agency brand. New be attributed to Mrs Hart is, of course, moot. biotechnology and other advanced sectors; structures now in place – though not a The Tata cuts at Port Talbot make it clear that Cardiff and Swansea City Regions being revived WDA - have seen an improvement pricing decisions taken in the State-owned talked about in the same breath as the in recent years in the number of businesses Assets Supervision and Administration great exemplar, Stuttgart; a 70 mph journey choosing to invest here. Commission of the State Council in Beijing skirting Newport by road (for those wanting Some, however, question what, can have far more influence on the lives to travel further!); views back at Swansea fundamentally, has been achieved of Port Talbot and other Welsh workers from the barrage; a north Wales link to during her tenure of this latest portfolio. than anything that could happen in the high speed rail; and a four times an hour Unemployment is indeed down, and Senedd. The same is evidently true of the 30 minutes service from to activity rates are up, inward investment powers of Westminster and Whitehall in Cardiff on attractive, modern trains, it may has been encouraging but we are not a globalised economy. In this respect, this well be said she played a big part in laying talking here about a Leicester City famous survivor of Welsh Cabinets is no the foundations. miracle – from bottom to top in one year. different from any of her predecessors or To continue the football analogy, Wales successors. It is only fair to say, too, that the is still bobbing along at the foot of the UK Government controls the purse strings tables. Our economy has still to solve its for the big infrastructure projects that its Rhys David is an Honorary chronic Gross Value Added problem, and Welsh counterpart has been trying to get Fellow of the IWA and a former incomes are barely half those of the richest built, with Welsh ministers less able even Financial Times journalist. He is region, London. Scotland, by contrast, is than their local government colleagues to the author of Tell Mum Not to much closer to UK averages. Crucially, her raise finance through the sale of bonds. ‘The Worry: A Welsh Soldier’s War opponents argue, economic ministers of Welsh Government does not hold the levers,’ in the Near East 1915-1919.

the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 47 Lost Leaders?

Kirsty

Dewi Knight provides an insider’s profile of the Welsh Liberal Democrats’ Photo: Natasha Hirst outsider-insider and survivor, party leader Kirsty Williams

The core campaign team was gathered in suggested a shared optimism. A page a restaurant. It was one had been turned in London and now in A page had been of those huddled together on the food Cardiff, new leadership representing a turned in London quarter’s upper deck, but having gone new generation. through so many changes - both of name Seven years on and, well, things and now in Cardiff, and cuisine - it’s impossible to remember have turned out rather differently. But new leadership what it was called in December 2008. But Kirsty kicked off that conversation there was definitely champagne. bringing some Bynea bluntness to the representing a The newly elected leader went ‘Feds’ (as she always describes the new generation. around the table, toasting all for their ‘federal’ party leadership). Playing to the contributions during the campaign: gallery celebrating with our champagne, drafting a detailed manifesto; thousands she teased Nick: ’We’d welcome that, of calls and conversations with members; it would be good to see the transition media management, and above all, plans you used. I’d find it useful to know believing in Kirsty’s vision for the party and exactly when I should tell the press how country. Then the ‘other’ leader called. many people I’ve slept with…’ (a personal Nick Clegg had got in before the revelation that overshadowed one of starters. He hadn’t taken a position Clegg’s first major interviews as leader). during the campaign but the tone of the Teasing gave way to a different tone conversation, from what we gathered, over the years. These conversations with

48 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org advocate of home rule but unmoved by On becoming leader, she claimed a ; a Tinopolis ‘townie’ success for the party in ‘breaking the at home on the farm in Powys, yet born in Somerset (to Welsh parents). mould’ of tired, middle-aged male She’d always been the great white hope of Lib Dems in Wales. But she’s political leadership in Wales. been dealt the hardest hand imaginable. Who knows what might have happened if she’d been at the helm in more clement conditions? In 2007 for example - could the party have reached nine or ten AMs? It’s a the ‘Feds’ – and Clegg and Danny Alexander Bay bubble’s parlour games may have reasonable counter-factual. Of course, she in particular – were not always comfortable. contributed to that continuing caricature would then have had the headaches and But unlike other Wales-Westminster and lack of credit for those achievements hopes of a sharing-government leadership. dialogues, the channels were always open, during the coalition. Back in Brecon, But if the last seven years are any evidence, and with a proper sense of parity. amongst the family and other animals, is then I’m pretty sure that Kirsty Williams Her responsible, and constructive, the preferred environment these days. would have met those two imposters just leadership during the UK coalition may That lack of care for coalition-building the same. have surprised commentators who cling across the spectrum of Welsh civil society On becoming leader, she claimed to the one-dimensional ‘rainbow wrecker’ may be a vulnerability in her leadership. a success for the party in ‘breaking the caricature. There remains a sense of The burden of fronting the party has been mould’ of tired, middle-aged male political frustration amongst close colleagues taken squarely on her own shoulders, and leadership in Wales. The landscape is that Kirsty’s not received the proper Kirsty can be reluctant to draw upon the rather different now, and the trials she recognition for the wins on regional pay, encouragement and advice of allies and has faced in the last few years would the St David’s Day agreement and the supporters. Yet she enjoys immense loyalty have defeated those many pale and male promise of rail electrification. from current and former members of staff, MPs and AMs who lack anything close to All too often during that five-year as well as enduring vaulting attempts from Kirsty’s talent and resilience. period, it was Kirsty and her immediate London-based fixers to get her a seat in The denizens of the bars and cafes team who nursed the better sense of party Westminster to ‘save the party’. of Mermiad Quay wrote her off five years policy and principle. Her post-election Despite her frustrations with the ago – and she delivered a result that analysis of the coalition (available on the Bay’s political culture, expressed as far comprehensively outperformed the party IWA’s Click on Wales) ranks as one the back as 2007, it is the challenge of trying in Scotland and England. There are sure to most cogent offered by any senior Lib to provide better public services, social be twists and turns before May’s election, Dem figure. But despite her undoubted mobility and rewarding enterprise that so let’s see how this campaigner-to-the- strengths as a parliamentary performer continue to motivate. The Senedd is the core capitalises on those opportunities. and constituency campaigner, it is her place to fight for these causes. Yet that Those with the champagne on ice, skill and nuance in the close combat paradox of the frustration and the fight is ready to celebrate the disappearance of of negotiation that’s become Kirsty’s one of many for this outsider-insider. Kirsty Williams and the Lib Dems, may strongest suit. In recent years, wins on the On becoming leader, she was just have to wait a bit longer. Welsh government budget provide further still under forty, and yet she’d been a evidence of this. parliamentarian for almost a decade. The It is perhaps a quality that others first female leader of a mainstream party wouldn’t have expected of Kirsty during in Wales but her manifest destiny for 15 Dewi Knight works on the squabbling Lib Dem group meetings years. An excellent empathiser and natural education and government of the early Assembly. But peers such as communicator, yet as much a political geek relations between the UK and the First Minister or Nick Bourne would as readers of Agenda, joining the Liberals China. He previously held policy, surely attest to that ability, as would those at just 16 and canvassing for Clinton in strategy and communications ‘Feds’ - friends and sometime foes - Clegg, 1992. The girl with roots in Blaen-y-Maes positions for the University Alexander, Ed Davey et al. but a product of St Michael’s School. On of Bedfordshire, The Open Kirsty’s reluctance to invest the centre-left by instinct and inclination University and the Liberal substantial time and effort playing the but never tempted by Labour, a committed Democrats.

the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 49 In Parenthesis: music, mayhem and majesty

David Pountney explains the sense of for him the soldier, i.e. he Jones/Private , whether condemning him to march destiny behind ’s Ball, standing in the muddy water of the further, or drawing him seductively into the forthcoming adaptation of David Jones’ trench, is sharing a timeless experience mayhem of the wood, or sympathetically epic poem of the Great War, In Parenthesis of grassroots warfare. He is at one with bidding him in extremis to lay down his rifle the men who retreated from Moscow, at against the majestic and magical oak, are one with the men of Crecy, he fought with there as the ever present voices of myth Caesar and Alexander, and was always and therefore, by extension, music, for Like so many of the best ideas, an and everywhere and for all times the same what is music if not the language of myth? operatic version of David Jones’ text, In poorly shod bastard eating his miserable How to ally music with the Parenthesis, found me – I take no credit rations and nervously shitting where he cacophony of ‘modern’ warfare? The for discovering it. Following a chance prays a sniper can’t blow his balls off. mythic muse that Jones summons to conversation about Richard Burton, David This sense of the timeless experience articulate his vision is the key, for this Jones and In Parenthesis, Emma Jenkins of the private soldier (we are not talking makes clear that this vision of warfare, quite independently got in touch with me at any point here about the experience created, deliberately, eighteen years after on January 24th 2012 to say that she and seen from an officer’s viewpoint, even the too, too vivid experiences of battle, is her husband, David Antrobus, had been though Jones’ officers are admiringly and one of musical and literary imagination – working on a stage version of the text, and sympathetically portrayed) is also an an imagination which opera is precisely did I have any ideas about a composer? essential element of Jones’ experience designed to convey. When I realised on the train of comradeship – a vital and sustaining Jones, the visionary private soldier, back to Cardiff that 2016 was not only experience for Jones’ vulnerable and has been somewhat overshadowed by the the 100th anniversary of the Battle disturbed personality. Nowhere is this more articulate voices of the officer poets of the Somme but also WNO’s 70th more apparent than in the very tender and who so brilliantly pinned the terrible events anniversary, it was merely a question personal sketches Jones made of soldiers, of 14-18 to the literary wall. Jones, as Eliot of bowing to the inevitable. What’s the point of resistance if something taps you firmly on the shoulder? The result of this These are the very human aspects of serendipitously pointing finger will be Jones’ vision – the repetition through unveiled a mere four and a half years after Emma’s email. history of the humble soldier’s experience, Destiny is an appropriate topic for this particular opera project, because and the compassion and love of comradeship the continuum of time, of experience, in dire circumstances. of history lies at the heart of Jones’ work – described by T S Eliot as the greatest artwork to have emerged from caught in idle moments, inadvertent seconds recognised, goes even deeper, articulating the First World War. The war may have of repose before the onslaught resumed. the experience of the working class private been branded as the first ‘modern’ war, These are the very human soldier as, surprisingly, the mouthpiece but Jones is quick to point out that the aspects of Jones’ vision – the repetition of the Gods of war and violence. He does men trudging forward in their chalk- through history of the humble soldier’s not ask for pity, or even understanding: caked sheepskins looked like medieval experience, and the compassion and love he defines the dimensions of this titanic shepherds. Indeed, he not only saw a of comradeship in dire circumstances. experience, and then, in the interests of his connection, he saw no difference. But Jones has another string to his very unsurprisingly fragile sanity, puts the whole The central thesis of his long bow - one that he doubtless pulled at thing (In Parenthesis). understanding of his experience in the Agincourt too! This is his understanding The dimensions of this extremely trenches, and the one that makes this of the mythic presence hovering over rich topic mean that it has not only formed such a perfect operatic subject, is that everyday life. The towering figures of the the basis of a very ambitious new opera

50 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org and, through a backstage tour, to get a feel for the diverse working opportunities available within the arts. In addition, In Parenthesis will have its own website –inparenthesis.org.uk - with a series of episodes that explore the life and work of David Jones, the experiences that inspired the poem and the process of bringing his work to the opera stage. Audiences will also have the opportunity to watch the opera online for a period of six months from 1st July. This will be the first WNO production to feature on The Opera Platform, a website dedicated to live opera supported by the European Commission and a network of 15 opera companies. To enhance broader audience engagement WNO has also commissioned a special digital artwork: ‘Field’ will be a spectacular site-specific installation that will occupy the forecourt to WMC, and commemorate electronically the Welsh soldiers who fought in this momentous engagement. David Jones’ text is unquestionably great, but perhaps finally it stands on the brink of greatness truly celebrated. It has inspired an opera – one of the most Courtesy of WNO complex manifestations of our shared European culture – and, branching out (from composer and librettists, engaged in these projects will have the from that, will stimulate a massive Emma Jenkins and David Antrobus), but chance to visit a WNO opera performance engagement of young people with the we are also able to use its multiple facets in either Cardiff or and also to literary, historical, community, creative and to extend our message and remembrance visit a National Museum of Wales heritage digital aspects of a story rooted in some of of the experiences of war to young people site. There are ‘Come and Sing’ events the most terrible events ever witnessed by across Wales and England. based around the famous Welsh song, mankind. This is an act of remembrance Our ‘Engage and Participate’ Sosban Fach, which is referenced in the with profound creative and informative programme, in association with Literature score of In Parenthesis and was a traditional possibilities crossing the generations. Wales, Can Sing, National Museum of song in the WW1 trenches. Wales and National Library of Wales will There are also digital composition stimulate community enquiry into family and animation programmes being rolled David Pountney is Artistic history and heritage, especially focussing out in six schools in Communities First Director of Welsh National on areas connected to David Jones’ Division areas of South Wales. The young people Opera. In Parenthesis has been – the 38th Division of the Royal Welsh participating in these programmes will be commissioned with the support Fusiliers - in locations from invited to the Wales Millennium Centre to of the Nicholas John Trust and to . All the young people see a short performance from the opera 14-18 NOW.

The world premiere of the opera, In Parenthesis, will take place at the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff on 13 May, with other Cardiff performances on 21 May and 3 June; it will be at the Hippodrome on 10 June and at House, Covent Garden on 29 June and 1 July. In April the National Museum in Cardiff will open an exhibition devoted to the Battle of Mametz Wood that will include the largest ever group of David Jones’s war drawings.

the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 51 Convergence: Wales and the digital promised land

Colin Thomas explores an altered justified even less than a decade ago. all morph into each other.’ And that is media landscape to find Wales Indeed, Ian Hargreaves expressed some precisely what is beginning to happen. catching up with the present concern about an apparent reluctance It is most striking in journalism where to respond to the digital revolution in his the decline in the sale of papers like the Heart of Digital Wales report (2010). In a and has been review of creative industries for what was paralleled by a rapid rise in the number of then the Welsh Assembly Government, hits on their websites. Wales Arts Review Hargreaves warned that ‘without a decided not to have a printed version at ‘Convergence? Converging what with sustained further effort now, there is all, publishing only digitally, whilst Buzz, a what?’ When I mentioned the word at an a serious danger that Wales’s relative ‘what’s on’ magazine for the Cardiff area, IWA media meeting, one seasoned Welsh position in creative industries will weaken takes it for granted that it will also have a hack was more than sceptical. He argued in the coming years.’ linked Buzzmagtv channel on YouTube. that, although it was a fashionable word, Describing digital media as ‘the Welsh book publishers seem to have there was considerable vagueness about promised land for creative industries policy’, been slow off the mark, most of them what it actually meant. Little sign either Professor Hargreaves stressed that ‘without seeing digital publication as simply making that it was changing media practice, he a stronger performance in this area, the a printed text available online. A report asserted, at least not in Wales. success of the whole creative industries made for the Welsh Books Council in 2014 It was Henry Jenkins’ book strategy will be in jeopardy.’ He went on appears to indicate that this may change Convergence Culture – where old and new to argue that, whilst different media will in the near future. Mairwen Jones in media collide that helped to make the term continue to be distinct, ‘at the edges these Publishing Children’s Books in Welsh argues fashionable. Jenkins tends to wordiness but it is possible to extract a quotable definition from his book: ‘by convergence, Welsh book publishers seem to have been slow off I mean the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between the mark, most of them seeing digital publication multiple media industries.’ as simply making a printed text available online. The scepticism about Wales’ response to convergence would have been

52 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Images: BBC Wales eBooks

Guiding my grandsons through a Jack and Wales’ superb Dylan Thomas and the Road to Milk Wood are all examples of Welsh the Beanstalk app has helped me to realise media cross-pollination: the promised how blurred the dividing line between story land of convergence. ’ witty and erudite American Interior tells the story of telling and digital games has become. explorer John Evans in the form of a film, an album and an app – he’s even produced one of those old-fashioned booky things on the subject! This is the kind of thing that Henry Jenkins was predicting in his phrase that the Council should initiate discussions History 101 and Timeline World War 2 ‘transmedia storytelling’. He went on to between Welsh publishers and the main and guided by Bill Jones, the Professor say ‘convergence represents a paradigm producers of digital material in Wales of Modern Welsh History at Cardiff shift… we are in a critical moment of and organise workshops which include University, Thud Media and I have transition during which the old rules are someone who is ‘very enthusiastic about produced The Dragon and the Eagle/Y open to change and companies may be the value of apps and their relevance to Ddraig a’r Eryr on the history of Welsh forced to renegotiate their relationship books.’ The slashing of the Welsh Books emigration to America. This enabled a to consumers.’ Ffilm Cymru/Wales’ Council budget may well now make that combination of text, video, documents, Magnifier programme to ‘encourage difficult to achieve. music and interactive maps to be networks and collaborative working across Guiding my grandsons through a incorporated into a single product. the creative industries’ and the decision of Jack and the Beanstalk app has helped me If Hwb is to achieve one of its main BAFTA Cymru and Creative Cardiff to hold to realise how blurred the dividing line aims – ‘to promote and support the use a conference on the convergence issue between story telling and digital games of digital resources and technologies by in April indicate that this renegotiation is has become. To get the giant’s , Jack’s learners and teachers’ – it will need more now going on in Wales too. assistants – those using the app – are such apps, specifically designed for Wales. Ian Hargreaves’ warnings are at last required to develop literacy and numeracy For a generation that goes first to a digital being responded to. skills, even to grapple with exercises in device for information, the set app may logic which sometimes had me stumped. soon displace the set book. Children who grow up playing digital To some that is an alarming prospect. games will surely expect to see their No doubt the monks who crafted the educators take note of what is happening. illustrated manuscripts were horrified So it is heartening to see the by the future opened up by Gutenberg’s emergence of Hwb, the National Digital press. But some in Wales have responded Learning Council for Wales for there are to the digital future with excitement Colin Thomas is a producer, surely possibilities for cooperation with and enthusiasm. TELL’s multi-platform director and writer. The Dragon Wales’ thriving digital games sector - rendering of the Agatha Christie story Mr and the Eagle/Y Ddraig a’r Eryr not to mention our history and heritage Quin, Atticus and On Par’s 360-degree was released by Thud Media industry. Inspired by apps like American virtual reality work and BBC Cymru/ in 2014.

the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 53 Simon Brooks loves Cardiff. But he is angry about the trajectory the Welsh capital seems to Cardiff: be taking, becoming a city-state that sucks the life - and the economic dynamism - out of the a Welsh rest of the nation, especially its Welsh-language heartlands. Here, in correspondence with , the two discuss ‘the Barcelona? Cardiff effect’, local government reorganisation Missives from and the future of the north. Modern Wales

Dear Simon,

No one doubts the scale and depth of the economic problems facing Wales, or that those problems seem more intractable in some Dear Geraint, parts of Wales than others. But it is simplistic to pretend that the growth of Cardiff is the source of all woes for the rest of Wales. I I love Cardiff. I lived there for five years, and having can fully understand your anger at the relocation of HMRC’s Welsh been brought up in a city, I love cities in general too. language service from Porthmadog to Cardiff. As you note, this was But then I moved to . It was an accident. a London decision - unnecessarily mechanistic in my view - so I My children moved to Gwynedd, and I gave up my job to be near them. But rural Wales was tough. cannot see how it is ‘symptomatic of a Welsh frame of mind’. Nor I spent two-and-a-half years in Porthmadog, does it support your proposition that ‘all the jobs go to Cardiff’. unemployed. It wasn’t a bad time. I wrote a couple I have always wished that there was a better understanding of books, went for long walks, became a Town of Cardiff in the rest of Wales and of the rest of Wales in Cardiff. Councillor, but I would have preferred to have been In many cases - although not in your own - one can put it down in work. to mutual ignorance. But at bottom it is a function of poor As you know, I got very angry about this communications, a deep concern at the erosion of the Welsh last November. Things all came to a head for me speaking heartland, as well as a symptom of frustration at an when the Westminster Government announced its inability to counter long term fundamental trends - rural depopulation intention to close the tax office in Porthmadog and transfer the jobs to Cardiff. The tax office provides and urban growth, not to mention the UK government’s disregard of HMRC’s Welsh-language service. Moving it out manufacturing over the last three decades. of Gwynedd – to save money, to better align the We cannot wish away the worldwide growth of cities - be service with other Welsh-language services in the they large like London or Beijing, or small - very small - like Cardiff. capital – is a London decision, but defended by (It is smaller than Sheffield or Bradford or Wakefield.) People have Stephen Crabb, and symptomatic of a very Welsh been attracted to cities throughout human history, mostly with frame of mind. very positive effects for mankind - for knowledge, innovation and In , all the jobs go to Cardiff. Even culture. Arguably, if Wales had developed a significant city a few the Welsh-speaking ones! Indeed, specifically the centuries earlier than it did, then the story of our nation and its Welsh-speaking ones. There’s a sort of cultural inevitability about it. In post-devolution Wales we language might have been different. We are where we are. don’t have much faith in the nation anymore. In its Economic development across Wales is not a zero sum place, we want a metropolis, nation as hyperreality. game. In the 40 years between 1971 and 2011 Cardiff, as a People think that Cardiff can be a sort of time- percentage of the Welsh population, grew only from 10.7% to capsule which will survive the death of the Welsh 11.2% - hardly evidence of a devouring beast – a share on a par nation in rural Wales. with Copenhagen’s share of egalitarian Denmark. Young people, the media, the football, the Of course, any Welsh Government needs to share public political influence, the social relevance, the centre resources fairly and effectively, but I do think that the best antidote of gravity: all in Cardiff. Cardiff is a lovely city, to any incipient centralisation must lie in the knowledge and but we want to turn it into a Welsh Barcelona: energies found within the regions of Wales. dominant, omnipresent, sucking everything in.

We’re not building a nation in Wales anymore, we’re building a city-state. Kind regards, Geraint Kind regards, Simon

54 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Dear Geraint,

Perhaps indeed if Wales had had a proper city, things would be better today. It is a Marxist argument. Give us a city, and we would have had an urban Welsh-speaking culture and a nationalistic bourgeoisie. Cardiff would have been Prague-on-sea! But it never happened. And because Cardiff emerged as , not Riga, there was room for other modern identities to develop in Wales. The Valleys of Gwyn Thomas, ‘little Moscow’ and the Internationale. Rural Wales, revolutionary cockpit of language struggle. These modernities are central to the Welsh nation, and Wales cannot exist without them. Things have got worse since devolution. The rhetoric of nation-building has silenced critics of Cardiff centralisation as ‘unpatriotic’. Rural Wales exists today to export its young people, much as it did in the past to Liverpool and London. The name of the city has changed, but not the nature of the relationship itself. Okay, I agree, much of this is because of macroeconomics. But the Welsh State is at fault too. The fact that not a single national institution of real significance has its headquarters in north-west Wales is not an economic decision. It is a political one.

Kind regards,

Simon Dear Simon,

One has to draw a distinction between the trajectory of Wales’ largest city and the nature of Welsh government. You seem to conflate the two. We can surely agree that the Welsh state is not without its faults! I applaud what the Welsh Government has done to encourage city region collaboration, based on Cardiff and Swansea, though I wish that things were moving more quickly in south east Wales. Cardiff’s per capita GVA is only 82% of that of Nottingham, and 71% that of Glasgow. Swansea’s is 62% of the Nottingham figure and 54% of Glasgow. On the other hand, I would be very critical of the Welsh Government’s failure to reform local government and, most importantly, to empower local government. In seeking balanced development in Wales a major worry is that this period of austerity will denude councils of their strategic capacities. This threat alone makes reorganisation necessary. We can both agree that nothing like enough effort has been put into the task of creating a coherent vision for north Wales, particularly given economic and political developments in the northwest of England. Our universities – that are helpfully dispersed - surely have a role to play as powerfully catalytic assets. What I don’t buy is the argument that it is only by putting a brake on Cardiff that you can address the strategic development issues of rural Wales and north Wales or, for that matter, ‘the Valleys of Gwyn Thomas’. It ought not to beyond our government to address these issues simultaneously. By the way, the ‘modernities’ that you refer to are not unchanging.

Kind regards,

Geraint

the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 55 Dear Geraint,

I think it’s time to cut to the chase. This is a cultural problem, not just an economic one. All national movements aspire to States, but new States are centripetal. The centre of the State develops mass and gravity, and sucks things in. Before devolution, Dear Simon, cross-Wales bodies used to meet in the Metropole, Llandrindod, now they all meet in Cardiff. The national One problem of our political culture is that, despite all football team used to visit places like Wrexham, now the talk of our communitarian spirit, it carries so many it only plays in Cardiff. Urdd Gobaith Cymru had its echoes of the long history of English centralism – a headquarters in Aberystwyth, now it is in Cardiff. centralism that was intensified over the last century by Individually, such things are inoffensive: taken together, the executive demands of two world wars – aided by they represent a movement. Labour’s traditionally strong statist inclinations. This has And what economic development we have in the meant that, to date, in our default institutional settings north-west – outdoor activities, a sailing centre, a nuclear control trumps empowerment. It’s time we broke out power station, perhaps a spaceport – is not of the nation. of that. I agree it would be undesirable for Wales to It is not just the economic atrophy, the minimum wage become a unitary state. jobs, the candy floss careers which hurt - but the way we The re-empowerment of local government is are closed out of the nation because it is the body politic an urgent priority. Without it we could drift into the itself, which is Cardiff. Irish situation where local authority chief executives In the 1970s, the sociologist Michael Hechter are effectively civil servants, centrally appointed and developed the concept of ‘internal colonialism’ to answerable as much to national governments as their describe the exploitative relationship of England with own councils. Wales. This still holds true – which is why I’m a little Unfortunately, reorganisation in Wales has been suspicious of the idea of north Wales as a fairground held up by a sharp division of opinion between those adjunct to some English ‘northern powerhouse’ – but content with the local government system as it is – often a neo-colonialism has been placed across it, the justified in nationalist circles with reference to a Swiss relationship of Cardiff with north Wales. We export our cantonal model - and those who hanker after a return raw assets, people, to Cardiff, and get to be at the wrong to something close to the eight county model that was end of a branch plant economy. scrapped in 1990s. Personally, I don’t think the Swiss I am a nationalist, so am not really allowed to say model can be transplanted to Wales. these things, because like good old-fashioned unionists of I would go for eight counties, with the important old, we nationalists believe in ‘one nation’ (and, yes, I still proviso that it is underpinned by a tier of community love Cardiff). But an independent Wales will only make councils even more local than the existing authorities. things worse, unless we reconfigure the Welsh State. Eight counties would enable the reconstruction of Gwynedd should never be independent: it is not a nation. important strategic capacities in local government But it should have an ability to shape its own future. as well as providing more effective partnership (or Why should Wales be a unitary state? Power – counterpoise when necessary) with Welsh Government. real power – should be devolved to the peripheries, just Realistically, this is going to take 4-5 years to like the SNP have offered devolution in an independent achieve. While we wait, the local authorities in north Scotland to Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles. Wales, together with the Welsh Government, need to But enough of the politics. Tell me how we might collaborate quickly to create a clear set of economic best release ‘the knowledge and energies found within priorities and objectives for the north. Current initiatives the regions of Wales.’ are under-powered. The universities of Wales should also be incentivised to engage much more deeply with these processes within their regions, as well as nationally. If we don’t want north Wales to be ‘a fairground Best wishes, adjunct to some English northern powerhouse’, it is up to Simon us to determine what substance to give our own north.

Geraint

56 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org Dear Geraint,

It’s good to hear you say that Wales shouldn’t be a unitary state. Practical ways should be sought to give the regions a voice. There is much to advocate the idea of a Minister for north Wales. And councils in rural Wales should have additional powers in areas which affect them disproportionately – agriculture, tourism, Welsh as a community language. Why should the Glamorgan block decide these things? Far better to trust subsidiarity. I agree too that local government reorganisation could be an important counterweight to Cardiff centralisation. But there has to be some connection to community. God forbid that we end up with another Betsi ! In the north-west, merging with Gwynedd and is a step too far. Welsh-speakers would be in a minority in every county in Wales, and there would be no democratic basis for the Gwynedd model of language planning in education and administration. Given the central role played by Gwynedd in strategic thinking on the language today, this would have national implications. We need three counties in the north. We need two or three economic motor regions in rural Wales to offset the city regions. Aberystwyth, the Caernarfon-Bangor strip and Llandudno are obvious candidates. There should be tax breaks. I applaud Ieuan Wyn Jones’ Science Park. I wish Aberystwyth University would get its act together, and it might help if we stopped exporting our HE money to England. Whole organisations should be moved out of Cardiff, so that the north can get its intelligentsia back. Literature Wales, the National Eisteddfod, National Museum Wales, the Board, the : why must the headquarters all be in Cardiff? Tourism could be in Llandudno, the National Museums HQ in Llanberis, the language stuff in Caernarfon and some of the culture in Aberystwyth. Welsh organisations should do what the German Länder do, build the regions and keep a shoe cupboard and a couple of lobbyists in the metropolis. I agree that this is not just a public sector issue. We have few imaginative ideas for private sector growth in Wales. But it might help if the public sector took the lead.

Yours, Simon

Geraint Talfan Davies is Chair of the WNO. Simon Brooks is is a member of Cyngor Tref Porthmadog (Porthmadog Town Council). A well- known author and academic, his latest book, Pam na fu Cymru (Why Wales never was), is published by the University of Wales Press

the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 57 Review Section Reviews My Histories & A Life in History | Petticoat Heroes: Gender, Culture and Popular Protest in the Rebecca Riots | The Tradition: A New History of Welsh Art 1400-1990 | Seeking God’s Kingdom: The Nonconformist Social Gospel in Wales 1906-1939 & Rhys Lewis: Minister of Bethel | Still with the Music: My Autobiography | The Roots of Rock from Cardiff to Mississippi and Back | Alun, Gweno and Freda | Red Dragons: The Story of Welsh Football |

Welsh Lives in Context of the Reformation to be drawn into the Peter Stead complex cultural realities of a new era when scholars had to pay heed to new linguistic, economic and media realities. More recently, Dai Smith, who in 1967 had been tempted to leave New York to join Glanmor’s department precisely because, more than most, he fully understood the kind of History that was now being prescribed in Singleton Park, has given us In The Frame (2010), a book in which he brilliantly evokes the varied and sophisticated political, intellectual and cultural stimuli that Welsh society offered in the second half of the last century. That Glanmor’s legacy lives on is shown in two more memoirs by veteran historians Kenneth Morgan and John Davies, both of whose first academic jobs had come as part of that scholarly revolution at Swansea. In narrative but also a distinct and coherent many ways it had been the appointment My Histories set of values. Subsequently, as a new age of Ken Morgan, together with that of Ieuan Kenneth O. Morgan unfolded with many surprising developments, Gwynedd Jones, that had announced the new University of Wales Press, 2015 some depressing, others very welcome, it is agenda - and now in his My Histories Ken gives not surprising that prominent historians have full emphasis to what was a vital moment A Life in History been eager to pen autobiographies in which for both historical scholarship and the Welsh John Davies they place their own lives into the wider story political scene. Whilst at Swansea he had Y Lolfa, 2015 that they had helped not only to narrate and published his Wales in British Politics, 1868- interpret but also to shape. 1922 (1963) in which he explained how Welsh That individual historians have played a Most appropriately it was the late radicalism had developed into a powerful crucial role in shaping post-industrial Wales Professor Glanmor Williams who in 2002 force at Westminster. His readers had been was first highlighted by that most perceptive led the way with his modestly titled A Life. given a balanced celebration of one political of commentators Patrick Hannan in his 1999 It was Glanmor who, as Head of History at era but in a way the author was inviting us to book The Welsh Illusion. Trained as a historian Swansea University, launched a new era in follow him into subsequent decades when but working as a broadcaster, Hannan was Welsh scholarship when in the late 1950s he Wales was to forge a new political tradition very aware that, whilst ‘journalism was the decided that his department needed lecturers which offered Westminster a developing first draft of history’, in the last quarter of and researchers who were able to make sense set of social imperatives. Morgan returned the last century it was historians rather than of the great social and political changes Wales to Oxford in 1966 and, but for seven years journalists, or even politicians, who were had experienced in the twentieth century. as head of Aberystwyth University, that has reading the signs and providing the people His book records that seminal decision and remained the base from which he has given of Wales not only with an explanatory illustrates the forces that led a historian us some thirty volumes that essentially trace

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Those of us who were taught by Ken or have attended We never doubted John’s commitment any of his countless public lectures have always to Wales but more in evidence were his encyclopaedic and global knowledge and his appreciated the clarity of his argument and the highly considerable charm in developing fans among personal rhythm he builds up as facts are elegantly male and female colleagues from all corners marshaled into a convincing interpretation delivered in of the world. What John made manifest, and a balanced but trenchant manner in which wit is given it remained the hallmark of his career, was that there were no limits on being Welsh. full vein. The essence of any nation is that it allows individual fulfillment in every cultural respect; one’s Welshness should go hand in hand with regarding the world as your oyster. John’s memoir first appeared in Welsh and is now published in Jon Gower’s how reforms and ideals shaped within Welsh quality of Higher Education in Wales. Above translation with the title A Life in History. It society have been expressed in the politics of all, one appreciates the way in which the is a delightful read, capturing all the wit and Westminster and Cardiff. author’s democratic socialist and pacifist adventure of the author’s life and reminding Those of us who were taught by Ken values infuse every section of the book, and us of that quite remarkable quality (and or have attended any of his countless public the reason for this is amply explained in the expression) of delight that characterised lectures have always appreciated the clarity initial, beautifully written, chapters recounting John’s reaction to making a new friend or of his argument and the highly personal his boyhood in North London and coastal discovering a new place. John was Rhondda- rhythm he builds up as facts are elegantly Merionethshire. Lord Morgan leaves us in no born (as he loved reminding the Llafur faithful) marshaled into a convincing interpretation doubt that the Labour Movement is nothing but he was molded in Bwlchllan in Ceredigion, delivered in a balanced but trenchant manner if not a moral campaign and that many of molded above all by a quite remarkable in which wit is given full vein. These qualities the values we strive for today were taken for widowed mother Mary, one of those teachers of authoritative readability characterise all granted in the Britain of 1939-1951 for which who gave Wales its backbone and its passion his books and none more so than this new he displays considerable nostalgia. for knowledge. John’s father, Daniel, had died charming autobiography. The essence of the The late and much lamented John when he was eleven, having earlier survived volume is the seamless manner in which the Davies, John Bwlchllan, joined the Swansea the First World war experience of fighting in author blends the public with the private, that Department in 1963. At that time Glanmor Palestine where he had been weakened by is political analysis with a full account of the was fully conscious of the way in which malaria. In a similar fashion Ken Morgan’s many friendships and travels that form the Gwynfor Evans and were in account makes clear his enormous debt to his basis of modern academic life. There is plenty the process of inspiring a new generation of father, a teacher whose service in that same here for students of the British Labour party Welsh youth to fight battles on the political, war had taken him to Egypt, Palestine and and of Devolution; there is a robust defence language and cultural fronts. John came to Damascus. Evidently great Welshmen can be of the House of Lords in which the author Swansea with impeccable Cymdiethas Yr the offspring of remarkable parents and not plays a constructive role and there are sharp Iaith credentials and there were those who the least fascination of biographies is that we criticisms of those who have threatened the expected to encounter a veritable Robespierre. can trace the patterns of enlightenment and fulfilment over generations. Both these books are a reminder of the complexity, rich diversity and sheer satisfaction that life in Wales Evidently great Welshmen can be the offspring allows. They unerringly point to the Wales to of remarkable parents and not the least fascination which we must adhere even as we seek new ways of ensuring fulfillment for all. of biographies is that we can trace the patterns of enlightenment and fulfilment over generations. Both these books are a reminder of the complexity,

rich diversity and sheer satisfaction that life in Wales allows.

Peter Stead is a writer, broadcaster and historian

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Occupy Wales’ Streets century Welsh history with no reference to nature of women’s work permeated political, Rachel Trezise the ? religious and scientific discourses as well as The book promises to draw on fields of literary and visual representation.’ cultural history, gender studies and symbolic It’s remarkable too, how widely Rebecca’s anthropology to present fresh and alternative presence was felt and utilised in the public arguments on the meaning of Rebeccaite imagination. Jones notes that evidence given costume and ritual, the significance of the at the 1846 divorce trial of the ninth Earl feminine in protest and popular culture, Ferrers described him as ‘habitually dressing the use of Rebecca’s image in Victorian up after the fashion of the tollgate breakers.’ press and political discourse, and the ways An artist’s impression of the protestors in which the events and image of Rebecca published in the Illustrated London News herself were integrated into politics, culture at the height of the riots put the men in and popular memory in Wales and beyond. traditional tall black hats, despite no mention And of course, Jones delivers. in court reports of said hats, no doubt to It’s interesting, as Jones points out, portray the men as Welsh rather than, or as that ‘… the degree to which the image well as, female. of Rebecca and her followers as ersatz Perhaps most significant, in the current females has gained currency in historical political climate of economic austerity, is and popular memory of events obscures Jones’ epilogue, in which she discusses the more intriguing possibilities suggested the Rebecca Riots in the context of the Petticoat Heroes: Gender, Culture and Popular by contemporary accounts.’ I had no idea contemporary resurgence of leaderless Protest in the Rebecca Riots that as well as the wigs and shawls the protest around the world, including the Rhian E. Jones Rebeccaites had actually worn fake beards Occupy and Anonymous movements. It is University of Wales Press, 2015 and working boots, and carried swords and generally assumed the Rebeccaites were guns. Historians were quick to note the successful in their plan to destroy the tolls protestors’ use of feminine clothing but imposed on road travel in south West Before I read this book I had only a vague overlooked the masculine elements of the Wales, but tolls were only one among many notion about what the Rebecca Riots costume. This made it easier for the printed social grievances generated by the New involved: gangs of men dressed in Welsh press to portray Rebecca, amongst other Poor Law, the theoretical basis for which Lady stovepipe hats, attacking the toll gates things, as an unruly woman, ‘in which guise was the principle that ‘population increased of rural Wales. This knowledge was based [she] and her followers were presented as a faster than resources unless checked’. on stories my grandmother had told me violent and subversive threat to established Under the law, conditions in workhouses about the history of her part of the world; authority’ at a time when ‘debates on the were to be made such as to deter any a small village in . But moral character of women and the proper but the truly destitute from applying for somehow those stories had got muddied relief, (reminiscent perhaps of the current with another story my mother used to tell dismantling of the welfare state). Jones says, me about actual Welsh women in traditional ‘toll gates were singled out as a suitable costume frightening off La Legion Noire target for assault since they were highly during the Battle of Fishguard fifty years visible objects, less easily defended and earlier. (French troops mistook the women more easily attacked than other symbols of for British Grenadiers, or so the story went.) Perhaps most significant, in discontent such as workhouses or landed ‘Petticoat Heroes’ would at least cast a the current political climate estates.’ While it’s heartening to know that light on something I did not comprehend wherever people feel they’ve not been served very well. And I knew I was in safe hands of economic austerity, is by democracy the likes of Rebecca will be with Rhian E. Jones, author of Clampdown: Jones’ epilogue, in which revived, it’s utterly miserable to think about Pop-cultural Wars on Class and Gender she discusses the Rebecca just how long the very same campaign has and The Velvet Coalmine blog, where she been waged. admirably dissects the Riot Grrrl movement, Riots in the context of the poverty porn and everything in between. You contemporary resurgence of really can’t go wrong with anything named leaderless protest around the after a Clash song about the catastrophe that is Capitalism. That’s always been my world, including the Occupy Rachel Trezise is an award-winning short philosophy. But what of early nineteenth and Anonymous movements. story writer, novelist and playwright

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In from the margins the portrait of a young Dylan , who was portrayed always Joao Morais Thomas, but also more recent discoveries. At with one eye closed from an injury sustained St Cadoc’s Church in in the Vale in an ambush by former friends after a visit of Glamorgan sits a well-preserved painting to a fair when he was seventeen, was one of St George and the Dragon, painted circa such. If ever the line ‘you should have seen 1455, which lay covered from the 1540s the other guy’ was uttered in real life, it was until restoration work began in 2010. Far surely by this colourful and charismatic from being the patron saint of England (at Welsh preacher. the point of being covered), St George was The book details 500 years of art in a well-known figure all over western Europe, its 400-odd pages, but a full third of it is famed for his chivalrous nature and devotion dedicated to the art of Wales post 1914. The to God. Such paintings, once common, , started in the early twentieth show that far from being an unsophisticated century, was followed by the ravages of war periphery of the provincial gwerin, Wales that brought forth new ways of thinking was part of the ‘mainstream’ trail which which made their way into the Modernist followed the influence of Rome. movement. Here the book comes into its own, One of the most important aspects laying out the wild imagination of David Jones of the book comes in its descriptions and to the rise of the 56 group. It also details the argument showing the development of a Arts Council’s response to the public’s feeling The Tradition: A New History Welsh art practice. This was firstly made of alienation from abstract art, which resulted of Welsh Art 1400-1990 possible due to the patronage of the gentry, in a series of public art commissions in the Peter Lord but would later go on to be usurped by the sixties. Noting the indifference of the public, Parthian, 2016 patronage of the emerging middle class. Lord writes that ‘the commissioning body Restrictive laws following the civil war of were applying the same top-down principles The Tradition is an important book not only the seventeenth century on careers in public as the high-minded improvers of the for those with an interest in art but also for office and obtaining a university education nineteenth century,’ thus ironically showing those who would like to better understand placed on those who would later describe that they had learned nothing. the history of this nation. Peter Lord has themselves as Nonconformists, and the Lord ends his study in 1990, owing to spent 30 years as a leading figure in the field, due to his television and radio work as well as his position as a research fellow at the CREW Research centre at Swansea The book details 500 years of art in its 400-odd pages, University. Since his previous three-volume but a full third of it is dedicated to the art of Wales study on Welsh art, The Visual Culture of post 1914. The Celtic Revival, started in the early twentieth Wales, went out of print, Wales has been without a guide to this vital aspect of our century, was followed by the ravages of war that brought history. With this book, Lord has done the forth new ways of thinking which made their way into the nation a favour. Modernist movement. Lord does a great job of bringing importance to the historical margins in a place that has often been portrayed as marginal. Starting at the turn of the fifteenth century, for instance, we find that much popularity of that strain of Christianity in his direct involvement and own influential fine woodwork in Wales had been lost due Wales, meant there was less art produced presence by then in the Welsh art world. to the revolt against Henry IV’s English in this period than others. But a change Lord is graciously observant of his own rule instigated by Owain Glyndwˆr and in attitudes brought faces to the names restrictions and biases to acknowledge this. the following Wars of the Roses later that of many of those figures involved in the If only he were not so tactful so we could century. sixteen or so religious Revivals in Wales have a few pages more. Much of the early part of the book from 1750-1850. Hugh Hughes’s miniatures deals with religious iconography, before of Methodist Leaders, following the Bala moving on to consider the portraiture and sasiwn (secession) of 1811, are particularly landscape paintings of later centuries. It noteworthy for the way they resulted in Joao Morais is is a writer. In 2013, he was includes many well-known pictures, such as the iconisation of many religious figures. winner of the Terry Hetherington Award.

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As It Was In Wales shaped the wider public sphere. If theological true nationalist is a world citizen; the windows Dylan Moore concerns fail to resonate in contemporary, of his mind face the four corners of the world, secular Wales, it is the author’s hope that this and the doors of his sympathies are with all book might challenge people to consider how the families of the earth.’ He promoted ‘a the church and its theology might once again philosophy which expressed the essentials of ‘engage in public discourse’. Welsh national life’ and advocated a [Welsh] It is a big ask for a book that is, clearly, Parliament in order that we ‘take our part with an academic study in the somewhat niche dignity in the work of promoting peace and area of theological history. However, such justice’. He championed the spiritual over the is the clarity with which Pope outlines the material – ‘the social problem’ was caused by ideas of the social gospel’s major proponents the materialism of industry, which subjugated in Wales, and so striking is the intellectual moral and spiritual concerns to a back seat, culture surrounding the four key thinkers on a question that also occupied Rees and whom he chooses to focus, that the volume informed his withdrawal from politics. really does outgrow its immediate arena to Despite that Pope’s conclusion provide food for thought to those way beyond portrays Edwards and Rees, along with their the confines of academia and the church. contemporaries John Morgan Jones and It would certainly do some good for those Herbert Morgan, as ‘men of their time’, it politicians concerned to stress that Britain is is too easy to look back from our vantage still ‘a Christian country’ to revisit what Jesus point in a secular Wales and dismiss the taught in relation to social policy. Nonconformist Social Gospel as a symptom This is the heart of the book. The ten of a time when ‘everyone’ went to chapel years between the revival and the outbreak (conservative estimates for the period put of the Great War saw the rise of a distinctive church attendance in Wales at around 40%). theology that had at its heart a view that ‘to The movement had deep philosophical roots, be of any value at all [Christianity] had to interpreting as it does the teachings of Jesus create a better environment and establish through the filters of Idealism and liberal justice and righteousness in this life and in theology, and in the broad context of a Marxist the world.’ Of course, the period in question influenced political sphere. More important still coincides with the rise of the labour would be to measure its social impact. Pope’s movement, and Pope expertly traces the preface emphasises the challenge, ‘as potent divergence of Christianity and socialism at as ever’, these thinkers present to the church; I a time when many sought to marry the two. would go further and argue that this clear-eyed, The writer is interested in how the 1904-5 rigorous work of social archaeology presents a Seeking God’s Kingdom: The Nonconformist revival’s emphasis on ‘individual salvation challenge to us all. Social Gospel in Wales 1906-1939 orientated to an eternity spent in paradise’ Stephen Morris’ translation of Daniel Robert Pope so quickly turned to ‘the social question’: ‘the Owen’s novel Rhys Lewis: Minister of Bethel is University of Wales Press, 2015 transformation of the conditions endured by also a reminder of the centrality of Christianity the vast majority of people in this life’. to Welsh life in the not too distant past. Rhys Lewis: Minister of Bethel Pope readily admits that the new Where Pope’s academic-historic approach Daniel Owen, trans. Stephen Morris intellectual currents – liberal theology and inevitably focuses on public life and ideas, Brown Cow, 2015 philosophical Idealism – were not necessarily Owen plays the advantages of the novel to the meat-and-potatoes of chapel sermons explore the minutiae of the private realm. A across Wales at the time, but nevertheless Dickensian brick of a bildungsroman running to One hundred and ten years after the last it is fascinating to learn of the bracing ideas over five hundred pages, Morris’ rendering of great Welsh revival, those at the forefront of being postulated by David Miall Edwards Owen’s mid-Victorian Welsh prose positively public life in Wales could almost be forgiven at Llandrindod or Thomas Rees at Brecon, skips along. It is a meticulous translation, as for their lack of acknowledgement of one and instructive to revisit them in the light of the many useful and unobtrusive footnotes of the primary drivers that shaped a Welsh our own context. Pope begins by admitting attest, and the Brown Cow imprint, which identity. This second edition Robert Pope’s that the details of their [theological-social] republishes ‘Welsh Classics for English- book, first published by UWP in 1998, is system ‘might be untenable’ but some of Speaking Readers’ deserves huge praise for a reminder if nothing else of the extent to their key ideas both prefigure and challenge resurrecting this lost gem, which, had it been which Christian ideas – perhaps particularly today’s orthodoxies. originally published in English, would now ‘the Nonconformist Social Gospel’ – have David Miall Edwards wrote that: ‘The sit comfortably, unread but at least heard of,

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The inevitably episodic nature of the work means The translator’s note describes the project as ‘a labour of love’ – and it is hard not you can dip in and out and be laughing out loud to see this shine through. Part of Rhys Lewis’ within minutes, such is the honesty of the narrative charm is in its depiction of a world that is gone, though remnants remain. Morris makes voice and the lucid observation of mid-nineteenth reference to the ‘liberal theological ideas that century rural life in y gogledd. had come over from Germany’ – the very social gospel outlined by Pope was what did for the social conservatism of Nonconformity in its nineteenth century incarnation. He is also brutally honest in his assessment of twentieth century Nonconformism, which ‘mouldered on for another hundred years or so’ as a ‘corpse’ that ‘alienated several generations of against religion in all its forms.’ Perhaps in this vicarious visit amid the Thackerays, Trollopes and Gaskells consumption in one straight-through reading to the Nonconformist heyday, and particularly of the literary canon. says more about our reading habits, then the recounting of a conversion experience Like so many novels of the day, Rhys and now, than it does about Owen’s prose or that forms the central chunk of Rhys Lewis, we Lewis was first published in instalments: Morris’ translation. The inevitably episodic might revive the life-affirming power of the serialised in Y Drysorfa, the monthly nature of the work means you can dip in and Spirit and leave the corpse of dead religion magazine of the Calvinistic Methodist out and be laughing out loud within minutes, firmly in the past. church. Consumed in bite-sized chunks over such is the honesty of the narrative voice three years, the novel would have been a and the lucid observation of mid-nineteenth delightful amusement. That it is tough-going century rural life in y gogledd. Dylan Moore Culture / reviews

Reflections and Rejections listening to his father’s piano playing and The book - like Jenkins’ Steph Power to singing at the local chapel; J.S. Bach is an especially enduring love. Oboe lessons music - is a paean to the eventually led to postgraduate studies at power of community. the via the ‘Nash’, or National Youth Orchestra of Wales, and academic training at the University of Cardiff. Here his most crucial discovery was extra- curricular: modern in the form of Oscar Peterson, Miles Davis and the great Bill Evans, whom he touchingly describes later meeting at Ronnie Scott’s. This is Jenkins’ first book and, he vows, his last. The prose is engaging and the few musical terms discussed are unpacked in clear, unpatronising language. He acknowledges the assistance of co-author, Sam Jackson, Managing Editor of Classic FM, and is generous towards other colleagues and supporters, the norm across the arts while the idea of Still with the Music: My Autobiography whilst tersely dismissing perceived foes such as crossover has largely settled into a soft-focus Karl Jenkins, with Sam Jackson the Musicians’ Union and BBC Radio 3. Indeed, marketing cocoon (in the motor industry, Elliott & Thompson, 2015, £20 Jenkins is bitterly resentful of what he sees as ‘crossover’ is now a fashionable signifier of a hostile musical establishment; a bitterness lumpy, urban-country cars). Much that Jenkins which - in a chapter entitled ‘Reflections’ but complains about is already history - at least, it The picture that emerges of Karl Jenkins from which would perhaps more accurately be is outside the mainstreams of either category Still with the Music is of a composer rightly called ‘Rejections’ - descends to an unedifying - as unhelpful divisions between so-called proud of his achievements and, having reached diatribe against unnamed composers more ‘popular’ and ‘serious’ musics are long since seventy years of age, pausing with pleasure yet leftfield than himself, and against what he calls old hat. And yet, in sinking to the level of some some reluctance, to mull over the various turns ‘a certain kind of new piece, where “one man of his more kneejerk detractors, Jenkins’ words of his career. In a laconic, wryly witty narration and his dog” comprise the audience.’ have the potential to do harm as well as good; of his life to date, Jenkins describes being Jenkins is known for disliking musical and that in an area which is clearly close to his humbled by his recent elevation to knighthood categorisation - and small wonder, given heart: music education. On the one hand, he - the first ever for a Welsh composer - and by that his early marketing as a ‘classical’ argues passionately for the all-but decimated the many other accolades accrued through composer has led to unfavourable scrutiny free music education without which he and decades of popular and commercial success. on those artistic terms; terms which ill fit his so many others would never have become An only child from an essentially working-class particular brand of nonetheless classically- musicians. Yet, on the other hand, by deriding Gower family, Jenkins tragically lost his mother based cross-genre music, and which drives anything remotely avant-garde in terms which when he was just four years old. Yet his story is his rejection here of a ‘blinkered and self- perpetuate anti-new music stereotypes and not so much one of triumph against the odds, appointed cognoscenti’. But it would be wrong prejudice, he also effectively dismisses many but of simple determination and an instinct for meekly to buy the suggestion that Jenkins is young composers who desperately need the following his creative nose. not himself part of an establishment, albeit support of audiences and industry insiders The book - like Jenkins’ music - is a not any of the new music classical worlds alike. Let’s hope that, in his role as patron of paean to the power of community. In it, the he so scornfully lumps together. Indeed the Tyˆ Cerdd, Music Centre of Wales, Jenkins composer warmly extols his family, friends notion of establishment implies just the kind is helping to promote all Welsh composers and professional collaborators through a of networking power and influence that, as a regardless of whether he personally approves lifetime spanning ‘four consecutive careers... highly successful mainstream figure, Jenkins of their chosen idiom. using the same twelve notes’: from freelance has enjoyed for years. Ironically, in terms of jazzer to prog-rocker with , musical labels, he himself was foremost in Steph Power is a freelance composer and then as composer for TV commercials and the 1990s spearheading what became a new writer on music for The Independent, Tempo, a metaphorical taking off with the Delta genre - ‘crossover’ music - in which elements Opera Magazine and Wales Arts Review, of Airlines advert which became his hit of classical music, rock and/or jazz are often which she is Music Editor. A companion project, which opened the doors to a stardom combined with non-western instruments and 16-track CD of bestselling excerpts, Still unrivalled amongst contemporary UK vocal styles. with the Music - The Album, is available from composers. His love of music first sparked These days, pluralism is happily Warner Classics

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From Bay to Delta school people were called things like part of their world-dominating culture it Sarah Hill Trevor, Martin, Terrence and Ronald. At should be celebrated as such. We have a Cae’r Castell Secondary Mod there was tradition going back a thousand years and no one called Bo, Pee Wee, Sunnyland, we hide it in the bowels of our museum of Peppermint, or even Big Joe. The nearest folk life and resited buildings, St. Fagans. we had to a blues nom de plume was the The Americans invented theirs somewhere sports master and Harlequins rugby player in the middle of the nineteenth century and who went under the name Cowboy Davies. have been celebrating it with bells, whistles [p. 24] and constant dollar investment ever since. [p. 183] For a young man whose life was so consumed by American music, it is This speaks volumes about the differences surprising to discover that he only took his between reputation and ostentation, about first trip to the States in 2003. But had the cultural timidity and self-confidence. As an younger Finch gone on a musical pilgrimage American living in Wales, I confess that I have in the 1960s or 1970s this would have been found the Welsh tendency toward cultural an entirely different story, and not nearly understatement beguiling and frustrating in as good. What is effective about Finch’s equal measure. But given Finch’s descriptions account is the vibrant memories that he’s of the alternatives, of tourists gawping at The Roots of Rock from Cardiff to Mississippi carried from his Cardiff youth of the 1950s replica shotgun shacks, of endless parking and Back and 1960s, and the shadows cast on those lots and overpriced souvenir shops, I’m not Peter Finch memories by the business of pop heritage in convinced that doesn’t offer the Seren, 2015 the 21st century. more alluring experience. It is not news that the Elvis Presley The Roots of Rock has a great deal to Popular music heritage is big business. estate continues to capitalise spectacularly say about history, adolescence, and cultural Pilgrims flock from all around the world on the King’s enduring legacy. Indeed, Finch’s belonging, and Finch’s timeline offers all the to places where they believe magic once chapter on the Porthcawl Elvis Festival historical context the casual reader might happened – Liverpool, London, Los Angeles, considers nostalgia, kitsch, and mortality in need to access the music. I applaud Finch Lubbock. Academic popologists have long equal measures, with commercialism and for including a basic bibliography, but there been exploring the connections between pop class creeping up from behind. Those latter are some fairly standard, non-academic, heritage, cultural memory, and local identity, two are at the base of a lot of academic titles that I did not see on his list: Greil working with museums, talking to the public, literature about rock ‘n roll in general and Marcus’ Mystery Train and Dead Elvis; Charlie publishing (of course), and publishing some pop heritage in particular. Finch touches a Gillett’s The Sound of the City. Wearing more, just to work out what ‘place’ means bit on authorship and originality in The Roots my mortarboard and academic robes, I and how to define ‘heritage’. of Rock, but the bigger questions, about who would take issue with Finch’s consistent Peter Finch has spent his life in thrall benefits financially from blues tourism, about misplacement of footnote numbers (they to American roots music, and this book is in whose ‘roots’ are actually being unearthed, should go outside of punctuation) and part a love letter to it. The first 72 pages of about musical appropriation and systemic incomplete discographical references The Roots of Rock trace Finch’s introduction to racism, are largely left unposed. (release dates, please). I would have liked a the world of high fidelity, and provide a vivid Where Finch’s storytelling strength tighter sense of chronology in the narrative snapshot of mid-century Cardiff streets, lies is in his ability to connect the furthest and a more meticulous proofreader (it’s cafes, record shops, and front rooms, all reaches of American culture back to Wales. Haight-Ashbury, not ‘Height Ashbery’). with their changing soundtracks. Early rock Occasionally this takes the form of spotting But as a trip back through time to Cardiff ‘n roll is often written into autobiography, familiar surnames and meeting expats, at a pivotal moment in pop culture history, biography, and fiction, but very rarely is but also, more effectively, when Finch and forward to that historical moment’s Cardiff the setting for the action. In this casts a critical eye not only on American afterlife, this is a vivid and engaging read that regard The Roots of Rock adds an important consumption but on Wales’ own sense of breathes new life into some great old music. dimension to an otherwise familiar story. cultural history: Much of the narrative is coloured by Finch’s particular attention to difference: Music Halls of Fame, it turns out, exist as a sort of twentieth century rash right Some of the material was actually okay. across America. Unlike in Wales, land of Dr Sarah Hill is Senior Lecturer in Popular Most of it featured singers with Christian song, where we have precisely none, the Music at Cardiff University; her latest book is names I hadn’t ever come across. In my Americans have realised that as music is San Francisco and the Long 60s (Bloomsbury)

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Candid but tactful matter. The other great soldier poet of World strong Welsh intonation which I found difficult Kristian Evans War Two, Keith Douglas, addressed war at first to understand’. directly. In seemingly unimprovable poems There are included here, necessarily, now firmly entrenched in the culture, such as extracts from the letters to Pikoulis from Gweno ‘Vergissmeinnicht’ and ‘How to Kill’, Douglas and Freda, and the author’s own reflections and is interested in how combat and courage and responses to those letters. In a way, this is a death and glory shape us. book that tells the story of its own composition. Douglas is dismissed on page 16 of John Pikoulis is candid, but tactful, and discusses his Pikoulis’ new biography of Lewis as a ‘dandy in meetings and occasional disagreements with uniform’. To Pikoulis, Lewis’ complex response both women. This is delicate subject matter, to the war makes him the more interesting after all, and Pikoulis is keen to take care whilst writer. A firm socialist with pacifist inclinations, also maintaining fidelity to his subject. He born into the depression era valleys of south achieves this, but it was clearly not easy. Wales, Lewis’ attitude to soldiering was deeply Lewis was a questing writer, and ambivalent. ‘I’m not going to kill,’ he wrote, eventually found a paradoxical freedom in ‘be killed, perhaps, instead.’ He seems to army life. All habitual travellers know how have ended up applying to officer school out ambiguous the idea of home becomes. of boredom with life in the barracks. He was ‘Everyone will realise sooner or later that posted to India, leaving his wife Gweno Ellis in nothing is fixed, nothing inevitable,’ he wrote Alun, Gweno and Freda Wales. While in India he had a passionate but in Lance-Jack. ‘When I go home on leave, I feel John Pikoulis brief love affair with Freda Ackroyd. He died, vaguely “out of it”.’ Seren, 2015 probably a suicide, in Burma in 1944. Alun, Gweno and Freda is a moving This is a fascinating, many layered portrait of the last years of a man realising he is book. It is lengthy but non-linear and moves homeless, and that he will always be homeless. swiftly. Extensive quotations from his letters ‘The clearing again in the jungle. Go away from Writing about Edward Thomas, somebody (Lewis writes wonderful letters) and poems my water-hole. I am drinking. Drink with me. Go he regarded as a poetic ancestor, Alun Lewis bring us quickly into his presence, and he is away. Stay. Go away that you may always stay.’ remarked that war was only a part of Thomas’ instantly likeable – warm, shy, sensitive to ‘life-experience’; only half of the story. Lewis class distinctions; an officer forgetting to wear was, of course, also talking about himself. As his belt, shovelling coal with his men, thinking with Thomas, the war is often peripheral in about the poems of W.B. Yeats. “He spoke very Kristian Evans is a poet, artist and Lewis’ poems; the setting, but not the subject quickly,” a fellow officer later recalled, ‘with a environmental activist

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Through thick and thin warmly written account of what is now, his manager’s requests to put club before Tom Anderson probably, Wales’ national game. It is the country in the way Bale and Ramsey seem previous status ‘enjoyed’ by Welsh football - far more willing to do; the dilemma of Team as a fringe sport often existing in the shadow GB and its true implications; whether Robbie of its egg-shaped spin-off - that has given Savage’s time as a pundit has Anglicised it such a quirky and celebrated sense of his views on UK football; perhaps even an character and identity. While the rest of the attempt to quantify the long-term legacy of world has seen it as the number one game, . Stead also seems to overlook here football has tended to be seen as an the support I for one certainly heard for oddity for those who don’t get rugby. Stead, Raymond Verheijen during the ruminations however, has always ‘got’ what the sport over who was to take over as manager means to this country – not least the chance immediately after Speed’s passing. for recognition on a world stage – and he has The above said, Stead’s job as a curator deftly captured the years of near-misses and rather than arbitrator of these events has likely abject failures with a real understanding of allowed him to write a book with far greater why football in Wales has, does and always appeal. It is perhaps too soon for the historian will, matter: to prepare any sort of verdict on many of these questions (and this is perhaps particularly the Welsh football began with a north versus case with Speed). Anyone with emotional Red Dragons: south rivalry which has never really attachments to the events in question will be The Story of Welsh Football disappeared. We’re a country divided by immediately aware the story of Welsh football Phil Stead tribalism and conflict… Cardiff fighting has been delivered here by an excellent writer Y Lolfa, 2015 (revised edition) Swansea, the Exiles fighting the FAW, and deployed to cover his passion. minor disputes breaking out between clubs It may be fussy to say there could have The job of the historian may appear to have and personalities all over the country. But the also been a little more on the fringe scenes grown easier in the age of online information, death of [Gary Speed] blurred our differences which thrived in the ‘dark ages’, when empty Wikipedia, search engines, bloggers and and shone light on our similarities. It turns stadia buoyed only by the tones of the ‘Barry amateur archivists. In fact, though, that out that we’re not so different after all. We Horns’ were the norm, but then the whole is hardly the case. To trawl through the all wept. book is so saturated with the author’s own incredible range of data and anecdote, to appreciation of the dedication needed to be a then sift the important nuggets, and finally All episodes in the history of the game here Welsh football supporter through thick and thin, to decide upon a version of events, is an have been clearly and carefully detailed, that a sense of character is clear enough. Stead extraordinary challenge. This, however, is although there is certainly the sense that is brilliant at capturing the weird blend of North certainly what lifelong Welsh football lover hindsight has helped make the book more and South Walian affiliations to the national Phil Stead successfully did with the first accurate the further back we go. Unusual side. He’s brilliant at filling in the tiny details of edition of this title, and the updated version though that may seem (especially given events long gone into the distant and quirky is no different. Of course, the crucial change how easy it is to get facts and statistics for past. Above all though, he’s perfectly caught is that Welsh football is now celebrating the modern game), it appears the author the way that our recent success has finally success, and this has cast a new light has been more willing to probe the various allowed perspective to be placed on all those on all the years of hurt which Stead so failings and criticisms of the game’s heroes, years spent loving the pain that losing brought. lovingly documents with what now seems a anti-heroes, organisers and executives Updating this book was indeed essential, and (justifiably) stoic relish. once the past has sufficiently solidified that it is of course better for the additional sections. Stead is indeed an accomplished judgement. Controversy has always existed Highly recommended if you’re even slightly writer, historian, football fan and Welsh in Welsh football, and there are certain excited about what might happen to our sense public persona. He’s bilingual, connected, people and policies that get a lot more of nationhood this June, when referenda and versatile and amiable, and this has allowed criticism in the stands and the pre-game bars Assembly bickering are eclipsed by three of the him to collate and present what does truly of Canton than they do here. I’d love to hear biggest 90-minute spells in our modern sporting feel like the comprehensive tale of Welsh more probing opinions on a range of recent, history. In fact, we’ll need another version again football. From the origins of a national side and even current, matters of debate: whether soon – and I can’t wait to read it, however that as a concept through to the difficult years the demise of the Hughes side’s solidarity month of June pans out. between the flashes of success was precipitated by his beginning to court and finally the Chris Coleman side of now, Premier League posts before the 2014 Euros Tom Anderson is a writer and Chair of the the book is tight on fact and fluid in style. job was properly done; why Welsh Academy; his latest novel is The This is an easy-to-read, accurate and never really seemed too keen to disobey Actaeon Tide (Parthian).

the welsh agenda spring/summer 16—issue 56 | 67 Last Word

Unheard Voices Dylan Moore

Sometimes, because we see people, we People’s Think Tank. agenda has, in part, been an attempt to give think we hear them; we think we know their It is cause for celebration that our a platform to some unheard voices, those stories. The newspapers, broadcast media national theatre company have (with beyond the ‘usual suspects’ who can tend and internet are ever full of stories about large thanks to outgoing Artistic Director to dominate discourse in a country the size migrants, about Muslims, about people on John McGrath) not only redefined the of Wales. Note that all Abdul-Azim Ahmed benefits. Meanwhile, the phrase ‘women in stuffy, nineteenth century view of theatre - asks for Muslims in Wales is ‘a platform for the media’ will often still mean pictures of proscenium arch, plush seats, watch between engagement’. George W.G., like Ahmed, rather than articles by. Vested interests want glasses of wine - and returned it to its roots. stresses that ‘People exist as individuals’. marginalised groups, much like Victorian Ancient Greece invented democracy and And it is the ‘one size fits all’ approach to children, to be seen and not heard. Seen theatre, and the two were never mutually policymaking that has created such misery because then they can be demeaned, exclusive. But the need for this latest project and provoked such anger in response to the demonised - and, perhaps most dangerously, reveals that, just as Athenian democracy Bedroom Tax. Yet people like Kay Harris categorised. It’s easier to understand an excluded women, men under thirty and (in Seb Cooke’s article ‘Taxing Bedrooms individual when they carry the label of a slaves, leaving the ‘citizen’ population at in Betws’) offer cause for hope rather than group, easier to define a homogenous mass around one fifth of the total number of adults, despair. Disillusioned with voting, Kay is than to look beyond the headlines and meet modern Western liberal democracies have an nevertheless more politically active than ever. the person. And without a voice, the individual exclusivity problem. What some deride as ‘anti-politics’ is the cannot answer the myriad charges brought Politics has, to varying degrees of potential for genuine change. against her. perception or reality, lost its connection with A forthcoming IWA Debate will ask The run-up to May’s pivotal General the polis (city-state) and certainly the demos ‘Would compulsory voting give the unheard Election in Wales will be punctuated by the (the people, or - if you prefer - the mob). We a voice?’ It is a provocative question. Despite kind of bottom-up democracy that is often talk today, with rarely disguised disdain, of the critically low turnouts for elections to missing elsewhere. Citizens Cymru Wales will the ‘political class’. Westminster is a dirty the Welsh Assembly thus far, there is little be creating a people’s manifesto to put to the word, sullied by the weekly braying from the appetite for enforcing the franchise. Maybe party leaders on March 17th. Two days later, benches at PMQs, expenses scandals and the question needs rephrasing. The way at an event celebrating the tenth birthday decades of broken promises. Cardiff Bay that representative democracy works would of the Senedd, National Theatre Wales’ Big has yet to accrue the negative connotations suggest a better question: Who will speak Democracy Project seeks to identify the built up over centuries by the ‘Mother of for the unheard? But plenty of politicians ‘single biggest issue facing Wales’. Bethesda- Parliaments’; brought into being by half of claim to speak for the silent majority. Given based poet Martin Dawes put forward the the half of the electorate who voted in the the blank canvas of silence, your own idea of exploring ‘Voter Apathy’. Oasis referendum, the Assembly has established preferences, prejudices and party colours are Asylum and Refugee Centre in Cardiff asked itself as an institution, but there are still those easy to project. So I’d suggest a more difficult why identity is important. Celf o Gwmpas, from whom its decision-making feels remote. question: Who will listen to the unheard? who work with disabled artists, asked whether To some in north, west and mid Wales, Cardiff We sometimes want the desired end disabled people are an easy target for cuts. is as remote as London, culturally if not quite before the change that would produce that Ammanford’s Mess Up The Mess theatre geographically. A visit to the IWA’s Click on result. The act of voting is a tool of democracy, company have put forward the question ‘Are Wales will quickly tell you that for some the not an end in itself. If some of the marginalised we just another tick in the wall?’ Its series Welsh political class are too in thrall to the individuals and groups represented in this of subsidiaries investigate the ‘one size fits Welsh language, while to others they are not magazine were socially enfranchised, allowed all’ examination system and its attendant in thrall enough. to play a full and fulfilled role in society, then effects on education: schools under pressure Flak from both sides can be a sign that maybe more people might see the point of to compete rather than educate, students those in power are getting it just about right, putting an X in a box. If the system doesn’t increasingly suffering with stress. Over the but the important thing is that a conversation work, change the system – not its victims. next two years, NTW will invite anybody, is being had. The IWA, of course, is all about anywhere in Wales to become a member of a such conversation. This edition of the Welsh

68 | www.iwa.org.uk www.clickonwales.org

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– Cllr Frank Bradfield – Mr Dyfrig James – Mr Simon Baynes – Cllr Jeffrey James – Mr Eilian S Williams – Mr Steve O’Dea – Cllr Mary Barnett – Mr Gareth Ioan – Mr Teifion Griffiths – Dr Carl Iwan Clowes – Mr George Crabb – Mr Tom Jones – Dr Dai Lloyd – Mr Geraint Talfan Davies – Mr Tony Bagnall – Dr Daniel Cunliffe – Mr Gerald Holtham – Mr W Tudor John – Dr David Lloyd Owen – Mr Granville John – Mr Wiard Sterk – Dr Denis Balsom – Mr Gregory Walker – Mr. Darren Hughes – Dr – Mr Henry Engelhardt – Mr. Owen Gareth Hughes – Dr Eurwen Price – Mr Huw Davies – Mrs Christine Eynon – Dr Geraint Stanley Jones – Mr – Mrs Sioned Bowen – Dr John Burke – Mr Huw M Lewis – Mrs Sue Balsom – Dr Julia Magill – Mr Huw Roberts – Ms Carole-Anne Davies – Dr Neil Thompson – Mr John Bryant – Ms Ceri Doyle – Dr Ruth Williams – Mr John Osmond – Ms Clare Johnson – Lord Alex Carlile – Mr Jonathan Evans – Ms Helen Molyneux – Lord Brian Griffiths of Fforestfach – Mr Jonathon Poyner – Ms Kirsty Davies-Warner – Lord Gwilym Prys-Davies – Mr Keith James – Ms Lynda Davies – Lord Rowe-Beddoe – Mr Mark Barry – Ms Su Turney – Mme Helen Jones – Mr Martin Tinney – Mr Phil Henfrey – Mr Alan Francis – Mr Meirion Morgan – Professor David Marquand – Mr Alan Peterson – Mr Milwyn Jarman – Professor Harold Carter – Mr Alastair Milburn – Mr Ned Thomas – Professor Jane Aaron – Mr Alex Bird – Mr Nigel Annett – Professor Judith Marquand – Mr Andris Taurins – Mr Nigel Bowen-Morris – Professor Judy Hutchings – Mr Bill Capper – Mr Owen Sheers – Professor Phillip John Jones – Mr Chris Jones – Mr Paul Davies – Professor Steven Kelly – Mr Chris Rowlands – Mr Paul Silk – Professor Antony Chapman – Mr D Huw John – Mr Paul Twamley – Professor Deirdre Beddoe – Mr Dafydd Bowen Lewis – Mr Peter L Griffiths – Professor Elan Closs Stephens – Mr Dafydd Iwan – Mr Philip Cooper – Professor Richard Rawlings – Mr Daran Hill – Mr Rhys David – Reverend Aled Edwards – Mr David Clubb – Mr Richard Eley – Rt. Hon. the Lord Thomas – Mr David Dixon – Mr Robert John of Cwmgeidd – Mr David M Evans – Mr Robin Evans – Sir Donald Walters – Mr – Mr Roger – Sir Richard Lloyd Jones – Mr David Stevens – Mr Roger Lewis – The Rt Hon. the Lord Richard QC – Mr David Taylor – Mr Ron Jones – The Rt Hon. the Lord Wigley