Welcome to the Black Domain

The Aneurin Bevan memorial stones are a must visit in the real heart of Wales

LAST WEEK my very good friend Daran Hill invited me out for a pint in one of his many alternative offices in Cardiff Bay. He knew that I was driving and therefore not drinking. And I knew he wanted something.

It turned out to be a not-so-subtle invitation to write something of an introduction to Blaenau Gwent which this year is hosting our National Eisteddfod. “Bloody Hell, Davies, you’re from there” appeared to be qualification enough.

So here goes.

Daran’s grasp of my personal geography was and is correct. I am from Blaenau Gwent and it is Blaenau Gwent that I will be contesting in next year’s Assembly elections.

I was born in February 1964 in the middle of a blizzard in St James’ Hospital, Tredegar, the old workhouse that was set high on the hillside above the town. The hospital is long gone. It was torn down and has since been replaced by a housing development. But we all know where it used to stand.

But I wasn’t simply born there. It was Tredegar that shaped me and it is to Tredegar that I’ve returned all of my life. And it was in the soil of Tredegar that I buried my father last year.

The late and much-missed Prof Phil Williams once remarked that Tredegar produced well-rounded people who were dedicated PR professionals for the town. He noted that everyone growing up there could recite the town’s many claims to international and world-wide recognition and distinction. Not content with Aneurin Bevan and the National Health Service, we can also claim the largest piece of cut coal in the world and we will fight Newport to lay claim on the Chartists. We can easily discuss the history of Bedwellty House and Bedwellty Park, the ironworks and the pits, the operatic and dramatic societies, the Workman’s Hall (including the library and snooker hall) and of course the Town Clock. What other town could compete? Phil described Tredegar as the Queen of valley towns. And he was right.

The Eisteddfod, however, is in Ebbw Vale.

The last time the Eisteddfod was held here there was a scandal. In fact there were a number of scandals – but now is not the time or the place for that. The town’s then-MP, Aneurin Bevan, fell victim to the language policy which allows only the Welsh language to be used on the Llwyfan (stage) and is fiercely policed by grim-faced officials who could make the Stasi shake in their boots. Not to be put off Nye turned up at the Cymanfa Ganu and, having been taken by the hwyl of the occasion, he stood up and made what became known as one of his most passionate and stirring speeches, succeeding at once in making peace with both Wales and the Welsh language. He nearly put Paul Robeson in the shade. But not quite.

If you do anything over this next week, visit the memorial on the top of Sirhowy. It is a monument to Nye but his real memorial of course is the NHS. Remember that the next time you have reason to rely on this great act of socialism. We’ve all been “Tredegarised” now. Even Nick Bourne.

So what of Blaenau Gwent? Despite its well-known recent electoral history it’s actually a bit of a modern creation. The borough was created from the much-loved and missed Urban District Councils in 1974 and the constituency came about a little later. Nye never represented the seat. He was elected to serve the people of Tredegar, Ebbw Vale and Rhymney. At that time Brynmawr contributed to the cause of socialism by helping elect a Labour MP for Breconshire and the rest of the Ebbw Fach Valley was a part of the old Abertillery seat, last represented by Jeffrey Thomas whose claim-to-fame (if that is what it is) was that he defected to the SDP just in time for the seat to be abolished by the Boundary Commission in 1983. So it was that Michael Foot became the first MP to sit for the Blaenau Gwent division.

The parliamentary and local government boundary commissioners arrived rather late in the day. The heads of the Gwent Valleys had earned their place in Welsh history long before they turned up with their maps and calculators.

In many ways it was in these high eastern valleys that the modern Wales was born and created.

And I’m very wary of making such grandiose claims. Which is something I made very clear during an (almost) accidental visit to Iceland last year. I had arrived in Reykjavík and did what most people would do in such a position and found myself a bar. After a little while, I decided to see a bit of the country. So I hired a car and the next day, full of enthusiasm, I set off.

My first stop was at a place called Þingvellir. It is where the great tectonic plates of America and Europe meet (and this is very impressive). It is also where the Icelandic Parliament met and has been meeting (with admittedly a 1,000-year gap) for centuries. It is, so the signs proclaimed, “the home of the nation” and where “our nation was made”.

I reflected, over lunch, if we were going to make such a claim about Wales which part of the country could make the strongest claim? Would it be Machynlleth with Glyndwr’s Parliament or St Davids, the home of our Christian civilisation? Possibly Cardiff, our modern capital? Or even Aberystwyth, where so many things have happened and keep happening? Perhaps even Carmarthenshire could make a claim with Merlin and an improbably well-timed Yes vote in ’97?

But on reflection surely it is the heads of these eastern valleys that the strongest claim?

From the great ironworks of Blaenavon in the east in an arc of fire and heat to the new industrial metropolis of Merthyr Tydfil, modern Wales and the Industrial Revolution started here. And this new Wales wasn’t simply a creation of ironmasters and coal owners. The society that was created here was created by a people who lived in communities that hadn’t existed a century before. This was industrialisation on an industrial scale. And it created almost every large community that we have in Wales. Quite simply, had iron ore, limestone and coal not been discovered here then Wales simply wouldn’t exist as anything like the country we see today.

And this isn’t simply a history of coal owners and iron masters, a dry economic history driven by export or production figures. It is also a history of people. The people who forged this new urban nation also created its culture, from the Workmen’s Halls, miner’s institutes and chapels. Without looking back, the old Gwerin became a modern European working class.

That’s why this was also the home of the Chartists – perhaps I should have called my son Zephaniah – and if anyone wants a guided tour of Chartists cave above Trefil, then Alyson Tippings is your person. This place was also the Black Domain of the Scotch Cattle created the place of trades’ unionism in the community and an alternative structure of social power. Merthyr (and not forgetting Aberdare) may have the distinction of electing the first Labour MP but it was Blaenau Gwent that can claim to have helped set the socialist ball rolling.

It was a people who were entrepreneurs before the Western Mail understood the word and started to lament the absence of such people in Wales. And as entrepreneurs they created something very special. The Miners’ Libraries and the unions and the struggle for human rights and social progress stained the Welsh psyche red. It was these valleys that drove the Liberals out of office – and hopefully will do so again but that’s for another day as well – tearing down the Liberal hegemony, replacing it with Wales’ long and intense relationship with the Labour Party.

And so to the Pink Tent.

This year’s Eisteddfod will be held, the Gorsedd will meet and the Chair and Crown awarded (we hope) on the floor of what was once the industrial heart of Wales. A stone’s throw from the General Office from where RTBs’ used to run the works.

It’s all different now. It’s quieter, cleaner and much greener. My children look at photos of my childhood in this place with the same bewilderment and astonishment that greeted the first giraffe in China. Was this really the same place? Yes. It is the same place. And yes, we are the same people. The people that helped create Idris Davies’ Gwalia and, in doing so, the people that played their part in creating the world.

A felly, croeso i Lyn Ebwy a chroeso hefyd i Flaenau Gwent.

We’ve been waiting for you to come home.