Today's moving ceremony to honour the Easter Rising deserves three cheers from Wales. Without it, Wales would have been denied S4C, the magnificent lifeline for the Welsh language. The Iron Lady bent to the threat of the creation of a Welsh martyr.
An event 66 years earlier was crucial. The Conservatives claim credit for S4C. Fine but it was a decision taken under duress not an act of conviction or goodwill towards Wales. played a a very minor walk-on part in one of the most momentous decisions in the history of Wales. For five years from 1974 to 1979 I was a member of the Broadcasting Council for Wales-the ruling body of the BBC in Wales The historian John Davies had access to minutes of the Council and published details that I thought would always remain confidential. My part in the campaign was long but protozoan. In my case it was a report Television in Wales that I co-authored with Gerard Purnell in 1973. It was adopted as Labour Party policy in 1974. Endlessly I lobbied the Labour Government on behalf of the Labour Party in Wales urging them to deliver on our manifesto promise of 1974. Twice I spoke to Merlyn Rees the Home Secretary as a Labour Party spokesperson, many more times as a member of the Broadcasting Council. Shamefully Labour did not honour its promise. Merlyn Rees and other Welsh MPs were to blame.
The demand for the new channel united the people of Wales. In February 1977 John Davies records that I welcomed the publicity for a Cymdeithas yr Iaith demonstration at the BBC World Service Centre. I said that it would draw attention to the absurdity of the BBC broadcasting more radio programmes in many obscure foreign languages than it broadcast for the indigenous Welsh-speaking population.
In June that year Chairman Glyn Tegai Hughes, disappointed with government timidity, urged the council to consider a fall-back position. Future chairman Alwyn Roberts argued in favour of considering new approaches because a Welsh Channel Four seemed unlikely now. I remember my own anger at this apparent weakness and betrayal. My recollections are dim now but Davies reports that I argued that the Channel Four campaign was very much alive. I was accused of being unrealistic. If the campaign could not succeed with the committed Labour Government what hope was left with the Tories who were long unsympathetic to the language?
In September 1979, when I was acting chairman of the body, Home Secretary Willie Whitelaw announced that there would be no fourth channel for Wales. Could the long years of campaigning, the sacrifices and prison sentences endured by our brave young people be all in vain? All destroyed by a few sentences uttered by a man who knew little of Wales and nothing of Welsh broadcasting?
I rang the BBC Wales controller Owen Edwards and told him that I would make the only possible effective protest open to me. My period as acting-chairman is almost certainly a record that will never be beaten. It lasted fifteen minutes. I announced my resignation in protest at Whitelaw’s decision at the first meeting of the Broadcasting Council. Fellow members of the Council expressed their sympathy but understood. The protest was heartfelt but was quickly brushed aside by Secretary of State for Wales, Nicholas Edwards. My resignation had an ephemeral and slight influence. But Plaid Cymru’s leader Gwynfor Evans’s threat to fast to death trumped any protest I could make. It terrified Thatcher. She was then studying Irish history for the first time in her life. Her fear was that Wales would have a similar martyr to those of the Easter Rising in Dublin. She feared that Gwynfor the martyr would provoked Welsh terrorism.
Secret Government documents released a few years ago reveal the panic rising in the Tory Government. To give the impression that she was not surrendering to blackmail, a stunt was set up. Three wise men were invited to meet Thatcher and convince her of the value of a decision she had already made. She capitulated to Gwynfor Evans' threat. According to the account all but one of the Welsh Conservative MPs favoured going back to the manifesto position of a promise to set up a fourth channel.
There was the warning by Lord Gibson-Watt – who as an MP and opposition spokesman for Wales represented Tory leader Edward Heath during the aftermath of the Aberfan disaster –a “decisive moment” for the Welsh Secretary.
Lord Gibson-Watt warned he would find it “very difficult” to back the Government in the Lords. The Home Secretary became convinced that a change of policy was vital. The Cabinet ministers were aware that “if the Government were defeated in the Lords, they would be faced with trying to restore the position in the Commons after Mr Evans had begun his fast”.The minutes state: “The Home Secretary said that he had now made up his mind that the policy must be changed. He could not recommend to colleagues the continuation of the present approach. “The Prime Minister commented that the last thing the Government needed was to inflame nationalism again.”
Mr Whitelaw proposed that the Welsh channel should be launched under a three-year trial scheme, despite there being no chance of it being scrapped. According to the minutes: “He proposed to accept this, even though he believed that this would be bogus as a trial. The die would be cast after three years.”
The politicians discussed how to handle the U-turn: “Mr Whitelaw said that all his political experience had taught him that, if one made a mistake, it was important to get out of it as quickly as possible. He accepted that the problem had been entirely his own responsibility.”
It goes on: “Mr Nicholas Edwards argued that it would be a great mistake for the Home Secretary to be allowed to present the change as the result of an Englishman’s mistake in handling Welsh affairs. It should be presented as the Government collectively bowing to the strength of public feeling on the issue.”
The release of papers in recent years also features a letter sent by Plaid Cymru MP Dafydd Wigley in which he urges the Prime Minister to prevent the hunger strike and asks her to meet him and fellow Plaid MP Dafydd Elis-Thomas.
The papers also include an account of a private meeting between the Welsh Secretary and Gwynfor Evans on July 21 at St Fagans.
It states Mr Edwards made clear he “admired Mr Evans as a person and he found it difficult to believe he would contemplate a destructive and violent act which would stir emotion and violence in Wales”. “Gwynfor Evans said that this was the last fight that he could make and it was the government who were being perverse. It was they who had changed tack.
“His own fast was not intended to stir up violence. His movement had always opposed violence. If there were people who were bent on violence they would behave that way anyhow whether he fasted or not.”
Two days after the September 15 Downing Street meeting, Chancellor Geoffrey Howe – now Lord Howe of Aberavon – wrote to the Home Secretary suggesting that a channel might not prove popular during a trial period and that people might back a return to Welsh broadcasts on BBC and ITV. He wrote: “My strong personal hunch is that most Welsh people will wish to revert.” The failure he wished for did not happen.
However, S4C was launched on November 1, 1982 and continues to broadcast brilliantly. Mr Evans died in 2005. Victory was sweet. At last, Wales had won a significant battle. The reality of S4C’s spectacular later success was beyond the most extravagant dreams of those of us who planned it a decade earlier. The 1973 document that I wrote foresaw a channel using many dubbed programmes from the world-wide market. Never did we believe them that a Welsh channel could create the wealth of original programmes it has done. The recent series of Byw Celwydd was as skilled,witty and sophisticated production that puts Welsh Language broadcasting in the top ranks. S4C secured the future of Welsh as one of the world’s most thriving minority languages. There is modest but real satisfaction that I have played a small role as a Welshman in securing the future of Welsh as a living vibrant tongue. Others had far more heroic roles in their work. Llongyfarchiadau i bawb.
That's funny. According to recent utterances by that which deems itself to be "the Left" I would have gained the impression that all media (including S4C) is some vast, intricate Zionist conspiracy secretly controlled by a handful of what the rest of us reasonable people immediately recognise as extremely offensive and ultimately ridiculous anti-Semitic stereotypes? LOL:)
Posted by: K | March 28, 2016 at 01:46 AM