Brittle with Relics: A History of Wales, 1962–97 ('Oral history at its revelatory best' DAVID KYNASTON)

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Eventually, in the first half of the 1970s, these sorts of political aspirations reached their very logical apotheosis. The idea of a “clean Welsh ethnos’ inhabiting the ‘real’, ‘pure’ Wales (mostly its rural part) was born: ‘(…) the establishment of a putative Cymraeg colony in the nation’s interior, a settlement for true Welsh people. Emyr Llywelyn, a leading member of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (…) explored the opportunity of transforming Y Fro Gymraeg from an abstract ideal of place to a defined hinterland for a separate, monoglot region of Welsh-speakers, a singular interpretation of utopia.’ The heavy industries of steel, oil and mining were all significant employers in the region; the centre of the last of these was the South Wales Coalfield, home to the historic communitarian radicalism fathered by the Miners’ Federation and its welfare institutes and libraries. Language campaigner Angharad Tomos recalls asking her parents about such things as Dafydd Iwan’s songs and the fire at Penyberth (where an RAF training establishment was set on fire by Saunders Lewis, Lewis Valentine and D.J. Williams) and being excited to realize that their explanation constituted somehow an ‘undercover,’ unofficial history so different from the boring history she was being taught in school – which ‘was about the Methodist revival – there was nothing current.’ Such concerns were at best dismissed as student politics. For much of this period, in the eyes of South Wales Labourism, a self-governing Wales was a cause proposed by dangerous nationalists, or ‘Nats’. The country was accordingly often forced to navigate its way through a period of great change in a state of internal contradiction and frequent animosity.

There is an authenticity to the primary accounts here which would be impossible to weave together in a secondary history. Moreover King keeps the reader alongside events with helpful interludes that demonstrate the wider context that these statements concern. One of the best features is that King’s authorial voice is not lost because he is able to sue these interludes to add to the reader’s understanding of past events with contemporary knowledge. This is best demonstrated with the searing indictment of MI5 involvement in Direct Action. Where the primary voices are speculating and supposing, King is able to bring into clarity the degree to which grassroots movements for Wales were undimmed and sabotaged. Then there’s the pantomimic ‘Operation Tân,’ being the police dragnet in the in the middle of the Meibion Glyndŵr arson campaign, a period of history where documentation is obviously scant and an abiding mystery at its heart. Throughout this compelling, energetic and revealing book we hear the grain of the interviewees’ voices as they share recollections of recent times, such the influence of Saunders Lewis’ radio lecture Tynged yr Iaith and the terrible landslip at Aberfan – that darkly defining moment in the post-industrial history of Wales which still hurts to read about. I loved the interviews with the musicians and the revolt against the pointy-hatted Eisteddfod hegemony in Welsh culture. Datblygu were famously upgraded from a pub in Aberystwyth to the John Peel show. with their avante-garde Welsh-language repertoire, which gave licence to the younger Welsh-speaking people to create a Welsh-punk music genre. This spoke to me in that I was brought up in an Ireland where diddly-di-do music reigned but we wanted Elvis Pressley and Gene Vincent. Radio Luxemburg did for us what John Peel did for Welsh punk. This is exactly what it’s like to read Richard King’s fascinating, deeply important, episodic and discursive oral history of Wales from 1962-97, called, after R.S. Thomas’ poetic jab at his country’s seeming inertia, Brittle With Relics.A curious title, I have to say, as the last thing I felt reading this book was stasis. If nothing else these voices prove that Wales has been in nothing but flux this past half century or so.

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King, being a man who cut his historian’s teeth by chronicling the Bristol indie record shop Revolver, has naturally interviewed a lot of musicians for this book such as the members of Super Furry Animals and Manic Street Preachers: there’s a lovely little moment when the respective lead singers Gruff Rhys and James Dean Bradfield bond over a mutual love of Swansea’s Badfinger. Brittle with Relics is a vital history of Wales undergoing some of the country’s most seismic and traumatic events: the disasters of Aberfan and Tryweryn; the rise of the Welsh language movement; the Miners’ Strike and its aftermath; and the narrow vote in favour of partial devolution.

Local folk tales speak of a top-hatted figure who stands watch at the chapel gate; of spirits that process up and down the narrow, winding country road that leads to the churchyard; of ghosts that have not yet been laid to rest; and of organ music being played in the chapel at night, music that is audible despite the fact the chapel has never contained such an instrument. Hen Fethel Chapel near Garnant and Glanaman by Nigel Davies is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0An oral history works best when the people interviewed are those most closely involved in the events described. However, by concentrating on those most closely involved in events the story of the majority is rather overlooked. This doesn't lessen the impact of the events being described, but it does skew the perspective of the relative importance of some of those events and movements. This is just one example of the ways in which King illuminates a history which I was ignorant of completely. Events of significant magnitude are brought to life by the variety of voices King has interviewed. The flooding of Tryweryn, the catastrophe of Aberfan, the 1979 Referendum, Meibion Glyndŵr and the Miners’ Strike 1984-1985 are all brought to the centre stage and recalled with extraordinary depth. Several themes course through the history, the principal one being the battle for recognition of the Welsh language. King wrestles throughout the history with what Welsh Nationalism means, and every voice has a different answer. Multiple people have different takes on the extent of Welsh nationalism and the role it played in these years, but King leaves these opinions on the table, for the reader to figure out by themselves. It’s very well done. Structurally, this book is a gold standard of how to deliver a chronological history without sacrificing theme or trend.

Superb… deeply moving… A thought-provoking and superbly edited book, very balanced, with lots of points of view represented.’ Roger Lewis, Daily Telegraph Wales felt the effect of the international revolutionary fervour of the late 1960s. In 1969 the investiture at Caernarfon of Queen Elizabeth’s eldest son Charles as Prince of Wales was seen by some as a humiliating display of colonialism. Two members of the Free Wales Army were killed by their own device a day ahead of the investiture; on the day itself a child lost a leg to a bomb in Caernarfon. Another device targeted the royal yacht Britannia. Today in Wales we are again engaged in an involved conversation about our future. It is a conversation we are finally having on something approaching our own terms. The following books helped me understand how we might distinguish a Welsh form of self-determination. They would all generously oil the wheels of our current national debate.This book eloquently rejects the erasure of memory and experience; the result is a work of history whose stories feel as if they are still unfolding.’ John Harris ― Guardian The procession of visitors to and from the tap in the corner of the churchyard is distinguished by the stoic looks on their faces, as the winds suddenly swell around this lower mountainside and ice-cold water flows over their hands from the newly watered vases and containers. Brittle with Relics is a highly readable and engaging book, an organised, historical mash-up if you like, with brisk and clear context pieces by King interpolating the illuminating oral accounts and thus offering necessary info. The book has a surface vivacity but a teleological momentum runs beneath. Early on Carl Iwan Clowes cites “cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon”, translated as “a nation without a language is a nation without a heart.” Ffred Ffransis recalls the Brewer Spinks episode where an investor banned the speaking of Welsh inside his Blaenau Ffestiniog factory. The arc of language activism begins with Saunders Lewis and reaches a part-fruition in the Welsh Language Act of 1993. In 2022, the two languages flow freely across the floor of the Siambr.

Superb… deeply-moving… A thought-provoking and superbly-edited book, very balanced, with lots of points of view represented.’ Roger Lewis ― Daily TelegraphWhile the two disasters helped to reignite the campaign for the Welsh language and reignited Welsh nationalism, it also showed how the English bullied their neighbour and was quite happy to ruin Welsh communities without much thought. Which helps to explain the very long campaign of sabotage and disobedience during the 1970s and 80s, which are vividly written about. Brittle With Relics is nuanced, passionate and reflective, conveying a very Welsh blend of fatalism and hope.’ Rhian E. Jones ― History Today