To Dream Of Freedom - Roy Clews

 TO DREAM OF FREEDOM - ROY CLEWS

If your regional water board compulsory-purchased the area you and your family have lived for generations so as to flood it from a dam to be built to supply water to Liverpool, how would you feel? This is what actually happened in 1965 when the residents in the valley of Tryweryn in Wales were evicted from their homes to make way for a massive reservoir. The residents objected, of course, duly going on protest marches and collecting petitions but all to no avail. Back then, the water industry was still nationalised so it wasn't as if the residents were just up against a single, corporate company but instead were pitched against what was then called the Liverpool Corporation and behind them British Parliament and the House of Commons.

When all forms of peaceful protest fails, what to do? When the government of the day rides roughshod over those it governs and in the process destroys lives, what to do? Enter Owain Williams, a Welshman living and working in Canada as a logger who on gaining knowledge regarding the use of explosives returned to Wales in a bid to try and do something about the Tryweryn situation and show that the spirit of Wales was still alive. 

Along with a few acquaintances of similar disposition Williams formed a small organisation - a resistance group - and called it Muiad Amddiffyn Cymru, in English 'Movement for the Defence of Wales', MAC for short. His plan was to destroy the Tryweryn site completely, to blow up the bridge carrying site traffic, the oil dumps, trucks, machinery, everything; and on netting stolen detonators and gelignite from a quarry he and his comrades were good to go.

For all their passion and conviction, however, all they managed to do was to get themselves arrested and jailed, the saving grace being that they acted as a catalyst for the formation of another nationalist group going under the name of the Free Wales Army (FWA).

On reading To Dream Of Freedom by Roy Clews, the leaders of the FWA were experts in self-aggrandizement, self-publicity and farcicality with a penchant for blowing up water supply lines. One of the leaders of the FWA explained, however, it was never their intention to storm over the border in armoured cars and tanks but to be more of a war of propaganda punctuated by acts of sabotage and shows of strength.

For all their mishaps and near-comical escapades that the book chronicles, the saving grace of the FWA was their intervention into the after-effects of the Aberfan disaster where they were approached by families of the victims of that day to help sort out the bureaucratic mess of getting money that had been donated to the Disaster Fund actually into the hands of those who needed it rather than into only the pay cheques of those employed to administer it. The FWA simply held a press conference where they declared that if a sum of £5,000 was not paid within a week to each of the bereaved families of Aberfan then the Active Service Units of the Free Wales Army would start blowing things up and Government buildings would be destroyed. Within a week it was announced the monies would be paid. According to one parent of a child lost in the disaster "If it wasn't for the FWA the families would never have received a penny. When no one else would help us, they did. There was no one else we could turn to until they came along. Great to us they were. Great lads."

And then came along a happily married man and father of two young boys by the name of John Jenkins, who on the surface had everything to lose and nothing to gain by taking the course of action he did. Feeling that the Welsh national identity was not only being threatened but was in the last stages of survival, Jenkins took up arms and declared war against the British State that subsequently rejuvenated the MAC and over time sent a genuine shiver of fear through the political Establishment.

On joining the by then somewhat moribund MAC, Jenkins proved himself by blowing up a water pipeline before formulating a more long-term strategy to centre on the forthcoming Prince of Wales Investiture of 1969. His plan was that every time a member of the Royal Family stepped foot in Wales they would be met with protest and resistance - resistance being in the form of an organised bombing campaign. And so it began.

Come 1969 and the time of the Investiture there was open talk in FWA internal communications about arming with shotguns, guns, bows slings, pikes and weapons of all sorts and storming the town where Charles the Pretender was to be crowned. There was even talk of calling in the IRA following an offer of assistance from them, with their men of course being well-trained and well-armed. Not surprisingly the police moved into action and the homes of all the known leading FWA members were raided and arrests made. Jail sentences followed and from that moment the FWA were to all intent and purpose a spent force.

This still left, however, John Jenkins remaining at large who by then had become the clandestine leader of the MAC who very brilliantly it must be said delivered on what he promised. Bombs were going off left, right and centre, most spectacularly being the one let off at the offices of the Inland Revenue in Chester, shattering two hundred windows and sending thousand of tax documents floating across the city.

For all the efforts of Jenkins and the MAC, the Investiture managed to still go ahead but under massive State security, meaning in a way it was still a victory of sorts for the MAC as not only had they forced it to be held at State gunpoint but had also massively reduced the number of attendees.

And still the bombings continued until finally Jenkins too was arrested from being betrayed by an informer, effectively bringing to an end all active operations from then on.

To Dream Of Freedom is an interesting book if only due to telling a tale that is rarely told these days to the point of it being almost wiped from collective memory. The problem with it is that it's about nationalists and nationalism which means a lot of the politics are skewed. If Conservatism attracts a lot of swivel-eyed loonies to the Conservative Party then nationalism attracts to its ranks a lot of serious mind-benders ripe for therapy.

At one point in the book John Tyndal's National Front is mentioned in regard to them contacting the FWA wanting to know their political aims and this in itself speaks volumes as any right thinking politico would never have considered entertaining the National Front for one second. It doesn't say so but hopefully the FWA told them to jog on. It's clear the FWA or the MAC were in no way virulent racists although quite a few of their leaders were self-confessed uncompromising anti-Communists, which always begs the question as to where the line is drawn and do they mean they are just anti-Left full-stop? Is it just a way of saying they're solidly Right-wing and proud? Julian Cayo-Evans, the main leader of the FWA was also an ex-public schoolboy that again is problematic to anyone au fait with class politics.

For all this, To Dream Of Freedom is still an interesting read that if nothing else gives pause to think twice about Wales and its relationship to England, particularly post-Brexit and the looming, very distinct possibility of the future break-up of the UK with Wales along with Scotland of course embracing independence not through bombs but by a natural repulsion and aversion to London-centric Tory governance.

John Serpico