50TH ANNIVERSARY OF PRINCE OF WALES’ INVESTITURE AT CAERNARFON
MONDAY marked 50 years since Queen Elizabeth II invested her son Charles as the Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle.
The event, which took place in 1969, was welcomed by roaring crowds eager to see the young prince.
But the ceremony was not without controversy, so much so that a few strongly opposed the ceremony and decided to take drastic measures to disrupt the event.
On the day of the investiture, 22-year-old Alwyn Jones and 37-year-old George Taylor set out to plant a bomb in Abergele.
Both men lost their lives when the bomb went off prematurely – leading some to dub them the ‘Abergele Martyrs’.
They were both suspected of being members of the Mudiad Amddifyn Cymru (MAC), or Movement for the Defence of Wales – a militant group that campaigned for a Wales free from British rule.
The group had been on the Special Branch’s radar for quite some time before the ceremony.
It first rose to prominence when its founders Owain Williams, Emyr Llewelyn and John Albert Jones, decided they wanted to stop the development of Tryweryn reservoir in 1963.
When work to create the reservoir was under
way, the three activists planted a 5lb bomb on an electricity transformer that was powering the project.
Pistyll-born farmer, Owain Williams, recalls the fateful evening.
He said: “I was so fed up of people trampling and bullying the Welsh, and felt that no one was standing up for us.
“In fact, no one was Pic: Arwyn Roberts doing anything about it, so I felt it was my responsibility to awaken national consciousness in Wales.”
Following the Tryweryn explosion however, the three men were eventually caught and arrested.
Owain Williams and Emyr Llewelyn were sentenced for a year each, while John Albert Jones was given a suspended sentence.
But even after his release, Williams was hunted by the police’s Special Branch for suspected involvement in other bombing campaigns.
Williams said: “I remember there were cars following me and my family about the place.
“One day, my brother and I were fed up, and decided to confront one of the officers in his car so we could catch them out.
“As we did however, another officer approached us and warned me not to confront them.
“’What was my problem?’ he asked me, and I answered: ‘My problem is you.’”
The 1960s saw a growing number of Welsh nationalist movements, and Prince Charles’ investiture came at a time when swift social changes were happening across the country.
In the build-up to the royal ceremony, Williams was hounded even further by the Special Branch, and suspected that around 2,000 secret police were sent to North Wales to make sure that he and other activists would not disrupt the event.
“I heard there were doubts over continuing with the ceremony due to possible safety threats.
“I couldn’t stand being there at that time, so I decided to go to Ireland.”
For four months, Williams managed to avoid the Special Branch officers by going on the run in Ireland and Wales.
The day after the investiture however, Owain Williams was in Cork, Ireland when he heard about his friends Alwyn Jones and George Taylor’s deaths.
He revealed: “It was such devastating news.
“I knew Alwyn and George very well, and one of them had a fourmonth-old baby.
“I remember that I read about it in a newspaper.
“I went straight back to the house that I was staying and just cried.
“I felt that the Welsh were celebrating in something shambolic.”
Although Owain Williams admitted that his actions were dangerous and at times foolish, he does not regret anything.
Instead, he remains hopeful about Wales’ future as an independent nation.
“I hope that Wales will wake up one day.
“To not understand the meaning of our history, is to not understand who we are and where we are going.”