Friend of Freedom was a ‘prime shaper’ of Cardiff

SO, statues seem to have gained a new life. Or in some cases a neardeath experience. One way or other, they have become matters of public concern – often of outrage and contempt, sometimes of admiration and advocacy.

In this storm over statues, I would like to champion the right to remain of one of Cardiff’s most familiar, bestknown, and even quite loved statues – though few people could name the man it remembers or what he did to make the people of his time feel his image deserved to be etched in stone.

I mean the well-known statue in The Hayes, beloved of revellers, often sporting Wales regalia on rugby occasions or just beer cans, traffic cones and general paraphernalia at other times, and always a favourite haunt of pigeons and seagulls.

It is the statue of the long-forgotten John Batchelor. In the present storm over statues, I thought people might like to know something about this man, who is called, on the plinth, Friend of Freedom.

John Batchelor was deeply opposed to the mighty Bute family, who virtually controlled Cardiff. He broke their economic stranglehold on the coal export trade by helping to create Penarth Docks and found Mount Stuart Dry Dock.

He broke Bute political power by spearheading the election of a Liberal Member of Parliament for Cardiff to end the reign of their favoured long-time Conservative MP. The new MP was the first Nonconformist MP elected in Wales. Religion was another point of contention and Batchelor was a Nonconformist who helped to found a Congregational Church.

But the Butes were extraordinarily powerful and slowly forced Batchelor

out of business until he was virtually bankrupt. When his business collapsed, he was saved from ruin by a public collection that raised £5,000, possibly today the equivalent of a much as £350,000, an amazing tribute to the esteem in which he was held. As a young man in Newport, he was inspired by the Chartists and campaigned all his life for people less fortunate than himself and against the vested interests of powerful families like the Butes. He fought for a clean water supply and an effective sewerage and drainage system in Cardiff and campaigned tirelessly again slavery. He served as Cardiff mayor.

All this economic, political and social conflict led to great opposition to the erection of the statue, with caustic alternatives offered to the epithet Friend of Freedom. Seems there’s nothing new in statue wars.

A major petition was raised against erecting the statue but was rejected. And the statue had its share of daubing with paint and tar at the time – seems that sort of political protest, too, goes back a long way – and from all sides of the political spectrum.

Tribute is paid to Batchelor by David Edward Pike in his Welldigger blog on Welsh history, where he says Batchelor was “one of the prime shapers” of the growing town of Cardiff “during a period of immensely important growth and development”.

He says Batchelor needs to be remembered for “his contribution to the cause of justice and freedom” – although, he acknowledges, today most people “have no real idea of who John Batchelor was, or what he represented”.

People mainly seem to like the various joyful additions to this familiar statue. But perhaps nice to know the man behind the statue really was a Friend of Freedom – at a time freedom really needed friends. Jean Silvan Evans Peterston-super-Ely

Cautious Drakeford has shrunk world

I ASK myself: “Has the world shrunk, has the Hadron Collider experiment found the Higgs Bosun, and limited the amount that a person is able to travel?”

I’ll have to ask Dr Lyn Evans from Aberdare ( if I am ever able to travel that far), for that Welshman was in charge of the Cern operation.

Or is it another Welshman holding responsibility for our limited travel, that other great Welshman from Carmarthen, Mark Drakeford. The man with caution to exceed all caution.

“Set us free, Mark,” I hear people shout, before agoraphobia sets in, and we will all need an analyst, to use an American term. Is there life beyond the Rhondda?

Please, Mr Drakeford, before it’s too late, allow an extra mile or two. Please!

Lyndon Morgan

Gelli, Rhondda

The statue had its share of daubing with paint and tar at the time...

What would Captain Kirk make of it all?

WHILST eagerly awaiting the kickoff of the Villa v Sheffield United match, and accepting the fact that because of the virus it would be a somewhat “half a loaf is better than none” game my mind wandered back to the original (and although somewhat dated by today’s standards but for my money still the best) Star Trek series.

An episode comes to mind where the Enterprise travelled back in time to the Sixties and was pursued by fighter aircraft as a hostile UFO.

Were the Enterprise to repeat the feat again and materialise over the match would Doctor McCoy say to Captain Kirk “it’s football, Jim, but not as we know it”?

James Barry, Gabalfa, Cardiff

Our justice system is far too weak

THIS lockdown has been a real eyeopener for many of us – on the one hand, it has produced very many heroes, particularly in the medical profession where doctors and nurses have literally given their lives to save others, while on the other hand, for the criminal scum of our society it’s been business as usual.

It’s now got to the stage in this country where no one is safe, not even babies and pensioners, medical professionals spat on, assaulted, and robbed, police assaulted and spat on, young black men still being shot or stabbed on a regular basis, in London particularly (strangely enough no mass protests about them), females living in terror of violent partners, the list is endless.

So how does our joke of a judiciary respond to the increase in violent crime? Suspended sentences, mostly with the odd “community service” or “thinking skills order” (got to laugh at that one).

A part of the problem seems to be overflowing prisons, so, if this country can build and operate a large

hospital within eight days, why can’t it construct “prisoner of war” style compounds for low-level and firsttime offenders?

Another problem is the sentencing panel, and the parole board, it’s about time we had some democratic representation on these bodies, which at present operate almost as secret societies.

And let’s not forget the CPS, it’s not for nothing that the police use it as an acronym for “couldn’t prosecute Satan”.

Make your voices heard people.

Robert James Pontypridd