‘Elaine had roots as well as wings’ – the Renaissance woman born a century ago
Welsh Columnist of the Year Carolyn Hitt looks back on the life and career of Valleys icon Elaine Morgan
ONE HUNDRED years ago a woman was born in Hopkinstown who created some of the best-loved television drama of the 20th century, influenced American feminism and transformed perceptions of evolutionary theory.
Elaine Morgan was a remarkable Renaissance woman, excelling in science as well as the arts.
Her centenary is being marked with an engrossing new biography from academic Dr Daryl Leeworthy and the wonderful news that a statue will be built in her honour in Mountain Ash, the town she made her home for most of her life.
Elaine deserves both the rigorous scholarship of this new account of her life and work and the memorialisation in art form.
From the humblest of beginnings her life glittered with achievement. Born into a poor mining family, she won a scholarship to Oxford University.
When she arrived for interview, a woman who walked alongside her heard her Valleys accent and assumed she was applying for a job as a maid. But Elaine became a star student, chairing political societies and honing her literary skills.
After graduation she taught for three years with the Workers’ Educational Association. Her marriage in 1945 to Morien Morgan – a French teacher who had served with the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War – was a true meeting of minds. In the 1950s, as a young mother to their three sons Gareth, Huw and Dylan, Elaine began writing plays to help make ends meet.
One of the first women to make an impact in the male-dominated world of the small screen at this time, her first television scripts were accepted before she even owned a TV set.
In a career spanning 30 years, she won a host of awards and scripted some of the most popular dramas in television history – including How Green Was My Valley, Testament of Youth and The Life and Times of Lloyd George.
In the 1970s Elaine also switched her focus to science, taking on the might of the chauvinist establishment with a new theory of human evolution. In her book The Descent of Woman, she argued females were an equally vital part of a story which had only ever been told from a male perspective.
As she later explained: “I thought they were giving an unduly masculine slant on evolution. They were taking it for granted that evolution consists of making things better for the male mighty hunter… and I thought, ‘What about her? And what about the children?’ I wanted to write a book from their angle. What about the evolution of women?”
The Descent of Woman was an instant global best-seller. Feted in America as a feminist heroine, Elaine’s book became a key text in the Women’s Liberation movement. In the States she became something of a celebrity as she was invited to promote the book on television in a coast-to-coast tour.
She went on to publish several more books on evolution – including The Aquatic Ape (1982), which again captured global attention; The Scars of Evolution (1990); The Descent of the Child (1994); The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis (1997); and The Naked
Darwinist (2008). Championed by Sir David Attenborough, she was still being invited to discuss her ideas across the world well into old age. More than a million people viewed the Ted Talk Elaine gave at the age of 89.
Closer to home, she wrote her award-winning Western Mail column into her 90s. And it was on the pages of this very newspaper that her first public work was featured – a short story called Kitty in Blunderland which she wrote as a fiercely bright 11-year-old. It earned her a guinea.
At 14 she won the Western Mail’s annual St David’s Day essay competition with a passionate polemic on the importance of Wales preserving its distinct culture.
I particularly loved the Western Mail connection as Elaine was always a heroine to me. As such, it was a huge privilege to be asked by Daryl Leeworthy to write the foreword to his new biography Elaine Morgan: A
Life Behind the Screen. Beautifully written and rigorously researched, it uncovers fascinating biographical detail and affords Elaine’s work the literary evaluation it deserves.
Writing the foreword was a lovely opportunity to express just what Elaine meant to me. She ensured that when I was growing up I didn’t have to look very far for a role model. Just to the next valley in fact, where she changed the world from her desk in Mountain Ash.
When I was nervous about leaving the Rhondda for Oxford University, someone pointed out there was no need to panic. If Elaine Morgan coped with the culture shock of swapping her Pontypridd school for Lady Margaret Hall in 1939, surely I could manage it in 1987.
And that’s how I was first inspired by Elaine – though I could only dream of emulating the span of her talents.
Over the years I sought her wisdom many times. As a young journalist in the 1990s I sat with her in front of the fireplace in Mountain Ash to hear the compelling story behand her latest book on Aquatic Ape theory.
A decade later we were back in that cosy front room with a film crew for a series on Welsh women’s history. Elaine combined anecdote and insight into perfect soundbites, delivered in those gentle Valleys tones.
And for the last 10 years of her life we shared column space on The Western Mail. To be a fellow columnist of Elaine’s felt like our local five-aside team had just signed Lionel Messi.
I loved her writing style – direct, spare, conversational and punchy. That’s why her television characters leapt into life from her scripts and her columns left readers feeling they were engaged in a stimulating one-to-one chat. It was also why she could communicate the most complex scientific ideas to the everyday reader.
I marvelled at the way she took on
‘While this polymath could change intellectual course so deftly, she never altered her identity’
the chauvinists of evolutionary theory and challenged the scientific establishment. Satisfyingly, those who underestimated the diminutive lady in large spectacles were always the ones left looking small.
I was hugely impressed by her cerebral stamina and agelessness. Click on that Ted talk she gave aged 89, it is fabulous. She crossed generational boundaries, inspiring the likes of the young American science writer I met who travelled to Wales simply to discover more about her nonagenarian idol.
Yet most of all, I admired the way Elaine stayed true to who she was and where she came from. While this polymath could change intellectual course so deftly, she never altered her identity. As historian Angela John summed up beautifully: “Elaine had roots as well as wings.”
Those of us with similar backgrounds have been told by the ignorant and patronising that being a Valley Girl can hold us back. But Elaine said her roots were precisely the reason she succeeded. And she never left them behind. It was so reassuring to hear her underline the values she drew from her upbringing: “Everybody in the Valleys thought they were as good as anybody else. They have selfrespect that has nothing to do with money and nothing to do with possessions. I was glad to have been brought up that way.”
Though modest and self-effacing, Elaine had immense inner strength. I will never forget the heartbreaking column she wrote in 2011 after the death of her eldest son Dylan from pancreatic cancer. “According to the calendar he was in his sixties but our children are always young to us and it is undoubtedly true that he still had a lot to offer and everything to live for,” were her poignant words.
Against this backdrop of personal tragedy it would have been understandable if Elaine’s take on the world became bleak but her wisdom, humour and positivity continued to shine through every paragraph.
Only illness in the final year of her life ended her weekly missives. Bowing out at the age of 92, she bade farewell with classic Morgan wit: “I haven’t really got the hang of retirement yet, but I take it to mean, at least partly, that instead of trying to tell the world how to run itself on more reasonable lines, I will try to do the same for myself. Meanwhile, I enjoy having more leisure time for things like crosswords, Scrabble and watching Bernard Shaw’s plays on DVD (with a few chocolates and a glass of sherry) before bed.”
As we gathered to say our goodbyes to Elaine when she died in 2013, the global impact she made could be seen in the geographical spread of the tributes.
There were messages from Spain, Poland and America, while words of homage came from well-known figures ranging from broadcaster Roy Noble to novelist Margaret Drabble.
While it was wonderful to hear Elaine’s literary and scientific achievements reiterated, the personal stories from family members resonated even more because they underlined the aspects of her life we weren’t so familiar with. We heard she was a great wife, mother and grandmother too.
I was particularly moved by the eulogy given by Elaine’s granddaughter Tan Morgan. She recounted how her Nan believed children’s opinions were as important as their elders, illustrating this with the story of a Christmas Day when Mountain Ash was hit by monsoon conditions. Intrigued to hear a relative say “the roads were like rivers”, four-year-old Tan wanted an expedition and insisted on seeing the torrents for herself. Elaine took her out into the dark streets and, hand in hand, they waded through the water. “I felt like an explorer,” said Tan.
She told more lovely anecdotes of a grandmother who fired her ambitions and intellect as well as her sense of adventure.
The command of language Tan displayed in expressing these precious memories showed the spirit of Elaine Morgan lives on in the granddaughter she doted on. And in her centenary year, many more can take inspiration from Elaine Morgan and a legacy that spans both arts and science.
To me, Elaine Morgan remains the ultimate Valleys Girl. My heroine was born there and never really left there, but changed the world in between.
Elaine Morgan: A Life Behind the Screen by Daryl Leeworthy is published by Seren (£9.99).
Carolyn Hitt will be interviewing Daryl about the life and work of Elaine Morgan at the online launch of the book on Wednesday, November 11, at 7pm. Details of how to register for free tickets can be found on www.serenbooks. com.