MORNING SERIAL
ONE man who had farmed in the valley for over 50 years wrote to the Government: “So much is said about this Valley by people who do not know anything about the place.”
He complained that many of the members of the Capel Celyn defence committee were outsiders and Plaid Cymru members who did not know the conditions that locals had been living in. Whether this farmer represented local views is unclear but it shows that the community was not united in outright opposition.
The Government was also told by a local trade union representative and justice of the peace that “many of those affected by the dam did not really regret it, but did not like to say so in view of the pressure from the Nationalists”. By 1957 Gwynfor Evans was informed by an adviser that “the vast majority” of Tryweryn residents were “more than satisfied” with the compensation and were “satisfied for the scheme to proceed”.
There were 10 years between the scheme being announced and the opening of the reservoir. It was a long, drawn-out and stressful process for the people of Capel Celyn. Children grew up with it hanging over them. Residents moved away at different times, with their homes being demolished once they were empty.
They did go to nearby housing more modern than in the un-electrified village they were leaving behind, but they were given little help in finding new accommodation. The last residents to leave had had to watch their community being literally knocked down around them.
A second rebirth
What the affair did show was how Welsh demands could easily be outvoted if they clashed with English interests. With just 5% of the UK population, this was inevitable, and it was in this that the inequity of the union really lay rather than any deliberate English colonialism.
But government also had a duty to ensure minorities were not entirely forgotten and it wanted to avoid any controversy, no matter how marginal.
> Wales: England’s Colony? by Martin Johnes is published by Parthian in the Modern Wales series www.parthianbooks.com