Make or Break Wales in the Eighties

In '80s Wales, age-old prejudices were being challenged

by a new generation of young men and women who,

through sheer strength of character, refused to be broken.

Anybody can get disabled through incident or accident,

but it's how you deal with it is more important.

It's how you live your life afterwards and what you do with it.

From the minute I started doing wheelchair racing, it was like,

"Wow, this is amazing, this is what I really, really want to do."

And it gave me belief that I was good at something.

I never thought that I would be good at anything, cos people used to say,

"You'll never be good at anything, you're just a junkie."

But there was me, now, I was getting promotion.

This is the moving story of how pioneers like these

faced up to their personal challenges.

For them, it was make or break.

At the beginning of the '80s,

there was still much prejudice towards disability and diversity.

Those who looked or behaved differently from what was

considered normal often faced hostility and rejection

and there was very little provision for those who were

disabled from birth or by serious injury.

In 1982, after Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands

in the South Atlantic, Britain prepared to send a task force

to reclaim its territory.

The QE2 was requisitioned

to carry over half the 9,000 troops to the other side of the world.

On board was a battalion of Welsh Guards.

Among them was guardsman Simon Weston.

I had a great time.

You know, excitement and bravado in the beginning.

Cap badge over the left eye, never going to die, you know.

You talk to most soldiers and they all think they're all bullet

and bomb proof, you know, you've got a cap badge on, pfft, that's enough.

It's the way you're indoctrinated, it's the way that you're trained,

it's the way they teach you to think.

Events in the Falklands moved fast.

British forces started landing on the 21st of May.

Within two weeks, thousands of troops occupied key parts

of the island.

But on the 8th of June, the planned amphibious assault on Bluff Cove

became delayed.

The troop ship, Sir Galahad, was left dangerously exposed to attack

by Argentine bombers.

Simon Weston was amongst a group of Welsh Guards on board.

The last words I heard before I got injured was,

"It's air raid warning green, it's red, it's red, get down, get down."

The bomb came crashing through the side.

It went into the engine room on the opposite side of the road,

went through where I'd just finished playing poker dice

and the bomb ignited the fuel.

The fuel fire blew out over us,

then the heat from the fire detonated the bomb.

I tried to help somebody who sadly died in my arms

and then I ran out of the fire. It was horrific.

It's a part of my life that I'll never forget.

48 men were killed on the Galahad and 97 injured.

One of the most severely, Simon Weston.

It took three weeks to get him to a specialised burns unit

at a military hospital in Britain.

Hello, Weston, how are you feeling after your journey?

Still very tired, are you?

'The first week or two, it was a bit of a blur.'

Stop! No!

'I was just in so much pain'

and psychologically, it was bewildering.

You know, I had no idea what the world held for me at that point.

I don't ever want a performance like that...

'I had 12 operations in the first ten weeks of coming back.

'You know, it was massive,

'the amount of surgery I had to go through.'

Advances in medicine were improving the prospects for prospects

for people disabled through injury.

However, in the early '80s, some wheelchair users were

leading their own drive for a more active life, especially in sport.

Tanni Grey-Thompson has been one of the most successful Welsh

athletes of all time.

She won an unprecedented 11 Paralympic gold medals, and her name

became an icon of wheelchair racing.

But her will to win was tested to its most extreme in her childhood

in a battle for independence.

I was born with spina bifida, so I tried walking with callipers

and crutches, er, but it was really...

It was hard and I couldn't do anything.

So, for me, having a chair was amazingly liberating,

because I could go to school on my own,

I could play with my friends, I could run away from my sister.

You know, I could just do the things I wanted to do, so, you know,

not everybody who becomes a wheelchair user experiences it

from this point of view, but for me, the chair was independence.

And I wanted to play sport, you know, I wanted to be active, so

I was always racing around in my chair and I've always been wilful,

stubborn, bit difficult, er, and determined.

Actually, my dad would say bloody minded.

Dad, because he'd been ill as a child,

he knew that, actually, it was really important for me to be fit

and healthy and strong, so he encouraged me to do sport.

Not to be an elite athlete,

but I remember him saying to me,

"If you need to go somewhere where there's steps

"and there's no lift, well, how are you going to get up there?

"You can't sit and wait for someone to carry you, you need to get

"out of your wheelchair, you need to crawl up the stairs, you need to

"drag your chair, you know, you need to be doing this for yourself."

So, the encouragement for me to do sport was about that

health at the beginning.

The support that Tanni enjoyed reflected a more caring attitude

to children's welfare in the '80s.

But where there was poverty, it was the children who often suffered most.

One of the biggest problems was domestic abuse

and the consequences could have long-lasting repercussions.

This is Tiger Bay,

where Yaina Samuels spent her early childhood.

Her mother came from a mixed race family in the valleys

and her father from Sierra Leone.

But life for Yaina and her brother was far from happy

because their family home was traumatised by domestic abuse.

We were having to deal with so many things as children.

We couldn't really understand what was going on, erm,

just that our mum was being hurt.

So, you know, as a child of about seven or eight, erm,

wanting to save your mother but not knowing what to do,

cos you don't have the strength to fight him off,

and nobody's listening to you cos everybody's screaming and

shouting and hitting and everything, and I just felt so, so powerless.

That experience growing up in domestic violence

did have a massive impact on me.

Yaina's mother left the family home to escape the violence.

So, as a young teenager, she took on all the housework

for her father and brothers.

She was bright at school and a budding gymnast,

but her father stifled all her interests.

My dad was too busy working and earning a living,

cos he was the only breadwinner, my mum had gone.

So I was doing all the chores in the house, stuff like that, erm,

and then I just started to rebel.

Staying out late, come back, I'd get battered and I thought,

"I ain't putting up with this. I'm gone."

Yaina's teenage years were in turmoil.

Her flight from her father's violence led to spells

in a remand home and Borstal.

She had a child.

Then, through a friend in Newport, Yaina fell into heroin abuse.

In the '80s, youth unemployment soared,

fuelling drug taking of all kinds in Wales.

But the rise in the use of heroin was most serious

amongst those with troubled lives.

The buzz went straight to your head because it's going in the vein,

isn't it? So the buzz was instant.

I used to say, "If you can mix it, fix it."

I didn't want anything orally.

It had to go into a syringe and up my arm.

It gave me a sense of belonging amongst my peers for the first time.

That sense of belonging with people that used was really important.

They became my family.

Many teenagers found escape from deep emotional issues

by having a good time with their mates.

It could help loosen any inhibitions they had with the opposite sex.

But in the 1980s, saying "I'm gay" took a lot of nerve.

Whether to friends or parents, coming out was a tense affair.

And if you were in the public eye,

it could be the biggest decision of your life.

Stifyn Parri was enjoying a rapid rise to fame

after growing up in a rural village in North Wales.

Yet, as his career advanced,

he found it impossibly hard to be open about his sexual persuasion.

When it came to my sexuality, it's not like you wake up one day go,

"Oh, I'm gay," or, "Oh, my God, I'm gay!"

Or somebody switches a light bulb on.

Erm, it's a very slow...

or it was for me, a very slow, gradual process.

I don't really know when I came out to myself.

It could have been anything between the age of eight

and in my mid-twenties.

In 1982, Stifyn landed a part in Coleg,

a soap opera on the newly launched S4C.

He was playing a normal heterosexual character, but as the series

progressed, Stifyn's natural homosexuality became apparent.

After two years in the soap opera, I could see that the writers

were starting to think of maybe changing my character to be gay,

because I, as a person, had been choosing what clothes I would wear

and I was always ending up in yellow and green dungarees

and going out in my own time to buy buttons to go on them.

Then, in 1986, the writers of Brookside were

looking for someone to play an openly gay character.

I get a call from my agent and my agent says,

"You have an audition to play Gordon's...'friend'."

And we all knew by the way that she said "friend"

that that meant it was his boyfriend.

I get the part of playing quite a gregarious, two-faced,

cocky character, erm, very out, very outspoken.

Their peck on the cheek was the first gay kiss on TV.

Such portrayals were controversial and pushed the boundaries

of society's attitude to diversity.

But, for Stifyn, acting the role of a gay man was very different

to coming out himself in public.

Even after two years in the Brookside part,

'Stifyn was reluctant to make such a statement about his sexuality,

'yet within the gay community, he was already a star.'

'There I was, in Brookside, starting to become this sort of gay icon,'

because, of course, there weren't many iconic characters that were out

on the television for people to look up to.

I was more or less telling a lie at the time,

but I do believe that you have to come out in your own time.

Simon Weston was medically discharged from the army

in March 1985.

Much had been achieved with surgery to repair his physical injuries,

but, as he started to come to terms with his future in civvy street,

there were now major challenges with his mental health.

I was just trying to get through, trying to muddle my way through,

you know, trying to be macho in the sense that nothing's getting to me.

And the problem is that, when you do that,

that's when you're at your most vulnerable because you try to...

You try to think that you can handle it and you can't.

But I was going through mental health problems.

I had depression, I was drinking too much.

All I wanted to do was get back to the life I'd had before.

I wanted to be who I used to be, that's what I wanted.

I wanted to play rugby, I wanted to be in the army,

I wanted my life to be normal again,

but that was never going to be the case.

I contemplated taking my own life,

but it was only a cry for help, it was only a cry because I was

so depressed, I was so lonely, my life just wasn't happy.

Simon was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

But, despite his mental anguish,

he battled on with the support of his family.

The 1980s saw a transformation in wheelchair racing

and it became a magnet for lovers of sport, like Tanni Grey-Thompson.

I loved that element of competing, of being better and from the minute

I started doing wheelchair racing, it was like,

"Wow, this is amazing, this is what I really, really want to do."

And I loved it.

For all aspiring athletes in the sport, it was a must

to compete at the birthplace of the Paralympic Games,

Stoke Mandeville Stadium in Buckinghamshire.

At the age of 13, Tanni was picked to race for Wales there.

Stoke Mandeville had this huge influence

because it's the first time that I got to meet lots

of other wheelchair users who were sporty and it made me feel

that what I wanted to do was OK.

And then maybe at 13 or 14, you think you're quite good

and then you see how much better you need to be.

And I remember thinking, "OK, what do I need to do?

"OK, what steps? How much do I need to train?"

You know, "What chair do I need?"

Wheelchair racing is an incredibly technical sport.

When you're pushing at your top speed, you're only in contact

with the rim for less than 0.1 of a second,

so it's not about brute strength, it's about your strength

through the speed, through the rim.

And then it's about how you manipulate your hand speed,

your cadence, which part of the rim you push,

so you're making lots and lots of different decisions.

I think, being sporty, what it gave me was belief

that I was good at something and that I could be better.

Tanni trained hard over the next four years

and was rewarded with selection to represent Great Britain

at the Paralympic Games in Seoul in 1988.

Having been brought up in Cardiff and not really travelled that much,

to suddenly be on the team for Seoul...

I think I was one of the final athletes to be selected.

But to get that letter through which said, you know,

"Dear Tanni, congratulations, you've been selected for Seoul,"

was incredible.

And, for me, you know, winning the bronze was just huge,

and then had the medal ceremony, which was amazing.

In the '80s, towns like Aberystwyth were transformed by an influx

of young people, especially students.

The popularity of the university fired up the night life

with the seafront community.

It was here in 1981 that Yaina Samuels was offered the job

of store manager at the Wimpey Bar.

"Wow, me?! Yeah! OK, I'll have some of that!"

Free flat on top, yeah, right by the sea.

The street that my flat was on, you walked straight down the street

and there's the sea.

"Wonderful," I thought, "absolutely wonderful."

So I took the job.

Yaina moved to Aberystwyth to escape her heroin abuse

and get her life on a proper track with new friends.

But after her best friend from Newport joined her,

it all fell apart and she started using heroin again.

Slipping back into heroin masked deep seated problems

caused by her father's domestic abuse in her childhood.

I hadn't really dealt with the reasons for why

I was using in the first place.

I found pleasure in it, it was a release from the pain in my life,

it was a way of blocking out my feelings, my emotions,

my low self-esteem.

Even though I was in the job and I was a manager,

I didn't feel good about myself, I didn't like myself at all.

A year went by and then the police raided Yaina's flat.

And although she managed to dispose of the heroin,

she lost her job at the Wimpey Bar.

Yaina returned to Cardiff.

By the mid-80s, South Wales was awash with heroin,

where its use had increased tenfold in a few years.

Yaina continued to take heroin.

Then, in 1986, she was raided again.

This time, her 11-year-old son was with her.

I was horrified that that had happened while my son was there

to witness it and that shook me up, big time.

And it was then I made that decision that,

"Things have got to change.

I went and registered myself with the clinic, with a drug clinic,

and then I was put onto a methadone treatment programme.

Stifyn Parri felt pressure to make his big change, to finally come out.

In 1988, he was invited to join the gay rights movement.

In the '80s, AIDS was falsely regarded as a gay plague,

leading to extreme hostility towards homosexuals.

In this climate of fear, the government enacted Clause 28,

banning local authorities from promoting homosexuality.

All this compounded Stifyn's inner turmoil

when he went on the march against it.

If you're closeted, if you're hiding something, you are very clever,

and, of course, I was there as an actor representing gay people

and I hid behind that.

So I find myself with Ian McKellan and Michael Cashman.

I felt a little bit like Ava Peron, but I still had the little Stifyn

in me that I wasn't actually letting out, a bizarre position to be.

Clause 28, banning the promotion of homosexuality,

was repealed 15 years later.

After leaving the army,

Simon Weston struggled to fill a great void in his life.

The turning point came when he was invited to become an honorary

member of FAB, the charity for bringing physically handicapped

and able-bodied people together.

You'll have to come on a FAB weekend, cos they are an experience!

Simon was inspired to set up his own charity, Weston Spirit,

with the aim of helping inner city youngsters keep out of trouble

through activity courses.

Get yourselves under, come on!

'We just came up with this idea that we wanted to do something that

'would help youngsters take charge of their own destiny

'and to realise that they were the best investment they could make.'

The most important person in their life was them

and the decisions they make and take would affect their life,

directly or indirectly, forever.

And we just wanted to change the direction of a lot

of youngsters who were making poor choices.

The activities included Simon taking the youngsters

to visit disabled groups.

The families saw their loved ones no longer being a problem.

They saw them being somebody who was contributing to society,

rather than somebody just taking and abusing society

and it made a massive difference to a lot of young people.

I'm immensely proud of what we achieved.

You've seen more of the world than I have!

We just don't know...

Anybody can be injured, anybody can be damaged,

anybody can get disabled through incident or accident,

but it's how you deal with it is more important,

it's how you live your life afterwards or what you do with it.

It really comes down to what you're prepared to do with what's happened.

Being injured, it changed my life, quite literally, in a flash,

but all it did was change the direction of it.

It didn't stop me living my life.

Simon Weston became an iconic figure, much-loved

and respected for his triumph over tragedy.

Tanni Grey-Thompson's success in 1988 was crowned

when she was presented with an award by the pioneer wheelchair

racing champion from Pontypool, Chris Hallam.

..and congratulate you on becoming the first

Western Mail Welsh Disabled Sports Personality of the Year.

Thanks very much.

I think, if I'd been born in another part of Britain,

I wouldn't have had some of the sporting opportunities that I had.

You know, the fact that I lived, you know, 15 miles away

from Chris Hallam, who was a huge icon in disability sport

in the '80s, who broke down so many of the barriers

in terms of media coverage and sponsorship and attitudes...

He just put wheelchair racing on the map.

And then, because he was in Wales, for me to come behind him,

it was so much easier for me to get publicity

and to get coverage and to be treated as an athlete

and nothing else.

And, you know, without Chris Hallam, then I don't think, actually,

Paralympics would be where it is today.

Tanni went on to win four silver and 11 gold medals in the Paralympics.

She now sits in the House of Lords as the Baroness Grey-Thompson.

In 1989, Yaina Samuels was making new friends

and holding down a deputy manager job in Cardiff.

She was staying free of heroin with the help of her methadone programme.

But feelings of inadequacy still haunted her.

Then, one day, an enlightened council training scheme

changed her life.

There was this advert in the paper for trainee black housing officers.

I thought, "Black, that's me!

"Housing officer, that's not me...

"but that could be me!"

So I thought, "Wow!" I thought, "I'm going to have a go."

And I got it.

I mean, I was really gobsmacked by all this, I was like, "Whoa!"

I mean, really gobsmacked, because for somebody who's grown-up

believing that they're not good at anything

and has low self-worth, then for me to get these jobs, it was a massive,

absolutely massive boost for my confidence.

A year later, Yaina was appointed housing officer

for Cardiff City Council.

Her experience of abuse and addiction helped Yaina excel at her job.

It was also a way to put her past to right.

I loved my job because I felt I was in control of something.

I could help somebody flee domestic violence.

I totally understood domestic violence

and the impact it had on children.

I totally understood drug addiction

and the impact it had on the wider family.

It was kind of a healing process for me, as well,

cos it helped me come to terms with what happened

while I was growing up.

The ordeal that Yaina and her family went through

inspired her to set up Nu-Hi Training,

a ground-breaking social enterprise to help addicts with their recovery.

In 2014, Yaina won the St David's Award for Citizenship

from the Welsh government for her remarkable work.

In 1988, after much media attention, Stifyn Parri felt the pressure

for him to come out could go on no longer, but it would be

on his own terms and it was his mother he had to tell first.

She said, "You do realise that a lot of people in the village

"think you ARE gay, don't you?"

And it was at that point that my barrier came right down

and I said, "Well, it's taken me years to tell you this,

"but I am."

And she took one look at me and said, "No, you're not,"

and she left the room.

And I shouted and said, "Please come back. It has taken so long

"for me to come and tell you this and it's important

"that you understand."

And I got her to sit down.

I told her another few people that she really loved and adored

and looked up to were also gay, and she realised

that I was still her son and that she had nothing to worry about.

I realised I was far more whole as a person once I'd come out

and felt that I had nothing to hide or nothing to be ashamed of.

I felt more fully rounded as a person.

By the end of the '80s,

there was a growing acceptance of difference and diversity.

Simon Weston met Lucy when she volunteered to help

with his charity, Weston Spirit, and they married in May 1990.

Two years later, he was awarded an OBE.

Simon's approach to life was at the heart of his recovery

and it has also brought a lasting success to his marriage.

When you've got that chance to enjoy yourself, grab it.

When you've got that chance to have a laugh, grab it.

And we do, we really do and it's very, very funny.

But, you know, you have to take those moments when you can get them.

The 1980s saw the beginning of a transformation

in attitudes to disability, diversity and drug addiction,

made possible by the extraordinary courage of our Welsh pioneers.

Next time, we look at the new passion for culture

and history in Wales that inspired its fight for survival.