A Fighting Spirit Wales in the Nineties


A Fighting Spirit

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The 1990s was a decade of reinvention in Wales,

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when industries were born or swept away.

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Change was in the air,

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and it was led by people with passion

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who took control of their own destiny.

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I wanted to start a strip show up.

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I was like, what a great way to make money!

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I'm going to do that! Kerching!

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At that time I was so, so passionate about what I was doing,

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I was running. I was running.

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And the business, it literally exploded.

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Entrepreneurial doesn't mean you've got to be bad, or greedy.

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You can be a social entrepreneur, you know, and create wealth.

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Wealth you know is going to be shared differently.

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This is the story of men and women who helped to create a new world of

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work in Wales, with their fighting spirit.

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In the '90s, millions were ploughed into hi-tech industries

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from outside Wales, in an attempt to revitalise the nation.

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There was investment form the Far East.

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MUSIC: No Limit by 2 Unlimited

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But our future lay much closer to home with men and women who were

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prepared to strike out on their own in new and old industries.

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The steel industry was a survivor from the past.

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Traditionally a male preserve.

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Yet an ambitious young woman saw the success at Llanwern

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as an opportunity to get a job.

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Nicola Thomas studied engineering at college,

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before being taken on as an apprentice there.

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When I started it was like, "Wow, I've actually got in!

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"I've actually got in!"

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A woman's actually going to go in to the steelworks

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and actually work, hopefully, on the shop floor.

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That was my aim.

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At the time, I wanted to be a welder.

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I proved for six months I could weld, I was welding with the boys.

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They didn't have an issue with it as long as I welded well.

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Nicola got her wish when she was given a job

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in the hot mill roll shop.

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Here she helped with the maintenance of the huge rolls

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used in the production of steel.

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If you can master the hot roll shop,

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in my mind you can master anything else on site.

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Because the majority of heavy stuff was in the roll shop.

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There was lots of physical work.

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You had to do a lot of slinging, doing a lot of stretching, bending.

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We had a lot of spanners.

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Like with a car mechanic, you've got a small spanner.

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We've doubled that about four, five times in size.

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And that's what we've got to use for these big nuts.

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I enjoyed working on the shop floor,

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that you've got to have a lot of common sense,

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and a lot of...wary about what's happening around you.

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If you haven't got that, then you can't do the job.

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Llanwern was the only steelworks in Britain that employed women

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in its rolling mill.

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But breaking into a man's world took a lot of determination.

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You had to have a bit of pride,

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because with a girl you've got to do it a bit harder and prove,

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"Yeah, I am going to get this right."

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If I try it four times, five times, 50 times,

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I will do it better than what the boys are doing.

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Because the boys were saying,

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"I can do it once, that's it, that's me done."

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But no, you've got to keep going and going until you've done it right.

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You have to have a lot of confidence as well, to say,

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"Yeah, I'm in a man's world.

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"I'm going to work the same level as them, or go above them."

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As long as you can work as a team, it doesn't matter if you're male,

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female, whatever, in my mind.

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It just took them a long time in the steelworks to get out of the habit

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and say, "Yeah, it's a woman, so? It's not a problem."

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In Wales in the early '90s,

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many traditional male jobs became scarce, or non-existent.

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Some men tried to come up with new ways to beat unemployment.

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MUSIC: Rhythm Is A Mystery by K-Klass

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One man in Swansea who was a bit of a Jack the Lad was Richie Rees.

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In 1992, he and a friend were looking for work.

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We went down the job centre, and we were going through all these things

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and as we were going across the board, like, "Oh!

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"Look, they want a strip-o-gram."

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So I said,

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"Let's go for that. Yes, come on, then!"

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And we were sitting there, in the interview.

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I don't know why I said it.

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It just...

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come out. And I said,

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"What we really want to do",

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and of course, the both of them looked at me.

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Jeff was like, "We do?"

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What we really want to do is, we want to start a strip show up.

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Richie Rees got together with a couple of other Swansea men

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to form a male strip group, Centaur.

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Their shows were exclusively for women.

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They were the precursor of The Full Monty

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and earned about £1,000 per show.

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It's my job to make sure you girls

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get exactly what you came for.

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I was basically grabbing an opportunity

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to give my kids a better life.

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Perhaps I should have chosen something a little bit different.

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To channel my energies in at that time in my life, you know.

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But at the time I had blinkers on.

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I was like, "What a great way to make money.

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"I'm going to do that! Kerching!"

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You know, and it was a good way to make money.

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Girls love a guy in uniform.

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Uniforms are a thing.

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You include all the women in the show as well,

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everybody who walked into that room was included in the show.

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Right, that's it, you're going down.

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All over Britain, women were screaming everywhere.

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To me, the more they screamed, I thought to myself,

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the more money...that was there.

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Running Centaur was a big challenge.

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But Richie benefited from government business courses,

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though his was not quite what was intended.

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They said if you can find a niche in the market,

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it has to be something that's sellable,

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that people are not particularly doing too well,

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or not doing at the time.

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So, for me, everything that I'd learned came to fruition

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with my strip show.

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The show developed from just boxer shorts

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to, one day, we had a discussion, going to a show in the van,

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and it was, "Right, OK, I think it's about time now we went naked."

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Ritchie knew he was onto a good thing

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and set about exploiting the Centaur brand with merchandising.

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With Centaur, now, the first thing we had, obviously,

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was posters to put in the clubs.

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And then we thought, "I wonder if they'd buy these posters?"

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So we started selling the posters.

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It's just something to remember the night with, isn't it?

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It's that little poster they can tell their friends, you know,

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covered in baby oil, and we'd sign the posters for them.

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Ritchie earned good money from Centaur,

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but though it was an unconventional line of business,

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he was very clear why he was a male stripper.

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I wanted to give my children everything I never had as a kid.

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We really did struggle as a family when I was a child.

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I had nothing. And that's what Centaur gave me.

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But you're there to make sure these people have a good time.

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And when you're out on stage, they matter.

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You have to do what you do and therefore, on stage,

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the family didn't come into it, because you are performing.

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That was your job. That's what you done.

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Clothes manufacturing enjoyed a long history in Wales.

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But the recession of the early '90s

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forced many fashion businesses to fold.

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However, with support from local media, one young fashion designer in

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Cardiff was bucking the trend.

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Her name was Jane Davies.

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I got picked up by the Western Mail,

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and the Western Mail took me on board as a new business starting up,

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at the start of the recession.

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And it was great because they followed me for a few months,

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and they were really, really fabulous with me.

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At that time I was so, so passionate about what I was doing.

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I was running. I was running.

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And everything was going with me.

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And then a fabulous shop in Cardiff approached me, and they said,

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will you stock our shop?

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And it was just, like, "Oh, my gosh, my stuff in your shop?"

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And I will always remember, when I went in to deliver it,

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it was thick gold carpet, and you had to ring the doorbell.

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And all they had was the black polo neck,

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classic black polo neck dresses and they used it as a window display.

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And it just, like, blew my head.

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In the early '90s, Jane's designs created a lot of attention

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at the Welsh fashion awards.

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Then, with her work much in demand, she moved to North Wales.

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It was just a case of,

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I was literally doing the shows all the time,

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and the business was growing, and growing, and growing.

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We started stocking some of the biggest department stores in the UK.

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Then we did Europe, and the business was, literally, rocking.

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It was beyond-belief rocking.

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Then, in 1999, Jane Davies made a Welsh dragon dress for a niece,

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and her career took on a whole new dimension.

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MUSIC: Bullet In The Gun by Planet Perfecto

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I came up with this idea of the Welsh dragon dress.

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It started off, I think it was a 12-piece collection

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and I took it down to Cardiff, and they literally sold it, like that.

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So after we'd gone from literally,

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making tens of everything,

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to thousands of everything, the business, it literally exploded.

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And it wasn't just the Welsh then, we just took it on board that,

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of course, all the other nations...

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And we did the British Isles in the beginning.

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In North Wales we used to manufacture all the dresses,

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the shirts, the boxer shorts,

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we had a swimwear company in Rhyl who used to make all the swimwear.

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And then down in the South Wales valleys then,

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they used to make all the fleeces, and the hats, and the scarves.

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So we had, we had an amazing amount of people.

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And they loved it as well.

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They loved making it.

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MUSIC: The Key The Secret by Urban Cookie Collective

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By the early '90s, more and more women were doing

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different types of jobs.

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And even when they started a family,

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they could leave their children at a creche, or even with their husband,

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while they went out to work.

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But the '90s also saw a rise in the number of marriages

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ending in divorce,

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with many women left to bring up their family alone.

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In such a situation, hopes of earning a living could seem remote.

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After her divorce,

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Linda Narberth lived with her three children in Bridgend.

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I would be wrong to deny that I've got

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tremendous willpower, I suppose. And determination.

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Absolutely adamant that I was going to be an independent woman,

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who could give my children a good life.

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But much of Linda's time was devoted to the care of her daughter, Kelly,

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who had a profound learning disability.

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Kelly Louise was born with severe brain damage, she couldn't see,

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she couldn't talk, she couldn't

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do anything for herself.

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She couldn't sit up. She couldn't stand.

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But she could also giggle a lot, and smile a lot.

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We had some good days.

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Calling directory enquiry, which town, please?

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Linda signed up to the government's

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enterprise scream for single parents.

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It offered money and support in helping to start a business at home.

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Linda saw a niche in the market for computer training.

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Computer training at the time was what was desperately,

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desperately needed.

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Every single business was changing over to proper computers.

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Linda ran her company, Business Direct, from her home in Bridgend.

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I thought that what was missing in the training arena was training

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that was actually provided and created

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for exactly what that person, or those people, needed to do.

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So I started creating courses which allowed them to do their whole job,

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much, much, quicker.

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And it's certainly what built our reputation as a business,

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providing very hands-on support.

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Linda's business grew rapidly,

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and in recognition of her talent

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she was nominated for Welsh woman of the year in 1995.

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Then, a year later, she topped this by winning at the awards.

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But her success was even more remarkable

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because of the time she devoted to the care of her daughter, Kelly.

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It was always a struggle.

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There was nothing normal about my family life.

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It was nothing, nothing, for me to get called in the middle of the day,

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right in the middle of work,

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where I had to go for an emergency for my daughter.

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I had to go in the middle of the night,

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to maybe sort out things with Kelly, and then maybe still get back,

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have a shower, get to work,

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and be in work by half past seven in the morning.

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And keep going, keep going, keep going.

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In 1997, Linda was able

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to move her business into its own offices in Bridgend.

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It was one of the proudest days of my life, it absolutely was.

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It was just unimaginable

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that somebody who had said, "I need to get a job",

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to not only start my own business, but to have premises as well.

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To have training rooms, where we could train,

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you know, six, seven, ten people at the same time

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was just absolutely brilliant.

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Then, a year later,

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Linda won a major contract to provide IT training

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at the new Welsh Assembly.

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But she feels there would have been no success story

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without her daughter, Kelly.

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She just inspired me, I think, to always keep going, and always keep,

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you know, believing that you had the strength

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to go to get through things, really.

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Yeah. Incredibly inspiring.

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I think it just made me stronger.

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Linda Narberth was now a leader of her own team of computer trainers.

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MUSIC: Dreams Can Come True by Gabrielle

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The '90s saw the growth of a new adventure tourism in Wales.

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MUSIC: Sweet Harmony by The Beloved

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For some working in factories,

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the lure of the outward bound could be life-changing.

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In 1990, Gary Evans left his engineers job at Ford

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and joined his friend Nick Fitzgerald

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to create Hawk Adventures.

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We really believed in it. We really thought we could make that work.

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We were concentrating on the traditional activities,

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so climbing, caving, mountain biking. And mountain walking.

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People wanted to be guided in the mountains,

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they wanted to be kept safe.

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Abseiling was one of their most popular activities.

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For us, you know, keeping people safe

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whilst giving them an adventurous time was our aim.

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We wanted to show people a side of themselves they'd never seen before,

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in a good way. And we were really focused on that.

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The '90s was a time when many people wanted to explore the more remote

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parts of the Welsh countryside during their leisure time.

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There was a growing desire for adventure,

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and Gary and Nick offered courses to meet this demand.

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They were tasters, really,

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they were a chance for people to try something new.

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People wanted to come along and learn how to read a map,

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or to understand more about what it meant

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to go underground into a cave.

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A lot of people came to us, they would want to go into the mountains

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and be the only people there.

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They would want to go underground,

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and feel they had the cave to themselves.

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There was much more of that, kind of, wilderness feel to it

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in those days.

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We started off with a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of lofty ideas.

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And we really wanted to do the right thing.

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I was fascinated by the idea that people could learn to be better as a

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person, not just to learn technical skills.

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So I think, for me, I got a heck of a lot from feeling

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that I was helping other people.

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And one day somebody told me that they spent a week with us,

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and it had changed their life.

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And I realised that we were doing something pretty fundamental.

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MUSIC: I Can't Dance by Phil Collins and Genesis

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Right across Wales, it was hard to find work.

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The country was littered with the relics of past industries.

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Clogau Saint David's, in Snowdonia National Park,

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was once known as Britain's richest gold mine.

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It was famous for producing gold for royal wedding rings.

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But during 150 years of production, the seams yielded erratic results

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and a succession of owners were forced to close the mine.

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Then, in 1989, local millionaire businessman Bill Roberts

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came up with a new idea for the mine.

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I was energised by the whole prospect

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of making this fantastic mine,

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which has got great historical background,

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with all the royal connections,

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all the wedding rings that come from this very mine.

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One of the best and largest tourist attractions in Wales.

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My goal, at that time, was for people to think,

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"Oh, I'm going to Wales, I must go and see the gold mine."

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Bill Roberts bought the lease on the mine

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and set about making his idea a reality.

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But local people and the countryside commission were strongly opposed to

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the tourism venture.

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A public enquiry found in their favour

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and Bill was left with the remnants of an old gold mine.

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Then his fortunes changed

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when he met an amateur geologist who knew the mine intimately.

0:19:390:19:44

His name was Jack Williams.

0:19:440:19:46

Old Jack Williams, he turned around to me, and he said, "Bill", he said,

0:19:460:19:50

"I know of three miners.

0:19:500:19:52

"Geraint, Huw, and Medwyn.

0:19:520:19:56

"And Andrew, four miners.

0:19:560:19:58

"Oh, and Raymond, five miners."

0:19:580:20:00

He said, "We could get those boys, and we could get into the gold."

0:20:000:20:04

I said, "Well, I don't know anything about mining, Jack."

0:20:040:20:07

"Don't you worry, boy.

0:20:070:20:09

"You've got the lease for the mine, I'll show you where the gold is."

0:20:090:20:12

And, to be fair, within three weeks we were into good gold.

0:20:120:20:18

Amazing.

0:20:180:20:19

Clogau was up and running again.

0:20:210:20:24

But it needed an expert eye to spot the small deposits

0:20:240:20:27

of gold in the rubble extracted from the mine.

0:20:270:20:29

I'd got absolute confidence in Jack.

0:20:310:20:33

He knew where to look.

0:20:330:20:35

I remember getting a phone call one day,

0:20:360:20:39

"Bill, you'd better come down. Have a look at this."

0:20:390:20:41

And I went down, and it was this river of orange,

0:20:410:20:45

it's in the quartz, and this river of orange

0:20:450:20:48

was coming down from about, I don't know, 15 metres high,

0:20:480:20:52

right to the ground.

0:20:520:20:53

You're just looking at this, and you're thinking, "Wow!"

0:20:540:20:59

And it just was fantastic to see this.

0:20:590:21:01

This gold shining back at me from the mountainside.

0:21:010:21:05

But as so often at Clogau,

0:21:070:21:08

the seam of gold was only three millimetres deep,

0:21:080:21:11

and once it was removed the hunt for more continued.

0:21:110:21:15

Bill Roberts was discovering the reality of gold mining in Wales.

0:21:200:21:25

His head for business told him he needed another new idea

0:21:250:21:28

to make the most of his investment.

0:21:280:21:31

Such is the difficulty of mining Welsh gold,

0:21:310:21:34

it just doesn't come easy at all.

0:21:340:21:37

And I realised there wasn't going to be a lot.

0:21:370:21:40

Although we'd got quite a bit out to start with,

0:21:400:21:42

I realised this was going to be inconsistent,

0:21:420:21:44

and there was no way that this was going to be something

0:21:440:21:48

that I could make a viable business out of.

0:21:480:21:52

So I came up with the idea of putting a small amount

0:21:520:21:56

of Welsh gold in jewellery.

0:21:560:21:58

Bill started Clogau Gold in Colwyn Bay in 1994.

0:22:010:22:05

He was not afraid to take a step in the dark if he felt it was in the

0:22:070:22:10

right direction.

0:22:100:22:11

I didn't know anything about jewellery.

0:22:130:22:15

I didn't know what 24 carat was.

0:22:150:22:17

I didn't know what nine carat was.

0:22:170:22:19

I didn't even like jewellery at that time.

0:22:190:22:22

I'm the worst person to be in the jewellery business ever!

0:22:220:22:26

But, you know, I had this determination

0:22:260:22:28

and I had this marketing flair, to take it forward.

0:22:280:22:31

During the '90s,

0:22:330:22:34

Clogau Gold expanded from selling a few pieces in

0:22:340:22:37

local shops to markets in Britain and abroad.

0:22:370:22:40

I think one of the challenges was finding people to take me seriously.

0:22:430:22:46

They thought I was a joker.

0:22:460:22:47

I'd come along, got this gold mine, I've got this Welsh gold,

0:22:470:22:51

but because I am what I am, I found a way forward all the time.

0:22:510:22:55

Looking positively at everything, and thinking, "We can do this.

0:22:550:22:59

"We can do that. Let's find out how to do this.

0:22:590:23:01

"Let's do it better."

0:23:010:23:03

That's how I built the business up.

0:23:030:23:05

In the early '90s,

0:23:090:23:10

coal mining as an industry in Wales was in its death throes.

0:23:100:23:14

The final pit targeted for closure was Tower Colliery near Aberdare.

0:23:180:23:23

But it was here that a remarkable last stand for coal was made.

0:23:230:23:28

In April 1994, it seemed a management buyout was on the cards.

0:23:280:23:34

However, it included a big cut in pay for the miners.

0:23:340:23:39

This was unacceptable to many,

0:23:390:23:41

and they reluctantly voted to close the pit.

0:23:410:23:44

But feelings were running high at a meeting with British Coal,

0:23:440:23:48

to formalise the closure.

0:23:480:23:49

Tyrone O'Sullivan, the pit's NUM branch secretary,

0:23:520:23:55

was angry at how his men were forced into the situation.

0:23:550:23:59

British Coal said you've got to sign here, Mr O'Sullivan,

0:23:590:24:02

I said, "No, I'm not signing."

0:24:020:24:04

I said, "My men have told me when I left the pit,

0:24:040:24:07

"we don't want this pit to close.

0:24:070:24:09

"Particularly, I don't. So I don't sign any forms."

0:24:090:24:12

"Well, you've got to." I said, "We don't.

0:24:120:24:14

"You do what you like now, I'm not signing no forms.

0:24:140:24:17

"You close the pit." And we walked out.

0:24:170:24:20

Jumped in the car.

0:24:200:24:21

Got onto the motorway, all of a sudden, I'm sobbing.

0:24:230:24:28

I'm the driver, I'm sobbing.

0:24:280:24:29

Tyrone's link with Tower Colliery was deeply personal.

0:24:320:24:36

When he was just 15, his father had been killed in an accident there.

0:24:360:24:41

And he started work at the colliery

0:24:410:24:43

the year he married his wife, Elaine, in 1967.

0:24:430:24:46

Tyrone would spend his entire career at Tower.

0:24:470:24:50

One of the boys, he said, "Look, Tyrone, let's go for a pint."

0:24:510:24:54

And we stopped off at a pub in Aberdare.

0:24:540:24:56

We phoned our families, I phoned Elaine and the two girls,

0:24:570:25:00

the other boys did the same.

0:25:000:25:02

There was about 30 of us there.

0:25:020:25:05

Reminiscing about those good times we had.

0:25:050:25:07

And I'm telling this story because that's the very moment Elaine said

0:25:070:25:11

to me, "Tyrone, that's when you decided to buy the pit.

0:25:110:25:15

"You boys, together."

0:25:150:25:16

When the miners of Tower colliery marched back

0:25:190:25:21

to their pit on January 4th 1995,

0:25:210:25:25

they were now the proud owners.

0:25:250:25:28

It was the crowning glory to eight months of negotiations

0:25:280:25:32

with banks and civil servants,

0:25:320:25:34

underpinned by a deep loyalty between the men

0:25:340:25:36

and their new management team.

0:25:360:25:39

Tyrone O'Sullivan, its chairman,

0:25:410:25:43

had needed to draw upon their redundancy money.

0:25:430:25:46

We then had to go back to the men and say, "Listen now,

0:25:460:25:50

"we're thinking of buying the pit.

0:25:500:25:52

"Can you all give us £2,000?"

0:25:520:25:55

And everyone in that room put their hand up and said yes.

0:25:550:25:58

And then back to the boys in the pit, I said,

0:26:000:26:03

"Listen now, boys, remember I asked you for £2,000?"

0:26:030:26:07

"Yes, Tyrone."

0:26:070:26:08

"Well, now I want another £6,000."

0:26:090:26:12

Because we've got to raise, between us, two million quid.

0:26:120:26:14

And no-one dropped out again.

0:26:160:26:18

Everyone put their hand up and said, "We are there."

0:26:180:26:20

Having won over the banks, next was the government.

0:26:230:26:27

Then, finally, just before Christmas 1994,

0:26:270:26:31

the DTI signed over the pit for an initial £1 million.

0:26:310:26:35

The day, at one minute past midnight,

0:26:360:26:39

and we waited for that one minute to pass,

0:26:390:26:42

so it became ours on one minute past midnight.

0:26:420:26:45

That was magical.

0:26:450:26:46

MUSIC: Rocks by Primal Scream

0:26:460:26:49

Tower colliery, now owned by its workforce,

0:26:490:26:52

got off to a flying start.

0:26:520:26:54

By the end of the year, it made a £4.5 million profit.

0:26:550:26:59

Tyrone O'Sullivan was at the centre of the management team.

0:27:020:27:06

It was an extraordinary transformation for a man

0:27:060:27:09

who was renowned as a flying picket at the height of the miners' strike

0:27:090:27:13

just ten years before.

0:27:130:27:16

I'm a social entrepreneur.

0:27:160:27:18

Entrepreneurial doesn't mean you've got to be bad or greedy.

0:27:190:27:24

You can be a social entrepreneur.

0:27:240:27:26

You know, and create wealth,

0:27:260:27:27

wealth that's going to be shared differently.

0:27:270:27:29

And every month I used to call a meeting,

0:27:310:27:34

how do you keep the morale up?

0:27:340:27:36

So every meeting, very quiet right at the end,

0:27:360:27:39

and the boys used to say, "What are you saying now?"

0:27:390:27:43

And I'd go like this, I'd go,

0:27:430:27:45

"We're simply the best.

0:27:450:27:47

"Better than all the rest.

0:27:470:27:49

"Better than everyone.

0:27:490:27:51

"Anyone you ever met."

0:27:510:27:54

And that song became our song.

0:27:540:27:58

It became our anthem.

0:27:580:27:59

MUSIC: The Best by Tina Turner

0:27:590:28:01

If we'd never bought Tower colliery,

0:28:060:28:09

on my gravestone would have been he was a bloody good picket.

0:28:090:28:12

Right? Now, at least, it can be put on there,

0:28:120:28:17

that he was a part of the workers' buyout in Tower.

0:28:170:28:20

And I think that alone

0:28:200:28:23

is enough of an achievement to me.

0:28:230:28:25

Tyrone O'Sullivan was made an OBE in 1996.

0:28:270:28:31

In the '90s, there was a real sense that Wales was changing,

0:28:370:28:41

pioneered by men and women who helped to carve out

0:28:410:28:44

a future for the nation.

0:28:440:28:46

As the decade closed,

0:28:460:28:48

the people of Wales could look forward to the new millennium

0:28:480:28:51

with more hope and self-confidence than ever before.

0:28:510:28:55

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