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This is Porthmadog on the northwest coast of Wales. | 0:00:03 | 0:00:06 | |
It was hundreds of miles from the front line in France | 0:00:06 | 0:00:09 | |
but, like towns everywhere, it was touched by the First World War. | 0:00:09 | 0:00:13 | |
From intrepid sea captains fighting U-boats, | 0:00:13 | 0:00:16 | |
to feisty munitions workers fighting for their rights, | 0:00:16 | 0:00:19 | |
from a wartime Prime Minister to a celebrated poet, | 0:00:19 | 0:00:23 | |
war reached deep into this corner of Wales. | 0:00:23 | 0:00:27 | |
TRAIN WHISTLES | 0:00:43 | 0:00:45 | |
In August 1914, | 0:00:48 | 0:00:50 | |
Porthmadog was as sunny and peaceful as it is today - | 0:00:50 | 0:00:53 | |
the backdrop of the mountains, | 0:00:53 | 0:00:55 | |
the wharves bustling with commercial sailing ships, not yachts. | 0:00:55 | 0:00:59 | |
But, in faraway Downing Street, | 0:00:59 | 0:01:01 | |
the local boy made good, David Lloyd George, | 0:01:01 | 0:01:04 | |
is embroiled in the frantic, last-minute efforts to avert war. | 0:01:04 | 0:01:10 | |
"I am moving through a nightmare world these days," | 0:01:10 | 0:01:13 | |
he wrote to his wife. | 0:01:13 | 0:01:15 | |
For some of Porthmadog's seafarers, the nightmare was soon upon them. | 0:01:19 | 0:01:24 | |
The town was built on the slate trade | 0:01:24 | 0:01:27 | |
and Germany was one of the industry's biggest clients. | 0:01:27 | 0:01:31 | |
Millions of slates went to roof German cities. | 0:01:31 | 0:01:34 | |
When war was declared, | 0:01:35 | 0:01:37 | |
many of the town's ships were trapped in Hamburg. | 0:01:37 | 0:01:39 | |
But, in more than 40 years of business, | 0:01:41 | 0:01:43 | |
their captains had made friends in the port | 0:01:43 | 0:01:46 | |
and they quietly slipped away and headed for home. | 0:01:46 | 0:01:49 | |
Sadly, not quite all. | 0:01:51 | 0:01:53 | |
One sailor from the town, Arthur Owen, didn't make it out - | 0:01:53 | 0:01:56 | |
he was interned and, two years later, | 0:01:56 | 0:01:59 | |
died of TB in a German prison camp. | 0:01:59 | 0:02:02 | |
One of several hundred men from the area | 0:02:02 | 0:02:04 | |
who lost their lives in the conflict. | 0:02:04 | 0:02:07 | |
The outbreak of war had a dramatic effect | 0:02:09 | 0:02:11 | |
on this Welsh-speaking part of Wales. | 0:02:11 | 0:02:14 | |
The sudden end of slate exports to Germany | 0:02:14 | 0:02:16 | |
hit not only Porthmadog's maritime trade, | 0:02:16 | 0:02:19 | |
but also the nearby town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, | 0:02:19 | 0:02:21 | |
where the slate was quarried. | 0:02:21 | 0:02:23 | |
Virtually all building in Britain came to an end. | 0:02:26 | 0:02:29 | |
The last thing the government wanted | 0:02:29 | 0:02:31 | |
was anybody putting any resources into building anything - | 0:02:31 | 0:02:34 | |
all the resources needed to go into the war effort. | 0:02:34 | 0:02:37 | |
And as, of course, slate is a building material - | 0:02:37 | 0:02:40 | |
it was primarily used for roofing - then, when the war came, | 0:02:40 | 0:02:45 | |
the market for slate, the home market for slate collapsed. | 0:02:45 | 0:02:49 | |
What happens to the labour force? | 0:02:49 | 0:02:51 | |
In the early 20th century, there's about 11,000 or 12,000. | 0:02:51 | 0:02:54 | |
By the beginning of the First World War, | 0:02:54 | 0:02:56 | |
it's down to about 8,000, bit more than that. | 0:02:56 | 0:02:58 | |
By the end of the First World War, it's 3,000. | 0:02:58 | 0:03:02 | |
You know, that is a complete collapse | 0:03:02 | 0:03:04 | |
of the workforce in the industry. | 0:03:04 | 0:03:06 | |
Are they easily persuaded to go to war? | 0:03:06 | 0:03:09 | |
Well, many of them do go to munitions, | 0:03:09 | 0:03:11 | |
some of them go to other industries, | 0:03:11 | 0:03:13 | |
their union was very keen that they go and work in other industries. | 0:03:13 | 0:03:17 | |
But, yes, of course, a huge number of them, | 0:03:17 | 0:03:19 | |
as any war memorial in this district will testify, | 0:03:19 | 0:03:22 | |
a huge number of them went to war. | 0:03:22 | 0:03:25 | |
In non-conformist North Wales, there was a strong pacifist tradition. | 0:03:25 | 0:03:29 | |
But with local MP David Lloyd George, | 0:03:29 | 0:03:32 | |
aided by Methodist Minister John Williams, Brynsiencyn, | 0:03:32 | 0:03:35 | |
rallying the cause, support for the war grew. | 0:03:35 | 0:03:39 | |
This was not a jingoistic, warmongering part of the world | 0:03:39 | 0:03:44 | |
but, overall, Lloyd George's great point - | 0:03:44 | 0:03:48 | |
which was that the war was a war to defend small countries, | 0:03:48 | 0:03:51 | |
particularly Belgium, against German militarism - | 0:03:51 | 0:03:55 | |
that point was very well received in these parts | 0:03:55 | 0:03:58 | |
and people did go willingly to fight for that principle. | 0:03:58 | 0:04:02 | |
Once his mind was made up, that the war had to be fought, | 0:04:12 | 0:04:15 | |
Lloyd George was nothing but fully committed | 0:04:15 | 0:04:19 | |
and he demanded the same of his fellow countrymen. | 0:04:19 | 0:04:21 | |
Just a month into the conflict, he was back on home turf, | 0:04:21 | 0:04:25 | |
here in Criccieth, delivering a blunt message. | 0:04:25 | 0:04:29 | |
"In recruiting, Scotland comes first in numbers, | 0:04:29 | 0:04:32 | |
"England is second, | 0:04:32 | 0:04:33 | |
"Wales is third. | 0:04:33 | 0:04:35 | |
"This is not the position | 0:04:35 | 0:04:37 | |
"for a nation which has turned out more soldiers than any | 0:04:37 | 0:04:40 | |
"in the Continental wars of the past. | 0:04:40 | 0:04:43 | |
"At Crecy and Agincourt, where the British were eminently successful, | 0:04:43 | 0:04:47 | |
"half the soldiers were Welsh." | 0:04:47 | 0:04:49 | |
Welsh troops were soon in action on the Western Front, | 0:04:51 | 0:04:54 | |
not least the quarrymen of Blaenau Ffestiniog - | 0:04:54 | 0:04:57 | |
tunnelling and laying explosives under German lines. | 0:04:57 | 0:05:01 | |
But, by 1915, there was stalemate in the trenches | 0:05:01 | 0:05:04 | |
and a second front was opened against Germany's ally, Turkey. | 0:05:04 | 0:05:08 | |
The attack on Gallipoli on the Turkish coast was a shambles, | 0:05:10 | 0:05:15 | |
with thousands of troops pinned down on the beaches, | 0:05:15 | 0:05:18 | |
blasted by the Turkish guns. | 0:05:18 | 0:05:20 | |
It's remembered for the slaughter | 0:05:21 | 0:05:23 | |
of the Australian and New Zealand soldiers, the ANZACs, | 0:05:23 | 0:05:27 | |
but the Royal Welch Fusiliers were in the thick of the action, as well, | 0:05:27 | 0:05:31 | |
including 62 men from Porthmadog. | 0:05:31 | 0:05:34 | |
One of them, machine gunner Edward Jones, | 0:05:35 | 0:05:38 | |
wrote to the local newspaper from his hospital bed in Malta | 0:05:38 | 0:05:42 | |
and in the Cambrian Evening News | 0:05:42 | 0:05:44 | |
and Welsh Farmers' Gazette of January 28th, 1916, this appeared. | 0:05:44 | 0:05:50 | |
"You know, along with the rest of the world, | 0:05:50 | 0:05:52 | |
"that, by now, the whole of the peninsula has been evacuated. | 0:05:52 | 0:05:55 | |
"We certainly could not advance there. | 0:05:55 | 0:05:58 | |
"Several men here, | 0:05:58 | 0:05:59 | |
"who have been out in France for seven or eight months, | 0:05:59 | 0:06:01 | |
"say they would rather do six months out there | 0:06:01 | 0:06:04 | |
"than one month in Gallipoli. | 0:06:04 | 0:06:06 | |
"That gives you an idea of what Gallipoli was like. | 0:06:06 | 0:06:09 | |
"You could not rest there, anywhere, | 0:06:09 | 0:06:11 | |
"as every spot on the place was swept by shellfire. | 0:06:11 | 0:06:14 | |
"As you know, dysentery and various diseases | 0:06:14 | 0:06:17 | |
"played havoc with all of us there. | 0:06:17 | 0:06:19 | |
"It is like paradise to be back in civilisation again at Malta. | 0:06:19 | 0:06:24 | |
"We are all very much alive, | 0:06:24 | 0:06:26 | |
"even if we don't feel much like kicking." | 0:06:26 | 0:06:29 | |
Of course, tens of thousands died in the campaign | 0:06:32 | 0:06:35 | |
and here in Porthmadog's cemetery is the name of one of them, | 0:06:35 | 0:06:39 | |
Lance Corporal William Jones | 0:06:39 | 0:06:41 | |
of the 6th Battalion Royal Welch Fusiliers. | 0:06:41 | 0:06:44 | |
Died on the 11th August 1915 in Turkey, aged 26. | 0:06:44 | 0:06:49 | |
You can't help but feel - | 0:06:49 | 0:06:51 | |
and maybe William Jones felt it, too - | 0:06:51 | 0:06:53 | |
that from these lush mountainsides | 0:06:53 | 0:06:56 | |
to the dust and dirt of Gallipoli | 0:06:56 | 0:06:59 | |
is a long, long way. | 0:06:59 | 0:07:00 | |
With Gallipoli a disaster and stalemate on the Western Front, | 0:07:03 | 0:07:07 | |
the war was going badly for Britain. | 0:07:07 | 0:07:09 | |
There was also a crisis in munitions, | 0:07:09 | 0:07:12 | |
with shells often not even exploding and accidents at factories. | 0:07:12 | 0:07:17 | |
Enter David Lloyd George. | 0:07:17 | 0:07:19 | |
He'd grown up in the village of Llanystumdwy, | 0:07:19 | 0:07:22 | |
just outside Criccieth, | 0:07:22 | 0:07:23 | |
and the museum there reveals Lloyd's George's pivotal role | 0:07:23 | 0:07:27 | |
in the First World War. | 0:07:27 | 0:07:28 | |
From his beginnings as a Porthmadog solicitor, | 0:07:28 | 0:07:31 | |
by 1914, he'd become one of Britain's leading politicians - | 0:07:31 | 0:07:35 | |
Chancellor of the Exchequer. | 0:07:35 | 0:07:38 | |
Now Lloyd George made it his mission to sort out the shell crisis. | 0:07:38 | 0:07:42 | |
He campaigned in the press, he gave speeches. | 0:07:42 | 0:07:46 | |
And it worked. | 0:07:46 | 0:07:47 | |
And here, at the Lloyd George Museum in Llanystumdwy, | 0:07:47 | 0:07:50 | |
is the fruit of his labour. | 0:07:50 | 0:07:52 | |
It's from King George V, | 0:07:52 | 0:07:55 | |
and it appoints the said David Lloyd George | 0:07:55 | 0:07:57 | |
to be Minister of Munitions. | 0:07:57 | 0:07:59 | |
There aren't many people alive who knew Lloyd George well, | 0:08:01 | 0:08:04 | |
but one is his grandson, Bengy Carey-Evans. | 0:08:04 | 0:08:08 | |
Minister of Munitions, | 0:08:08 | 0:08:09 | |
it doesn't sound one of the great offices of state. | 0:08:09 | 0:08:12 | |
How important was it? | 0:08:12 | 0:08:14 | |
Well, it was desperately important. | 0:08:14 | 0:08:16 | |
I mean, the arsenals were hopeless. | 0:08:16 | 0:08:18 | |
They were sending out 30% dud shells, for a start, | 0:08:18 | 0:08:21 | |
so it was a dramatically appalling situation. | 0:08:21 | 0:08:25 | |
But, um, he gave up the chancellorship... | 0:08:25 | 0:08:28 | |
and took on this minor role, | 0:08:28 | 0:08:31 | |
which showed that he had no personal ambition. | 0:08:31 | 0:08:33 | |
Personal ambition didn't rule his life. | 0:08:33 | 0:08:35 | |
He was there to achieve his objectives. | 0:08:35 | 0:08:37 | |
He was much more concerned to get things done | 0:08:37 | 0:08:40 | |
and getting women into the... into the arsenals, | 0:08:40 | 0:08:44 | |
which they opposed bitterly. | 0:08:44 | 0:08:47 | |
The unions and the arsenal workers themselves, | 0:08:47 | 0:08:50 | |
they thought women were... | 0:08:50 | 0:08:51 | |
shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the explosives. | 0:08:51 | 0:08:53 | |
They proved to be better than the men, quite frankly. | 0:08:53 | 0:08:56 | |
Lloyd George's energy solved the munitions crisis | 0:08:56 | 0:09:00 | |
and led to him becoming Prime Minister at the end of 1916. | 0:09:00 | 0:09:04 | |
For women, it had an equally dramatic effect | 0:09:04 | 0:09:07 | |
and 1.5 million joined the workforce, | 0:09:07 | 0:09:10 | |
many doing the dangerous job of making shells. | 0:09:10 | 0:09:13 | |
In Porthmadog, | 0:09:18 | 0:09:19 | |
a small munitions factory was opened in one of the railway sheds. | 0:09:19 | 0:09:22 | |
There were factories like this all over the country | 0:09:22 | 0:09:25 | |
but, here, there's a surprising story | 0:09:25 | 0:09:28 | |
of women fighting for their rights. | 0:09:28 | 0:09:30 | |
The factory was at Boston Lodge, | 0:09:32 | 0:09:34 | |
on the far side of the estuary from Porthmadog. | 0:09:34 | 0:09:37 | |
Instead of going by train, the women workers had to walk there - | 0:09:37 | 0:09:41 | |
a mile across the causeway, the Cob - | 0:09:41 | 0:09:44 | |
at five every morning, rain or shine. | 0:09:44 | 0:09:47 | |
Two of them were Carys Meurig Parry's great aunts. | 0:09:47 | 0:09:50 | |
Well, this is the photograph we had in our house | 0:09:53 | 0:09:56 | |
and I remember asking my mother who they were. | 0:09:56 | 0:09:59 | |
And this one here is Auntie Rachel, | 0:09:59 | 0:10:03 | |
that's my grandmother's sister. | 0:10:03 | 0:10:06 | |
And this one here is Auntie Kate, | 0:10:06 | 0:10:09 | |
my grandfather's sister. | 0:10:09 | 0:10:12 | |
And they both worked in the factory. | 0:10:12 | 0:10:15 | |
We found something for you here. It's a petition | 0:10:15 | 0:10:18 | |
and it's signed by some of the workers. | 0:10:18 | 0:10:20 | |
And they say, "Our request is this - | 0:10:20 | 0:10:22 | |
"The morning shift starts at 6am. | 0:10:22 | 0:10:25 | |
"Your company have a train leaving Porthmadog station at 5:40am. | 0:10:25 | 0:10:29 | |
"We should therefore be obliged if you could agree for us | 0:10:29 | 0:10:31 | |
"to board this train and allow it to stop at the works to set us down." | 0:10:31 | 0:10:35 | |
So there you are, it's a sort of... It's women's rights. | 0:10:36 | 0:10:40 | |
Yes, yes, certainly. | 0:10:40 | 0:10:41 | |
And do you recognise the first signature on the second page? | 0:10:41 | 0:10:47 | |
Yes, that's R Williams. That's, um, Rachel Williams, | 0:10:48 | 0:10:54 | |
sister to my grandmother. | 0:10:54 | 0:10:57 | |
Lloyd George asked them to help in the war effort. | 0:10:57 | 0:11:00 | |
It's only right that they had transport to work, in my mind. | 0:11:00 | 0:11:04 | |
TRAINS WHISTLES | 0:11:04 | 0:11:06 | |
The women won their fight | 0:11:10 | 0:11:12 | |
and the train made a special stop at Boston Lodge every morning. | 0:11:12 | 0:11:16 | |
Carys and I took the same journey nearly 100 years on. | 0:11:16 | 0:11:20 | |
It's slightly unfair. We've got glorious weather now | 0:11:20 | 0:11:22 | |
-but I think if you're walking the Cob in November... -Yes. | 0:11:22 | 0:11:26 | |
It's a very windy place. As you can see, it's very open. | 0:11:27 | 0:11:31 | |
And, even in summer, on a wet day, it's no joke, really. | 0:11:32 | 0:11:36 | |
Boston Lodge works are now used to build and repair steam engines | 0:11:50 | 0:11:53 | |
but, inside, very little has changed. | 0:11:53 | 0:11:56 | |
-It's the place, isn't it? -It's definitely the place, yes. | 0:12:02 | 0:12:05 | |
You can see the wheels up there, where the belts came down | 0:12:05 | 0:12:09 | |
and I believe they were doing 15-pounders and 18-pounders here. | 0:12:09 | 0:12:14 | |
And they wouldn't have done this before? | 0:12:14 | 0:12:16 | |
No, they wouldn't. No. | 0:12:16 | 0:12:18 | |
They would be farm workers, most of them. | 0:12:18 | 0:12:20 | |
Seeing Auntie Rachel's obituary, | 0:12:20 | 0:12:23 | |
where the local Methodist minister describes how she was, | 0:12:23 | 0:12:28 | |
what a gentle person she was, | 0:12:28 | 0:12:30 | |
and a very good Christian, going to chapel every Sunday. | 0:12:30 | 0:12:34 | |
And then I think about this type of work, how did that fit in? | 0:12:34 | 0:12:39 | |
But they were desperate times, weren't they? | 0:12:39 | 0:12:41 | |
They were. They were indeed. | 0:12:41 | 0:12:43 | |
The Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railway | 0:12:50 | 0:12:52 | |
has another relic from the First World War. | 0:12:52 | 0:12:55 | |
This little diesel engine, called a Simplex, dates from 1917. | 0:12:55 | 0:12:59 | |
And, on service in France, it would deliver shells made here | 0:12:59 | 0:13:03 | |
right up to the front line. | 0:13:03 | 0:13:05 | |
Diesel rather than steam, | 0:13:06 | 0:13:08 | |
because there would be no smoke to give away its position. Although... | 0:13:08 | 0:13:12 | |
HE KNOCKS | 0:13:12 | 0:13:13 | |
..it was heavily armour-plated, just in case. | 0:13:13 | 0:13:16 | |
The war in the trenches was grim and relentless | 0:13:24 | 0:13:27 | |
but, by 1916, the conflict at sea was no less brutal. | 0:13:27 | 0:13:32 | |
The previous May, a German U-boat had torpedoed and sunk | 0:13:32 | 0:13:36 | |
an American liner, The Lusitania, just off the coast of Ireland, | 0:13:36 | 0:13:40 | |
an event which ultimately brought the USA into the war. | 0:13:40 | 0:13:43 | |
Among the dead was Walter McLean from Porthmadog, | 0:13:43 | 0:13:47 | |
the son of the town's draper, | 0:13:47 | 0:13:48 | |
who was returning home from a business trip to Canada. | 0:13:48 | 0:13:51 | |
Many of Porthmadog's mariners met the same fate in sailing ships, | 0:13:54 | 0:13:59 | |
still plying their trade. | 0:13:59 | 0:14:01 | |
Sailing down to the Mediterranean, | 0:14:02 | 0:14:04 | |
picking up rock salt in Cadiz, | 0:14:04 | 0:14:06 | |
sailing across the Atlantic to Newfoundland, | 0:14:06 | 0:14:09 | |
offloading the salt and loading up with salted fish, | 0:14:09 | 0:14:14 | |
which they would then bring back to several Mediterranean ports, | 0:14:14 | 0:14:18 | |
either in Spain, Italy or even in Greece. | 0:14:18 | 0:14:22 | |
-This is long-haul trade that they're engaged in. -Long-haul trade, yes. | 0:14:22 | 0:14:25 | |
They would leave Porthmadog around about April, | 0:14:25 | 0:14:27 | |
and return usually ending up back in Porthmadog in November. | 0:14:27 | 0:14:31 | |
Were they are unarmed? | 0:14:31 | 0:14:33 | |
Oh, totally unarmed, yes. Oh, yes. | 0:14:33 | 0:14:36 | |
Yes, they were no threat to the enemy whatsoever. | 0:14:36 | 0:14:39 | |
They're made of wood, they're elegant. | 0:14:39 | 0:14:41 | |
Did that Germans treat them with any respect? | 0:14:41 | 0:14:44 | |
In fact, six of the Porthmadog-built ships were sunk | 0:14:44 | 0:14:48 | |
by enemy action during the First World War. | 0:14:48 | 0:14:52 | |
But, if you look at the dates that they were sunk, | 0:14:52 | 0:14:54 | |
I think there was one lost in 1916, | 0:14:54 | 0:14:57 | |
but the other five were lost in 1917, | 0:14:57 | 0:15:00 | |
just towards the end of the war, when the Germans... | 0:15:00 | 0:15:03 | |
They were obviously becoming more aggressive | 0:15:03 | 0:15:06 | |
in their attack on Allied vessels. | 0:15:06 | 0:15:09 | |
Remarkably, the sinking of one of Porthmadog's ships | 0:15:10 | 0:15:13 | |
was recorded on film. | 0:15:13 | 0:15:16 | |
The U-boat U-35 had a cameraman on board | 0:15:16 | 0:15:18 | |
to record its victims, for propaganda. | 0:15:18 | 0:15:21 | |
One of them was the schooner, Miss Morris. | 0:15:21 | 0:15:24 | |
70 years later, the last survivor, Griffith John Ellis, | 0:15:25 | 0:15:29 | |
told what happened in a BBC interview. | 0:15:29 | 0:15:31 | |
Aye? | 0:16:09 | 0:16:11 | |
-Aye? -Yes. | 0:16:13 | 0:16:14 | |
Aye. | 0:16:21 | 0:16:22 | |
-And so the old captain was now seeing his ship go down. -Yes, yes. | 0:16:43 | 0:16:47 | |
-Captain Morris. -Captain Morris. | 0:16:47 | 0:16:49 | |
There are several mariners here on Porthmadog's war memorial. | 0:17:29 | 0:17:33 | |
The names of 96 men and one woman - | 0:17:34 | 0:17:37 | |
Nurse Kathleen Hugheston Roberts, | 0:17:37 | 0:17:40 | |
who died during the First World War. | 0:17:40 | 0:17:43 | |
Behind every name, there is a personal story, | 0:17:43 | 0:17:45 | |
an individual tragedy. | 0:17:45 | 0:17:47 | |
Some are forgotten, lost to history. | 0:17:47 | 0:17:51 | |
Others, though, are treasured by their families. | 0:17:51 | 0:17:54 | |
One is Edmund Davies, who was killed at Passchendaele in 1917. | 0:17:56 | 0:18:02 | |
His niece Leri Roberts has spent years finding out | 0:18:02 | 0:18:05 | |
about her uncle's life and death. | 0:18:05 | 0:18:07 | |
-What have we go, here? -Sit down. -Thank you very much. -There we are. | 0:18:10 | 0:18:13 | |
-So, this is Uncle Edmund. -Yes. | 0:18:14 | 0:18:16 | |
My mother's brother. He was the youngest of the brothers. | 0:18:17 | 0:18:21 | |
-He's a handsome little chap. -He is. | 0:18:21 | 0:18:23 | |
He looks so young. Younger than 25. | 0:18:23 | 0:18:26 | |
He looks about 18, or even less there - 16, maybe. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:31 | |
I wrote to the War Commission. | 0:18:31 | 0:18:33 | |
I've started now getting the information | 0:18:33 | 0:18:36 | |
and, um...it was so, so sad. | 0:18:36 | 0:18:39 | |
It tore me apart to read about what happened, | 0:18:39 | 0:18:42 | |
the Battle of Passchendaele, the worst battle ever, I think. | 0:18:42 | 0:18:47 | |
-Yeah. -You know? | 0:18:47 | 0:18:48 | |
-Letters from him to home? -Yes. | 0:18:48 | 0:18:51 | |
He says, "Dear... | 0:18:51 | 0:18:53 | |
"Dear Sister, Mum and Brothers, | 0:18:54 | 0:18:57 | |
"Here I am, taking the pressure..." | 0:18:57 | 0:19:01 | |
Oh, it's very hard to... | 0:19:02 | 0:19:04 | |
-Can I do it in Welsh? -You can. -Is that all right? -Yeah, yeah. | 0:19:04 | 0:19:08 | |
SHE SPEAKS IN WELSH | 0:19:08 | 0:19:11 | |
Oh, they catch up... | 0:19:23 | 0:19:25 | |
You all right? | 0:19:46 | 0:19:47 | |
Tyne Cot, near the village of Passchendaele in Belgium, | 0:19:49 | 0:19:52 | |
is the largest cemetery for Commonwealth forces in the world. | 0:19:52 | 0:19:56 | |
There are 12,000 graves, including that of Edmund Davies. | 0:19:57 | 0:20:02 | |
I took him a little wreath, a poppy wreath, from Mum. | 0:20:03 | 0:20:09 | |
And I took some earth from the ground at Tyne Cot | 0:20:09 | 0:20:14 | |
and took it home with me to put on my nain and teid's grave. | 0:20:14 | 0:20:18 | |
Oh, yes, before I went over, I took some earth from their grave | 0:20:18 | 0:20:24 | |
and put it on Edmund's remembrance, yes. | 0:20:24 | 0:20:28 | |
It's funny, I just needed to... | 0:20:28 | 0:20:31 | |
I felt that he needed a little part of Wales with him, you know? | 0:20:31 | 0:20:37 | |
-I'm a real softy, I'm a real... -No, no, no... | 0:20:38 | 0:20:41 | |
But that's me. I'd rather be that than hard and cruel, you know? | 0:20:41 | 0:20:45 | |
Edmund Davies, one of the estimated 244,000 British servicemen | 0:21:01 | 0:21:06 | |
killed or wounded in the mud of Passchendaele. | 0:21:06 | 0:21:09 | |
Edmund Davies, a name remembered by his family, | 0:21:09 | 0:21:12 | |
but just one among so many. | 0:21:12 | 0:21:14 | |
One Welsh soldier came to symbolise all the sacrifice. | 0:21:14 | 0:21:18 | |
Ellis Evans is better known as the poet Hedd Wyn. | 0:21:21 | 0:21:24 | |
He was brought up on a farm just outside Trawsfynydd. | 0:21:24 | 0:21:28 | |
Like many working on the land, he was reluctant to join up, | 0:21:28 | 0:21:32 | |
but by 1917, the army's demand for more men | 0:21:32 | 0:21:36 | |
led to a change in the law. | 0:21:36 | 0:21:39 | |
Now, only one son could stay on the farm | 0:21:39 | 0:21:42 | |
and Hedd Wyn chose to enlist instead of his younger brother. | 0:21:42 | 0:21:47 | |
He joined the Royal Welch Fusiliers and went to France. | 0:21:47 | 0:21:50 | |
He continued to write, reflecting on the world around him. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:53 | |
This is part of his poem Rhyfel - "War". | 0:21:53 | 0:21:57 | |
The harps to which we sang are hung | 0:21:58 | 0:22:00 | |
On willow boughs, and their refrain | 0:22:00 | 0:22:03 | |
Drowned by the anguish of the young | 0:22:03 | 0:22:06 | |
Whose blood is mingled with the rain. | 0:22:06 | 0:22:09 | |
Hedd Wyn's cottage has remained virtually unchanged. | 0:22:13 | 0:22:17 | |
It's cared for by his nephew Gerald Williams. | 0:22:17 | 0:22:21 | |
Back in 1917, the poet composed his entry for that year's Eisteddfod | 0:22:21 | 0:22:26 | |
while serving in the trenches. | 0:22:26 | 0:22:28 | |
He sent it in under the pen name Fleur de Lys. | 0:22:28 | 0:22:31 | |
He had a bit of a job, getting it out of there | 0:22:32 | 0:22:36 | |
to the Eisteddfod, | 0:22:36 | 0:22:37 | |
because it was in Welsh, and you see, | 0:22:37 | 0:22:41 | |
all the letters that were sent from the front line | 0:22:41 | 0:22:43 | |
were heavily censored. | 0:22:43 | 0:22:45 | |
But it was in Welsh, | 0:22:46 | 0:22:47 | |
so they had a bit of a job to find an officer that could translate | 0:22:47 | 0:22:52 | |
from Welsh to English, to say that it was OK to go through. | 0:22:52 | 0:22:56 | |
-But it did get through. -It get through in time, yes. | 0:22:56 | 0:22:59 | |
The Eisteddfod that year was held in Birkenhead on Merseyside | 0:23:01 | 0:23:05 | |
with Prime Minister Lloyd George in attendance. | 0:23:05 | 0:23:08 | |
Inside, the atmosphere was sombre. | 0:23:08 | 0:23:11 | |
What happened at the Chair ceremony in Birkenhead in 1917? | 0:23:13 | 0:23:19 | |
They gave the adjudications and said who was the winning bard, | 0:23:19 | 0:23:25 | |
Fleur de Lys, | 0:23:25 | 0:23:26 | |
and then they asked him to stand up, | 0:23:26 | 0:23:30 | |
but they asked three times round the audience, but nobody stood up. | 0:23:30 | 0:23:36 | |
So, one of the officials from the Eisteddfod came on | 0:23:36 | 0:23:39 | |
and said that he was Hedd Wyn and he was lost in action. | 0:23:39 | 0:23:43 | |
Hedd Wyn had been killed at Passchendaele | 0:23:45 | 0:23:47 | |
just five weeks earlier. | 0:23:47 | 0:23:49 | |
His cottage has become a shrine to him | 0:23:49 | 0:23:52 | |
and to all the Welsh soldiers killed in the war. | 0:23:52 | 0:23:55 | |
I've seen many people coming here, | 0:23:56 | 0:24:00 | |
all people coming here, and looking around, | 0:24:00 | 0:24:02 | |
and big tears running down their faces | 0:24:02 | 0:24:05 | |
when they see the place, yes, | 0:24:05 | 0:24:07 | |
because time has stood still, here - nothing has changed. | 0:24:07 | 0:24:11 | |
Edmund Davies and Hedd Wyn | 0:24:13 | 0:24:15 | |
were among the tens of thousands of soldiers from Wales | 0:24:15 | 0:24:18 | |
who died in the war, | 0:24:18 | 0:24:20 | |
but even more were wounded. | 0:24:20 | 0:24:23 | |
Hospitals were set up across the land, | 0:24:23 | 0:24:25 | |
often in grand country houses. | 0:24:25 | 0:24:28 | |
Wern Manor on the outskirts of Porthmadog | 0:24:28 | 0:24:31 | |
was built by slate quarry owner Richard Graves | 0:24:31 | 0:24:34 | |
and handed over to the Red Cross in 1915. | 0:24:34 | 0:24:37 | |
Photographs of the hospital show a relaxed atmosphere | 0:24:39 | 0:24:42 | |
with fancy dress parties. | 0:24:42 | 0:24:45 | |
But the story of the photographer, Tom Ackers, is just as remarkable. | 0:24:45 | 0:24:50 | |
His granddaughter Lynda Shaughnessy was born in Porthmadog. | 0:24:50 | 0:24:53 | |
She came along to the Wern to tell me about him. | 0:24:53 | 0:24:57 | |
-The wonderful work of your wonderful grandfather. -Yes. | 0:24:57 | 0:25:00 | |
Tell me about Tom Ackers. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:03 | |
Well, he was in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, | 0:25:03 | 0:25:06 | |
came out in 1917, he was ill, | 0:25:06 | 0:25:10 | |
and took up photography. | 0:25:10 | 0:25:13 | |
-And here he is. -That's him, yes. | 0:25:13 | 0:25:16 | |
It's not quite a selfie, is it, but it's a self-portrait of him. | 0:25:16 | 0:25:19 | |
Yes, I think so. I think he liked having his photograph taken. | 0:25:19 | 0:25:24 | |
So, he...is no longer a soldier, | 0:25:24 | 0:25:26 | |
-he sets himself up as a photographer here in Porthmadog. -Yes, yes. | 0:25:26 | 0:25:30 | |
-What next? -What next - well, everything and everybody. | 0:25:30 | 0:25:34 | |
I mean, he took photographs of new babies that soldiers hadn't seen, | 0:25:34 | 0:25:42 | |
wives, girlfriends, weddings... | 0:25:42 | 0:25:46 | |
You often expect everybody to be so serious in these photographs, | 0:25:46 | 0:25:49 | |
but...there's something... | 0:25:49 | 0:25:51 | |
-A wry grin, a smile. -And here we have... | 0:25:51 | 0:25:54 | |
Well, Charlie Chaplin and friends. | 0:25:54 | 0:25:58 | |
Did they suggest they dressed up like that, or did he suggest? | 0:25:58 | 0:26:03 | |
I don't know. | 0:26:03 | 0:26:04 | |
Mementos large and small. | 0:26:04 | 0:26:07 | |
Yes, this little fellow was given to the troops by their families, | 0:26:07 | 0:26:13 | |
um...as a good-luck token. | 0:26:13 | 0:26:17 | |
And he was specially made - | 0:26:17 | 0:26:19 | |
had eyes on the top of their heads and an upturned snout, | 0:26:19 | 0:26:22 | |
so that they could fit in the soldier's top pocket. | 0:26:22 | 0:26:26 | |
Given the nature of the First World War, it seems... | 0:26:27 | 0:26:30 | |
Well, they're quite rare. | 0:26:30 | 0:26:32 | |
Your grandfather would have kept that because he didn't see action. | 0:26:32 | 0:26:36 | |
-He didn't, no. -His asthma kept him at home. | 0:26:36 | 0:26:39 | |
which suggests he had a lucky break, but... | 0:26:39 | 0:26:42 | |
Well...not really, no, no. | 0:26:42 | 0:26:47 | |
-He died before the end of the war. -He did, on November 6th 1918, yeah. | 0:26:47 | 0:26:52 | |
-Five days before. -I know, I know. -Of? -Spanish flu. | 0:26:52 | 0:26:56 | |
All these photographs were taken in, probably, a year. | 0:26:58 | 0:27:01 | |
-Hm. -Amazing. | 0:27:01 | 0:27:03 | |
Tom Ackers was one of more than 50 million people | 0:27:09 | 0:27:12 | |
who died in the worldwide flu pandemic. | 0:27:12 | 0:27:15 | |
At the end of war in 1918, | 0:27:15 | 0:27:17 | |
the world that he photographed was changing for ever. | 0:27:17 | 0:27:20 | |
Slowly, the soldiers returned | 0:27:23 | 0:27:25 | |
and began to piece together their lives - | 0:27:25 | 0:27:27 | |
the munitions works at Boston Lodge were returned to the railways | 0:27:27 | 0:27:31 | |
and the women workers were laid off, although their efforts | 0:27:31 | 0:27:34 | |
and those of many other millions would ultimately win them the vote. | 0:27:34 | 0:27:38 | |
Lloyd George went to sign the Treaty of Versailles a hero, | 0:27:38 | 0:27:42 | |
only to be turfed out of office three years later. | 0:27:42 | 0:27:46 | |
Here, maritime trade resumed, although never at its former levels. | 0:27:46 | 0:27:51 | |
But the sailors of Porthmadog had the last laugh. | 0:27:51 | 0:27:55 | |
At the end of the war, a captured U-boat, | 0:27:55 | 0:27:59 | |
the deadly foe that had sunk six ships from Porthmadog, | 0:27:59 | 0:28:02 | |
was brought into the harbour to be broken up for scrap. | 0:28:02 | 0:28:06 | |
Locals were allowed to visit at sixpence a time. | 0:28:06 | 0:28:09 | |
Parts of the U-boat are still visible, | 0:28:11 | 0:28:13 | |
if you know where to look. | 0:28:13 | 0:28:14 | |
This is the war memorial at nearby Llanfrothen. | 0:28:14 | 0:28:18 | |
It was designed by Clough Williams-Ellis, | 0:28:18 | 0:28:20 | |
the eccentric architect behind Portmeirion just down the coast, | 0:28:20 | 0:28:25 | |
and if you look at the top, you can see strings of nuts | 0:28:25 | 0:28:29 | |
and according to local legend, the enterprising Clough | 0:28:29 | 0:28:33 | |
took them from the U-boat. | 0:28:33 | 0:28:35 | |
It's strange, but somehow fitting, | 0:28:35 | 0:28:37 | |
that these little pieces of a machine of destruction | 0:28:37 | 0:28:40 | |
have ended up here on a memorial | 0:28:40 | 0:28:42 | |
to those that have lost their lives in war, | 0:28:42 | 0:28:45 | |
a memorial that also stands for all our hopes for peace. | 0:28:45 | 0:28:49 |