Fiona Phillips Coming Home

Travelling deep into Wales is former GMTV presenter Fiona Phillips,

here in search of her family's past.

The face of breakfast television for more than a decade,

she went on to become Strictly Come Dancing's worst-ever contestant.

Coming up later, Fiona learns of her agricultural roots...

Gosh, that's amazing.

..receives a surprise welcome from old friends...

Oh, it's you! They said Mr Jeremy and I thought... Oh, Mr Jeremy!

..and wishes her parents could have come on this very special journey.

I wish that at the end of all this, that my mum and dad were...

..um...there, so I could show them the family tree. Sorry...

Um...

Fiona Phillips is coming home.

So how does Fiona feel at the start of her journey?

I'm feeling slightly trepidatious, I actually feel quite emotional,

because um...my dad died earlier this year,

and, you know, Mum's gone, and...yeah, so...

Yeah, I'm feeling slightly emotional already.

Fiona may have grown up in Kent, but her mother, Amy,

left her in no doubt about her Welsh roots.

My mum was Welsh through and through,

and she tried to teach everyone to speak Welsh.

Fiona's father, Neville, came from the north of England

and her mother, Amy, from West Wales.

So that's why Fiona has come to the beautiful coastal town

of Newport in Pembrokeshire.

And the Ebenezer Chapel is where she's arranged to meet

with genealogist Mike Churchill-Jones.

Oh, my goodness.

-Hi, Fiona.

-Oh, hi, Michael.

-Welcome to Newport and welcome to Ebenezer Chapel.

-Thank you.

There are reasons in your ancestry why you're here.

I'll reveal that as I introduce you to your ancestors.

Oh, my goodness.

So what does Fiona know of her mother's Welsh roots?

I've never ever known anything about my mum.

-We start on the bottom with yourself.

-Yeah...

-You were born in Canterbury.

-Yeah.

To Neville Phillips and Eleanor Amy Monica Morris.

Yeah.

She was born in 1932 in Newport.

In Newport!

In a farm, Holm House Isaf.

I thought Mum was born somewhere around Fishguard.

I didn't know it was Newport, so...

I don't know when they moved there,

-but it was fairly soon after your mother was born, I think.

-Yeah.

That's where we always used to go to. Gosh!

She was born to Rachel Ann Evans...

..and Benjamin Morris.

-Yeah, Daddy Noddfa.

-Daddy Noddfa.

This is Fiona's grandfather, Benjamin Morris,

a farmer from Pembrokeshire.

-If I bring you back to your grandmother.

-Yeah.

Rachel Ann Evans, she was born...

Didn't know she was an Evans, either.

-Did you know she was born in Glamorgan?

-No.

She was born in Cymmer, in Porth, in Glamorgan.

Oh, that's interesting.

-Er...she is in Pembrokeshire in 1911.

-Mmm.

She's working on a farm in Fishguard,

she's a domestic farm servant.

Mm-hm.

And I'd certainly...

-I thought that my grandma was Pembrokeshire born and bred.

-Mmm.

The story now moves on to her great-great-grandmother, Phebe,

who rejoiced in the surname of Barzey.

Oh, gosh, that's unusual, where's that name from, then?

Again, I can only surmise. Barzey, it's...

-I think it has French connotations, to be honest.

-Yeah.

But it's a lovely name.

-Lovely.

-Phebe Barzey.

-Mmm.

Going back through the centuries,

the Barzeys were both farmers and mariners in Pembrokeshire.

But Fiona is going to start her search following her Morris line -

the family from which her grandfather, Benjamin Morris,

is descended.

Gosh, that's amazing.

I've never, ever known....gosh, that it goes all over here as well.

Fiona's heading to the neighbouring county of Carmarthenshire.

Her Morris family can be traced back to the early 1700s.

They were tenant sheep farmers who made their living from wool.

At Dre-fach Felindre, near Newcastle Emlyn,

Fiona visits the National Wool Museum,

where they have been researching her Morris story.

Keith, I've found out that I have a lot of wool farmers in my ancestry.

What would life have been like for them?

Sheep farming was more of a cash crop,

where you could turn things around very quickly,

and the wool was selling very well at this time,

although it was very coarse wool,

but certainly, sheep farming was done by the small farmers,

certainly 50 acres of land, most probably,

and I know of a Morris family in Trelech, Carmarthenshire,

and one in Llangoedmor.

-Oh...

-They would be sheep farmers,

and selling the wool then for going abroad,

and they'd ship it out from places like Carmarthen and Cardigan.

The Morrises were tenant farmers, and so didn't own their land.

You had the gentry, and they were landowners,

and the rents on these farms were very high.

And we are talking about £60 a year,

but by the time all the costs were taken out of that,

-these farmers had a profit of about £1 per week.

-Oh...

The Morrises produced their own wool

on sheep farms owned by some of Wales's biggest landowners.

Well, we are talking people with 50,000 acres of land.

Um...the Baron of Cawdor

and the Phillipses and the Lloyds of that time.

The hardships endured by Fiona's earlier farming family

would later see one of her ancestors

resorting to revolution and violence,

as Fiona will later discover.

Next, Fiona is heading back to Newport in Pembrokeshire,

the town where her mother was born.

Fiona comes from two ancient West Wales families -

the Morrises and the Barzeys.

The Barzeys lived on the Pembrokeshire coast,

including her three times great-grandfather, William Barzey,

who lived here over 200 years ago.

There's still much he would recognise,

and to tell Fiona more about her Barzey family

is local historian Reg Davies.

Croeso i Gastell Tydrath, Fiona.

Newport Castle, I didn't even know it existed, Reg.

Yes, a castle built in the 12th century by William Fitzmartin,

an Anglo-Norman lord.

-And he built this castle, the church nearby...

-Yeah.

..and the town below us.

Yeah.

Now, in the 19th century, Newport became a great seafaring town.

Hence my mariner ancestry.

-Yes, they contributed to this process.

-Yeah.

And these mariners became wealthy.

-And so...

-They didn't buy the castle, did they?

-SHE LAUGHS

-No, I'm afraid not, no!

They decided to rebuild the town

by raising the single-storey cottages that were here

into two-storey and three-storey dwellings.

Ah, that's - do you know? -

because what's struck me most about the town,

apart from the beautiful views out to the sea,

-is the houses, how pretty they are, what a pretty town it is.

-Yeah.

And the children of your ancestors

probably played in these very ruins here.

-And...

-Do you think so?

-No, I'm sure of it.

What a beautiful place to play in.

-A very romantic place to play in as a child.

-Yeah.

As Fiona has learned, William Barzey,

her three times great-grandfather,

was a mariner on this very coastline.

And Reg has been scouring the Pembrokeshire Records Office

for evidence of his story.

At the boat club, Reg can now reveal what he's discovered.

They knew a long time ago that the soils in North Pembrokeshire

-were very acidic.

-Mm-hm.

And they knew that if they neutralised the soils with lime,

they would improve the crop yields.

And your ancestors, in particular William Barzey, the mariner,

he brought those materials from the south of the county

up to the Parrog here.

Oh, that's what he was doing.

He would sail around the coast of Pembrokeshire mostly.

-Mmm.

-He also would export slate from here,

-we have slate quarries to the west.

-Mm-hm.

So generally moving cargoes around the whole coast of Wales.

And we think that his father, Thomas Barzey,

was master of a little vessel called The Rose In June.

-Oh, wow!

-And he too was taking materials round the coast.

But then they began to sail further away from this area,

they're moving goods around the coasts of Britain

-and the near continent.

-Oh..

And ultimately, these coastal vessels declined,

because we've got canals coming, better railways coming,

-better roads coming...

-Yeah.

And that trade is going to decline.

Now Fiona is heading off to the Pembrokeshire countryside

to follow the story of William Barzey's grandson,

also called William Barzey,

who in the 1840s was a farm labourer in this area.

First, she visits a recently restored cottage

which survives from the time of her ancestor.

Here to tell her more is Pembrokeshire historian Hedd Lewis.

Wow, what's this, where are you taking me?

-Well, croeso i Fwthyn Penrhos.

-Uh-huh.

-Welcome to Penrhos Cottage.

It's known locally as a Ty Unnos,

which the literal translation is a one-night house.

And why was it called a one-night house?

Well, these houses, these little cottages, then,

were built on common land, and they would have been built overnight,

and provided there was smoke coming out of the chimney by the morning,

the builders would have squatters' rights then,

to that particular cottage.

-Gosh, so they literally put this up in one night?

-Yeah.

It wouldn't have been built like this originally.

It probably would have been built very quickly

out of all the materials that were available locally,

and then over the years then,

they would have rebuilt it with stone, et cetera.

I've never seen a thatch in Pembrokeshire before, ever.

Very rare, probably one of the last

-of the old original cottages in this particular area.

-Yeah.

-And this is new thatch on here now, isn't it?

-Yes.

-But...it's gorgeous.

-Yes.

-Really lovely.

There is more to this dwelling than Hedd has so far revealed.

In fact, this cottage, along with Fiona's ancestor, William Barzey,

would find themselves at the centre of one of the most famous events

in Welsh social history -

the Rebecca Riots.

In 1839, rioters took direct action

following the introduction of road tolls and new toll gates.

Angered by widespread hardship, failed harvests and heavy taxation,

the road tolls proved the final spark.

Cottages similar to Penrhos Cottage

were used as a place for the rioters to shelter.

And in the meadow behind the cottage,

Hedd can reveal William Barzey's role in this infamous event.

Right, now then. Here we've got, er...

the document, which is a register

of all persons charged with indictable offences,

the assizes and sessions held within the county during the year of 1843,

the county of Pembrokeshire.

And top of the list is William Barzey.

So...

What, was he... "rioting and felony"...?

Well, we believe that he was one of the Rebecca Rioters.

And the Rebecca Riots, of course, began in this particular area.

-Well, I don't know anything about the Rebecca Riots!

-Ah, right!

Now then!

Well, this is one of the most important chapters in Welsh history,

at the beginning of the 19th century.

The riots began in 1839, here in Efailwen. Yeah...

And the rioters, they went around destroying the toll gates.

-Oh! Why?

-Why? Ah, now then...

-SHE CHUCKLES

The reason they wanted to destroy the toll gates

was, really, they'd started building more and more toll gates,

and the farmers and the tenant farmers and the local labourers

were having to pay to travel round the area.

And really, it was the straw that broke the camel's back,

-because they were suffering so much at that particular time.

-Mmm.

-And they went around, between 1839 and 1843...

-Yeah.

..destroying toll gates all over West Wales.

Good grief. And William was there at the centre of it all.

So at the time, was it quite notorious,

did everyone know about it?

Oh, it was very...it was reported very widely.

-There were reports in the press in Paris...

-Ah...

The Times sent down a correspondent to report on the riots,

and it really worried the authorities up in London.

-I bet it did!

-Yeah.

And at one time, they actually sent down soldiers,

the Dragoons were sent over from Brecon,

trying to catch the rioters,

and of course, they caught very few of them.

They were dubbed Rebecca Rioters

because, as a disguise, the men would wear women's clothes,

and were often heard chanting the name Rebecca.

Good for them!

I'm actually quite proud that I have someone in my ancestry

who stood up for the proper working people, you know,

people who were experiencing hard times.

What happened to the toll gates?

Well, the Efailwen toll gate was destroyed three times.

Three times?

And at the end of it, the Whitland Trust,

which owned that particular stretch of road...

-Mm-hm.

-..or had the lease on that particular stretch of road,

they decided not to rebuild it.

Oh, so that was a real victory.

It was a victory, yes.

But three years later,

they decided then to start rebuilding the toll gates.

-Mmm.

-And the riots kicked off again.

-Gosh!

And by that point, they'd spread all over West Wales.

Wow.

William Barzey, I salute you, actually.

-I just...

-There you are.

I'm very proud that he took action

instead of bowing down and being trampled upon.

But as you say, he needed to.

When you're that poor and you... it's desperation as well, isn't it?

-It is, yeah.

-And it's justice.

-It is.

-It's a real sense of justice.

It's nice to have a rebel in the family, isn't it?

It really is! Yes, I think the genes have carried on somehow! HE LAUGHS

Now back at Penrhos Cottage,

Fiona has clearly made a very strong personal connection to William,

and admired his fight for justice.

But it seems his actions did little

to improve the hardships of his life.

Right, now then.

We're coming now to the final chapter of William Barzey's life.

OK.

And the first document I'd like to show you

is this document here from 1891.

-See, it says, "Haverfordwest.."

-"..Workhouse."

Oh, gosh!

-Right...

-Is that where he ended up, then?

Well, by 1891,

obviously William Barzey was a resident in Haverfordwest Workhouse.

Oh, gosh!

And, er...the next document...

..will reveal a little bit more to us...

OK.

What we've got here is the 1891 census.

And you can see here...

-"William John Barzey..."

-Mm-hm...

What's interesting, he was single.

-Oh...

-He didn't have a family.

-And in the workhouse.

-And he was in the workhouse.

The ones who went into the workhouses,

-they must have been at the bottom of the rung socially.

-Yeah.

They had nothing left.

-No...

-They obviously had no family to go to.

Um...there was no future.

And you know, you really had to be very, very poor

to end up in the workhouse.

Hedd has dug deep into the archive

to try and uncover what became of William,

and has discovered a newspaper report

that he wants to share with Fiona.

"Mr Herbert JE Price, coroner,

"held an inquest at the Haverfordwest Workhouse on Monday,

"on the body of William Barzey...

"..which was found in the river near the railway bridge

"on Christmas morning.

"PC Morris deposed that he'd known the deceased for 12 years.

"He could not tell his age,

"but apparently he was about 77 years old.

"The deceased was a farm labourer living at Fishguard,

"and was in the habit of sleeping out at nights."

-Oh, gosh!

-Mmm.

-He'd reached rock bottom, by the sound of it.

-Yeah, yes.

"Sergeant Thomas Parry said he searched the clothes

"of the deceased, and discovered...

"two shillings and eightpence..." I think,

"..in cash, a razor and a comb..."

Oh...so he still tried to make himself look decent,

despite having nothing.

"..as well as a ticket to the master of the workhouse for admittance.

"The jury returned a verdict of found drowned."

-Oh, gosh, bless him.

-Mmm.

-A rebel with a cause and a real sense of justice, to...

-Mmm.

..to end up destitute, basically.

How sad.

Mmm.

-There we are.

-I find that very moving, actually.

William Barzey, gosh! What a man and what a sad end, but...

I just...I really love the fact...

I've got a real sense

that he was a man of dignity and a real sense of justice,

and a real fight for the working man, and I...

That really moves me, actually. I feel very, very proud of him.

And it's just so sad, really.

You know, working men's always been trampled on

and I'm really glad that he put up that fight against authority.

There is still more for Fiona to learn of her family.

Later, she will visit Haverfordwest in West Wales,

her mum's home town, where a very special group of people

are busy preparing a wonderful surprise for her.

But things are becoming much more personal.

She's about to learn a story

from her father Neville Phillips' side of the tree.

Fiona is pictured here as a baby, with her grandmother, Edith,

and grandfather, Reginald Phillips,

and the story she's about to learn

concerns his father, Harry James Phillips.

To learn of his story, she's visiting Pembroke Dock.

At the famous naval gun tower, she's about to learn

of the distinguished naval career

of her great grandfather, Harry James Phillips.

The gun tower can be found in the middle of the dock

and was built in 1851

to protect the strategically important Royal Dockyard.

Today, this historic building is a fitting place

for Fiona to take up her great grandfather's story,

with genealogist Mike Churchill-Jones.

What I'd like to start by showing to you

is the beginning of his military service.

Harry served as a Royal Marine.

Pictured here, Harry Phillips was in the navy for almost 20 years

serving first on sailing ships

and later on board the newer steam-powered battleships.

He had a distinguished career.

-He's gone from private in 1896 through to sergeant in 1909.

-Wow.

-What do you think of that? Royal Marines.

-Yeah.

In 1911, a ship was commissioned called HMS Indefatigable.

Harry was serving on the Indefatigable

during the outbreak of World War I in 1914.

Indefatigable would see little action and by the spring of 1916

Harry was finally heading for shore leave.

This is a surviving postcard, sent by Harry to his young son Reggie.

Reggie would grow up to become Fiona's grandfather.

But back in 1916,

Harry was, in fact, heading towards what would become the site

of one of the greatest naval battles of World War I.

Indefatigable was in the greatest

and probably only real sea battle of the First World War.

It was called the Battle of Jutland.

May 31st, 1916, at Jutland, off the coast of Denmark -

over 200 vessels met here in the North Sea to do battle.

Following just 24 hours, 14 British

and 11 German vessels had been destroyed.

But what of Harry's ship, HMS Indefatigable?

She had been sunk.

Indefatigable sinking was later described

by one of the few survivors.

What I've got here is an eyewitness report.

Oh... "There was a terrific explosion aboard the ship. The magazines went.

"I saw the guns go up in the air just like matchsticks.

"12-inch guns, they were. Bodies and everything.

"She was beginning to settle down and within half a minute

"the ship turned right over and she was gone."

Oh, my gosh. So quickly.

"I was 180 foot up and I was thrown well clear of the ship

"otherwise I would have been sucked under.

"I was practically unconscious, turning over, really.

"At last I came on top of the water.

"When I came up there was another fellow named Jimmy Green

"and we got a piece of wood.

"He was on one end and I was on the other end.

"Couple of minutes afterwards, some shells came over

"and Jim was minus his head.

"So I was left on my lonesome." It's so moving.

-Gosh. It's brutal, isn't it?

-Absolutely.

But could Fiona's great-grandfather, Harry Phillips,

have possibly survived?

If you read that, that'll tell you. From the top.

"Died as a direct result of enemy action.

"Body not recovered for burial." Sorry.

It just seems... Well...

-It's very sad, isn't it?

-Yeah, it's very sad, but...

Now, obviously his body went down with the ship.

Lost at sea, Harry has no grave for Fiona to visit.

But after researching this story

Mike has uncovered a memorial to Harry J Phillips

at the home of the Navy in Portsmouth.

There's his name, if you look under the sergeants.

Oh, there he is. HJ Phillips.

All those men.

Yeah, and he never came home,

so that postcard to my grandad is so poignant.

Fiona has learned so much about her family story,

but sadly she can't share this experience with her parents.

Her mother, Amy, died in 2006

and her father, Neville, died just a few months

before Fiona decided to make this journey into her past.

Whilst Fiona was still a teenager in Canterbury,

her family, including her mother, Amy, returned to West Wales,

making Haverfordwest their new home town.

For Fiona, no trip to Wales is complete

without coming home to Haverfordwest.

For many years, Fiona's mum worked in the town

at Ocky White's department store.

Sadly, it was back in Wales

that her mum was first diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

I never thought that Alzheimer's would be a huge part of my life.

Mind you, like most people,

when I first heard that Mum might have it -

she was very young, anyway - I just, like most people then,

was ignorant and thought

it was senile dementia, you know, older people saying silly things

and forgetting, but it's actually a pretty catastrophic condition.

Having lost both her parents, it feels for Fiona

that there is no-one to share this experience with.

Well, not quite.

The Ocky White department store in Haverfordwest,

where her mother worked, is still a thriving concern today.

Many of the staff who remember her mother very fondly

have specially gathered at the Mariners Hotel in the town

to surprise Fiona...

..including her mum's old friend and boss,

Jeremy White, and his wife, Jill.

Hello, Fiona.

Hi there.

Oh, it's you! They said Mr Jeremy and I thought... Oh, Mr Jeremy!

I haven't seen you. Oh, gosh.

And I'm so confused about everything.

Oh, and Jill, Oh... Lovely to see you.

I'm trying to put everything in context.

You were so special in Mum's life, both of you, so...

Everyone has brought photographs

of their days working with Fiona's mum

and have many special memories to share.

She loved all of you and all we used to hear about

was all of you and...Mr Jeremy.

We thought Mr Jeremy was the Prime Minister... THEY LAUGH

..Prince Philip, everyone rolled into one. Prince Charles, rather.

He's older than you, too, but...

-And you had many car journeys with her as well, didn't you?

-I did, yes.

She used to try and teach me Welsh from the road signs

because we would always come back through mid Wales.

And I was never a very good learner,

but she'd test me on the following trip.

-THEY LAUGH

-Oh, she was so proud of you.

She was proud of all her children, but she was so proud of you.

When you were in America she would always have, you know...

She'd call you over and say,

"Oh, you'd never guess who Fiona has interviewed now!"

We'd all be excited about it because we all felt part of, you know,

your success as well, really.

Well, I've got notes that she wrote to me in her lunch hour saying,

"I'm having a baked potato," or peas, and I'd get the whole thing.

Fiona has now reached the end of the journey into her past.

So how does she feel about her experience

travelling through West Wales, and her homecoming to Haverfordwest?

Oh, whenever I come back to Haverfordwest,

I see them as family now as well because they were so good to my mum.

You know, I wish at the end of all this that my mum and dad were...

..um...there so I could show them the family tree. Sorry.

Um...

Having been back and realised how Welsh I am,

I'll never, ever lose touch with Wales.

Yeah, I want to come back more now.

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